Sea-Gulls

THE salt sea-wind is a merry-maker,
Rippling the wild bluff’s daisied reach ;
The quick surf glides from the arching breaker,
And foams on the tawny beach.

Out where the long reef glooms and glances,
And tosses sunward its diamond rain,
Morn has pierced with her golden lances
The dizzy light-house pane.

Gladdened by clamors of infinite surges,
Heedless what billow or gale may do,
The white gulls float where the ocean-verges
Blend with a glimmer of blue.

I watch how the curtaining vapor settles
Dim on their tireless plumes far borne,
Till faint they gleam as a blossom’s petals,
Blown through the spacious morn.