Oh how I love the laughing sea,
Sun lances splintering;
Or with a virile harmony
In salty caves to sing;
Or mumbling pebbles on the shore,
Or roused to monster might:
By day I love the sea, but more
I love it in the night.
High over ocean hangs my home
And when the moon is clear
I stare and stare till fairy foam
Is music in my ear;
Till glamour dances to a tune
No mortal man could make;
And there bewitched beneath the moon
To beauty I awake.
Then though I seek my bed again
And close the shutters tight,
Still, still I hear that wild refrain
And see that mystic light . . .
Oh reckon me a crazy loon,
But blesséd I will be
If my last seeing be the moon,
My last sound--the Sea.