The Open Sea

From my window I can see,   
Where the sandhills dip,   
One far glimpse of open sea.   
Just a slender slip   
Curving like a crescent moon—           
Yet a greater prize   
Than the harbour garden-fair   
Spread beneath my eyes.   
  
Just below me swings the bay,   
Sings a sunny tune,           
But my heart is far away   
Out beyond the dune;   
Clearer far the sea-gulls’ cry   
And the breakers’ roar,   
Than the little waves beneath           
Lapping on the shore.   
  
For that strip of sapphire sea   
Set against the sky   
Far horizons means to me—   
And the ships go by           
Framed between the empty sky   
And the yellow sands,   
While my freed thoughts follow them   
Out to other lands.   
  
All its changes who can tell?           
I have seen it shine   
Like a jewel polished well,   
Hard and clear and fine;   
Then soft lilac—and again   
On another day           
Glimpsed it through a veil of rain,   
Shifting, drifting grey.   
  
When the livid waters flee,   
Flinching from the storm,   
From my window I can see,           
Standing safe and warm,   
How the white foam tosses high   
On the naked shore,   
And the breakers’ thunder grows   
To a battle-roar…           
  
Far and far I look—Ten miles?   
No, for yesterday   
Sure I saw the Blessed Isles   
Twenty worlds away.   
My blue moon of open sea,           
Is it little worth?   
At the least it gives to me   
Keys of all the earth