Water is round about us from our birth,
Our heritage a strip of windy land
Among wild seas; a word of misty earth
Ringed round with blowing spray and dim, wet sand.
The sting of salt is ever on our lips,
The rush and roar of water haunts our dreams;
We learn the ways whereby the grey tide slips
Seaward with all its following of streams.
And ever in the wind a music sings,
To call us out beyond the wreathing foam;
Across our hearts the sea her magic flings,
And whispering tides entice our feet to roam.
Then when the years are full and we obey
The alluring murmur and the ringing call,
And chase the crying winds away, away,
Through watery wastes where long waves leap and fall:
Knowing the glory and terror of the sea,
Sharing her thraldom to the changing moon,
Our dreams grow vast as her infinity,
And wonderful with her old mystic croon.
(source: by Mona Douglas from her book Mychurachan (1917); photo from wallpaper site http://bit.ly/1tnVc8Z)