The day is glad and golden.

Over the sunhit beach

The waves do gladly embolden

Their crisp and clinging reach.

Would I were one as they

With the natural hour,

With the wide sunlit day

And the ancient sea's power.

I would not be here weeping

That I am not aught else,

My waking would be a sleeping

Like this of the sea swells

Not like an outcast from

A home I never knew

Would I be pining for home,

……

Not like a tossed sea‑weed

Between the wave and the wave,

And restless with a mute greed

For something I cannot have.

Something I cannot een dream,

Some spent life I know not...

Oh how fair would nature seem

Were it not for thought!

Dark is the golden day

Unto mine eyes that stare

Brightness and joy away

From sky and shore and here.

Dead is the changing sea,

The wind a monotone,

Oh ever to be he

That never is but alone,

I cannot dream of heaven,

Nor create one in the hour...

Pass, day, and ask not even

For my grateful eyes' dower...