Eternal Vigil
Oh! once again upon thy heaving breast
I floated, like a seabird when it braves
The shoreward onset of thy flowing waves
And leaps triumphant on each rushing crest:
Round me in dark magnificent unrest,
The billows of the wild Atlantic rolled
Far, far away, into the gates of gold,
The sunlit portals of the stormy west:
O never wearied! In the hush of noon
Thy billows break the paths of golden sleep:
They break the dreamlike lustre of the moon
Earth knows the hours of darkness: thou dost keep
Eternal vigil: still thy surges white
Flash through the deepest gloom of starless night.
Oh! once again upon thy heaving breast
I floated, like a seabird when it braves
The shoreward onset of thy flowing waves
And leaps triumphant on each rushing crest:
Round me in dark magnificent unrest,
The billows of the wild Atlantic rolled
Far, far away, into the gates of gold,
The sunlit portals of the stormy west:
O never wearied! In the hush of noon
Thy billows break the paths of golden sleep:
They break the dreamlike lustre of the moon
Earth knows the hours of darkness: thou dost keep
Eternal vigil: still thy surges white
Flash through the deepest gloom of starless night.