The Salt Marshes

THERE was a light upon the sea that made
Familiar things mysterious, which to teach,
With inarticulate, alluring speech,
The living wind with lisping tongue essayed.
O'er sand and weed and spongy moss I strayed
And lifeless, orient shells, musing on each;
While casting nets with ever wider reach
A fisher plied his immemorial trade.
A sea-bird winged the aerial solitude
Searching the deep for his appointed dole,
Where his wide-wandering flocks the ocean feeds;
And with the day's full orbed strength indued,
At one with all, by all illumed, my soul
Pulsed to the rhythmus of immortal deeds.