By the Sea-Shore

Yes, I delight, when winds and waters roar,
To tread with shrinking foot the craggy shore;
And watch each billow with collected force
Urge o'er the whirling sands its frothy course:
O'er yon black rock whose frowning bastion braves,
And breaks, the onset of the wintry waves,
To mark it dash in snowy showers its spray,
That flames and flashes in the blaze of day;
Or fall from ledge to ledge like mountain stream,
Its foam-balls reddened by the evening beam.
Lulled by the tumult, oft, in thoughtful mood,—
On yonder rock how often have I stood,
And breathed moist air, and wooed the briny shower,
Absorbed, and reckless of the passing hour;
Nor moved until the tide, with deafening sound,
Circled my narrowing station close around;
Then, as the exhausted wave forsook the strand,
With foot elastic pressed the yielding sand;
And, ere its force regathered, with a bound
Gained the dry shore, and spurned the grassy ground.
Thence with rude toil I clomb yon cliff's steep brow,
And viewed, enraptured, all the scene below,
A vast expanse of heaving billows, crowned
With trembling, snowlike foam, exulted round;
And 'neath my feet, between each watery vale,
I marked the white-winged sea-gull slowly sail.