Where shaken water-wheels go creak and clack,
     List while a lorn thrush calls and almost speaks;
See willow-wrens with elderberries black
          Staining their slender beaks.

They know full well how squirrels spend the day;
     They peeped when field-mice stole and stored the seed,
And voles along their under-water way
          Donned collars of bright beads.

Still from the deep-cut road they love to mark
     Where set, as in a frame, the nearer shapes
Rise out of hill and wood; then long downs dark
          As purple bloom on grapes.

But farms whereon the tall wheat musters gold,
     High barley whitening, creases in bare hills,
Reed-feathered, castle-like brown churches old,
          Nor churning water-mills,

Shall make ought seem so fair as that beyond—­
     Beyond the down, which draws their fealty;
Blow high, blow low, some hearts do aye respond
          The wind is from the sea.

Above the steep-cut steps as they did grow,
     The children’s cottage homes embowered are seen;
Were this a world unfallen, they scarce could show
          More beauteous red and green.

Milk-white and vestal-chaste the hollyhock
     Grows tall, clove, sweetgale nightly shed forth spice,
Long woodbines leaning over scent the rock
          With airs of Paradise.

Here comforted of pilot stars they lie
     In charmed dreams, but not of wold nor lea. 
Behold a ship! her wide yards score the sky;
          She sails a steel-blue sea.

As turns the great amassment of the tide,
     Drawn of the silver despot to her throne,
So turn the destined souls, so far and wide
          The strong deep claims its own.

Still the old tale; these dreaming islanders,
     Each with hot Sunderbunds a somewhat owns
That calls, the grandsire’s blood within them stirs
          Dutch Java guards his bones.

And these were orphan’d when a leak was sprung
     Far out from land when all the air was balm;
The shipmen saw their faces as they hung,
          And sank in the glassy calm.

These, in an orange-sloop their father plied,
     Deck-laden deep she sailed from Cadiz town,
A black squall rose, she turned upon her side,
          Drank water and went down.

They too shall sail.  High names of alien lands
     Are in the dream, great names their fathers knew;
Madras, the white surf rearing on her sands,
          E’en they shall breast it too.

See threads of scarlet down fell Roa creep,
     When moaning winds rend back her vapourous veil;
Wild Orinoco wedge-like split the deep,
          Raging forth passion-pale;

Or a blue berg at sunrise glittering tall,
     Great as a town adrift come shining on
With sharp spires, gemlike as the mystical
          Clear city of Saint John.