Pale cloud, shadows that meet and mingle
In toppling crag and tumbled cave.
The tinkling lisp of the broken shingle
Lapped by the low retreating wave
Oft repeated by every slow
Breath of the tranquil tide below.
With scarcely a fringe of foaming laces,
The level fields of the lazy sea;
Still as a lake of the inland places,
Slumber in lapis-lazuli.
Mirroring clouds like up-side-down
Ruined towers of a faery town.
Up-side-down in its highways even,
The white terns wheel and the gannets pass,
With a mist of breeze like a breath of heaven.
Blurring its lovely looking glass ...
Till all of a sudden there seems to be
Something afoot far out to sea.
All of a sudden the sea rejoices,
The tide runs in where the tide crept out;
And the air is full of the talking voices
And far on the reef the breakers shout.
The winds awake from their sleep profound,
And the autumn day is alive with sound.
First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 31 March 1934
