The tossing tops of the palm are loud with a wind from the Spanish Main
That strums the harp of the sunlit beach to a sounding old refrain;
Oh, clear and blue as a maiden's eyes the clean sea-spaces lie,
Till my heart is off with the wheeling gulls that jest with the lonely sky--
Off to the rim of the ocean-world, to my lost sea-love again,
Whose hair is spun of the windy scud and whose robe is the summer rain. Over the rim of the world of men I know that my love is true--
Who is naught of flesh, who is naught of blood, but born of the windy blue;
Her name we stammer with halting tongues--we hearts that have heard her call
Through the din of an hundred smoky towns, and found her the best of all!
Oh, we name her Spring, or Dawn-on-the-Sea, or Rapture-that-once-we-knew,
But the grey gull knows that the names are one when it comes to the tribute due.
So it's off, my heart, to the rim of the world, to your lost sea-love again,
Whose hair is spun of the windy scud and whose robe is the summer rain!