Of fickle April and its changing skies--
And while he scanned the waves with curious eyes,
The sea-wind in his nostrils, who had spent
A long, bleak winter in Knockfarrel pent
Over the snow-wreathed Strath and buried wood,
A sense of freedom tingled in his blood--
The large life of the Ocean, heaving wide,
His heart possessed with gladness and with pride,
And he rejoiced to be alive.... Once more
He heard the drenching waves on that rough shore
Raking the shingles, and the sea-worn rocks
Sucking the brine through bared and lapping locks
Of bright, brown tangle; while the shelving ledges
Poured back the swirling waters o'er their edges;
And billows breaking on a precipice
In spouts of spray, fell spreading like a fleece.

Sullen and sunken lay the reef, with sleek
And foaming lips, before the flooded creek
Deep-bunched with arrowy weed, its green expanse
Wind-wrinkled and translucent ... A bright trance
Of sun-flung splendour lay athwart the wide
Blue ocean swept with loops of silvern tide
Heavily heaving in a long, slow swell.

A lonely fisher in his coracle
Came round a headland, lifted on a wave
That bore him through the shallows to his cave,
Nor other being he saw.