Chapter V: Part II: Variations

(1) SAILBOATS

_Scherzando._

Light as thin-winged swallows pirouetting and gyrating,
The sails dance in the estuary:
Now heeling to the gust, now cantering,
Bobbing as shuttles back and forth from each other.
I They scorn the black steamers that steadily near them
I On a course direct, with white spume of smoke from their bows,
With snapping crash of breakers they fling themselves forward:
Black on the wing-tips, white on the underside.
These are the birds of the land breeze,
Nesting on green waves in the gold sunlight:
These are the sailships
Heeling and tossing about in the estuary.

(2) THE TIDE

_Con moto ondeggiante_

The tide makes music
At the foot of the beach;
The waves sing together
Rumble of breakers.
Ships there are swaying,
Into the distance,
Thrum of the cordage,
Slap of the sails.

The tide makes music
At the foot of the beach;
Low notes of an organ
'Gainst the dull clang of bells.
The tide's tense purple
On the untrodden sand:
Its throat is blue,
Its hands are gold.

The tide makes music:
The tide all day
Catches light from the clouds
That float over the sky.

Ocean, old serpent,
Coils up and uncoils;
With sinuous motion,
With rustle of scales.

(3) THE SANDS

_Lento._

Shallow pools of water
Are drinking up the sky;
Chasms of cool blue-white
In the brown of the sands.
The clouds are in them,
The houses on the shore,
The winds rumple the even
Glimmer of the reflection.

_Appassionato._

I dash across those shallow pools:
Starring their gauzy surface:
A plopping rush of bubbles:
I turn and watch my boot-tracks
Oozing upwards slowly in the dark wind-wrinkled sand.

(4) THE GULLS

_Molto Allegro._

White stars scattering,
Pale rain of spray-drops,
Delicate flash of smoke wind-drifted low and high,
Silver upon dark purple,
The gulls quiver
In a noiseless flight, far out across the sky.

(5) STEAMERS

_Maestoso._

Like black plunging dolphins with red bellies,
The steamers in herds
Swim through the choppy breakers
On this day of winds and clouds.
Wallowing and plunging,
They seek their path,
The smoke of their snorting
Hangs in the sky.

Like black plunging dolphins with red bellies,
The steamers pass,
Flapping their propellers
Salt with the spray.
Their iron sides glisten,
Their stays thrash:
Their funnels quiver
With the heat from beneath.

Like black plunging dolphins with red bellies,
The steamers together
Dive and roll through the tumult
Of green hissing water.

These are the avid of spoil,
Gleaners of the seas,
They loom on their adventure
Up purple and chrome horizons.

(6) NIGHT OF STARS

_Allegro brillante._

The sky immense, bejewelled with rain of stars,
Hangs over us:
The stars like a sudden explosion powder the zenith
With green and gold;
North-east, south-west the Milky Way's pale streamers
Flash past in flame;
The sky is a swirling cataract
Of fire, on high.

Over us the sky up to the zenith
Palpitates with tense glitter:
About our keel the foam bubbles and curdles
In phosphorescent joy.
Flame boils up to meet down-rushing flame
In the blue stillness.
Aloft a single orange meteor
Crashes down the sky.