On the steep cliff 
That hung over the sand, 
Where nothing moved for the eye's farthest reach 
But ocean's royal colors twitched with white, 
And, on the sky-wide beach, a flock of gulls, 
I gave my joy into the birds' wild keeping. 
On the shore 
Only the gulls were living, and 
Beyond, those lucid greens, 
Those traveling purples, dark as fate. 
I could believe the gulls more beautiful 
Than Yeats's swans above the lake at Coole. 
Fifty and more, by my uncertain count, 
They rested there, 
Till suddenly, upon what wind of impulse who could say, 
They rose, as if the shore were answering 

Ocean's harsh whisper with a grey salutation, 
To settle on the sea. 
They were at home, being wave-bred, on their wide watery nest, 
And, floating quietly as clots of foam, 
They rocked my joy with them upon that boundless breast. 
But not for long. 
Once more they rose, over fifty of them, away 
In winged ellipse. 
And as they flew, 
Leaving the vast shore still, the vast sea bare, 
I marveled that, though the gulls carried it 
Viewless into the sky, poor human joy 
Could rise so high, could, vanishing, stay.