Shone large on the live wide wavelets that shuddered with joy as it
came;
As it came and caressed and possessed them, till panting and
laughing with light
From mountain to mountain the water was kindled and stung to
delight.
And the grey gaunt heights that embraced and constrained and
compelled it were glad,
And the rampart of rock, stark naked, that thwarted and barred it,
was clad
With a stern grey splendour of sunrise: and scarce had I sprung to
the sea
When the dawn and the water were wedded, the hills and the sky set
free.
The chain of the night was broken: the waves that embraced me and
smiled
And flickered and fawned in the sunlight, alive, unafraid,
undefiled,
Were sweeter to swim in than air, though fulfilled with the
mounting morn,
Could be for the birds whose triumph rejoiced that a day was born.

And a day was arisen indeed for us. Years and the changes of years
Clothed round with their joys and their sorrows, and dead as their
hopes and their fears,
Lie noteless and nameless, unlit by remembrance or record of days
Worth wonder or memory, or cursing or blessing, or passion or
praise,
Between us who live and forget not, but yearn with delight in it
yet,
And the day we forget not, and never may live and may think to
forget.
And the years that were kindlier and fairer, and kindled with
pleasures as keen,
Have eclipsed not with lights or with shadows the light on the face
of it seen.
For softly and surely, as nearer the boat that we gazed from drew,
The face of the precipice opened and bade us as birds pass through,
And the bark shot sheer to the sea through the strait of the sharp
steep cleft,
The portal that opens with imminent rampires to right and to left,
Sublime as the sky they darken and strange as a spell-struck dream,
On the world unconfined of the mountains, the reign of the sea
supreme,
The kingdom of westward waters, wherein when we swam we knew
The waves that we clove were boundless, the wind on our brows that
blew
Had swept no land and no lake, and had warred not on tower or on
tree,
But came on us hard out of heaven, and alive