Ramsey Harbour

When in clear June the sun spreads on the sea

His first long fingers, rising from his sleep,

The bollards grow with warm expectancy

And window panes glow flaming red,

And up the sinuous channel creep

The wakening rays;

Rousing the worker from his groaning bed.

Seagulls ecstatic sweep

And yachts move restlessly upon the tide,

Feeling within their timbers all the urge

To woo the morning breeze,

And life to swing away upon the surge

Of heaving ocean.

And old men scan with pensive gaze

The far horizon, seeing other days

When mornings were yet new

And virginal as any maiden bride,

With trembling tears of dew,

And all the spinning globe but lately set in motion.

Now memories,

Tinged by the candid sunshine,

Swim like slow swans that on the river float,

Dreamlike, inconsequential, and remote,

Mute, and still beautiful, and serpentine.

And all the mornings that have ever sung

Proclaim the truth that life is young !

 

Mona’s Herald     6.11.62