| |
| WHAT has this grand, curved beach to show? | |
| Slimy wharves, in the sun aglow? | |
| Warehouses grim, in a dismal row, | |
| Stretching for weary miles? No, no! | |
| |
| Gracefully fringed it is, with trees | 5 |
| Nodding obeisance to every breeze | |
| Born on the mountain or on the high seas. | |
| |
| Under the trees the lagoons are asleep, | |
| Children dumb of the roaring deep, | |
| Into their cradle the wild waves peep. | 10 |
| |
| Darling gem is each bright lagoon, | |
| Molten silver at fervid noon, | |
| Burnished mirror for evening’s moon. | |
| |
| Birds on the smooth, packed sand are parading, | |
| Legs stripped bare, all ready for wading, | 15 |
| Or daintily poised, the foam-crest evading. | |
| |
| Here is the tablet the waves prepare | |
| For ragged school artists, so burnt and bare, | |
| With faces begrimmed, and tangled hair. | |
| |
| And on this easel so smoothly sanded | 20 |
| Fleets are sketched by the deftly handed,— | |
| You would think the Royal Navy was stranded. | |
| |
| Queer little crabs are making their tracks, | |
| With dinners robbed from their neighbors’ sacks, | |
| And stolen houses upon their backs. | 25 |
| |
| Here are mosses in rarest green | |
| And royal purple, fit for a queen, | |
| Which painters may envy in vain, I ween. | |
| |
| And blue-eyed flowers, with faces bland, | |
| All untended by human hand, | 30 |
| Asking nothing but sunshine and sand. | |
| |
| Yonder are snow-tipped mountains bold, | |
| Always new, though a cycle old, | |
| Full of fire as their sides can hold. | |
| |
| Nearer at hand,—no tongue can tell, | 35 |
| The mighty magic of beauty’s spell, | |
| That wakes our smiles, and tears as well. | |
| |
| Rarest beauties our beach can show, | |
| As bounding along its crescent we go, | |
| Or lost in thought we saunter slow,— | 40 |
| And the half has not yet been told,—no, no! | |
| |
