Where the dark green hollows lift
Into crests of snow,
Wheeling, flashing, floating by,
White against the stormy sky,
With exultant call and cry
Swift the sea-gulls go.
Fearless, vagabond and free,
Children of the spray,
Spirits of old mariners
Drifting down the restless years—
Drake's and Hawkins' buccaneers,
So do sea-men say.
Watching, guarding, sailing still
Round the shores they knew,
Where the cliffs of Devon rise
Red against the sullen skies,
(Dearer far than Paradise)
'Mid the tossing blue.
Not for them the heavenly song;
Sweeter still they find
Than those angels, row on row,
Thunder of the bursting snow
Seething on the rocks below,
Singing of the wind.
Fairer than the streets of gold
Those wild fields of foam,
Where the horses of the sea
Stamp and whinny ceaselessly,
Warding from all enemy
Shores they once called home.
So the sea-gulls call and cry
'Neath the cliffs to-day,
Spirits of old mariners
Drifting down the restless years—
Drake's and Hawkins' buccaneers—
So do sea-men say.