Miracle, and Other Poems

<h2 id="id00307" style="margin-top: 4em">GULLS</h2> <p id="id00308">When the mist drives past and the wind blows high,<br/> And the harbour lights are dim—<br/> See where they circle, and dip and fly,<br/> The grey free-lances of wind and sky,<br/> To the water's distant rim!<br/></p> <p id="id00309">Like spirits possessed of a fierce delight,<br/> A courage that cannot fail,<br/> They face the breakers—they face the night—<br/> The mad storm-horses are silvery white,<br/> They ride through the bitter gale!<br/></p> <p id="id00310">They seem like the souls of the long, long lost,<br/> Who breasted the ocean-main—<br/> Vikings whose vessels were tempest-tossed,<br/> Voyagers who sailed, whatever the cost,<br/> And never came home again.<br/></p> <p id="id00311">Or stranger and wilder fancy—it seems<br/> As I hear their wind-torn cry,<br/> No birds fly there through the sun's last gleams,<br/> But the wraiths of hopes—the ghosts of dreams<br/> That the old sea-gods saw die.<br/></p> <p id="id00312">When the mist drives past and the wind blows high,<br/> And the harbour lights are dim—<br/> See where they circle, and dip and fly,<br/> The grey free-lances of wind and sky,<br/> To the far horizon's rim.<br/></p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />