“There I know blue, blue water, And a waving line of land, With pines that grow in a wind-swept row As set by a dreamer’s hand; And where the winds will, in hollow or hill, Sand and sand and sand.
Sand as soft as a snowfall— Drifting, eddying, whirled— Sweeping into the valleys, Over the grasses swirled, And billowing up to the tree-tops That look out on the world.
Sand of romantic patterns New for each passer fleet. Here a flower has lain, there the leaf-like chain That was marked by a sea-gull’s feet; And the pebbled trace as of scalloped lace Where the waves and the shore-line meet.
Gleaming sands in the morning When the little waves run white, 20 While gay wings fan the shining span And float a song in flight; And the lupine blue spreads a heaven new Where the stars might rest till night.
But gray, gray sands at evening, When haunting voices blow Over twilight-faded water From trees of long ago, Hushed by the drifting silence As by eternal snow.
O grass, flowers, trees unfruitful, Caught while your sun was high, Buried deep in the sand-dune’s keep, Is all of life gone by? Can a springing bough lift your glory now And give it back to the sky?”