Manly Lagoon

Where the long beach runs to its far north end, And the sandways cease at the the north rock's feet, And the foam is fiercer, the waves more fleet, Lies a low lagoon that the high tides blend With their billows' brine as they come and go; And the ways of its waters are smooth and slow.

Though the salt waves sweep through it night or noon, Yet its mother-stream from the backland sweeps; With a sighless swaying her water creeps O'er the inward edge of the slow lagoon, And her tender bosom bears life and grace To the lips of the lake in the sea-girt place.

In the summer dusk, when the moon rides fast, Ere the sunset's burning has faded quite, And the seas fall eastward in liquid light, On the sea-lake's face such a gleam is cast, That it lies on the earth, in the day's red close, Like the quivering leaf of a heavenly rose.

All the seas to eastward move silver sweet In a floating shroud by the moonbeams made; All the westward skylands their lights have laid On the lake that lies at the sunset's feet; And between the shroud and the golden lands Is a narrowing pathway of surf-swept sands.

But in winter eves, when the sun is not, And the moon is buried in mist and cloud, And the sea, unlit, is a moaning shroud For the bones of the dead that the sea-waves rot, On the narrow shore between sea and lake Boils an ocean of sea-foam and billow-break.

In the far sad sky not a rose is blown, Not a fleeting gleam in the grey-bound west, Not a mirrored glow on the lakelet's breast, And no light where the waves round the north crags moan; But the cold sea creeps on the narrow sands, And the shroud has enveloped the golden lands.