Page:Songs of the Springtides - Swinburne (1880).pdf/47

 And charm him from his own soul's separate sense With infinite and invasive influence That made strength sweet in him and sweetness strong, Being now no more a singer, but a song.

Till one clear day when brighter sea-wind blew And louder sea-shine lightened, for the waves Were full of godhead and the light that saves, His father's, and their spirit had pierced him through, He felt strange breath and light all round him shed That bowed him down with rapture; and he knew His father's hand, hallowing his humbled head, And the old great voice of the old good time, that said:

'Child of my sunlight and the sea, from birth A fosterling and fugitive on earth; Sleepless of soul as wind or wave or fire,