LYRICS
PART I
ODE
I
I am the spirit of the morning sea;
I am the awakening and the glad surprise;
I fill the skies
With laughter and with light.
Not tears, but jollity
At birth of day brim the strong man-child's eyes.
Behold the white
Wide threefold beams that from the hidden sun
Rise swift and far—
One where Orion keeps
His armèd watch, and one
That to the midmost starry heaven upleaps;
The third blots out the firm-fixt Northern Star.
I am the wind that shakes the glittering wave,
Hurries the snowy spume along the shore
And dies at last in some far, murmuring cave.
My voice thou hearest in the breaker's roar—
That sound which never failed since time began,
And first around the world the shining tumult ran.
II
I light the sea and wake the sleeping land.
My footsteps on the hills make music, and my hand
Plays like a harper's on the wind-swept pines.
