Before the day's creation is begun
I must go forth to meet the unseen sun —
Out to the hushed, expectant dunes I love,
More lone because of the still sky above.
The village houses lie like herds asleep.
The tide, black-burnished, spreads out, flat and deep.
There walks a wind of coming change abroad....
The sun shows like a traveller down a road....
Then — what the dark reserved unseen before —
I see long, dancing, golden slopes of shore...
Then, as I walk back, close to left and right,
I find young summer in full tides of green;
Where flickering branches thwart the morning lean
Leaves touch my face, leaves brush against my hand,
And beachplums bloom in little banks of white
Up slopes of infinite, immaculate sand.