Classic Poem

Scherzando

Light as thin-winged swallows pirouetting and gyrating,
The sails dance in the estuary:
Now heeling to the gust, now cantering,
Bobbing as shuttles back and forth from each other.
They scorn the black steamers that steadily near them
On a course direct, with white spume of smoke from their bows,
With snapping crash of breakers they fling themselves forward:
Black on the wing-tips, white on the underside.
These are the birds of the land breeze,
Nesting on green waves in the gold sunlight:
These are the sailships
Heeling and tossing about in the estuary.