ATAVISM

I leant out over a ledging cliff and looked down into the sea, Where weed and kelp and dulse swayed, in green translucency; Where the abalone clung to the rock and the star-fish lay about, Purpling the sands that slid away under the silver trout.

And the sea-urchin too was there, and the sea-anemone. It was a world of watery shapes and hues and wizardry. And I felt old stirrings wake in me, under the tides of time, Sea-hauntings I had brought with me out of the ancient slime.

And now, as I muse, I cannot rid my senses of the spell That in a tidal trance all things around me drift and swell Under the sea of the Universe, down into which strange eyes Keep peering at me, as I peered, with wonder and surmise.