"The Opal Sea"

"The Opal Sea"

An inland sea―blue as a sapphire―set

            Within a sparkling, emerald mountain chain

            Where day and night fir-needles sift like rain

Thro’ the voluptuous air. The soft winds fret

The waves, and beat them wantonly to foam.

            The golden distances across the sea

            Are shot with rose and purple. Languorously

The silver seabirds in wide circles roam.

The sun drops slowly down the flaming West

            And flings its rays across to set aglow

            The islands rocking on the cool waves’ crest

And the great glistening domes of snow on snow.

            And thro’ the mist the Olympics flash and float

            Like opals linked around a beating throat.

"The Opal Sea" as it appears in Ella Higginson's When the Birds Go North Again (1898).