When The Gulls Come In Poem by Helen M. Merrill

WHEN the gulls come in, and the shallow sings
Fresh to the wind, and the bell-buoy rings,
And a spirit calls the soul from sleep
To follow over the flashing deep;

When the gulls come in from the fields of space,
Vagrants out of a pathless place,
Waifs of the wind that dip and veer
In the gleaming sun where the land lies near,-

Long they have wandered far and free,
Bedouin birds of the desert sea;
God only marked their devious flight,
God only followed them day and night,-

Sailor o' mine, when the gulls come in,
And the shallow sings to the bell-buoy's din,
Look to thy ship and thy gods hard by,
There's a gale in the heart of the golden sky.