Floating so buoyant with milk-white foam on the waters.

But I am not the sea nor the red sun,

I am not the wind with girlish laughter,

Not the immense wind which strengthens, not the wind which lashes,

Not the spirit that ever lashes its own body to terror and death,

But I am that which unseen comes and sings, sings, sings,

Which babbles in brooks and scoots in showers on the land,

Which the birds know in the woods mornings and evenings,

And the shore-sands know and the hissing wave, and that banner and pennant,

Aloft there flapping and flapping.

 Child

O father it is alive—it is full of people—it has children,

O now it seems to me it is talking to its children,

I hear it—it talks to me—O it is wonderful!

O it stretches—it spreads and runs so fast—O my father,

It is so broad it covers the whole sky.

 Father

Cease, cease, my foolish babe,

What you are saying is sorrowful to me, much it displeases me;

Behold with the rest again I say, behold not banners and pennants aloft,

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