We climbed by ridge and boulder,
    Umber and yellow scarred,
Out to the utmost precipice,
    To the point that was ocean-barred,
Till we looked below on the fastness
    Of the breeding eagle’s nest,
And Cape Wollomai opened eastward
    And the Otway on the west.

Over the mirror of azure
    The purple shadows crept,
League upon league of rollers
    Landward evermore swept,
And burst upon gleaming basalt,
    And foamed in cranny and crack,
And mounted in sheets of silver,
    And hurried reluctant back.

And the sea, so calm out yonder,
    Wherever we turned our eyes,
Like the blast of an angel’s trumpet
    Rang out to the earth and skies,
Till the reefs and the rocky ramparts
    Throbbed to the giant fray,
And the gullies and jutting headlands
    Were bathed in a misty spray.

Oh, sweet in the distant ranges,
    To the ear of inland men,
Is the ripple of falling water
    In sassafras-haunted glen,
The stir in the ripening cornfield
    That gently rustles and swells,
The wind in the wattle sighing,
    The tinkle of cattle bells.

But best is the voice of ocean,
    That strikes to the heart and brain,
That lulls with its passionate music
    Trouble and grief and pain,
That murmurs the requiem sweetest
    For those who have loved and lost,
And thunders a jubilant anthem
    To brave hearts tempest-tossed.

That takes to its boundless bosom
    The burden of all our care,
That whispers of sorrow vanquished,
    Of hours that may yet be fair,
That tells of a Harbour of Refuge
    Beyond life’s stormy straits,
Of an infinite peace that gladdens,
    Of an infinite love that waits.