A Flowery Sea

O'er pied plateau the wave-swept harvest flows,
Rolls, undulates and breaks, with wind rocked high,
While yon dark harrow, profiled on the sky,
Seems like some vessel in the tempest's throes.

With blue, cerulean, violet or rose,
Or fleecy white from sheep the ebb makes fly,
The sea, far as the West's empurpling dye,
Like boundless meadow verdurously glows.

The gulls, that watch the tide with eager care,
On whirling wing with screams of joy fly where
The ripened grain in golden billow lies;

While from the land a breeze of sweets possessed
Disperses o'er the ocean's flowery breast
In winged rapture swarms of butterflies.