How many surges of foam at my feet
   As a breaker’s last passion expires;
How many fountains of salt-diamond spray
   Like a flame of primordial fires;
How many vistas of purple and gold
   From the sun’s bright and westering way;
How many steps may I print in the sand
   ’Ere the sands of my time have their day?

How many moon-molten surfs will I see
   With their liquid of silver and star?
How many dawns with their ominous gray
   As the stubborn fog clings to the bar,
Then yields to the gold of that conquering orb,
   Which ascends with Promethian fire,
To burnish a seascape of billow and cloud
   Into castle, cathedral, and spire?

Ah, the gift that is mine from His heavenly grace
   To view with terrestrial eyes
The nearly celestial montage of this scene,
   With the infinite breadth of the skies—
Caught fast in the cadented watch-work of time
   As I muse by this metronomed shore,
While the tick and the tock of eternity’s clock
   Brings that instant when time will be o’er.

The “when” of that instant I cannot now know,
   As I know not the depths of the sea.
The mist-mantled future I only surmise
   ’Til the final wave breaks upon me.
The “whence” of that instant is lighted and clear,
   Like the unclouded rays on the sand.
Like a sea eagle to heaven’s fair shore
   I shall soar to that bright, sunlit land.

Before that glad instant when faith becomes sight,
   When we rise to the glory supreme,
I shall work to the utmost, unceasingly pray,
   Speaking ever this transporting theme—
That Christ by His grace and the blood of the cross
   Gives salvation and life to His own
Beyond these fair shores to rule ever with Him
   Who will reign from His glorified throne.

—Dave Breese