A Classical Sunday

Hope on the horizon

A peninsula people,
born with the tang of brine
teasing their nostrils
and the wave-sound
soothing their cradles,
seafarers, or sea-watchers, by nature,
but landlocked these many months
and down on their luck,
months of mountains and dust,
the unfriendly sun on their backs,
now, cresting a ridge, they see
in the distance shimmering bright
the memory of home,
and an electric ripple of hope
races through the long weary column
so that even those down below
still at the foot of the slope
who have not yet seen
the familiar stripe of blue
between land and sky
taste its heady joy –
though still far from sanctuary,
a promise of journey’s end –
and the whisper becomes a shout,
ten thousand hearts and voices
swelling as one:
“The sea! The sea!”

Does anyone get the reference?  [Well, apart from you, Weeble.]  If uncertain, and intrigued, look here.