| |
| O D’ YOU hear the seas complainin’, and complainin’, whilst it ’s rainin’? | |
| Did you hear it mourn in the dimorts, 1 when the surf woke up and sighed? | |
| The choughs screamed on the sand, | |
| And the foam flew over land, | |
| And the seas rolled dark on the Doom-Bar at rising of the tide. | 5 |
| |
| I gave my lad a token, when he left me nigh heart-broken, | |
| To mind him of old Padstow town, where loving souls abide; | |
| ’T was a ring with the words set | |
| All round, “Can Love Forget?” | |
| And I watched his vessel toss on the Bar with the outward-turning tide. | 10 |
| |
| D’ you hear the seas complainin’, and complainin’, while it ’s rainin’? | |
| And his vessel has never crossed the Bar from the purple seas outside; | |
| And down the shell-pink sands, | |
| Where we once went, holding hands, | |
| Alone I watch the Doom-Bar and the rising of the tide. | 15 |
| |
| One day—’t was four years after—the harbor-girls, with laughter | |
| So soft and wild as sea-gulls when they ’re playing seek-and-hide, | |
| Coaxed me out—for the tides were lower | |
| Than had ever been known before; | |
| And we ran across the Doom-Bar, all white and shining wide. | 20 |
| |
| I saw a something shinin’, where the long, wet weeds were twinin’ | |
| Around a rosy scallop; and gold a ring lay inside; | |
| And around its rim were set | |
| The words “Can Love Forget?”— | |
| And there upon the Doom-Bar I knelt and sobbed and cried. | 25 |
| |
| I took my ring and smoothed it where the sand and shells had grooved it; | |
| But O! St. Petrock bells will never ring me home a bride!— | |
| For the night my lad was leavin’ | |
| Me, all tearful-eyed and grievin’, | |
| He had tossed my keepsake out on the Bar to the rise and fall of the tide! | 30 |
| |
| Do you hear the seas complainin’, and complainin’, while it ’s rainin’? | |
| Did you hear them call in the dimorts, when the surf woke up and sighed? | |
| Maybe it is a token | |
| I shall go no more heart-broken— | |
| And I shall cross the Doom-Bar at the turning of the tide. | 35 |
