The Sea-Lands

WOULD I were on the sea-lands,

Where winds know how to sting;

And in the rocks at midnight

The lost long murmurs sing.

Would I were with my first love

To hear the rush and roar

Of spume below the doorstep

And winds upon the door.

My first love was a fair girl

With ways forever new;

And hair a sunlight yellow,

And eyes a morning blue.

The roses, have they tarried

Or are they dun and frayed?

If we had stayed together,

Would love, indeed, have stayed?

Ah, years are filled with learning,

And days are leaves of change!

And I have met so many

I knew … and found them strange.

But on the sea-lands tumbled

By winds that sting and blind,

The nights we watched, so silent,

Come back, come back to mind.

I mind about my first love,

And hear the rush and roar

Of spume below the doorstep

And winds upon the door.