The Sea-Lands - Orrick Johns

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.

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Orrick Johns (1887—1946) USA