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.
One day--’twas four years after--the harbour-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.
I saw a something shinin’, where the long, wet weeds were twinin’ Around a rosy scallop; and a gold 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.
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!
D’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.
Whistling strangely, whistling sadly, whistling sweet and clear, The Seven Whistlers have passed thy house, Pentruan of Porthmeor; It was not in the morning, nor the noonday’s golden grace, It was in the dead waste midnight, when the tide yelped loud in the Race: The tide swings round in the Race, and they’re plaining whisht and low, And they come from the gray sea-marshes, where the gray sea-lavenders grow, And the cotton-grass sways to and fro; And the gore-sprent sundews thrive With oozy hands alive. Canst hear the curlews’ whistle through thy dreamings dark and drear, How they’re crying, crying, crying, Pentruan of Porthmeor?
Shall thy hatchment, mouldering grimly in yon church amid the sands, Stay trouble from thy household? Or the carven cherub-hands Which hold thy shield to the font? Or the gauntlets on the wall Keep evil from its onward course as the great tides rise and fall? The great tides rise and fall, and the cave sucks in the breath Of the wave when it runs with tossing spray, and the ground-sea rattles of Death; “I rise in the shallows,” ’a saith, “Where the mermaid’s kettle sings, And the black shag flaps his wings!” Ay, the green sea-mountain leaping may lead horror in its rear, When thy drenched sail leans to its yawning trough, Pentruan of Porthmeor!