* THE SANDHILLS *

Oh, naked-footed boy, with the wild hair

And laughing eyes, is it so long ago

Among these windy dunes you made your lair,

Beside the immutable sea’ s unwearied ebb and flow?

Above you sings the horrent bent; the sun

Finds you and burns your budding limbs to brown;

You race the waves and wade and leap and run,

Then in the sweet, hot sand, contented, cuddle down

You dream great dreams, while all the upper air

Is musical with mews; and round about,

Upon the flats among the sea-ways there,

The dim sea-lavender spreads her purple fingers out.

And still the sandhills roll and still the sea

Flings a straight line of everlasting blue

Athwart their shining hillocks; solemnly

The ships go by, but not the wondrous ships you knew.

When first your path among the sand dunes fell —

The dunes that stretched as now and shone of yore

In their bright nakedness — a magic spell

Of mystery they wove along the shining shore.

This poppy with the horn, this bindweed white

And salicornia in its crimson bands

Meant more, far more than beauty and delight:

They stood for treasure torn from drowning pirates’ hands.

These amber weeds were then a garment brave;

These agate stones were gems of splendid size

Once decked a mermaid in a deep sea cave,

Lit by gigantic fish from their green, glimmering eyes.

The sandhills were your giants, cruel or kind;

Each falling billow told another tale;

Fairies and goblins flew upon the wind;

There lurked a tragedy in every sea-bird’ s wail.

And now the watchful sea doth bid me say;

The salt air whispers me to speak and tell

Where is that little boy from yesterday

Whom wind and wave and sand and sunshine knew so well?

“He was our playmate; us he understood

And ran to us with glory in his eyes;

We loved him and we wrought to work his good;

We made him strong and brave and with our wisdom wise.

“Will he not come again? The flowerets small

Have opened for his eager hands once more;

Among the yellow whins the linnets call,

The wrack and shells he sought still drift along the shore.

“He climbed the crests of all our ridges grey

And sang to us and paddled where our foam

Thins to a crystal film. But yesterday

A happy sprite was he; where now does our boy roam?

“Deep of the many voices, on whose face

No seal is set through all the centuries fled,

Laugh on at time, nor know the hurricane race

Of his few, hurtling years above a human head.

“And thou, old dune; the stars of heaven shall rove,

The galaxies break up to wheel about

And in new, glittering constellations move

Before thine hour-glass grey hath run its measure out.

“Your yesterday, you immemorial things,

Whereon the ages yet no shadow cast,

For me the hurrying and sleepless wings

Of year on stormy year have swept into the past.

“Yet think not I have lost that faith and joy

Felt when my world was young and I a part.

Oh, sea and sand and wild, west wind, your boy

Lies hidden safe within my steadfast, changeless heart.”