A LADY went singing along by the sea,
The lay of a lover she carolled with glee;
The ripples of melody born from her mouth
Were wafted away on the wind to the south,
To murmur the thought in a mariner's ear —
" Though lovers be distant true love will be dear,
Though lovers be parted true love will be near. "

The lady watched long where the water and sky
Grew dim in the sundown and faint to the eye;
She thought " When the sky is so near to the sea
Should I wonder he never comes homeward to me?
With cloudland so near and the homeland so far
'Twere easy forgetting the life he might mar
In forsaking the sea to go home to a star. "

The lady grew weary of pacing the sand,
And weary to death of the waves on the strand;
The marks on the beach were effaced by the tide,
The hopes faded fainter on which she relied;
Yet watched she and waited a year and a day,
While waxing how weary let lone lady say —
Some lady grown weary of lover's delay.

She stooped as she stepped on the silvery sand
And gathered the grains in her delicate hand.
She spilled them with care and she marked how they rained,
And reckoned the motes in her hand that remained.
For one he would come, and for two he would stay,
The third meant return, and the fourth spoke delay;
The last was the ninth and she cast it away.

She turned her again, and she turned to her bower —
Oh! happy the omen, and gladsome the hour —
Her lover was home, and her lover was here,
Her head on his breast, and his voice in her ear;
" Oh! love it was long! "
" Oh! my love, I had fear! "
" Oh! love it was far! "
" But we meet, we are near! "
And love has forgotten the leagues and the year.