Classic Poem

“Whist-Whee!”
Little brown Dee
Peers from her shelter
Of bush and of tree.
Her time she is biding
To leap from her hiding.
And she says unto me:
“Don't look this way, big man, or they'll see
You are looking at me:
Please, please look out at the sea:
Whist-whee!”

And I walked up the sands,
And three little rebels took hold of my hands;
And they said: “Do you know
Where a little brown maid,
In a little brown plaid,
Did go?”
And I lied and said: “No.”
And they scampered away
Like young squirrels at play;
And looked all over and under the rocks
For a glimpse of brown frocks.
And I heard a quick cry
From the shade of the tree
Saying to me—
Yes, saying to me:
“You're a dear, you're a dear.”
And I said “Whist-whee;
The rebels are all returning for thee.”
And she hugged to the tree.

“Whist-whee,” just two little words:
But I heard them to-day in the song of the birds…
And the waters all sang as I walked by the sea:
“Whist-whee, whist-whee.”
And I looked behind bush and I looked behind tree
And the birds still were there and the busy song bee.
But little brown Dee,
With her solemn “Whist-whee”,
Spake not unto me.

And over the hills I went,
And a gentle mound
I found;
Lying like some fairy's lost pillow upon the ground.
And I knelt on my knee
And wrote on the sand,
With a sorrowing hand:
“Little brown Dee
Sleeps here by the sea:
All ye who pass