In summertime it was a paradise
Of mountain, frith, and bay, and shining sand;
Our outward rowers sang towards the land,
Followed by waving hands and happy cries:
By the full flood the groups no longer roam;
And when, at ebb, the glistening beach grows wide,
No barefoot children race into the foam,
But pa**ive jellies wait the turn of tide.
Like some forsaken lover, lingering there,
The boatman stands; the maidens trip no more
With loosened locks; far from the billows' roar
The Mauds and Maries knot their tresses fair,
Where not a foam-flake from th' enamored shore
Comes down the sea-wind on the golden hair.