Classic Poem

A little lad was he
Who loved a fisher maid in Brittany,
Where sands stretch flat and wide
When ebbs the tide,
Smooth as a threshing floor,
And there they played, young Veronique and Pierre,
Along the shore.
Often they used to walk
Hand fast in hand,
And laughed and kissed,
Lost in such heavenly talk
That spirits there,
Who dwelt in sunny places in the mist,
Drew very near to Veronique and Pierre,
And the shrill curlews cried,
And there were rainbow castles in the foam
Where seawites died.

Mornings, dear Veronique brought shells
And laid them on the stone beside Pierre's door,
Sea-shapes of beauty, magic as the stars,
Washed from old ocean's dragon-haunted floor,
And Pierre would dream that she was sitting there
And hoped that he would find her when he woke;
And so he did — and she would look at Pierre
And he at her — and neither of them spoke.
So passed July, whose molten hours flow,
The sun laughed hot and high,
And then they said good-bye,
For Pierre must go.
He left her standing dumbly in the lane,
Her lips a-tremble with his parting kiss,
And had her farewell gift, a twisted shell,
Bewitched! Bewitched! With melancholy spell,
For in that shell it was that little Pierre
First heard love's secret whispered thus, " De-ssspairr. "