Classic Poem

Love once wandered on the shore
Where these lonely mountains stand,
And the surf for evermore
Whitens down the waste of sand.

Here are footprints! see, he went
By the sea's edge in his play;
Here perchance his bow was bent,
And his target was the spray.

There he stooped and wrote his name —
Straggling letters by the tide —
And when sunset bursts in flame
Over shore and mountain-side,

Brightly will the letters glow,
Golden will those footprints be,
Made by young Love long ago
As he wandered by the sea.