Littell's Living Age/Volume 129/Issue 1666/Once

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ONCE.

Cool salt air and the white waves breaking
Restless, eager, along the strand;
An evening sky and a sunset glory
Fading over the sea and land;

We two sitting alone together
Side by side, in the waning light;
Before us the throbbing waste of waters,
Behind us the sand-heaps, drifted white.

Ships were sailing into the distance,
Down to the lands where the sun had gone;
The rough fresh wind blew o'er our faces,
And the shadows of night crept slowly on.

Is it a dream that I remember —
Some ghost of a hope that will come no more;
We two sitting alone together,
Hand in hand, on the ocean shore?

Mary Ainge De Vere
Evening Post.