The Collected Poems of Dora Sigerson Shorter/Young Una
YOUNG UNA
Upon the shore young Una lies,
A smile upon her mouth;
Soft breezes kiss her heavy hair,
Slow blowing from the south.
Within the cabin on the hill
Her mother doth complain:
“God bless the child! her feet are slow
To bear her home again.”
Her mother's mother, grey and old,
She laughs beside the fire:
“Once I was hot as she, a-stór.
To gain my heart's desire.”
And Una, smiling on the sea,
She speaks no word at all,
But watches with untiring eyes
The waves that break and fall.
Far in the East her father's ship
Lifts the blue waves to foam.
Her father's hand upon the helm
Now guides the vessel home.
And he hath safe a robe of silk,
All gold as Una's hair;
Strange jewels, too, from out the West,
To deck his child so fair.
But Una with unclosing eyes
Looks long towards the South;
The spray hangs diamonds on her hair,
A smile is on her mouth.
Now Una's lover in the wood,
The wood beside the shore.
He breathes his passion to the night
“Oh, love me, love, a-stór.”
He kneels beside another maid,
She leans to hear him speak,
His arm is on her shoulder wlute,
Her kiss is on his cheek.
But Una, lone upon the shore,
Cares naught for what may be;
She smiles beneath the changing sky,
On shadow-haunted sea.