Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.

Alice E. Gillington

The Doom-Bar

O D’ YOU hear the seas complainin’, and complainin’, whilst it ’s rainin’?

Did you hear it mourn in the dimorts, when the surf woke up and sighed?

The choughs screamed on the sand,

And the foam flew over land,

And the seas rolled dark on the Doom-Bar at rising of the tide.

I gave my lad a token, when he left me nigh heart-broken,

To mind him of old Padstow town, where loving souls abide;

’T was a ring with the words set

All round, “Can Love Forget?”

And I watched his vessel toss on the Bar with the outward-turning tide.

D’ you hear the seas complainin’, and complainin’, while it ’s rainin’?

And his vessel has never crossed the Bar from the purple seas outside;

And down the shell-pink sands,

Where we once went, holding hands,

Alone I watch the Doom-Bar and the rising of the tide.

One day—’t was four years after—the harbor-girls, with laughter

So soft and wild as sea-gulls when they ’re playing seek-and-hide,

Coaxed me out—for the tides were lower

Than had ever been known before;

And we ran across the Doom-Bar, all white and shining wide.

I saw a something shinin’, where the long, wet weeds were twinin’

Around a rosy scallop; and gold a ring lay inside;

And around its rim were set

The words “Can Love Forget?”—

And there upon the Doom-Bar I knelt and sobbed and cried.

I took my ring and smoothed it where the sand and shells had grooved it;

But O! St. Petrock bells will never ring me home a bride!—

For the night my lad was leavin’

Me, all tearful-eyed and grievin’,

He had tossed my keepsake out on the Bar to the rise and fall of the tide!

Do you hear the seas complainin’, and complainin’, while it ’s rainin’?

Did you hear them call in the dimorts, when the surf woke up and sighed?

Maybe it is a token

I shall go no more heart-broken—

And I shall cross the Doom-Bar at the turning of the tide.