Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

VANISHING JOY by ROY WALTER JAMES

First Line: I WENT DOWN TO THE BEACH TO PLAY
Last Line: TO WOE WITHIN A LOOKING GLASS.
Subject(s): SEASHORE; BEACH; COAST; SHORE;
I went down to the beach to play
And saw where sea-weed, anchored, lay;

Where waves had left the shore as though
They wished to ever seaward go;

I ran where periwinkles stray
When wind is blowing spume and spray;

Sea-minnows wiggled, grey and green,
In little pools the rocks between;

I saw where abalones crawl
When waters are above them all.

While glad and happily I danced,
Where waves few hours ago had pranced.

I slipped on sea-weed green as grass
And broke a salty looking glass.

I danced no more that wondrous day
But left where tideland boulders lay;

With fragments of a salty glass,
Through which I plunged from tideland grass,

Bewildering my hair and eyes,
And dripping from my clothes likewise,

I stumbled shuddering back home
From where the tideland horses roam.

And now and then I oft recall
How I on sea-weed chanced to fall,

How I saw joy so quickly pass
To woe within a looking glass.



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