The tide swings round in the Race, and they're plaining
whisht and low,
And they come from the gray sea-marshes, where the gray
sea-lavenders grow,
And the cotton-grass sways to and fro;
And the gore-sprent sundews thrive
With oozy hands alive.
Canst hear the curlews' whistle through thy dreamings dark and drear,
How they're crying, crying, crying, Pentruan of Porthmeor?

Shall thy hatchment, mouldering grimly in yon church amid the sands,
Stay trouble from thy household? Or the carven cherub-hands
Which hold thy shield to the font? Or the gauntlets on the wall
Keep evil from its onward course as the great tides rise and fall?
The great tides rise and fall, and the cave sucks in the breath
Of the wave when it runs with tossing spray, and the
ground-sea rattles of Death;
"I rise in the shallows," 'a saith,
"Where the mermaid's kettle sings,
And the black shag flaps his wings!"
Ay, the green sea-mountain leaping may lead horror in its rear,
When thy drenched sail leans to its yawning trough, Pentruan
of Porthmeor!

Yet the stoup waits at thy doorway for its load of glittering ore,
And thy ships lie in the tideway, and thy flocks along the moore;
And thine arishes gleam softly when the October moonbeams wane,
When in the bay all shining the fishers set the seine;
The fishers cast the seine, and 'tis "Heva!" in the town,
And from the watch-rock on the hill the huers are shouting down;