TELL ME, TELL ME, SARAH JANE

Tell me, tell me, Sarah Jane?

Tell me, dearest daughter,
Why are you holding in your hand

A thimbleful of water?

Why do you hold it to your eye

And gaze both late and soon

From early morninglightuntil

The rising of the moon?

Mother, I hear the mermaids cry,

I hear the mermen sing,

And I can see the sailing ships

All made of sticks and string.

And I can see the jumping fish,

The whales that fall and rise

And swim about watersprout

That swarms up to the skies.

Tell me, tell me, Sarah Jane,

Tell your darling mother,

Why do you walk beside the tide

As though you loved none other?

Why do you listen to a shell

And watch the billows curl?

And throw away your diamond ring

And wear insread the pearl?

Mother, I hear the water

Beneath the headland pinned,

And I can see the seagull

Sliding down the wind.

I taste the salt upon my tongue

As sweet as sweet can be.

Tell me, my dear, whose voice you hear?

It is the sea, the sea.

Poem by Charles Causley

Painting: Brighton Beach by Edward Potthast