I knew that something was going on
When she went to walk each night,
Just on dusk when the tide swept in
With the blue moon of delight,
She never asked me to tag along
Though at times I thought she must,
We’d once been close, but the time was wrong
And our closeness turned to dust.

I stayed back up in the dunes while she
Took on the darkening shore,
It triggered memories held when we
Had walked it once before,
That gentle rise where the sand had dried
And we sat awhile and kissed,
Now I sat lonely and cold aside
Bemoaning what I’d missed.

I didn’t follow along the beach
Too scared what I might find,
A lovers tryst in the dark I feared
That might upset my mind,
I knew my temper was short and so
I feared what might be done,
Out there, and under a hasty moon
Might see me overcome.

The moon was skirting the ocean’s rim
The stars were riding high,
My only thought as she disappeared,
In a single word, was ‘Why?’
I wondered what the attraction was
That would take her away each night,
Would leave me sat alone in the gloom
Like a pensive troglodyte.

It had to come to an end, I knew
So I strode along the beach,
Followed the trail of footprints where
The tide had failed to reach,
Till sudden, there was the sweetest song
On the wind, I ever knew,
And there was Isobel, sitting rapt
While the notes came fast and few.

And on a rock set above the tide
Sat the singer of the song,
The perfect form of a sweet mermaid
With her tail, so curved and long,
But then she gave out a sudden cry
When she saw my shadow fall,
And slithered back off the rock, to swim
Below to the mermaids’ hall.

‘Why did you come,’ said Isobel,
‘Why did you have to pry,
She’ll never come to the shore again
To sing to the empty sky.’
I turned and ran from her angry gaze
But at least I now know why,
She sits at night in the moon’s half light
And I often hear her cry.

David Lewis Paget