Sand Drift

I thought I should not walk these dunes again,
Nor feel the sting of this wind-bitten sand,
Where the coarse grasses always blow one way,
Bent, as my thoughts are, by an unseen hand.

I have returned; where the last wave rushed up
The wet sand is a mirror for the sky
A bright blue instant, and along its sheen
The nimble sandpipers run twinkling by.

Nothing has changed; with the same hollow thunder
The waves die in their everlasting snow--
Only the place we sat is drifted over,
Lost in the blowing sand, long, long ago.