The little mermaid swam beside me,
In the cold bright tossing sea.
The little mermaid lay beside me,
On the beach at Camolie.
No fins and scales had she.
Altho she seemed a shoreside daughter,
She was a water child,
Born of the spray and foam of ocean,
And like the ocean calm and mild,
And like the ocean, wild.
Camolie in Italy,
Where the sailboats pass and stay,
Where a little mermaid lay
On the beach one summer day.
It was a sunkist briny summer,
It was a southern shore,
And still the sea and sands are golden,
And still the wind comes as before.
The little mermaid's there no more.
Perhaps on some far coast I'll find her,
The spin-drift child of Camolie,
Upon the crest of some great comber
She'll reach her shining arms to me,
Or from some cave beneath the sea.