I
Tantramar! Tantramar!
I see thy cool green plains afar.
Thy dykes where grey sea-grasses are,
Mine eyes behold them yet.
But not the gladness breathed of old
Thy bordering, blue hill-hollows hold;
Thy wind-blown leagues of green unrolled,
Thy flats the red floods fret,
Thy steady-streaming winds—no more
These work the rapture wrought of yore,
When all thy wide bright strength outbore
My soul from fleshly bar.
A darkness as of drifted rain
Is over tide, and dyke, and plain.
The shadow-pall of human pain
Is fallen on Tantramar.