III
To-night the wind roars in from sea;
The crow clings in the straining tree;
Curlew and crane and bittern flee
The dykes of Tantramar.
To-night athwart an inky sky
A narrowing sun dropped angrily,
Scoring the gloom with dreadful dye,
A bitter and flaming scar.
But ere night falls, across the tide
A close-reefed barque has been descried,
And word goes round the country-side—
‘The “Belle” is in the bay!’
And ere the loud night closes down
Upon that light’s terrific frown,
Along the dyke, with blowing gown,
She takes her eager way.
Just where his boat will haste to land,
On the open wharf she takes her stand.
Her pale hair blows from out its band.
She does not heed the storm.
Her blinding joy of heart they know
Who so have fared, and waited so.
She heeds not what the winds that blow;
She does not feel the storm.
But fiercer roars the gale. The night
With cloud grows black, with foam gleams white
The creek boils to its utmost height.
The port is seething full.
The gale shouts in the outer waves
Amid a world of gaping graves;
Against the dyke each great surge raves,
Blind battering like a bull.
The dyke! The dyke! The brute sea shakes
The sheltering wall. It breaks,—it breaks!
The sharp salt whips her face, and wakes
The dreamer from her dream.
The great flood lifts. It thunders in.
The broad marsh foams, and sinks. The din
Of waves is where her world has been;—
Is this—is this the dream?
—— One moment in that surging hell
The old wharf shook, then cringed and fell.
—— Then came a lonely hulk, the ‘Belle,’
And drove athwart the waste.
. . . . . . . . . .
They know no light, nor any star,
Those ruined plains of Tantramar.
And where the maid and lover are
They know nor fear nor haste.