THE TIDE ON TANTRAMAR
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.
II
A little garden gay with phlox,
Blue corn-flowers, yellow hollyhocks,
Red poppies, pink and purple stocks,
Looks over Tantramar.
Pale yellow drops the road before
The hospitable cottage-door,—
A yellow, upland road, and o’er
The green marsh seeks the low red shore
And winding dykes afar.
Beyond the marsh, and miles away,
The great tides of the tumbling bay
Swing glittering in the golden day,
Swing foaming to and fro;
And nearer, in a nest of green,
A little turbid port is seen,
Where pitch-black fishing-boats careen,
Left when the tide runs low.