High in their towers the beacons burned, like wintry embers red,
From Ipswich, down the rough sea-line, to crag-girt Marblehead.
'I love you, Nan!' Joe said, at last, in his grave, simple way—
I'd felt the words a-coming, child, for many a long, glad day.
I hung my head, he kissed me—oh, sweetest hour of life!
A stammering word, a sigh, and I was Joe's own promised wife.
"But fishing-folks have much to do; my lover could not stay—
The gallant Gloucester fleet was bound to waters far away,
Where wild storms swoop, and shattering fogs muster their dim, gray ranks,
And spread a winding-sheet for men upon the fatal Banks.