LOW
TIDE ON GRAND PRÉ
|
|
THE
sun goes down, and over all
These barren reaches
by the tide
Such unelusive glories fall,
I almost dream they
yet will bide
Until the coming of
the tide. |
5 |
And yet I know that not for us,
By any ecstasy of
dream,
He lingers to keep luminous
A little while the
grievous stream,
Which frets, uncomforted
of dream— |
10 |
A grievous stream, that to and fro
Athrough the fields
of Acadie
Goes wandering, as if to know
Why one beloved face
should be
So long from home
and Acadie. |
15 |
Was it a year or lives ago
We took the grasses
in our hands,
And caught the summer flying low
Over the waving meadow
lands,
And held it there
between our hands? |
20 |
The while the river at our feet—
A drowsy inland meadow
stream—
At set of sun the after-heat
Made running gold,
and in the gleam
We freed our birch
upon the stream. |
25 |
There down along the elms at dusk
We lifted dripping
blade to drift,
Through twilight scented fine like musk,
Where night and gloom
awhile uplift,
Nor sunder soul and
soul adrift. |
30 |
And that we took into our hands
Spirit of life or
subtler thing—
Breathed on us there, and loosed the bands
Of death, and taught
us, whispering,
The secret of some
wonder-thing. |
35 |
Then all your face grew light, and seemed
To hold the shadow
of the sun;
The evening faltered, and I deemed
That time was ripe,
and years had done
Their wheeling underneath
the sun. |
40 |
So all desire and all regret,
And fear and memory,
were naught;
One to remember or forget
The keen delight our
hands had caught;
Morrow and yesterday
were naught. |
45 |
The night has fallen, and the tide…
Now and again comes
drifting home,
Across these aching barrens wide,
A sigh like driven
wind or foam:
In grief the flood
is bursting home. |
50 |
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