| |
| 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 on 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 hearts 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 |
| |
