Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79.
Beverly Shore in Winter
By Thomas Gold Appleton (1812–1884)T
In lazy flight,
Where star-shine lies
O’er moorlands white,
And shakes new fear from ghostly night.
By many a stream,
The sailing skiff
Sails like a dream,
And prayers go up beneath the gleam.
On shingle cold,
And foam-beads lave
The forests old,
And break and die on their dark mould.
So still and bright,
The stork alone,
As an anchorite,
Tells to himself his dreary rite.
O’er the frozen sky;
To a spirit tune
Their lullaby
The oaks around chant dismally.
Moves on the moor;
No soul that can
Opes now the door,
But silent fear haunts the wild shore.
On the cloudy rack,
The dark turns pale
In their blasting track,
Where they touch the frost is sooty black.
Shivers in fear,
Thistle-downs spin
From the thistle sere,
And shadows race o’er the levels drear.
Each sea-shell worn.
The ridged sand-lines
By surges torn
Seem faery ramparts left and lorn.
From the sea on high,
Past the forest tops
To the lower sky,
Like a tear from a suffering angel’s eye.
Split and descend;
On the freezing shore
The frost kings rend
Their sheeny jewelry evermore.