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(Excerpt)
WE floated in the idle breeze, | |
| With all our sails a-shiver; | |
| The shining tide came softly through, | |
| And filled Plum Island River. | |
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| The shining tide stole softly up | 5 |
| Across the wide green splendor, | |
| Creek swelling creek till all in one | |
| The marshes made surrender. | |
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| And clear the flood of silver swung | |
| Between the brimming edges, | 10 |
| And now the depths were dark, and now | |
| The boat slid o’er the sedges. | |
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| And here a yellow sand-spit foamed | |
| Amid the great sea meadows, | |
| And here the slumberous waters gloomed | 15 |
| Lucid in emerald shadows. | |
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| While, in their friendly multitude | |
| Encamped along our quarter, | |
| The host of hay-cocks seemed to float | |
| With doubles in the water. | 20 |
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| Around the sunny distance rose | |
| A blue and hazy highland, | |
| And winding down our winding way | |
| The sand-hills of Plum Island,— | |
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| The windy dunes that hid the sea | 25 |
| For many a dreary acre, | |
| And muffled all its thundering fall | |
| Along the wild South Breaker. | |
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| We crept by Oldtown’s marshy mouth, | |
| By reedy Rowley drifted, | 30 |
| But far away the Ipswich bar | |
| Its white caps tossed and shifted. | |
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| Sometimes we heard a bittern boom, | |
| Sometimes a piping plover, | |
| Sometimes there came the lonesome cry | 35 |
| Of white gulls flying over. | |
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| Sometimes, a sudden fount of light, | |
| A sturgeon splashed, and fleeting | |
| Behind the sheltering thatch we heard | |
| Oars in the rowlocks beating. | 40 |
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| But all the rest was silence, save | |
| The rippling in the rushes, | |
| The gentle gale that struck the sail | |
| In fitful swells and gushes. | |
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| Silence and summer and the sun, | 45 |
| Waking a wizard legion, | |
| Wove as we went their ancient spells | |
| In this enchanted region. | |
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| No spectral care could part the veil | |
| Of mist and sunbeams shredded, | 50 |
| That everywhere behind us closed | |
| The labyrinth we threaded. | |
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| Beneath our keel the great sky arched | |
| Its liquid light and azure; | |
| We swung between two heavens, ensphered, | 55 |
| Within their charmed embrasure. | |
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| Deep in that watery firmament, | |
| With flickering lustres splendid, | |
| Poised in his perfect flight, we saw | |
| The painted hawk suspended, | 60 |
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| And there, the while the boat-side leaned, | |
| With youth and laughter laden, | |
| We saw the red fin of the perch, | |
| We saw the swift manhaden. | |
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| Outside, the hollow sea might cry, | 65 |
| The wailing wind give warning; | |
| No whisper saddened us, shut in | |
| With sunshine and the morning. | |
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| Oh, far, far off the weary world | |
| With all its tumult waited, | 70 |
| Forever here with drooping sails | |
| Would we have hung belated! | |
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| Yet, when the flaw came ruffling down, | |
| And round us curled and sallied, | |
| We skimmed with bubbles on our track, | 75 |
| As glad as when we dallied. | |
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| Broadly the bare brown Hundreds rose, | |
| The herds their hollows keeping, | |
| And clouds of wings about her mast | |
| From Swallowbanks were sweeping. | 80 |
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| While evermore the Bluff before | |
| Grew greenly on our vision, | |
| Lifting beneath its waving boughs | |
| Its grassy slopes Elysian. | |
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| There, all day long, the summer sea | 85 |
| Creams murmuring up the shingle; | |
| There, all day long, the airs of earth | |
| With airs of heaven mingle. | |
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| Singing we went our happy way, | |
| Singing old songs, nor noted | 90 |
| Another voice that with us sang, | |
| As wing and wing we floated. | |
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| Till hushed, we listened, while the air | |
| With music still was beating, | |
| Voice answering tuneful voice, again | 95 |
| The words we sang repeating. | |
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| A flight of fluting echoes, sent | |
| With elfin carol o’er us,— | |
| More sweet than bird-song in the prime | |
| Rang out the sea-blown chorus. | 100 |
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| Behind those dunes the storms had heaped | |
| In all fantastic fashion, | |
| Who syllabled our songs in strains | |
| Remote from human passion? | |
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| What tones were those that caught our own, | 105 |
| Filtered through light and distance, | |
| And tossed them gayly to and fro | |
| With such a sweet insistence? | |
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| What shoal of sea-sprites, to the sun | |
| Along the margin flocking, | 110 |
| Dripping with salt dews from the deeps, | |
| Made this melodious mocking? | |
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| We laughed,—a hundred voices rose | |
| In airiest, fairiest laughter; | |
| We sang,—a hundred voices quired | 115 |
| And sang the whole song after. | |
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| One standing eager in the prow | |
| Blew out his bugle cheerly, | |
| And far and wide their horns replied | |
| More silverly and clearly. | 120 |
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| And falling down the falling tide, | |
| Slow and more slowly going, | |
| Flown far, flown far, flown faint and fine, | |
| We heard their horns still blowing. | |
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| Then, with the last delicious note | 125 |
| To other skies alluring, | |
| Down ran the sails; beneath the Bluff | |
| The boat lay at her mooring. * * * * * | |
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