Narrative Poems, part 7, Bay of Seven Islands | Page 2

Through the Northern Gulf and the misty screen
Of the isles of
Mingan and Madeleine,
St. Paul's and Blanc Sablon,
The little
Breeze sailed on,
Backward and forward, along the shore
Of lorn and desolate
Labrador,
And found at last her way
To the Seven Islands Bay.
The little hamlet, nestling below
Great hills white with lingering
snow,
With its tin-roofed chapel stood
Half hid in the dwarf spruce
wood;
Green-turfed, flower-sown, the last outpost
Of summer upon the
dreary coast,
With its gardens small and spare,
Sad in the frosty air.
Hard by where the skipper's schooner lay,
A fisherman's cottage
looked away
Over isle and bay, and. behind
On mountains
dim-defined.
And there twin sisters, fair and young,
Laughed with their stranger
guest, and sung
In their native tongue the lays
Of the old Provencal
days.
Alike were they, save the faint outline
Of a scar on Suzette's forehead
fine;
And both, it so befell,
Loved the heretic stranger well.
Both were pleasant to look upon,
But the heart of the skipper clave to
one;
Though less by his eye than heart
He knew the twain apart.
Despite of alien race and creed,
Well did his wooing of Marguerite
speed;
And the mother's wrath was vain
As the sister's jealous pain.

The shrill-tongued mistress her house forbade,
And solemn warning
was sternly said
By the black-robed priest, whose word
As law the
hamlet heard.
But half by voice and half by signs
The skipper said, "A warm sun
shines
On the green-banked Merrimac;
Wait, watch, till I come
back.
"And when you see, from my mast head,
The signal fly of a kerchief
red,
My boat on the shore shall wait;
Come, when the night is late."
Ah! weighed with childhood's haunts and friends,
And all that the
home sky overbends,
Did ever young love fail
To turn the
trembling scale?
Under the night, on the wet sea sands,
Slowly unclasped their
plighted hands
One to the cottage hearth,
And one to his sailor's
berth.
What was it the parting lovers heard?
Nor leaf, nor ripple, nor wing
of bird,
But a listener's stealthy tread
On the rock-moss, crisp and
dead.
He weighed his anchor, and fished once more
By the black coast-line
of Labrador;
And by love and the north wind driven,
Sailed back to
the Islands Seven.
In the sunset's glow the sisters twain
Saw the Breeze come sailing in
again;
Said Suzette, "Mother dear,
The heretic's sail is here."
"Go, Marguerite, to your room, and hide;
Your door shall be bolted!"
the mother cried:
While Suzette, ill at ease,
Watched the red sign of
the Breeze.
At midnight, down to the waiting skiff
She stole in the shadow of the
cliff;
And out of the Bay's mouth ran
The schooner with maid and

man.
And all night long, on a restless bed,
Her prayers to the Virgin
Marguerite said
And thought of her lover's pain
Waiting for her in
vain.
Did he pace the sands? Did he pause to hear
The sound of her light
step drawing near?
And, as the slow hours passed,
Would he doubt
her faith at last?
But when she saw through the misty pane,
The morning break on a
sea of rain,
Could even her love avail
To follow his vanished sail?
Meantime the Breeze, with favoring wind,
Left the rugged Moisic
hills behind,
And heard from an unseen shore
The falls of Manitou
roar.
On the morrow's morn, in the thick, gray weather
They sat on the
reeling deck together,
Lover and counterfeit,
Of hapless Marguerite.
With a lover's hand, from her forehead fair
He smoothed away her
jet-black hair.
What was it his fond eyes met?
The scar of the false
Suzette!
Fiercely he shouted: "Bear away
East by north for Seven Isles Bay!"

The maiden wept and prayed,
But the ship her helm obeyed.
Once more the Bay of the Isles they found
They heard the bell of the
chapel sound,
And the chant of the dying sung
In the harsh, wild
Indian tongue.
A feeling of mystery, change, and awe
Was in all they heard and all
they saw
Spell-bound the hamlet lay
In the hush of its lonely bay.
And when they came to the cottage door,
The mother rose up from
her weeping sore,
And with angry gestures met
The scared look of

Suzette.
"Here is your daughter," the skipper said;
"Give me the one I love
instead."
But the woman sternly spake;
"Go, see if the dead will
wake!"
He looked. Her sweet face still and white
And strange in the noonday
taper light,
She lay on her little bed,
With the cross at her feet and
head.
In a passion of grief the strong man bent
Down to her face, and,
kissing it, went
Back to the waiting Breeze,
Back to the mournful
seas.
Never again to the Merrimac
And Newbury's homes that bark came
back.
Whether her fate she met
On the shores of Carraquette,
Miscou, or Tracadie, who can say?
But even yet at Seven Isles Bay

Is told the ghostly tale
Of a weird, unspoken sail,
In the pale, sad light of the Northern day
Seen by the blanketed
Montagnais,
Or squaw, in her small kyack,
Crossing the spectre's
track.
On the deck a maiden wrings her hands;
Her likeness kneels on the
gray coast sands;
One in her wild despair,
And one in the trance of
prayer.
She flits