The Tent on the Beach | Page 4

rain
"They are lost," she muttered,
"boat and crew!
Lord, forgive me! my words were true!"
Suddenly seaward swept the squall;
The low sun smote through
cloudy rack;
The Shoals stood clear in the light, and all
The trend of
the coast lay hard and black.
But far and wide as eye could reach,

No life was seen upon wave or beach;
The boat that went out at
morning never
Sailed back again into Hampton River.
O mower, lean on thy bended snath,
Look from the meadows green
and low
The wind of the sea is a waft of death,
The waves are
singing a song of woe!
By silent river, by moaning sea,
Long and
vain shall thy watching be
Never again shall the sweet voice call,

Never the white hand rise and fall!
O Rivermouth Rocks, how sad a sight
Ye saw in the light of breaking
day
Dead faces looking up cold and white
From sand and seaweed
where they lay.
The mad old witch-wife wailed and wept,
And
cursed the tide as it backward crept
"Crawl back, crawl back, blue
water-snake
Leave your dead for the hearts that break!"
Solemn it was in that old day
In Hampton town and its log-built
church,
Where side by side the coffins lay
And the mourners stood
in aisle and porch.
In the singing-seats young eyes were dim,
The
voices faltered that raised the hymn,
And Father Dalton, grave and
stern,
Sobbed through his prayer and wept in turn.
But his ancient colleague did not pray;
Under the weight of his
fourscore years
He stood apart with the iron-gray

Of his strong

brows knitted to hide his tears;
And a fair-faced woman of doubtful
fame,
Linking her own with his honored name,
Subtle as sin, at his
side withstood
The felt reproach of her neighborhood.
Apart with them, like them forbid,
Old Goody Cole looked drearily
round,
As, two by two, with their faces hid,
The mourners walked
to the burying-ground.
She let the staff from her clasped hands fall

"Lord, forgive us! we're sinners all!"
And the voice of the old man
answered her
"Amen!" said Father Bachiler.
So, as I sat upon Appledore
In the calm of a closing summer day,

And the broken lines of Hampton shore
In purple mist of cloudland
lay,
The Rivermouth Rocks their story told;
And waves aglow with
sunset gold,
Rising and breaking in steady chime,
Beat the rhythm
and kept the time.
And the sunset paled, and warmed once more
With a softer, tenderer
after-glow;
In the east was moon-rise, with boats off-shore
And
sails in the distance drifting slow.
The beacon glimmered from
Portsmouth bar,
The White Isle kindled its great red star;
And life
and death in my old-time lay
Mingled in peace like the night and day!
. . . . .
"Well!" said the Man of Books, "your story
Is really not ill told in
verse.
As the Celt said of purgatory,
One might go farther and fare
worse."
The Reader smiled; and once again
With steadier voice
took up his strain,
While the fair singer from the neighboring tent

Drew near, and at his side a graceful listener bent.
1864.
THE GRAVE BY THE LAKE
At the mouth of the Melvin River, which empties into Moulton-Bay in
Lake Winnipesaukee, is a great mound. The Ossipee Indians had their
home in the neighborhood of the bay, which is plentifully stocked with

fish, and many relics of their occupation have been found.
Where the Great Lake's sunny smiles
Dimple round its hundred isles,

And the mountain's granite ledge
Cleaves the water like a wedge,

Ringed about with smooth, gray stones,
Rest the giant's mighty
bones.
Close beside, in shade and gleam,
Laughs and ripples Melvin stream;

Melvin water, mountain-born,
All fair flowers its banks adorn;

All the woodland's voices meet,
Mingling with its murmurs sweet.
Over lowlands forest-grown,
Over waters island-strown,
Over
silver-sanded beach,
Leaf-locked bay and misty reach,
Melvin
stream and burial-heap,
Watch and ward the mountains keep.
Who that Titan cromlech fills?
Forest-kaiser, lord o' the hills?

Knight who on the birchen tree
Carved his savage heraldry?
Priest
o' the pine-wood temples dim,
Prophet, sage, or wizard grim?
Rugged type of primal man,
Grim utilitarian,
Loving woods for
hunt and prowl,
Lake and hill for fish and fowl,
As the brown bear
blind and dull
To the grand and beautiful:
Not for him the lesson drawn
From the mountains smit with dawn,

Star-rise, moon-rise, flowers of May,
Sunset's purple bloom of day,--

Took his life no hue from thence,
Poor amid such affluence?
Haply unto hill and tree
All too near akin was he
Unto him who
stands afar
Nature's marvels greatest are;
Who the mountain purple
seeks
Must not climb the higher peaks.
Yet who knows in winter tramp,
Or the midnight of the camp,
What
revealings faint and far,
Stealing down from moon and star,

Kindled in that human clod
Thought of destiny and God?

Stateliest forest patriarch,
Grand in robes of skin and bark,
What
sepulchral mysteries,
What weird funeral-rites, were his?
What
sharp wail, what drear lament,
Back scared wolf and eagle sent?
Now, whate'er he may have been,
Low he lies as other men;
On his
mound the partridge drums,
There the noisy blue-jay comes;
Rank
nor name nor pomp has he
In the grave's democracy.
Part thy blue lips, Northern lake!
Moss-grown rocks, your silence
break!
Tell the tale, thou ancient tree!
Thou, too, slide-worn
Ossipee!
Speak, and tell us how and