Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/161

Rh ::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 the 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,