Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/391

Rh And the scattered pines are waving
 * Their farewell from the land.

One glance, my lads, behind us,
 * For the homes we leave one sigh,

Ere we take the change and chances
 * Of the ocean and the sky.

Now, brothers, for the icebergs
 * Of frozen Labrador,

Floating spectral in the moonshine,
 * Along the low, black shore!

Where like snow the gannet’s feathers
 * On Brador’s rocks are shed,

And the noisy murr are flying,
 * Like black scuds, overhead;

Where in mist the rock is hiding,
 * And the sharp reef lurks below,

And the white squall smites in summer,
 * And the autumn tempests blow;

Where, through gray and rolling vapor,
 * From evening unto morn,

A thousand boats are hailing,
 * Horn answering unto horn.

Hurrah! for the Red Island,
 * With the white cross on its crown!

Hurrah! for Meccatina,
 * And its mountains bare and brown!

Where the Caribou’s tall antlers
 * O’er the dwarf-wood freely toss,

And the footstep of the Mickmack
 * Has no sound upon the moss.

There we ’ll drop our lines, and gather
 * Old Ocean’s treasures in,

Where’er the mottled mackerel
 * Turns up a steel-dark fin.

The sea ’s our field of harvest,
 * Its scaly tribes our grain;

We ’ll reap the teeming waters
 * As at home they reap the plain!

Our wet hands spread the carpet,
 * And light the hearth of home;

From our fish, as in the old time,
 * The silver coin shall come.

As the demon fled the chamber
 * Where the fish of Tobit lay,

So ours from all our dwellings
 * Shall frighten Want away.

Though the mist upon our jackets
 * In the bitter air congeals,

And our lines wind stiff and slowly
 * From off the frozen reels;

Though the fog be dark around us,
 * And the storm blow high and loud,

We will whistle down the wild wind,
 * And laugh beneath the cloud!

In the darkness as in daylight,
 * On the water as on land,

God’s eye is looking on us,
 * And beneath us is His hand!

Death will find us soon or later,
 * On the deck or in the cot;

And we cannot meet him better
 * Than in working out our lot.

Hurrah! hurrah! the west-wind
 * Comes freshening down the bay,

The rising sails are filling;
 * Give way, my lads, give way!

Leave the coward landsman clinging
 * To the dull earth, like a weed;

The stars of heaven shall guide us,
 * The breath of heaven shall speed!

round our woodland quarters
 * Sad-voiced Autumn grieves;

Thickly down these swelling waters
 * Float his fallen leaves.

Through the tall and naked timber,
 * Column-like and old,

Gleam the sunsets of November,
 * From their skies of gold.

O’er us, to the southland heading,
 * Screams the gray wild-goose;

On the night-frost sounds the treading
 * Of the brindled moose.

Noiseless creeping, while we ’re sleeping,
 * Frost his task-work plies;

Soon, his icy bridges heaping,
 * Shall our log-piles rise.

When, with sounds of smothered thunder,
 * On some night of rain,

Lake and river break asunder
 * Winter’s weakened chain,

Down the wild March flood shall bear them
 * To the saw-mill’s wheel,

Or where Steam, the slave, shall tear them
 * With his teeth of steel.