Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/150

POEMS OF NEW ENGLAND Along the wharves of Gloucester Town

Their fares are lightly handed down,

And the laden flakes to landward lean.

Well know the men each cruising-ground,

And where the cod and mackerel be;

Old Eastern Point the schooners round

And leave Cape Ann on the larboard lee:

Sound are the planks, the hearts are bold,

That brave December's surges cold

On Georges' shoals in the outer sea.

And some must sail to the banks far north

And set their trawls for the hungry cod,—

In the ghostly fog grope back and forth

By shrouded paths no foot hath trod;

Upon the crews the ice-winds blow,

The bitter sleet, the frozen snow,—

Their lives are in the hand of God!

New England! New England!

Needs sail they must, so brave and poor,

Or June be warm or Winter storm,

Lest a wolf gnaw through the cottage-door!

Three weeks at home, three long months gone,

While the patient goodwives sleep alone,

And wake to hear the breakers roar.

The Grand Bank gathers in its dead,—

The deep sea-sand is their winding-sheet;

Who does not Georges' billows dread

That dash together the drifting fleet?

Who does not long to hear, in May,

The pleasant wash of Saint Lawrence Bay,

The fairest ground where fishermen meet?

There the west wave holds the red sunlight

Till the bells at home are rung for nine: 120