Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/152

POEMS OF NEW ENGLAND The East Wind gathered all unknown,—

A thick sea-cloud his course before;

He left by night the frozen zone

And smote the cliffs of Labrador;

He lashed the coasts on either hand,

And betwixt the Cape and Newfoundland

Into the Bay his armies pour.

He caught our helpless cruisers there

As a gray wolf harries the huddling fold;

A sleet—a darkness—filled the air,

A shuddering wave before it rolled:

That Lord's-day morn it was a breeze,—

At noon, a blast that shook the seas,—

At night,—a wind of Death took hold!

It leapt across the Breton bar,

A death-wind from the stormy East!

It scarred the land, and whirled afar

The sheltering thatch of man and beast;

It mingled rick and roof and tree,

And like a besom swept the sea,

And churned the waters into yeast.

From Saint Paul's light to Edward Isle

A thousand craft it smote amain;

And some against it strove the while,

And more to make a port were fain:

The mackerel-gulls flew screaming past,

And the stick that bent to the noonday blast

Was split by the sundown hurricane.

Woe, woe to those whom the islands pen!

In vain they shun the double capes:

Cruel are the reefs of Magdalen;

The Wolf's white fang what prey escapes? 122