 | Songs of Doubt and Dream (Poems) |  |
269
KATE ROMNEY.
(Coast of New England.)
The white waves broke on the dusky rocks as the tide swept up from the harbor-bar,
And journeying gulls went by in flocks, with a scream to the vesper star.
And journeying gulls went by in flocks, with a scream to the vesper star.
Across the meadows Kate Romney came, and saw while the air turned chill and gray,
The lights in her mother's cottage flame, far off by the windy bay.
The lights in her mother's cottage flame, far off by the windy bay.
The dreary tones of the tide had borne a meaning sweet to her maiden ear.
“You shall wed,” they sang, “by to-morrow morn with the lover you hold so dear!”
“You shall wed,” they sang, “by to-morrow morn with the lover you hold so dear!”
On a sudden, then, as she glided past, a hand in the dimness caught her own.
Like an iron gyve it held her fast, by the breaker's deepening moan.
Like an iron gyve it held her fast, by the breaker's deepening moan.
“Is it you, Mark—you?” faint-voiced she said, cowed low at the pitiless look he wore.
“Does the sea in truth give up her dead? Do their wan ghosts haunt its shore?
“Does the sea in truth give up her dead? Do their wan ghosts haunt its shore?
270
Are you ghost or man? ... For he did not speak, while the tides crawled near, to gird them round.
As pale as the pale waves grew her cheek, but the strong hand firmly bound.
As pale as the pale waves grew her cheek, but the strong hand firmly bound.
She read her doom in his stubborn eye; she thought of lover, of kin, of home..
They stood in the loudening surge breast-high, encompassed with ghostly foam.
They stood in the loudening surge breast-high, encompassed with ghostly foam.
“O pity the fault of a broken vow! Your ship came not, and I thought you dead!”..
Then he spoke, and the noisy waters, now, reached up for the words he said.
Then he spoke, and the noisy waters, now, reached up for the words he said.
“At last I have come, and all is well! They shall part us no more, these winds and waves,
Till God has sounded His judgment-knell, and the great sea bares her graves!”
Till God has sounded His judgment-knell, and the great sea bares her graves!”
| Songs of Doubt and Dream (Poems) | |