Volume I Part 10 (1/2)

IV

Often in summer twilights, too, he would sit on a coil of rope, As the stars came out in their twinkling crowds to play with wonder and hope, While he watched the side of her clear-cut face as she sat on the jetty and fished, And even to help her coil her line was more than he hoped or wished.

V

But once or twice o'er the dark green tide he saw with a solemn delight, Hooked and splas.h.i.+ng after her line, a flash and a streak of white; As hand over hand she hauled it up, a great black conger eel, For Dan Trevennick to kill as it squirmed with its head beneath his heel.

VI

And at last, with a crash and a sunset cry from the low soft evening star, A shadowy schooner suddenly loomed o'er the dark green oily bar; With fairy-like spars and misty masts in the golden dusk of gloaming, Where the last white seamew's wide-spread wings were wistfully westward roaming;

VII

Then the song of the foreign seamen rose in the magical evening air, Faint and far away, as it seemed, but they knew it was, ah, so near; Far away as her heart from Dan's as he sheepishly drew to her side, And near as her heart when he kissed the lips of his newly promised bride.

VIII

And when they were riding away in the train on the night of their honeymoon, What a whisper tingled against her cheek as it blushed like a rose in June; For she said, ”I am tired and ready for bed,” and Dan said, ”So am I;”

And she murmured, ”Are you tired, too, poor Dan?” and he answered her, ”No, dear, why?”

IX

It was never a problem-play, at least, and the end of it all is this; They were drowned in the bliss of their ignorance and buried the rest in a kiss; And they loved one another their whole life long, as lovers will often do; For it never was only the fairy-tales that rang so royally true.

X

_The rose in her cheek was painted red by the brisk Atlantic breeze; Her eyes were blue, and her jersey was blue as the lapping, slapping seas; Her head was bare, and her thick black hair was coiled behind a throat Chiselled as hard and bright and bold as the bow of a sailing boat._

XI

_Eighteen hundred and forty-three, Dan Trevennick was lost at sea; And, buried here at her husband's side Lies the body of Joan, his bride, Who, a little while after she lost him, died._

A SONG OF TWO BURDENS

The round brown sails were reefed and struggling home Over the glitter and gloom of the angry deep: Dark in the cottage she sang, ”Soon, soon, he will come, Dreamikin, Drowsy-head, sleep, my little one, sleep.”

Over the glitter and gloom of the angry deep Was it only a dream or a shadow that vanished away?

”Lullaby, little one, sleep, my little one, sleep.”

She sang in a dream as the shadows covered the day.

Was it only a sail or a shadow that vanished away?