Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, LOW TIDE ON GRAND-PRE, by BLISS CARMAN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

LOW TIDE ON GRAND-PRE, by             Poem Explanation         Poet's Biography
First Line: The sun goes down, and over all
Last Line: In grief the flood is bursting home.
Subject(s): Grand Pre, Nova Scotia; Tides


The sun goes down, and over all
These barren reaches by the tide
Such unelusive glories fall,
I almost dream they yet will bide
Until the coming of the tide.

And yet I know that not for us,
By any ecstasy of dream,
He lingers to keep luminous
A little while the grievous stream,
Which frets, uncomforted of dream --

A grievous stream, that to and fro
Athrough the fields of Acadie
Goes wandering, as if to know
Why one beloved face should be
So long from home and Acadie.

Was it a year or lives ago
We took the grasses in our hands,
And caught the summer flying low
Over the waving meadow lands,
And held it there between our hands?

And while the river at our feet --
A drowsy inland meadow stream --
At set of sun the after-heat
Made running-gold, and in the gleam
We freed our birch upon the stream.

There down along the elms at dusk
We lifted dripping blade to drift,
Through twilight scented fine like musk,
Where night and gloom awhile uplift,
Nor sunder soul and soul adrift.

And that we took into our hands
Spirit of life or subtler thing --
Breathed on us there, and loosed the bands
Of death, and taught us, whispering,
The secret of some wonder-thing.

Then all your face grew light, and seemed
To hold the shadow of the sun;
The evening faltered, and I deemed
That time was ripe, and years had done
Their wheeling underneath the sun.

So all desire and all regret
And fear and memory, were naught;
One to remember or forget
The keen delight our hands had caught;
Morrow and yesterday were nought.

The night has fallen, and the tide . . .
Now and again comes drifting home,
Across the aching barrens wide,
A sigh like driven wind or foam:
In grief the flood is bursting home.





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