THE LORD'S-DAY GALE
Short, short the watch, and calm the night;
The fiery northern streamers shine;
The eastern sky anon is gold,
And winds from piny forests old
Scatter the white mists off the brine.
The Province craft with ours at morn
Are mingled when the vapors shift;
All day, by breeze and current borne,
Across the bay the sailors drift;
With toll and seine its wealth they win,—
The dappled, silvery spoil come in
Fast as their hands can haul and lift.
New England! New England!
Thou lovest well thine ocean main!
It spreadeth its locks among thy rocks,
And long against thy heart hath lain;
Thy ships upon its bosom ride
And feel the heaving of its tide;
To thee its secret speech is plain.
Cape Breton and Edward Isle between,
In strait and gulf the schooners lay;
The sea was all at peace, I ween,
The night before that August day;
Was never a Gloucester skipper there,
But thought erelong, with a right good fare,
To sail for home from Saint Lawrence Bay.
New England! New England!
Thy giant's love was turned to hate!
The winds control his fickle soul,
And in his wrath he hath no mate.
Thy shores his angry scourges tear,
And for thy children in his care
The sudden tempests lie in wait.
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