Low Tide on Grand Pré
by Bliss Carman (1861-1929)

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?

The 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 secrets 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 naught.

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

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