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| WHEN the reaper’s task was ended, and the summer wearing late, | |
| Parson Avery sailed from Newbury, with his wife and children eight, | |
| Dropping down the river-harbor in the shallop “Watch and Wait.” | |
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| Pleasantly lay the clearings in the mellow summer-morn, | |
| With the newly planted orchards dropping their fruits first born, | 5 |
| And the home-roofs like brown islands amid a sea of corn. | |
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| Broad meadows reached out seaward the tided creeks between, | |
| And hills rolled wave-like inland, with oaks and walnuts green: | |
| A fairer home, a goodlier land, his eyes had never seen. | |
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| Yet away sailed Parson Avery, away where duty led, | 10 |
| And the voice of God seemed calling, to break the living bread | |
| To the souls of fishers starving on the rocks of Marblehead. | |
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| All day they sailed: at nightfall the pleasant land-breeze died, | |
| The blackening sky, at midnight, its starry lights denied, | |
| And far and low the thunder of tempest prophesied! | 15 |
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| Blotted out were all the coast-lines, gone were rock, and wood, and sand; | |
| Grimly anxious stood the skipper with the rudder in his hand, | |
| And questioned of the darkness what was sea and what was land. | |
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| And the preacher heard his dear ones, nestled round him, weeping sore: | |
| “Never heed, my little children! Christ is walking on before | 20 |
| To the pleasant land of heaven, where the sea shall be no more.” | |
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| All at once the great cloud parted, like a curtain drawn aside, | |
| To let down the torch of lightning on the terror far and wide; | |
| And the thunder and the whirlwind together smote the tide. | |
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| There was wailing in the shallop, woman’s wail and man’s despair, | 25 |
| A crash of breaking timbers on the rocks so sharp and bare, | |
| And, through it all, the murmur of Father Avery’s prayer. | |
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| From his struggle in the darkness with the wild waves and the blast, | |
| On a rock, where every billow broke above him as it passed, | |
| Alone, of all his household, the man of God was cast. | 30 |
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| There a comrade heard him praying, in the pause of wave and wind: | |
| “All my own have gone before me, and I linger just behind; | |
| Not for life I ask, but only for the rest Thy ransomed find! | |
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| “In this night of death I challenge the promise of Thy word!— | |
| Let me see the great salvation of which mine ears have heard!— | 35 |
| Let me pass from hence forgiven, through the grace of Christ, our Lord! | |
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| “In the baptism of these waters wash white my every sin, | |
| And let me follow up to Thee my household and my kin! | |
| Open the sea-gate of Thy heaven, and let me enter in!” | |
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| When the Christian sings his death-song, all the listening heavens draw near, | 40 |
| And the angels, leaning over the walls of crystal, hear | |
| How the notes so faint and broken swell to music in God’s ear. | |
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| The ear of God was open to His servant’s last request; | |
| As the strong wave swept him downward the sweet hymn upward pressed, | |
| And the soul of Father Avery went, singing, to its rest. | 45 |
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| There was wailing on the mainland, from the rocks of Marblehead; | |
| In the stricken church of Newbury the notes of prayer were read; | |
| And long, by board and hearthstone, the living mourned the dead. | |
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| And still the fishers outbound, or scudding from the squall, | |
| With grave and reverent faces, the ancient tale recall, | 50 |
| When they see the white waves breaking on the Rock of Avery’s Fall! | |
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