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| RIVERMOUTH Rocks are fair to see, | |
| By dawn or sunset shone across, | |
| When the ebb of the sea has left them free, | |
| To dry their fringes of gold-green moss: | |
| For there the river comes winding down | 5 |
| From salt sea-meadows and uplands brown, | |
| And waves on the outer rocks afoam | |
| Shout to its waters, “Welcome home!” | |
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| And fair are the sunny isles in view | |
| East of the grisly Head of the Boar, | 10 |
| And Agamenticus lifts its blue | |
| Disk of a cloud the woodlands o’er; | |
| And southerly, when the tide is down, | |
| ’Twixt white sea-waves and sand-hills brown, | |
| The beach-birds dance and the gray gulls wheel | 15 |
| Over a floor of burnished steel. | |
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| Once, in the old Colonial days, | |
| Two hundred years ago and more, | |
| A boat sailed down through the winding ways | |
| Of Hampton River to that low shore, | 20 |
| Full of a goodly company | |
| Sailing out on the summer sea, | |
| Veering to catch the land-breeze light, | |
| With the Boar to left and the Rocks to right. | |
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| In Hampton meadows, where mowers laid | 25 |
| Their scythes to the swaths of salted grass, | |
| “Ah, well-a-day! our hay must be made!” | |
| A young man sighed, who saw them pass. | |
| Loud laughed his fellows to see him stand | |
| Whetting his scythe with a listless hand, | 30 |
| Hearing a voice in a far-off song, | |
| Watching a white hand beckoning long. | |
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| “Fie on the witch!” cried a merry girl, | |
| As they rounded the point where Goody Cole | |
| Sat by her door with her wheel atwirl, | 35 |
| A bent and blear-eyed poor old soul. | |
| “Oho!” she muttered, “ye ’re brave to-day! | |
| But I hear the little waves laugh and say, | |
| ‘The broth will be cold that waits at home; | |
| For it ’s one to go, but another to come!’” | 40 |
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| “She ’s cursed,” said the skipper; “speak her fair: | |
| I ’m scary always to see her shake | |
| Her wicked head, with its wild gray hair, | |
| And nose like a hawk, and eyes like a snake.” | |
| But merrily still, with laugh and shout, | 45 |
| From Hampton River the boat sailed out, | |
| Till the huts and the flakes on Star seemed nigh, | |
| And they lost the scent of the pines of Rye. | |
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| They dropped their lines in the lazy tide, | |
| Drawing up haddock and mottled cod; | 50 |
| They saw not the Shadow that walked beside, | |
| They heard not the feet with silence shod. | |
| But thicker and thicker a hot mist grew, | |
| Shot by the lightnings through and through; | |
| And muffled growls, like the growl of a beast, | 55 |
| Ran along the sky from west to east. | |
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| Then the skipper looked from the darkening sea | |
| Up to the dimmed and wading sun; | |
| But he spake like a brave man cheerily, | |
| “Yet there is time for our homeward run.” | 60 |
| Veering and tacking, they backward wore; | |
| And just as a breath from the woods ashore | |
| Blew out to whisper of danger past, | |
| The wrath of the storm came down at last! | |
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| The skipper hauled at the heavy sail: | 65 |
| “God be our help!” he only cried, | |
| As the roaring gale, like the stroke of a flail, | |
| Smote the boat on its starboard side. | |
| The Shoalsmen looked, but saw alone | |
| Dark films of rain-cloud slantwise blown, | 70 |
| Wild rocks lit up by the lightning’s glare, | |
| The strife and torment of sea and air. | |
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| Goody Cole looked out from her door: | |
| The Isles of Shoals were drowned and gone, | |
| Scarcely she saw the Head of the Boar | 75 |
| Toss the foam from tusks of stone. | |
| She clasped her hands with a grip of pain, | |
| The tear on her cheek was not of rain: | |
| “They are lost,” she muttered, “boat and crew! | |
| Lord, forgive me! my words were true!” | 80 |
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| Suddenly seaward swept the squall; | |
| The low sun smote through cloudy rack; | |
| The Shoals stood clear in the light, and all | |
| The trend of the coast lay hard and black. | |
| But far and wide as eye could reach, | 85 |
| No life was seen upon wave or beach; | |
| The boat that went out at morning never | |
| Sailed back again into Hampton River. | |
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| O mower, lean on thy bended snath, | |
| Look from the meadows green and low: | 90 |
| The wind of the sea is a waft of death, | |
| The waves are singing a song of woe! | |
| By silent river, by moaning sea, | |
| Long and vain shall thy watching be: | |
| Never again shall the sweet voice call, | 95 |
| Never the white hand rise and fall! | |
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| O Rivermouth Rocks, how sad a sight | |
| Ye saw in the light of breaking day! | |
| Dead faces looking up cold and white | |
| From sand and seaweed where they lay. | 100 |
| The mad old witch-wife wailed and wept, | |
| And cursed the tide as it backward crept: | |
| “Crawl back, crawl back, blue water-snake! | |
| Leave your dead for the hearts that break!” | |
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| Solemn it was in that old day | 105 |
| In Hampton town and its log-built church, | |
| Where side by side the coffins lay | |
| And the mourners stood in aisle and porch. | |
| In the singing-seats young eyes were dim, | |
| The voices faltered that raised the hymn | 110 |
| And Father Dalton, grave and stern, | |
| Sobbed through his prayer and wept in turn. | |
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| But his ancient colleague did not pray, | |
| Because of his sin at fourscore years: | |
| He stood apart, with the iron-gray | 115 |
| Of his strong brows knitted to hide his tears. | |
| And a wretched woman, holding her breath | |
| In the awful presence of sin and death, | |
| Cowered and shrank, while her neighbors thronged | |
| To look on the dead her shame had wronged. | 120 |
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| Apart with them, like them forbid, | |
| Old Goody Cole looked drearily round, | |
| As, two by two, with their faces hid, | |
| The mourners walked to the burying-ground. | |
| She let the staff from her clasped hands fall: | 125 |
| “Lord, forgive us! we ’re sinners all!” | |
| And the voice of the old man answered her: | |
| “Amen!” said Father Bachiler. | |
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| So, as I sat upon Appledore | |
| In the calm of a closing summer day, | 130 |
| And the broken lines of Hampton shore | |
| In purple mist of cloudland lay, | |
| The Rivermouth Rocks their story told; | |
| And waves aglow with sunset gold, | |
| Rising and breaking in steady chime, | 135 |
| Beat the rhythm and kept the time. | |
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| And the sunset paled, and warmed once more | |
| With a softer, tenderer after-glow; | |
| In the east was moonrise, with boats off-shore | |
| And sails in the distance drifting slow. | 140 |
| The beacon glimmered from Portsmouth bar, | |
| The White Isle kindled its great red star; | |
| And life and death in my old-time lay | |
| Mingled in peace like the night and day! * * * * * | |
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