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| LEAGUES north, as fly the gull and auk, | |
| Point Judith watches with eye of hawk; | |
| Leagues south, thy beacon flames, Montauk! | |
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| Lonely and wind-shorn, wood-forsaken, | |
| With never a tree for Spring to waken, | 5 |
| For tryst of lovers or farewells taken, | |
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| Circled by waters that never freeze, | |
| Beaten by billow and swept by breeze, | |
| Lieth the island of Manisees, | |
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| Set at the mouth of the Sound to hold | 10 |
| The coast lights up on its turret old, | |
| Yellow with moss and sea-fog mould. | |
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| Dreary the land when gust and sleet | |
| At its doors and windows howl and beat, | |
| And Winter laughs at its fires of peat! | 15 |
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| But in summer time, when pool and pond, | |
| Held in the laps of valleys fond, | |
| Are blue as the glimpses of sea beyond; | |
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| When the hills are sweet with the brier-rose, | |
| And, hid in the warm, soft dells, unclose | 20 |
| Flowers the mainland rarely knows; | |
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| When boats to their morning fishing go, | |
| And, held to the wind and slanting low, | |
| Whitening and darkening the small sails show,— | |
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| Then is that lonely island fair; | 25 |
| And the pale health-seeker findeth there | |
| The wine of life in its pleasant air. | |
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| No greener valleys the sun invite, | |
| On smoother beaches no sea-birds light, | |
| No blue waves shatter to foam more white! | 30 |
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| There, circling ever their narrow range, | |
| Quaint tradition and legend strange | |
| Live on unchallenged, and know no change. | |
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| Old wives spinning their webs of tow, | |
| Or rocking weirdly to and fro | 35 |
| In and out of the peat’s dull glow, | |
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| And old men mending their nets of twine, | |
| Talk together of dream and sign, | |
| Talk of the lost ship Palatine,— | |
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| The ship that, a hundred years before, | 40 |
| Freighted deep with its goodly store, | |
| In the gales of the equinox went ashore. | |
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| The eager islanders one by one | |
| Counted the shots of her signal gun, | |
| And heard the crash when she drove right on! | 45 |
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| Into the teeth of death she sped: | |
| (May God forgive the hands that fed | |
| The false lights over the rocky Head!) | |
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| O men and brothers! what sights were there! | |
| White upturned faces, hands stretched in prayer! | 50 |
| Where waves had pity, could ye not spare? | |
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| Down swooped the wreckers, like birds of prey | |
| Tearing the heart of the ship away, | |
| And the dead had never a word to say. | |
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| And then, with ghastly shimmer and shine | 55 |
| Over the rocks and the seething brine, | |
| They burned the wreck of the Palatine. | |
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| In their cruel hearts, as they homeward sped, | |
| “The sea and the rocks are dumb,” they said: | |
| “There ’ll be no reckoning with the dead.” | 60 |
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| But the year went round, and when once more | |
| Along their foam-white curves of shore | |
| They heard the line-storm rave and roar, | |
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| Behold! again, with shimmer and shine, | |
| Over the rocks and the seething brine, | 65 |
| The flaming wreck of the Palatine! | |
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| So, haply in fitter words than these, | |
| Mending their nets on their patient knees, | |
| They tell the legend of Manisees. | |
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| Nor looks nor tones a doubt betray; | 70 |
| “It is known to us all,” they quietly say; | |
| “We too have seen it in our day.” | |
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| Is there, then, no death for a word once spoken? | |
| Was never a deed but left its token | |
| Written on tables never broken? | 75 |
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| Do the elements subtle reflections give? | |
| Do pictures of all the ages live | |
| On Nature’s infinite negative, | |
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| Which, half in sport, in malice half, | |
| She shows at times, with shudder or laugh, | 80 |
| Phantom and shadow in photograph? | |
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| For still, on many a moonless night, | |
| From Kingston Head and from Montauk light | |
| The spectre kindles and burns in sight. | |
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| Now low and dim, now clear and higher, | 85 |
| Leaps up the terrible Ghost of Fire, | |
| Then, slowly sinking, the flames expire. | |
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| And the wise Sound skippers, though skies be fine, | |
| Reef their sails when they see the sign | |
| Of the blazing wreck of the Palatine! * * * * * | 90 |
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