The Poetry of Lucy Maud Montgomery
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There is a great solitude about such a shore. The woods are never solitary- they are full of whispering, beckoning, friendly life. But the sea is a mighty soul, forever moaning of some great, unshareable sorrow, which shuts it up into itself for all eternity. We can never pierce its infinite mystery- we may only wander, awed and spell-bound, on the outer fringe of it. The woods call to us with a hundred voices, but the sea has one only- a mighty voice that drowns our souls in its majestic music. The woods are human, but the sea is of the company of the archangels. --L.M. Montgomery
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Lucy Maud Montgomery [1874-1942] is famed for her beloved
Anne of Green Gables stories, which were the inspiration for the popular television
series "The Road to Avonlea." She published over 25 titles as well as her poetic works, which are now out of print and not easily located. Maud lived on rural Prince Edward Island on Canada's
Atlantic coast. Her stories are reflective of the quiet lives of PEI's
farmer and fisherfolk neighbors in their lush, agrarian environs. LMM was
educated at PEI's Prince of Wales College, and Dalhousie University in
Halifax before embarking on a journalism career with Nova Scotia's daily
newspapers. Anne of Green Gables was published in 1908.
My Library
It is small and dim and shabby-- just one old, low-corniced room,
With the plaster stained and broken and the corners lost in gloom:
And one square, uncurtained window, where a sea-born sunset shines
In a glow of chastened splendor though grand cathedral pines.
But 'tis dear and sacred to me, plain and dusky tho' it be,
For the best of friends and comrades hither come to meet with me.
And I welcome them right gladly when the lingering daylight falls
On the old, familiar faces of my books along the walls.
Matchless tales of lands far distant; ballads of an olden day,
Full of fire and faith and fervor that no time can steal away:
Songs of many gracious poets: rare old essays richly blent
With the legendary lore of orient and occident:
Tales of wonderful adventures in the merry years of yore,
And of half-forgotten battles lost and won by sea and shore;
Classic myth and stately epic, born of earth-old joy or pain--
All the centuries have left us, I may gather here again.
Here with hosts of friends I revel who can never change or chill;
Though the fleeting years and seasons they are fair and faithful still!
Kings and courtiers, knights and jesters, belles and beaux of far away,
Meet and mingle with the beauties and the heroes of to-day.
All the lore of ancient sages, all the light of souls divine,
All the music, wit and wisdom of the gray old world is mine,
Garnered here where fall the shadows of the mystic pineland's gloom!
And I sway an airy kingdom from my little book-lined room.
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Harbor Moonrise
There is never a wind to sing o'er the sea
On its dimpled bosom that holdeth in fee
Wealth of silver and magicry;
and the harbor is like to an ebon cup
With mother-o'-pearl to the lips lined up,
And brimmed with the wine of entranced delight,
Purple and rare, from the flagon of night.
Lo, in the east is a glamour and gleam,
Like waves that lap on the shores of dream,
Or voice their lure in a poet's theme!
And behind the curtseying fisher boats
The barge of the rising moon upfloats,
The pilot ship over unknown seas
Of treasure-laden cloud argosies.
Ere ever she drifts from the ocean's rim,
Out from the background of shadows dim,
Stealith a boat o'er her golden rim;
Noiselessly, swiftly, it swayeth by
Into the bourne of enchanted sky,
Like a fairy shallop that seeks the strand
Of a far and uncharted fairyland.
Now, ere the sleeping winds may stir,
Send, O, my heart, a wish with her,
Like to a venturous mariner;
For who knoweth but that on an elfin sea
She may meet the bark that is sailing to thee,
And, winging my message across the foam,
May hasten the hour when thy ship comes home.
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Sea Sunset
A gallant city has been builded far
In the pied heaven,
Bannered by crimson, sentinelled by star
of crystal even;
Around a harbor of the twilight glowing,
With jubilant waves about its gateways flowing.
A city of the Land of Lost Delight
On seas enchanted,
Presently to be lost in mist moon-white
And music haunted;
Given but briefly to our raptured vision,
With all its opal towers and shrines elysian.
Had we some mystic boat with pearly oar
And wizard pilot,
To guide us safely by the siren shore
And cloudy islet,
We might embark and reach that shining portal
Beyond which lingers dreams and joys immortal.
But we may only gaze with longing eyes
On those far, sparkling
Palaces in the fairy-peopled skies,
O'er waters darkling,
Until the winds of night come shoreward roaming,
And the dim west has only grey and gloaming.
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When the Dark Comes Down
WHEN the dark comes down, oh, the wind is on the sea
With lisping laugh and whimper to the red reef's threnody,
The boats are sailing homeward now across the harbour bar
With many a jest and many a shout from fishing grounds afar.
So furl your sails and take your rest,
Ye fisher folk so brown,
For task and quest are ended when the dark comes down.
When the dark comes down, oh, the landward valleys fill
Like brimming cups of purple, and on every landmark hill
There shines a star of twilight that is watching evermore
The low, dim-lighted meadows by the long, dim-lighted shore,
For there, where vagrant daisies weave the grass a silver crown,
The lads and lassies wander when the dark comes down.
When the dark comes down, oh, the children fall asleep,
And mothers in the fisher huts their happy vigils keep;
There's music in the song they sing and music on the sea,
The loving, lingering echoes of the twilight's litany,
For toil has folded hands to dream, and care has ceased to frown,
And every one's a lyric when the dark comes down.
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Sunrise Along Shore
ATHWART the harbour lingers yet
The ashen gleam of breaking day,
And where the guardian cliffs are set
The noiseless shadows steal away;
But all the winnowed eastern sky
Is flushed with many a tender hue,
And spears of light are smiting through
The ranks where huddled sea-mists fly.
Across the ocean, wan and gray,
Gay fleets of golden ripples come,
For at the birth hour of the day
The roistering, wayward winds are dumb.
The rocks that stretch to meet the tide
Are smitten with a ruddy glow,
And faint reflections come and go
Where fishing boats at anchor ride.
All life leaps out to greet the light
The shining sea-gulls dive and soar,
The swallows wheel in dizzy flight,
And sandpeeps flit along the shore.
From every purple landward hill
The banners of the morning fly,
But on the headlands, dim and high.
The fishing hamlets slumber still.
One boat alone beyond the bar
Is sailing outward blithe and free,
To carry sturdy hearts afar
Across those wastes of sparkling sea,
Staunchly to seek what may be won
From out the treasures of the deep,
To toil for those at home who sleep
And be the first to greet the sun.
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Off to the Fishing Ground
THERE'S a piping wind from a sunrise shore
Blowing over a silver sea,
There's a joyous voice in the lapsing tide
That calls enticingly;
The mist of dawn has taken flight
To the dim horizon's bound,
And with wide sails set and eager hearts
We're off to the fishing ground.
Ho, comrades mine, how that brave wind sings
Like a great sea-harp afar!
We whistle its wild notes back to it
As we cross the harbour bar.
Behind us there are the homes we love
And hearts that are fond and true,
And before us beckons a strong young day
On leagues of glorious blue.
Comrades, a song as the fleet goes out,
A song of the orient sea,
We are the heirs of its tingling strife,
Its courage and liberty !
Sing as the white sails cream and fill,
And the foam in our wake is long,
Sing till the headlands black and grim
Echo us back our song!
Oh, 'tis a glad and heartsome thing
To wake ere the night be done
And steer the course that our fathers steered
In the path of the rising sun.
The wind and welkin and wave are ours
Wherever our bourne is found,
And we envy no landsman his dream and sleep
When we're off to the fishing ground!
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The Old Man's Grave
MAKE it where the winds may sweep
Through the pine boughs soft and deep,
And the murmur of the sea
Come across the orient lea,
And the falling raindrops sing
Gently to his slumbering.
Make it where the meadows wide
Greenly lie on every side,
Harvest fields he reaped and trod,
Westering slopes of clover sod,
Orchard lands where bloom and blow
Trees he planted long ago.
Make it where the starshine dim
May be always close to him,
And the sunrise glory spread
Lavishly around his bed,
And the dewy grasses creep
Tenderly above his sleep.
Since these things to him were dear
Through full many a well-spent year,
It is surely meet their grace
Should be on his resting-place,
And the murmur of the sea
Be his dirge eternally.
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The Old Home Calls
Come back to me, little dancing feet that roam the wide world o'er,
I long for the lilt of your flying steps in my silent rooms once more;
Come back to me, little voices gay with laughter and with song,
Come back, little hearts beating high with hopes, I have missed and
mourned you long.
My roses bloom in my garden walks all sweet and wet with the dew,
My lights shine down on the long hill road the waning twilights through,
The swallows flutter about my eaves as in the years of old,
And close about me their steadfast arms the lisping pine trees fold.
But I weary for you at morn and eve, O children of my love,
Come back to me from your pilgrim ways, from the seas and plains ye rove,
Come over the meadows and up the lane to my door set open wide,
And sit ye down where the red light shines from my welcoming fire-side.
I keep for you all your childhood dreams, your gladness and delights,
The joy of days in the sun and rain, the sleep of care-free nights;
All the sweet faiths ye have lost and sought again shall be your own,
Darlings, come to my empty heartI am old and still and alone!
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Night
A pale, enchanted moon is sinking low
Behind the dunes that fringe the shadowy tea,
And there is haunted starlight on the flow
Of immemorial sea.
I am alone and need no more pretend
Laughter or smile to hide a hungry heart,
I walk with solitude as with a friend
Enfolded and apart.
We tread an eerie road across the moor
Where shadows weave upon their ghostly looms,
And winds sing an old lyric that might lure
Sad queens from ancient tombs.
I am a sister to the loveliness
Of cool, far hill and long-remembered shore,
Finding in it a sweet forgetfulness
Of all that hurt before.
The world of day, its bitterness and cark
No longer have the power to make me weep,
I welcome this communion of the dark
As toilers welcome sleep.
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Lucy Maud Montgomery is also known to have penned under the pseudonym M.L. Cavendish. She published "Fisher Lassies" on 30 July, 1896 in "Youth's Companion," however this same poem also is known to have appeared prior to this date.
Fisher Lassies by M.L. Cavendish
The wind blows up from the nor'west waves,
Chill, salt, and strong from its ocean caves;
The sea glows yet in the sunset's hue
And the hollowing sky is a cup of blue.
But the sentinel rocks on the headland's right
Are black and grim in the waning light;
And, out in the west, a lone, white star
Keeps its steadfast watch o'er the harbor bar.
Over the waves where the red light floats
To the glooming shore come the fishing boats,
And the girls who wait for their coming in
Are something to wave and wind akin.
Born of the union of sky and sea,
Joyous, lithe-limbed, as the sea-bird free:
Fearless in danger and true as steel,
To friend unswerving, to lover leal.
No care is theirs - all the world they know
Is the sky above and the sea below.
Light o'er the waters their laughter floats,
As they wait on the sand for the fishing boats.
Brown are they, yet the tint that glows
In their cheeks has the hue of a crimson rose,
And never brighter or clearer eyes
Watched across the bar 'neath the sunset skies.
When the wearisome toil of the day is done
And the boats come in with the setting sun,
Sweethearts and brothers, tall and tanned,
Bend to the oars with a firmer hand.
Each one knows at the landing dim
Some one is waiting to welcome him.
Over the harbor the twilight creeps,
The stars shine out in the sky's clear deeps.
From far sea-caves come a hollow roar
And the girls have gone from the darkened shore;
For the crimson has died from the sky-line's bound
And the boats are all in from the fishing ground.
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I Wish You
Friend o' mine, in the year oncoming
I wish you a little time for play,
And an hour to dream in the eerie gloaming
After the clamorous day.
(And the moon like a pearl from an Indian shore
To hang for a lantern above your door.)
A little house with friendly rafters,
And some one in it to need you there,
Wine of romance and wholesome laughters
With a comrade or two to share.
(And some secret spot of your very own
Whenever you want to cry alone.)
I wish you a garden on fire with roses,
Columbines planted for your delight,
Scent of mint in its shadowy closes,
Clean, gay winds at night.
(Some nights for sleeping and some to ride
With the broomstick witches far and wide.)
A goodly crop of figs to gather,
With a thistle or two to prick and sting;
Since a harvesting too harmless is rather
An unadventurous thing.
(And now and then, spite of reason or rule,
The chance to be a bit of a fool.)
I wish you a thirst that can never be sated
For all the loveliness earth can yield,
Slim, cool birches whitely mated,
Dawn on an April field.
(And never too big a bill to pay
When the Fiddler finds out he must up and away.)
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