free-verse32 lines
Mary Hume. A Ballad.
by Susanna Moodie"He will come to night," young Mary said,
And checked the rising sigh;
And gazed on the stars that o'er her head
Shone out in the deep blue sky.
"Heaven speed his voyage!--though absent long,
The painful vigil's o'er--
The skies are clear--the breeze is strong--
We meet to part no more!"
While yet she spoke a sudden chill
O'er her ardent spirit crept;
A sad presentiment of ill--
She turned away and wept.
Far off the sigh of ocean stole--
The sweeping of the sounding surge--
In plaintive murmurs o'er her soul,
Like wailing of a funeral dirge.
And in the wind there is a tone
Which whispers to her sinking heart--
"Mary we meet in death alone;
In realms of bliss no more to part."
The moon has sunk in her ocean cave,
Fled are the shades of night,
And morning bursts on the purple wave
In floods of golden-light.
The sudden stroke of the village bell
Checks the fisher's blithesome song;
He pauses to hear how rock and fell
Its sullen tones prolong.
"Some soul to its last account has sped:
Dost thou hear that solemn sound?"
"'Tis Mary Hume!"--his comrade said--
"Last night her love was drowned!"