The writings of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume 4.
John Greenleaf Whittier, Ed.

---

[282] Silently for a space each eye
     Upon that sudden glory turned:
Cool from the land the breeze blew by,
     The tent-ropes flapped, the long beach churned
Its waves to foam; on either hand
     Stretched, far as sight, the hills of sand;
With bays of marsh, and capes of bush and tree,
     The wood's black shore-line loomed beyond the meadowy sea.

The lady rose to leave. “One song,
     Or hymn,” they urged, ‘before we part.’
And she, with lips to which belong
     Sweet intuitions of all art,
Gave to the winds of night a strain
     Which they who heard would hear again;
And to her voice the solemn ocean lent,
     Touching its harp of sand, a deep accompaniment.