# The Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier/The Bay of Seven Islands

THE BAY OF SEVEN ISLANDS
The volume in which The Bay of Seven Islands was published was dedicated to the late Edwin Percy Whipple, to whom more than to any other person I was indebted for public recognition as one worthy of a place in American literature, at a time when it required a great degree of courage to urge such a claim for a proscribed abolitionist. Although younger than I, he had gained the reputation of a brilliant essayist, and was regarded as the highest American authority in criticism. His wit and wisdom enlivened a small literary circle of young men, including Thomas Starr King, the eloquent preacher, and Daniel N. Haskell, of the Daily Transcript, who gathered about our common friend James T. Fields at the Old Corner Bookstore. The poem which gave title to the volume I inscribed to my friend and neighbor, Harriet Prescott Spofford, whose poems have lent a new interest to our beautiful river-valley.
From the green Amesbury hill which bears the name Of that half mythic ancestor of mine Who trod its slopes two hundred years ago, Down the long valley of the Merrimac, Midway between me and the river’s mouth, I see thy home, set like an eagle’s nest Among Deer Island’s immemorial pines, Crowning the crag on which the sunset breaks Its last red arrow. Many a tale and song, Which thou hast told or sung, I call to mind, Softening with silvery mist the woods and hills,
The out-thrust headlands and inreaching bays Of our northeastern coast-line, trending where The Gulf, midsummer, feels the chill blockade Of icebergs stranded at its northern gate.
To thee the echoes of the Island Sound Answer not vainly, nor in vain the moan Of the South Breaker prophesying storm. And thou hast listened, like myself, to men Sea-periled oft where Anticosti lies Like a fell spider in its web of fog, Or where the Grand Bank shallows with the wrecks Of sunken fishers, and to whom strange isles And frost-rimmed bays and trading stations seem Familiar as Great Neck and Kettle Cove, Nubble and Boon, the common names of home. So let me offer thee this lay of mine, Simple and homely, lacking much thy play Of color and of fancy. If its theme And treatment seem to thee befitting youth Rather than age, let this be my excuse: It has beguiled some heavy hours and called Some pleasant memories up; and, better still, Occasion lent me for a kindly word To one who is my neighbor and my friend.
The skipper sailed out of the harbor mouth, Leaving the apple-bloom of the South For the ice of the Eastern seas, In his fishing schooner Breeze.
Handsome and brave and young was he, And the maids of Newbury sighed to see His lessening white sail fall Under the sea’s blue wall.
Through the Northern Gulf and the misty screen Of the isles of Mingan and Madeleine, St. Paul’s and Blanc Sablon, The little Breeze sailed on,
Backward and forward, along the shore Of lorn and desolate Labrador, And found at last her way To the Seven Islands Bay.
The little hamlet, nestling below Great hills white with lingering snow, With its tin-roofed chapel stood Half hid in the dwarf spruce wood;
Green-turfed, flower-sown, the last outpost Of summer upon the dreary coast, With its gardens small and spare, Sad in the frosty air.
Hard by where the skipper’s schooner lay, A fisherman’s cottage looked away Over isle and bay, and behind On mountains dim-defined.
And there twin sisters, fair and young, Laughed with their stranger guest, and sung In their native tongue the lays Of the old Provençal days.
Alike were they, save the faint outline Of a scar on Suzette’s forehead fine; And both, it so befell, Loved the heretic stranger well.
Both were pleasant to look upon, But the heart of the skipper clave to one; Though less by his eye than heart He knew the twain apart.
Despite of alien race and creed, Well did his wooing of Marguerite speed; And the mother’s wrath was vain As the sister’s jealous pain.
The shrill-tongued mistress her house forbade, And solemn warning was sternly said By the black-robed priest, whose word As law the hamlet heard.
But half by voice and half by signs The skipper said, “A warm sun shines On the green-banked Merrimac; Wait, watch, till I come back.
“And when you see, from my mast head, The signal fly of a kerchief red, My boat on the shore shall wait; Come, when the night is late.”
Ah! weighed with childhood’s haunts and friends, And all that the home sky overbends,
Did ever young love fail To turn the trembling scale?
Under the night, on the wet sea sands, Slowly unclasped their plighted hands: One to the cottage hearth, And one to his sailor’s berth.
What was it the parting lovers heard? Nor leaf, nor ripple, nor wing of bird, But a listener’s stealthy tread On the rock-moss, crisp and dead.
He weighed his anchor, and fished once more By the black coast-line of Labrador; And by love and the north wind driven, Sailed back to the Islands Seven.
In the sunset’s glow the sisters twain Saw the Breeze come sailing in again; Said Suzette, “Mother dear, The heretic’s sail is here.”
“Go, Marguerite, to your room, and hide; Your door shall be bolted!” the mother cried: While Suzette, ill at ease, Watched the red sign of the Breeze.
At midnight, down to the waiting skiff She stole in the shadow of the cliff; And out of the Bay’s mouth ran The schooner with maid and man.
And all night long, on a restless bed. Her prayers to the Virgin Marguerite said: And thought of her lover’s pain Waiting for her in vain.
Did he pace the sands? Did he pause to hear The sound of her light step drawing near? And, as the slow hours passed, Would he doubt her faith at last?
But when she saw through the misty pane, The morning break on a sea of rain, Could even her love avail To follow his vanished sail?
Meantime the Breeze, with favoring wind, Left the rugged Moisic hills behind, And heard from an unseen shore The falls of Manitou roar.
On the morrow’s morn in the thick, gray weather They sat on the reeling deck together, Lover and counterfeit Of hapless Marguerite.
With a lover’s hand, from her forehead fair He smoothed away her jet-black hair, What was it his fond eyes met? The scar of the false Suzette!
Fiercely he shouted: “Bear away East by north for the Seven Isles Bay!” The maiden wept and prayed, But the ship her helm obeyed.
Once more the Bay of the Isles they found: They heard the bell of the chapel sound, And the chant of the dying sung In the harsh, wild Indian tongue.
A feeling of mystery, change, and awe Was in all they heard and all they saw: Spell-bound the hamlet lay In the hush of its lonely bay.
And when they came to the cottage door, The mother rose up from her weeping sore, And with angry gestures met The scared look of Suzette.
“Here is your daughter,” the skipper said; “Give me the one I love instead.” But the woman sternly spake; “Go, see if the dead will wake!”
He looked. Her sweet face still and white And strange in the noonday taper light, She lay on her little bed, With the cross at her feet and head.
In a passion of grief the strong man bent Down to her face, and, kissing it, went Back to the waiting Breeze, Back to the mournful seas.
Never again to the Merrimac And Newbury’s homes that bark came back. Whether her fate she met On the shores of Carraquette,
Miscou, or Tracadie, who can say? But even yet at Seven Isles Bay Is told the ghostly tale Of a weird, unspoken sail,
In the pale, sad light of the Northern day Seen by the blanketed Montagnais, Or squaw, in her small kyack, Crossing the spectre’s track.
On the deck a maiden wrings her hands; Her likeness kneels on the gray coast sands; One in her wild despair, And one in the trance of prayer.
She flits before no earthly blast, The red sign fluttering from her mast, Over the solemn seas, The ghost of the schooner Breeze!