The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1882-02-11

With its gardens small and spare,
Sad in the frosty air.
Hard by where the shippers schooner lay,
"A tsherman's cottage looked away
Over isle and bay, and behind
On mountains dim-detned.
And there twin sisters, fair and young,
Laughed with their stranger guest, and sung
In their native tongue the lays
Of the old Provencal days.
Alike were they, save the faint outline
of a scar on Suzette's forehead fine;
And both, it so befell,
Loved the hereto 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 mothers wrath vain
AS the sisters jealous pain.
The shril-tongued mistress her house forbade,
And solemn warning 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 come back.
.And when you see, from my mast head,
The signal fly of "a kerchef red,
My boat on the shore shall wait;
Come, when the night is late"
All! weighed with childhoods haunts and
friends
And all that the home sky overbends,
Did ever young love fail
To turn the trembling scale2
Under the night, on the wet sea sands,
Slowly unclasped their plighted hands;
One to the cottage hearth,
And one to his sailors berth.
What was it the parting lovers heard3
Nor leaf, nor ripple, nor wing of bird,
But listeners stealthy tread
On the rock-moss, crisp and dead.
He weighed his anchor and fished once moro
By the black coast-line of Labrador;
And by love and the north wind driven,
Sailed back to the Islands Seven.
In the sunsets glow the sisters twain
Saw the Breeze come sailing in again;
Said SuZette: Mother dear,
The heretics sail is here"
go, Marguerite, to your room, and hide;
Your door shall be bolted!' the mother cried:
While Suzette, i'll Mt ease,
Watched the red sign of the Breeze.
Atmdnight, down to the waiting skif
She stole in the shadow of the cliff;
And out of the Bays 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 lovers pain
Waiting for her in vain.
But when she saw, through the misty pane,
The morning break on sea of rain,
Could even her love avail
To follow his vanished sail?
Meantime the Breeze with favoring wind,
Left the rugged Mosic hills behind,
And heard from an unseen shore
The falls of Manitou roar.
On the morrow's morn in the thick, gray
They sat on the Keeling deck together,
Lover and counterfeit
OF hapless Marguerite.
With lovers hand, from her forehead fair
He smoothed away her jet-black hair.
What was 1t his fond eyes met?
The scar OF the false Suzette!
Fiercely he shouted: " Bear away
East by north for Seven Isles Bayl"
The maiden wept and prayed,
But the ship her helm obeyed.
Once more the Bay of the Isles they found;
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;
SpelEbound the hamlet lay
In the hush of its lonely bay.
And when they came to the cottage door,
And with angry gestures met
The scared look of Suzette.
"Here is your daughter" the skipper said;
"GiYe me the one love instead. -.
But the woman sternly spake:
Go, see If the dead will wakev
He looked Her sweet face still and white
And strange in the MONDAY taper light,
She lay on her little bed,
With the cross at her feet and head.
In 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 Merrimae
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
or 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 specter's track.
On the deck maiden wrings her hands;
Her likeness kneels on the gray coast sands;
One in her wild despair,
And one in tho trance of prayer.
She fits before no earthly blast
With The red sign huttering from her mast
Over the solemn seas,
The ghost of the schooner Breezel
--Lnlin Greenledf Whittier, IN Atlantic Monthly.