The sun goes down, and over all
 These barren reaches by the tide
 Such unelusive glories fall,
 I almost dream they yet will bide
 Until the coming of the tide.
 And yet I know that not for us,
 By any ecstasy of dream,
 He lingers to keep luminous
 A little while the grievous stream,
 Which frets, uncomforted of dream--

 A grievous stream, that to and fro
 Athrough the fields of Acadie
 Goes wandering, as if to know
 Why one beloved face should be
 So long from home and Acadie.

 Was it a year or lives ago
 We took the grasses in our hands,
 And caught the summer flying low
 Over the waving meadow lands,
 And held it there between our hands?

 The while the river at our feet--
 A drowsy inland meadow stream--
 At set of sun the after-heat
 Made running gold, and in the gleam
 We freed our birch upon the stream.

 There down along the elms at dusk
 We lifted dripping blade to drift,
 Through twilight scented fine like musk,
 Where night and gloom awhile uplift,
 Nor sunder soul and soul adrift.

 And that we took into our hands
 Spirit of life or subtler thing--
 Breathed on us there, and loosed the bands
 Of death, and taught us, whispering,
 The secret of some wonder-thing.

 Then all your face grew light, and seemed
 To hold the shadow of the sun;
 The evening faltered, and I deemed
 That time was ripe, and years had done
 Their wheeling underneath the sun.

 So all desire and all regret,
 And fear and memory, were naught;
 One to remember or forget
 The keen delight our hands had caught;
 Morrow and yesterday were naught.

 The night has fallen, and the tide . . .
 Now and again comes drifting home,
 Across these aching barrens wide,
 A sigh like driven wind or foam:
 In grief the flood is bursting home.