I

Tantramar! Tantramar! I see thy cool green plains afar. Thy dykes where grey sea-grasses are, Mine eyes behold them yet.

But not the gladness breathed of old Thy bordering, blue hill-hollows hold; Thy wind-blown leagues of green unrolled, Thy flats the red floods fret,

Thy steady-streaming winds--no more These work the rapture wrought of yore, When all thy wide bright strength outbore My soul from fleshly bar.

A darkness as of drifted rain Is over tide, and dyke, and plain. The shadow-pall of human pain Is fallen on Tantramar.