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Low Tide on Grand Pré: A Book of Lyrics cover

Low Tide on Grand Pré: A Book of Lyrics

Chapter 21: THROUGH THE TWILIGHT
By Bliss Carman
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Poetry

About This Book

A compact lyric sequence set amid tidal marshes and meadowland, the poems use recurring images of low tide, wind, flowers, birds, and seasonal light to explore memory, longing, and the passage of time. Brief, sensory pieces alternate personal yearning and elegiac loss with attentive natural description, tying human feeling to the rhythms of the landscape. The tone ranges from wistful nostalgia to quiet acceptance, repeatedly returning to motifs of spring renewal and vanished presences. Together the lyrics form a tightly keyed meditation that blends elegy and buoyant natural observation into a cohesive reflection on recollection and renewal.

THROUGH THE TWILIGHT

The red vines bar my window way;
The Autumn sleeps beside his fire,
For he has sent this fleet-foot day
A year's march back to bring to me
One face whose smile is my desire,
Its light my star.
Surely you will come near and speak,
This calm of death from the day to sever!
And so I shall draw down your cheek
Close to my face—So close!—and know
God's hand between our hands forever
Will set no bar.
Before the dusk falls—even now
I know your step along the gravel,
And catch your quiet poise of brow,
And wait so long till you turn the latch!
Is the way so hard you had to travel?
Is the land so far?
The dark has shut your eyes from mine,
But in this hush of brooding weather
A gleam on twilight's gathering line
Has riven the barriers of dream:
Soul of my soul, we are together
As the angels are!