Poems by Lucy Maud Montgomery

All Poems Original Poems Translations

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A Shore Twilight

Lo, find we here when the ripe day is o'er

A kingdom of enchantment by the shore!

Behold the sky with early stars ashine,

A jewelled flagon brimmed with purple wine.

Like a dumb poet's soul the troubled sea

Moans of its joy and sorrow wordlessly;

But the glad winds that utter naught of grief

Make silver speech by headland and by reef.

by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Before Storm

There's a grayness over the harbor like fear on the face of a woman,

The sob of the waves has a sound akin to a woman's cry,

And the deeps beyond the bar are moaning with evil presage

Of a storm that will leap from its lair in that dour north-eastern sky.

Slowly the pale mists rise, like ghosts of the sea, in the offing,

Creeping all wan and chilly by headland and sunken reef,

And a wind is wailing and keening like a lost thing 'mid the islands,

Boding of wreck and tempest, plaining of dolor and grief.

by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Gratitude

I thank thee, friend, for the beautiful thought

That in words well chosen thou gavest to me,

Deep in the life of my soul it has wrought

With its own rare essence to ever imbue me,

To gleam like a star over devious ways,

To bloom like a flower on the drearest days

Better such gift from thee to me

Than gold of the hills or pearls of the sea.

by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Harbor Dawn

There's a hush and stillness calm and deep,

For the waves have wooed all the winds to sleep

In the shadow of headlands bold and steep;

But some gracious spirit has taken the cup

Of the crystal sky and filled it up

With rosy wine, and in it afar

Has dissolved the pearl of the morning star.

The girdling hills with the night-mist cold

by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Companioned

I walked to-day, but not alone,

Adown a windy, sea-girt lea,

For memory, spendthrift of her charm,

Peopled the silent lands for me.

The faces of old comradeship

In golden youth were round my way,

And in the keening wind I heard

The songs of many an orient day.

by Lucy Maud Montgomery

At the Long Sault

Searching the pile of corpses the victors found four Frenchmen still breathing. Three had scarcely a spark of life . . . the fourth seemed likely to survive and they reserved him for future torments.

- Parkman's History

A prisoner under the stars I lie,

With no friend near;

To-morrow they lead me forth to die,

The stake is ready, the torments set,

They will pay in full their deadly debt;

But I fear them not! Oh, none could fear

by Lucy Maud Montgomery

A Summer Day

The dawn laughs out on orient hills

And dances with the diamond rills;

The ambrosial wind but faintly stirs

The silken, beaded gossamers;

In the wide valleys, lone and fair,

Lyrics are piped from limpid air,

And, far above, the pine trees free

by Lucy Maud Montgomery

A Winter Day

The air is silent save where stirs

A bugling breeze among the firs;

The virgin world in white array

Waits for the bridegroom kiss of day;

All heaven blooms rarely in the east

Where skies are silvery and fleeced,

And o'er the orient hills made glad

by Lucy Maud Montgomery

An Autumn Evening

Dark hills against a hollow crocus sky

Scarfed with its crimson pennons, and below

The dome of sunset long, hushed valleys lie

Cradling the twilight, where the lone winds blow

And wake among the harps of leafless trees

Fantastic runes and mournful melodies.

The chilly purple air is threaded through

With silver from the rising moon afar,

by Lucy Maud Montgomery

At Nightfall

The dark is coming o'er the world, my playmate,

And the fields where poplars stand are very still,

All our groves of green delight have been invaded,

There are voices quite unknown upon the hill;

The wind has grown too weary for a comrade,

It is keening in the rushes spent and low,

Let us join our hands and hasten very softly

To the little, olden, friendly path we know.

by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Genius

A hundred generations have gone into its making,

With all their love and tenderness, with all their dreams and tears;

Their vanished joy and pleasure, their pain and their heart-breaking,

Have colored this rare blossom of the long-unfruitful years.

Their victory and their laughter for this have strong men given,

For this have sweet, dead women paid in patience which survives

That a great soul might bring the world, as from the gate of heaven,

All that was rich and beautiful in those forgotten lives.

by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Harbor Moonrise

There is never a wind to sing o'er the sea

On its dimpled bosom that holdeth in fee

Wealth of silver and magicry;

And the harbor is like to an ebon cup

With mother-o'-pearl to the lips lined up,

And brimmed with the wine of entranced delight,

Purple and rare, from the flagon of night.

Lo, in the east is a glamor and gleam,

by Lucy Maud Montgomery