A mutiny on board, followed by an inhuman desertion
on the part of the crew, had brought the unhappy passengers to the
verge of starvation and madness. Tradition says that wreckers on
shore, after rescuing all but one of the survivors, set fire to the
vessel, which was driven out to sea before a gale which had sprung
up. Every twelvemonth, according to the same tradition, the
spectacle of a ship on fire is visible to the inhabitants of the
island.
Leagues north, as fly the gull and auk,
Point Judith watches with eye of hawk;
Leagues south, thy beacon flames, Montauk!
Lonely and wind-shorn, wood-forsaken,
With never a tree for Spring to waken,
For tryst of lovers or farewells taken,
Circled by waters that never freeze,
Beaten by billow and swept by breeze,
Lieth the island of Manisees,
Set at the mouth of the Sound to hold
The coast lights up on its turret old,
Yellow with moss and sea-fog mould.
Dreary the land when gust and sleet
At its doors and windows howl and beat,
And Winter laughs at its fires of peat!
But in summer time, when pool and pond,
Held in the laps of valleys fond,
Are blue as the glimpses of sea beyond;
When the hills are sweet with the brier-rose,
And, hid in the warm, soft dells, unclose
Flowers the mainland rarely knows;
When boats to their morning fishing go,
And, held to the wind and slanting low,
Whitening and darkening the small sails show,--
Then is that lonely island fair;
And the pale health-seeker findeth there
The wine of life in its pleasant air.
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