Heartbreak Hill
By Celia Thaxter
In Ipswich town not far from the sea,
Rises a hill which the people call
Heartbreak Hill, and its history
Is an old, old legend, known to all.
It was a sailor who won the heart
Of an Indian maiden, lithe and young;
And she saw him over the sea depart,
While sweet in her ear his promise rung.
For he cried as he kissed her wet eyes dry,
"I'll come back, sweetheart, keep your faith!"
She said "I'll watch while the moons go by."
Her love was stronger than life or death.
So this poor dusky Ariadne kept
Her watch from the hill-top rugged and steep;
Slowly the empty moments crept
While she studied the changing face of the deep.
Fastening her eyes upon every speck
That crossed the ocean within her ken;
Might not her lover be walking the deck,
Surely and swiftly returning again?
The Isle of Shoals loomed lonely and dim,
In the north cast distance, far and gray,
And on the horizon's uttermost rim
The low rock heap of Boone Island lay.
And north and south and west and east
Stretched sea and land in the blinding light
Till evening fell and her vigil ceased
And many a hearth glow lit the night.
Oh, but the weary, merciless days,
With the sun above, with the sea afar,-
No change in her fixed and wistful gaze
From the morning-red to the evening star!
To mock those set and glittering eyes,
Fast growing wild as her hope went out
Hateful seemed earth and the hollow skies
Like her own heart, empty of all but doubt.
Oh. the winds that blew, and the birds that sang
The calms that smiled and the storms that rolled
The bells from the town beneath that rang
Through the summer's heat and the winter's cold
The flash of the plunging surge white
The soaring gulls wild, boding cry
She was weary of all; there was no delight
In heaven or earth and she longed to die.
What was it to her though the dawn should paint
With delicate beauty skies and seas
But the sweet sad sunset splendors faint
Made her soul sick with memories
Drowning in sorrowful purple a sail
In the distant east where the shadows grew
Till twilight shoulder it cold and pale
And the tide of her anguish rose anew.
Like a slender statue carved in stone
She sat, with hardly motion or breath,
She wept no tears and she made no moan,
But her love was stronger than Life or Death.
He never came back! Yet faithful still,
She watched from the hill-top her life away.
And the townsfolk christened it Heartbreak Hill,
And it bears the name to this very day.
Celia Thaxter was born in Portsmouth, NH on June 29, 1835, and grew up on the Isles of Shoals.
She was the leading American poetess of the latter part of the 19th century.