Tantramar Revisited, The, is a poem by the Canadian writer Sir Charles G. D. Roberts. It was first published under the title “Westmoreland Revisited” in a Toronto journal in 1883. It was included in Roberts’s second collection, In Divers Tones, in 1886. The 64-line poem describes the Tantramar marsh area in southeastern New Brunswick, which Roberts loved as a boy. The poem was written when the 23-year-old author was working as an editor in Toronto. The changes and “heavier shadows” that he laments in the opening lines have been caused by his own painful departure from home.
Summers and summers have come, and gone with the flight of the swallow; Sunshine and thunder have been, storm, and winter, and frost; Many and many a sorrow has all but died from remembrance, Many a dream of joy fall’n in the shadow of pain. Hands of chance and change have marred, or moulded, or broken, Busy with spirit or flesh, all I have most adored; Even the bosom of Earth is strewn with heavier shadows,— Only in these green hills, aslant to the sea, no change! Here where the road that has climbed from the inland valleys and woodlands, Dips from the hill-tops down, straight to the base of the hills,— Here, from my vantage-ground, I can see the scattering houses, Stained with time, set warm in orchards, meadows, and wheat, Dotting the broad bright slopes outspread to southward and eastward, Wind-swept all day long, blown by the south-east wind. Skirting the sunbright uplands stretches a riband of meadow, Shorn of the labouring grass, bulwarked well from the sea, Fenced on its seaward border with long clay dikes from the turbid Surge and flow of the tides vexing the Westmoreland shores. Yonder, toward the left, lie broad the Westmoreland marshes,— Miles on miles they extend, level, and grassy, and dim, Clear from the long red sweep of flats to the sky in the distance, Save for the outlying heights, green-rampired Cumberland Point; Miles on miles outrolled, and the river-channels divide them,— Miles of miles of green, barred by the hurtling gusts. Miles on miles beyond the tawny bay is Minudie. There are the low blue hills; villages gleam at their feet. Nearer a white sail shines across the water, and nearer Still are the slim, grey masts of fishing boats dry on the flats. Ah, how well I remember those wide red flats, above tide-mark Pale with scurf of the salt, seamed and baked in the sun! Well I remember the piles of blocks and ropes, and the net-reels Wound with the beaded nets, dripping and dark from the sea! Now at this season the nets are unwound; they hang from the rafters Over the fresh-stowed hay in upland barns, and the wind Blows all day through the chinks, with the streaks of sunlight, and sways them Softly at will; or they lie heaped in the gloom of a loft. Now at this season the reels are empty and idle; I see them Over the lines of the dikes, over the gossiping grass. Now at this season they swing in the long strong wind, thro’ the lonesome Golden afternoon, shunned by the foraging gulls. Near about sunset the crane will journey homeward above them; Round them, under the moon, all the calm night long, Winnowing soft grey wings of marsh-owls wander and wander, Now to the broad, lit marsh, now to the dusk of the dike. Soon, thro’ their dew-wet frames, in the live keen freshness of morning, Out of the teeth of the dawn blows back the awakening wind. Then, as the blue day mounts, and the low-shot shafts of the sunlight Glance from the tide to the shore, gossamers jewelled with dew Sparkle and wave, where late sea-spoiling fathoms of drift-net, Myriad-meshed, uploomed sombrely over the land. Well I remember it all. The salt, raw scent of the margin; While, with men at the windlass, groaned each reel, and the net, Surging in ponderous lengths, uprose and coiled in its station; Then each man to his home,—well I remember it all! Yet, as I sit and watch, this present peace of the landscape,— Stranded boats, these reels empty and idle, the hush, One grey hawk slow-wheeling above yon cluster of haystacks,— More than the old-time stir this stillness welcomes me home. Ah, the old-time stir, how once it stung me with rapture,— Old-time sweetness, the winds freighted with honey and salt! Yet will I stay my steps and not go down to the marshland,— Muse and recall far off, rather remember than see,— Lest on too close sight I miss the darling illusion, Spy at their task even here the hands of chance and change.
Charles G. D. Roberts’s poetry has many similarities with the English Romantic poets, especially William Wordsworth. The Romantic poets elevated emotion, sensation, the beauty of nature, and the power of the imagination. Wordsworth in particular emphasized the interaction between nature and the human spirit. When Roberts describes the landscape in the opening lines, he is also describing the relations between his “inmost self” and the region he loves. Nature itself has not changed; it follows an enduring pattern. The tides still ebb and flow as before, and the days follow their unchanging order.
The concluding lines reveal that the painful changes are the psychological ones. The speaker can only remember the life of which he was once an unthinking participant. Ultimately, he seems to realize that he is the one who has changed. When he decides to remain at a distance and “rather remember than see,” he knows that he is indulging in a comforting illusion. There is no possibility of escaping “the hands of chance and change.”
For more information on Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts, see Roberts, Charles G. D. See also Canadian literature; English literature (Romantic poetry); Romanticism.
