Warning: If you have a visual impairment, use the manuscript transcript version including the Lucy Maud Montgomery’s foot notes and contextual annotation references.

Chapter 15 - (VERSO)

Address: –                                                             At usual rates
Miss L.M. Montgomery

Cavendish
P.E. Island
Can.

On the Gulf Shore
by
Maud Eglinton

Lap softly on the curving shore,
Where sand peeps leave their footprints small,
Lap softly, purple waves where o’er
The gleaming sand the ripples fall.
Aloft the sky is blue; the clouds
Are soft and white above the sea,
The seagulls fly in snowy clouds,
The boats are floating lazily.

Then lap, lap softly, purple waves,
No tempests cross your crests today,
Your azure dimples are the graves
Where millions buried sunbeams play.


TEXT ANNOTATION

The first page of "On the Gulf Shore," published in the Ladies Journal in February 1895 under the name "Maud Eglington" [sic].

TEXT ANNOTATION

"sand peeps": A colloquial name for sand pipers, a family of small shorebirds that frequent the beaches of Prince Edward Island during late summer.

TEXT ANNOTATION

"Your azure dimples are the graves / Where millions buried sunbeams play.": Making fun of her own early attempts at poetry, Montgomery gave these two lines to Emily Byrd Starr in the last chapter of her autobiographical Emily of New Moon (1923). Mr. Carpenter, judging samples of poetry, singles these out for comment, saying: "'Atrocious, girl – atrocious. Graves aren't playgrounds. How much would you play if you were buried?'"