| |
| THE POINT is turned; the twilight shadow fills | |
| The wheeling stream, the soft receding shore, | |
| And on our ears from deep among the hills | |
| Breaks now the rapids’ sudden quickening roar. | |
| Ah, yet the same! or have they changed their face, | 5 |
| The fair green fields, and can it still be seen, | |
| The white log cottage near the mountain’s base, | |
| So bright and quiet, so home-like and serene? | |
| Ah, well I question, for as five years go, | |
| How many blessings fall, and how much woe. | 10 |
| |
| Aye there they are, nor have they changed their cheer, | |
| The fields, the hut, the leafy mountain brows; | |
| Across the lonely dusk again I hear | |
| The loitering bells, the lowing of the cows, | |
| The bleat of many sheep, the stilly rush | 15 |
| Of the low whispering river, and, through all, | |
| Soft human tongues that break the deepening hush | |
| With faint-heard song or desultory call: | |
| O comrades, hold! the longest reach is past; | |
| The stream runs swift, and we are flying fast. | 20 |
| |
| The shore, the fields, the cottage, just the same, | |
| But how with them whose memory makes them sweet? | |
| Oh, if I called them, hailing name by name, | |
| Would the same lips the same old shouts repeat? | |
| Have the rough years, so big with death and ill, | 25 |
| Gone lightly by and left them smiling yet? | |
| Wild black-eyed Jeanne whose tongue was never still, | |
| Old wrinkled Picaud, Pierre and pale Lisette, | |
| The homely hearts that never cared to range, | |
| While life’s wide fields were filled with rush and change. | 30 |
| |
| And where is Jacques, and where is Verginie? | |
| I cannot tell; the fields are all a blur. | |
| The lowing cows whose shapes I scarcely see, | |
| Oh, do they wait and do they call for her? | |
| And is she changed, or is her heart still clear | 35 |
| As wind or morning, light as river foam? | |
| Or have life’s changes borne her far from here, | |
| And far from rest, and far from help and home? | |
| Ah comrades, soft, and let us rest awhile, | |
| For arms grow tired with paddling many a mile. | 40 |
| |
| The woods grow wild, and from the rising shore | |
| The cool wind creeps, the faint wood odors steal; | |
| Like ghosts adown the river’s blackening floor | |
| The misty fumes begin to creep and reel. | |
| Once more I leave you, wandering toward the night, | 45 |
| Sweet home, sweet heart, that would have held me in; | |
| Whither I go I know not, and the light | |
| Is faint before, and rest is hard to win. | |
| Ah, sweet ye were and near to heaven’s gate; | |
| But youth is blind and wisdom comes too late. | 50 |
| |
| Blacker and loftier grow the woods, and hark! | |
| The freshening roar! The chute is near us now, | |
| And dim the canyon grows, and inky dark | |
| The water whispering from the birchen prow. | |
| One long last look, and many a sad adieu, | 55 |
| While eyes can see and heart can feel you yet, | |
| I leave sweet home and sweeter hearts to you, | |
| A prayer for Picaud, one for pale Lisette, | |
| A kiss for Pierre, my little Jacques, and thee, | |
| A sigh for Jeanne, a sob for Verginie. | 60 |
| |
| Oh, does she still remember? Is the dream | |
| Now dead, or has she found another mate? | |
| So near, so dear; and ah, so swift the stream; | |
| Even now perhaps it were not yet too late. | |
| But, oh, what matter; for, before the night | 65 |
| Has reached its middle, we have far to go: | |
| Bend to your paddles, comrades; see, the light | |
| Ebbs off apace; we must not linger so. | |
| Aye thus it is! Heaven gleams and then is gone. | |
| Once, twice, it smiles, and still we wander on. | 70 |
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