C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Emily Pauline Johnson (1861–1913)
Wave-Won
T
Belovèd one, to know
If you recall and crave again the dream
That haunted our canoe,
And wove its witchcraft through
Our hearts as ’neath the northern night we sailed the northern stream.
As yesternight could be
Afloat within that light and lonely shell,
To drift in silence till
Heart-hushed, and lulled and still
The moonlight through the melting air flung forth its fatal spell.
The path of gold and white
The moon had cast across the river’s breast,
The shores in shadows clad,
The far-away, half-sad
Sweet singing of the whippoorwill, all soothed our souls to rest.
My arm as strong as steel,
So still your upturned face, so calm your breath,
While circling eddies curled,
While laughing rapids whirled
From bowlder unto bowlder, till they dashed themselves to death.
Put heaven’s stars to shame;
Your god-like head so near my lap was laid
My hand is burning where
It touched your wind-blown hair,
As sweeping to the rapids’ verge I changed my paddle blade.
Till wearied with its grand
Wild anger, all the river lay aswoon;
And as my paddle dipped,
Through pools of pearl it slipped
And swept beneath a shore of shade, beneath a velvet moon.
Our spirit-winged canoe
Is listening to the rapids purling past?
Where in delirium reeled
Our maddened hearts that kneeled
To idolize the perfect world, to taste of love at last.