The White Canoe, and Other Verse

BY ALAN SULLIVAN
TORONTO: THE J. E. BRYANT CO. (LTD.) 1891.
The White Canoe
And other Verse.
There's a whisper of life in the grey dead trees, And a murmuring wash on the shore, And a breath of the South in the loitering breeze, To tell that a winter is o'er. While free, at last, from its fetters of ice The river is clear and blue, And cries with a tremulous quivering voice For the launch of the White Canoe.
Oh, gently the ripples will kiss her side, And tenderly bear her on; For she is the wandering phantom bride Of the river she rests upon; She is loved with a love that cannot forget, A passion so strong and true, That never a billow has risen yet To peril the White Canoe.
So come when the moon is enthroned in the sky, And the echoes are sweet and low, And Nature is full of the mystery That none but her children know; Come, taste of the rest that the weary crave, But is only revealed to a few: When there's trouble on shore, there's peace on the wave, Afloat in the White Canoe.
To-night, sweetheart, when all about me lay In shadow deep the wood, I felt my soul within me reel and sway And pulse my sluggish blood, As when along a quiet land-locked bay Swells some resistless flood.
My spirit leapt from out its earthly prison, Higher and ever higher, Until it reached those barriers Elysian Where the eternal fire Creates one great impassable division Twixt us and our desire.
Up, till it left the regions of the night, Of sorrow and of fear, Emerging into that soft mellow light, That radiance pure and clear, Where Love reigns all supreme, and all is bright If only Love be near.
There through sweet meadows, on by brimming streams, Wandered my soul at will, And saw such forms as haunt our loveliest dreams And, waking, haunt us still; Voices like music, smiles like sunny beams Lost in a rippling rill.