These distinctions between Mair as an impressionistic Nature-painter and an objective interrogator, and Lampman as a subjective interpreter of Nature, are nicely illustrated in Mair’s exquisitely beautiful and sensuously lovely poem, The Fire-Flies:—
I see them glimmer where the waters lag
By winding bays, and to the swallows sing;
And, far away, where stands the forest dim,
Huge-built of old, their tremulous lights are seen.
High overhead they gleam like trailing stars,
Then sink adown, until their emerald sheen
Dies in the darkness like an evening hymn,—
Anon to float again in glorious bars
Of streaming rapture, such as man may hear