AT
THE FERRY
On such a
day the shrunken stream
Spends its last water and runs
dry;
Clouds like far turrets in a dream
Stand baseless in the burning
sky.
On such a day at every rod
5
The toilers in the hay-field
halt,
With dripping brows, and the parched sod
Yields to the crushing foot
like salt.
But here
a little wind astir,
Seen waterward in jetting lines,
10
From yonder hillside topped with fir
Comes pungent with the breath
of pines;
And here when all the noon hangs still,
White-hot upon the city tiles,
A perfume and a wintry chill
15
Breathe from the yellow lumber-piles.
And all day
long there falls a blur
Of noises upon listless ears,
The rumble of the trams, the stir
Of barges at the clacking piers;
20
The champ of wheels, the crash of steam,
And ever, without change or
stay,
The drone, as through a troubled dream,
Of waters falling far away.
A tug-boat
up the farther shore
25
Half pants, half whistles, in
her draught;
The cadence of a creaking oar
Falls drowsily; a corded raft
Creeps slowly in the noonday gleam,
And wheresoe’er a shadow sleeps
30
The men lie by, or half a-dream,
Stand leaning at the idle sweeps.
And all day
long in the quiet bay
The eddying amber depths retard,
And hold, as in a ring, at play,
35
The heavy saw-logs notched and
scarred;
And yonder between cape and shoal,
Where the long currents swing
and shift,
An aged punt-man with his pole
Is searching in the parted drift.
40
At moments
from the distant glare
The murmur of a railway steals
Round yonder jutting point the air
Is beaten with the puff of wheels;
And here at hand an open mill,
45
Strong clamor at perpetual drive,
With changing chant, now hoarse, now shrill,
Keeps dinning like a mighty
hive.
A furnace
over field and mead,
The rounding noon hangs hard
and white;
50
Into the gathering heats recede
The hollows of the Chelsea height;
But under all to one quiet tune,
A spirit in cool depths withdrawn,
With logs, and dust, and wrack bestrewn,
55
The stately river journeys on.
I watch the
swinging currents go
Far down to where, enclosed
and piled,
The logs crowd, and the Gatineau
Comes rushing from the northern
wild.
60
I see the long low point, where close
The shore-lines, and the waters
end,
I watch the barges pass in rows
That vanish at the tapering
bend.
I see as
at the noon’s pale core—
65
A shadow that lifts clear and
floats—
The cabin’d village round the shore,
The landing and the fringe of
boats;
Faint films of smoke that curl and wreathe,
And upward with the like desire
70
The vast gray church that seems to breathe
In heaven with its dreaming
spire.
And there
the last blue boundaries rise,
That guard within their compass
furled
This plot of earth: beyond them lies
75
The mystery of the echoing world;
And still my thought goes on, and yields
New vision and new joy to me,
Far peopled hills, and ancient fields,
And cities by the crested sea.
80
I see no
more the barges pass,
Nor mark the ripple round the
pier,
And all the uproar, mass on mass,
Falls dead upon a vacant ear.
Beyond the tumult of the mills,
85
And all the city’s sound and
strife,
Beyond the waste, beyond the hills,
I look far out and dream of
life.
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