We sing, and sing, through the grass and the stones and the reeds, And we never grow tired, though we journey ever and aye, Dreaming, and dreaming, wherever the long way leads, Of the far cool rocks and the rush of the wind and the spray. Under the sun and the stars we murmur and dance and are free, And we dream and dream of our mother, the width of the sheltering sea. BETWEEN THE RAPIDS. 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 rapid's sudden quickening roar. Ah yet the same, or have they changed their face, 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. 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 Of the low whispering river, and through all, Soft human tongues that break the deepening hush With faint-heard song or desultory call: Oh comrades hold; the longest reach is past; The stream runs swift, and we are flying fast. 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, 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. 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 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. The woods grow wild, and from the rising shore The cool wind creeps, the faint wood odours 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, 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.