Classic Poem

Deep dark river drifting through the night,
Stabbed with cold stars and the thin moon's light,
Quickened with the north wind and the draining snow,
What strange dreams stir in thy turgid flow!

I can see the black silt of far drowned places,
And the white froth of rapids like drowned faces,
And the red and purple stains of sunsets burning,
And the endless gray rains of winter's turning.

I can hear the bobcat scream, the cow moose calling,
The dull reverberant crash of rampike falling,
And from the portage trail below Deschenes
The pulse of paddles and À la Claire Fontaine .

I hear the ghost waves lapping on a million beaches,
I hear the ghost laughter of loons down lonely reaches,
The sighing of spent winds in the matted spruce
And the sudden honk and splash of arrow-stricken goose.

And always I hear the stir of men slipping
Down to the Chaudiere, their thin blades dripping;
Catch the long low wraith of a bark canoe
And the wild sweet chansons of a phantom crew.

Strange smells are loosed by the hurrying prows —
Wood-smoke, trade rum, dried balsam boughs;
Strange smells steeped from the drip of years
And dyed with the stuff of dead dreams and tears.

Into the wash and waste of thy brave debris,
Drifting through the dark night toward a dark sea,
Into thy silent keeping receive from me
The gleam of one more broken dream, O Ottawa!