Classic Poem

Where, ever, the blue waters drift to the silent deeps of that ocean
That rolls 'neath the star
Where Michabo dwells on an ice-floe immense and ever in motion,
Alone and afar,

Lest, touching the earth, he should scorch and consume it with flame of his burning,
The fire of his feet,
Overwhelming the warrior brave on the trail of the hunter returning,
With whirlwinds of heat;

A rock once stood, abrupt by the river, assuming the fashion,
In mute self-control,
Of an angel's reverent form, with deep, subdued passion,
Pointing the path to the pole.

A sentinel lonely it seemed, on the bank of the blue Athabasca,
A lure to the sea, —
The sea that rolls from the opening dawn to the shore of Alaska,
And north to eternity.
Of old, when artless, reflective and leisurely life was inviting
To thought, that rock-face
Was covered with runes, in the strangest of weird picture-writing
Of love and the chase.

This story I read there. Dim on the rock, I found the strange writing,
Translated and wove
The pictures I saw into lines of the language I know best, inditing
This legend of love.