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

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,

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

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;

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

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

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,

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.

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,

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;

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A spirit in cool depths withdrawn,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,

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.

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—

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

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

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.

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,

And all the city's sound and strife,

Beyond the waste, beyond the hills,

I look far out and dream of life.