MORNING ON THE LIÈVRES.

Far above us where a jay

Screams his matins to the day,

Capped with gold and amethyst,

Like a vapour from the forge

Of a giant somewhere hid,

Out of hearing of the clang

Of his hammer, skirts of mist

Slowly up the woody gorge

Lift and hang.

Softly as a cloud we go,

Sky above and sky below,

Down the river, and the dip

Of the paddles scarcely breaks,

With the little silvery drip

Of the water as it shakes

From the blades, the crystal deep

Of the silence of the morn,

Of the forest yet asleep,

And the river reaches borne

In a mirror, purple grey,

Sheer away

To the misty line of light,

Where the forest and the stream

In the shadow meet and plight,

Like a dream.

From amid a stretch of reeds,

Where the lazy river sucks

All the water as it bleeds

From a little curling creek,

And the muskrats peer and sneak

In around the sunken wrecks

Of a tree that swept the skies

Long ago,

On a sudden seven ducks

With a splashy rustle rise,

Stretching out their seven necks,

One before, and two behind,

And the others all arow,

And as steady as the wind

With a swivelling whistle go,

Through the purple shadow led,

Till we only hear their whir

In behind a rocky spur,

Just ahead.