Shadow River: Muskoka
Shadow River: Muskoka
Original Text
E. Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake), Flint and Feather: The Complete Poems, with Introduction by Theodore Watts-Dunton and a Biographical Sketch of the Author, Illustrated by J. R. Seavey, 7th edn. (1912: Toronto and London: The Musson Book Co., Ltd., 1921): 46-47. PS 8469 O3F5 1921 Robarts Library.
1A stream of tender gladness,
2Of filmy sun, and opal tinted skies ;
3Of warm midsummer air that lightly lies
4In mystic rings,
5Where softly swings
6The music of a thousand wings
7That almost tones to sadness.
8Midway 'twixt earth and heaven,
9A bubble in the pearly air I seem
10To float upon the sapphire floor, a dream
11Of clouds of snow,
12Above, below,
13Drift with my drifting, dim and slow,
14As twilight drifts to even.
15The little fern-leaf, bending
16Upon the brink, its green reflection greets,
17And kisses soft the shadow that it meets
18With touch so fine,
19The border line
20The keenest vision can't define ;
21So perfect is the blending.
22The far, fir trees that cover
23The brownish hills with needles green and gold,
24The arching elms o'erhead, vinegrown and old,
25Repictured are
26Beneath me far,
27Where not a ripple moves to mar
28Shades underneath, or over.
29Mine is the undertone ;
30The beauty, strength, and power of the land
31Will never stir or bend at my command ;
32But all the shade
33Is marred or made,
34If I but dip my paddle blade ;
35And it is mine alone.
36O! pathless world of seeming!
37O! pathless life of mine whose deep ideal
38Is more my own than ever was the real.
39For others Fame
40And Love's red flame,
41And yellow gold : I only claim
42The shadows and the dreaming.
Publication Start Year
1912
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 1997-2000.
Rhyme