White Sand

White Sand

Original Text
Robert T. Anderson, Canadian Born and Other Western Verse (Edmonton: Esdale Press, 1913): 26-27. Internet Archive
1Blue waves lap on the long low shore,
2    And the dark clouds cast their quivering shade;
3The dancing launch leaps lightly before
4    The heaving swell that the wind hath made;
5And over the rushes bending green,
6    Reaching outward across the strand
7We look to the beach so white and clean.
8    And are welcomed in on the silvery sand.
9The nodding poplars stretch beyond,
10    And the long hay-meadows skirt their edge,
11The white spume falls in the grass-girt pond.
12    And the boats lie rocking among the sedge;
13A straggling spruce tree here and there
14    Looks over meadow or broken land.
15O, sweet is Nature and wondrous fair
17Now over it all the sun breaks forth,
18    The dark cloud-shadows have passed away.
19Blue little lake of our own lov'd North,
20    We picture you bright on the sunniest day,
21For peaceful you lie like a soul at rest,
22    And brightly you mirror each scene so grand.
23This is the time that we love you best,
24    And our thoughts drift back to the camp, 'White Sand."
25For we have been lonely and sad at heart,
26    And we have had welcome from friends right true;
27The clouds that were blackest have riven apart,
28    And given a glimpse of Heaven's blue.
29Oh, we have been cheered in a lonely hour
30    By a kindly word and the clasp of a hand,
31And this we have known with strengthening power
32    No farther away than the beach, "White Sand."
33Summer cottage and white-walled tent,
34    Wide verandahs and boat house low--
35Idle days that were pleasantly spent--
36    They will soon be lost in the long ago.
37But over all when the years have flown
38    And sights we have seen that are rich and grand,
39Our hearts will cherish a scene well known,
40    Cooking Lake and the long white sand.

Notes

16] Cooking Lake: in 1909 weekend trains brought vacationers from Edmonton, 25 kilometres to the east, to North Cooking Lake, a village from which passenger boats ferried people to white sandy beaches on the south shore of this large but shallow lake (Linda Redekop and Wilfred Gilchrist, Strathcona Coutry [1981]). Back to Line
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2011
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