Poem by Archibald Lampman

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  A spirit in cool depths withdrawn,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.

1. Forest Moods
2. Distance
3. Heat
4. A Re-assurance
5. Among the Millet

Madison Cawein At the Ferry ("Oh, dim and wan came in the dawn")

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