Canoe Song at Twilight

"Canoe Song at Twilight" by Laura Elizabeth McCully (1886-1924)
In Garvin, John William, ed. Canadian Poets. Toronto, Canada: McClelland, Goodchild & Stewart, Publishers, 1916. pp. 424.

Canoe Song at Twilight

DOWN in the west the shadows rest,
  Little grey wave, sing low, sing low!
With a rhythmic sweep o'er the gloomy deep
  Into the dusk of the night we go,
    And the paddles dip and lift and slip,
    And the drops fall back with a pattering drip;
The wigwams deep of the spirits of sleep
Are pitched in the gloom on the headland steep.
  Wake not their silence as you go,
  Little grey wave, sing low, sing low!

From your porch on high where the clouds go by,
  Little white moon, look down, look down!
'Neath night's shut lid the stars are hid,
  And the last late bird to his nest has flown.
    The slow waves glide and sink and slide
    And rise in ripples along the side;
The loons call low in the marsh below,
Night weaves about us her magic slow,–
  Ere the last faint gleam in our wake be gone,
  Little white moon, look down, look down!

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