The Wraith of the Red Swan

WHY tarries the flash of his blade ?
At morning he sailed from me ;
From the depth of our high beech glade,
To the surge and the sea
I followed the gleam of his blade.
The cherries were flowering white,
And the Nashwaak Islands flooded,
When the long Red Swan took flight ;
On a wind she scudded
With her gunwale buried from sight,
Till her sail drew down out of sight.

He shouted, " A northward track,
Before the swallows have flown ! "
And now the cherries are black,
And the clover is brown,
And the Red Swan comes not back.
The stream-bends, hidden and shy,
With their harvest of lilies are strewn ;
The gravel bars are all dry,
And warm in the noon,
Where the rapids go swirling by,
Go singing and rippling by.

Through many an evening gone,
Where the roses drank the breeze,
When the pale slow moon outshone
Through the slanting trees,
I dreamed of the long Red Swan.
How I should know that one
Great stroke, and the time of the swing
Urging her on and on,
Spring after spring,
Lifting the long Red Swan,
Lifting the long Red Swan !

How I should drink the foam —
The far white lines from her swift
Keen bow, when, hurrying to come,
With lift upon lift
The long Red Swan came home !
Here would I crouch down low,
And watch the Red Swan from far,
A speck in the evening, grow
To a flaming star
In the dusk as of ages ago,
In the dusk of ages ago.

I would lean, and with lips apart.
See the streak of the Red Swan's fire
Glow dim at the twilight's heart,
Feel the core of desire
From the slumber of years upstart.
How soon should the day grow wan,
And a wind from the south unfold,
Like the low beginning of dawn,
Grow steady and hold
In the race of the long Red Swan,
In the race of the Ions; Red Swan !

How glad of their river once more
Would the crimson wings unfurl,
And the long Red Swan, on the roar
Of a whitecap swirl,
Steer in to the arms of her shore !
But the wind is the voice of a dirge !
What wonder allures him, what care,
So far on the world's bleak verge ?
Why lingers he there,
By the sea and the desolate surge,
In the sound of the moan of the surge ?

Last midnight the thunder rode
With the lightning astride of the storm
Low down in the east, where glowed
The fright of his form
On the ocean-wild rack he bestrode.
The hills were his ocean wan,
And the white tree tops foamed high,
Lashed out of the night, whereon
In a gust fled by
A wraith of the long Red Swan,
A wraith of the long Red Swan.

Her crimson bellying sail
Was fleckered with brine and spume ;
Its taut wet clew, through the veil
Of the driving fume,
Was sheeted home on the gale.
The shoal of the fury of night
Was a bank in the fog, wherethrough
Hissed the Red Swan in her flight ;
She shrilled as she flew,
A shriek from the seething white,
In the face of the world grown white.

She laboured not in the sea,
Careened but a handbreadth over,
And, the gleam of her side laid free
For the drift to cover,
Sped on to the dark in her lee.
Through crests of the hoarse tide swing,
Clove sheer the sweep of her bow ;
There was loosed the ice-roaring of Spring
From the jaws of her prow,
Of the long Red Swan full wing,
The long Red Swan full wing.

Where the rake of her gunwale dipped
As the spent black waves ran aft,
In a hand for helm there was gripped
The sheen of a haft,
Which sang in the furrows it ripped.
Then I knew and was glad, for what foam
Could the rush of her speed o'erwhelm
If Louis and his Whitehaulm
Were steersman and helm,
When the long Red Swan drave home,
When the long Red Swan drave home ?

Yet ever the sweeping mist
Was a veil to his face from me,
Though yearning I well half wist
What his look might be
From the carven bend of his wrist.
Then a break, and the cloud was gone,
And there was his set keen face
Afire with smouldering dawn
In the joy of her race,
In the flight of the long Red Swan,
In the flight of the long Red Swan !

Though drenched in the spray-drift hoar,
As of old it was ruddy and warm
Through the black hair, grizzled and frore,
Whipped out on the storm ;
Then " Louis ! " I launched on the roar.
O'er night and the brawl of the stream
The hail of my cry flew on ;
He turned, with a smile supreme,
And the long Red Swan
Grew dim as the wraith of a dream,
As the blown white wraith of a dream.

Look ! Burnished and blue, what a sweep
Of river outwinds in the sun ;
What miles of shimmering deep,
Where the hills grow one
With their shadow of summer and sleep !
I gaze from the cedar shade
Day long, high over the beach,
And never a ripple is laid
To the long blue reach,
Where faded the gleam of that blade,
The far gold flash of his blade.

I follow and dream and recall,
Forget and remember and dream ;
When the interval grass waves tall,
I move in the gleam
Where his blade-beats glitter and fall.
Yet never my dream gets clear
Of the whispering bodeful spell
The aspen shudders to hear,
Yet hurries to tell,
How the long Red Swan draws near,
How the long Red Swan draws near.