Row, brothers, row! the stream runs fast,
The rapids are near, and the daylight's past!
Why should we yet our sail unfurl?
There is not a breath the blue wave to curl!
But, when the wind blows off the shore,
Oh! sweetly we'll rest our weary oar.
Blow, breezes, blow! the stream runs fast,
The rapids are near, and the daylight's past!
Utawas tide! this trembling moon
Shall see us float over thy surges soon.
Saint of this green isle! hear our prayers,
Oh! grant us cool heavens and favouring airs.
Blow, breezes, blow! the stream runs fast,
The rapids are near, and the daylight's past!
TO THE LADY CHARLOTTE R-WD-N.
From the banks of the St. Lawrence.
Nor many months have now been dream'd
Since yonder sun (beneath whose evening ray
We rest our boat among these Indian isles)
Saw me, where mazy Trent serenely smiles
Through many an oak, as sacred as the groves
Beneath whose shade the pious Persian roves,
And hears the soul of father, or of chief,
Or loved mistress, sigh in every leaf!
There listening, Lady! while thy lip hath sung
My own unpolish'd lays, how proud I've hung
On every mellow'd number! proud to feel
That notes like mine should have the fate to steal,
As o'er thy hallowing lip they sigh'd along,
Such breath of passion and such soul of song.
Oh! I have wonder'd, like the peasant boy
Who sings at eve his sabbath strains of joy,
And when he hears the rude, luxuriant note
Back to his ear on softening echoes float,
Believes it still some answering spirit's tone,
And thinks it all too sweet to be his own!
I dream'd not then that, ere the rolling year
Had fill'd its circle, I should wander here
In musing awe; should tread this wondrous world,
See all its store of inland waters hurl'd