Page:All quiet along the Potomac and other poems.djvu/192

 1 86 THE SUNKEN ISLAND.

THE SUNKEN ISLAND.

O ER Canaderaga the shadows creep, Dreams of her silent summer sleep ; Yon pictured hill, a blue-veined lid, Curtains the brightness beneath it hid \ The toying tress of the willow swings, And the tasselled birch her guerdon flings, Till the wave wakes up from its revery, And, Indian-like, laughs silently.

In shore, the tall flags moveless stand, With lances straight like warder band, To guard the lily s jewelled cup, Whose golden wine the wave bears up ; But guards in vain : the robber bee Drinks and away, humming merrily, And the dragon-fly waves its wing of light Into the sunshine and out of sight.

But just where the mountain-shadows break Lies the sunken isle of the laughing lake, Where the soft green rushes idly sway, And the fisher s boat is seen alway, As the angler peers through the limpid wave For a glimpse of the island s lonely grave, And dreams of the time when in air it stood, With its crown of flowers and belt of wood.

For Canaderaga a legend keeps,

To be whispered low when the midnight creeps

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