The summer is dead, for the air is chill,
And winter is nigh again;
The maples ablaze on each ruddy hill
Are dripping with crimson rain;
Black dusk comes hard on the steps or day,
The breath of the south that blew,
Has turned to the north, and bids me say
Farewell to the White Canoe.
How wildly she leapt at each measured stroke,
And mounted the curling swell;
How the white foam hung at her bows like smoke,
When the great waves rose and fell;
No terror for her could a tempest find,
No wrath in a frowning sky;
Her birth was the union of sea and wind,
Her life is a mystery.
She swam like a ghost through the ghostly night,
That bowed but to her as queen;
She sped like a wraith in the silver light.
Or a spirit of things unseen:
As a leaf in the autumn she sank to sleep,
By babbling ripples caressed,
And lay in the arms of the cradling deep,
On the river's responsive breast.
The summer is dead, and alas! no more
May we wander, alone and free,
By still deep pools and the shadowy shore,
And the rapids’ soft lullaby;
Farewell, farewell, to the peace that lies
In that solitude deep and blue;
An answering voice from the great stream sighs,
“Farewell to the White Canoe.”