DISCOVERY

This is where it shimmered
In the morning air,
Looking like a legend
Wrought in color there:
Fortressed by a rock wall

And its airy street,
Poised as light as pine trees
Wind-bent towards retreat.

We had turned a corner,
Caught sudden sheen,

Found a glowing island
We had never seen:
Heard a sound like music
Perfume all the lake—
Singing as a woman sings

Lovely, half awake.

And we paddled nearer,
Struck the rocky shore,
Called in strange excitement:
‘We are at your door!’

‘Are you fact or fancy/’
‘Have you been here long?’
And the island answered:
‘I am an old song,
An old, old song

Old song.’ [page 7]

AIR

The air was warm with an exotic charm,
Not Canada at all
And a small northern lake;
A land of soft desire,

A depth of turquoise fire,
A height of foreign stars.
Only the water glittered
In a cool northern way
Sparkling against the rocks,

Then the full moon arose.
‘We shall awake, my dear,
We shall awake,
And find all this some fabulous mistake!
I hear a song from far away

A song that never rests,
I feel the island trembling,
Or is it your small breasts?”
‘Let us be still and go to sleep,
For the song will vanish in the morning.’ [page 8]

WATER

But the song surged up in the morning,
Turned into crystal cadence as we swam
Beating against blue fire;
The far sea in our blood
Raced through the cold, fresh bath

Singing eternal life.

Electrons in the sun,
Or stars in space,
Or little shining fish were we—
Anything fully alive

Anything coldly free.

Then the hot rock
Was hard and firm;
The island gathered shape again
Beneath our pulsing limbs.

We lay upon the centuries,
Regaining warmth. [page 9]

NOON

An Indian guide
From up at Lake Travers
(Strawberry shirt and grey canoe and all)

Came circling in and out,
Expecting us to beckon him or call.
Then—near enough to shout—
‘Where was you all last week?
Thought maybe you was lost!

Don’t you two want no trout?
That is damn island!
Very much too low—too near the water:
Today I take you down to Hurdman’s Creek
Good fish there, if you like!’

We shouted back:
‘Ah, no!. . . We’ve leased this island now—
Forever—do you hear?
And absolutely there’s no poaching here,
But we may go with you to Hurdman’s Creek

One day next year—next year!’

He paddled slowly off,
Then very clear the island echoed gaily:
‘You may go with him, perhaps,
This day next year—next year.’ [page 10]

EVENING

An August evening,
Pale-blue and silver and the moon ahead,
And the canoe, if you should turn it westward,
Glazed to a lacquer red.

We had set up our house:

A fireplace of the island stone,
And a mat of moss,
A tent, and a balsam bed,
And a table made of a pine.

And through the twilight’s fading line

We paddled far down the bay
To look at the place so far away
Where the inns and the tourists belong,
The place we had left so hurriedly
When we heard the sound of a song.

Being established in magic,
Householders you might say,
It was safe enough to glance at the past
From our supernatural bay.

But then we went fishing instead!

And something reached out of the twilight,
Something so old and magnetic
Something so sure and prevailing
It seemed we might better obey—
For a song has a certain conviction

Heard at the end of the day. [page 11]

NIGHT

We finally built a fire
To warm our shivering tent.
It looked like a ghost, as the flame rose higher
And showed the open rent of the flap

Knocking about in the wind.

‘Where was you all last week?’ Pierre had asked,
‘Thought maybe you was lost!’

We wondered a moment later,
If that was the sound of frost,

Or a bent twig, snapped in the forest.
We wondered when winter, with bitter cost,
Would stop the song of the island.

Lighting my cigarette from yours,
Close in the lovely blaze,

We talked of miraculous nights
And endless drowsy days.

‘But is it a night, or a hundred nights
Since we stopped at the rocky door?’
‘It is too long for you, my dear?

‘Is your bed warm no more?’…
‘Yes, witchingly, yes—
But time runs on:
Sometimes I know, as in a dream,
That we have often been here before.

The song that is part of everything
Beats like a bell in my brain.
Is the tent, in fact, but a ghost?
And we—are we lost in this magical pain,
In the cold blue depths, [page 12]

In the heat of the rocks,
In passionate sorcery,
In death that is endless sweet?
And shall I save you, while there is time,
From unreal cold and heat!’

But we died again that night,
Sank deep and far away,
Seeing the star through the canvas roof,
Hearing the pine trees sway,
And the island’s murmurous song,

And the deep sea in our blood
Beating for long and long.

(But that pistol frost in the woods!)

‘We’ve a lease of this island forever,
Forever, do you hear?

And absolutely no poaching:
But we may go with you to Hurdman’s Creek
This day next year—next year.’ [page 13]

DETENTION

Well, we thought it over and over
For another night or two,

Then creeping about like trespassers,
When the sun had almost risen
In the moment before day,
We took our fate in both our hands
And packed the tent,

And were well on our way
When suddenly the paddles slipped,
The boat went all astray
Caught in the sedge,
And a wind arose, drifting us back to land.

Then we made ourselves a sail,
And took a last adieu.
But we said to our smiling island
‘We shall return to you
After the cold is over

We shall return’…
Her smile was as new as waking earth
On a morning after rain.
And the waves, as in October,
Were choppy and swift and clear,

We had almost turned the corner
When the whole thing happened again—
For the lake was suddenly still
As a lonely and forgotten pool
At the foot of a broken mill,

And our sail was a rag of canvas
That sorcery could not fill.
We were merged again in a mystery
That defied our fluttering will,
So we came like abject children [page 14]

Back to our cold doorsill—
Suddenly cold and gray,
Ashy and cold and gray,
And we heard the song of the island
From far and far away,

In a chant that was slow and still:
If you would ask me I should say:
Not if you fell on your knees to pray,
Not for a year and not for a day,
And my days are long and long. . .

For you have found what you came to see
And I am you and you are me
And you are part of a song—
An old, old song
Old song. [page 15]

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