我O宁静的草地,草地上Tantramar,广阔的沼泽地es ever washed in clearest air, Whether beneath the sole and spectral star The dear severity of dawn you wear, Or whether in the joy of ample day And speechless ecstasy of growing June You lie and dream the long blue hours away Till nightfall comes too soon, Or whether, naked to the unstarred night, You strike with wondering awe my inward sight, -- II You know how I have loved you, how my dreams Go forth to you with longing, though the years That turn not back like your returning streams And fain would mist the memory with tears, Though the inexorable years deny My feet the fellowship of your deep grass, O'er which, as o'er another, tenderer sky, Cloud phantoms drift and pass, -- You know my confident love, since first, a child, Amid your wastes of green I wandered wild. III Inconstant, eager, curious, I roamed; And ever your long reaches lured me on; And ever o'er my feet your grasses foamed, And in my eyes your far horizons shone. But sometimes would you (as a stillness fell And on my pulse you laid a soothing palm) Instruct my ears in your most secret spell; And sometimes in the calm Initiate my young and wondering eyes Until my spirit grew more still and wise. IV Purged with high thoughts and infinite desire I entered fearless the most holy place, Received between my lips the secret fire, The breath of inspiration on my face. But not for long these rare illumined hours, The deep surprise and rapture not for long. Again I saw the common, kindly flowers, Again I heard the song Of the glad bobolink, whose lyric throat Peeled like a tangle of small bells afloat. V The pounce of mottled marsh-hawk on his prey; The flicker of sand-pipers in from sea In gusty flocks that puffed and fled; the play Of field-mice in the vetches, -- these to me Were memorable events. But most availed Your strange unquiet waters to engage My kindred heart's companionship; nor failed To grant this heritage, -- That in my veins forever must abide The urge and fluctuation of the tide. VI The mystic river whence you take your name, River of hubbub, raucous Tantramar, Untamable and changeable as flame, It called me and compelled me from afar, Shaping my soul with its impetuous stress. When in its gaping channel deeps withdrawn Its waves ran crying of the wilderness And winds and stars and dawn, How I companioned them in speed sublime, Led out a vagrant on the hills of Time! VII And when the orange flood came roaring in From Fundy's tumbling troughs and tide-worn caves, While red Minudie's flats were drowned with din And rough Chignecto's front oppugned the waves, How blithely with the refluent foam I raced Inland along the radiant chasm, exploring The green solemnity with boisterous haste; My pulse of joy outpouring To visit all the creeks that twist and shine From Beauséjour to utmost Tormentine. VIII And after, when the tide was full, and stilled A little while the seething and the hiss, And every tributary channel filled To the brim with rosy streams that swelled to kiss The grass-roots all awash and goose-tongue wild And salt-sap rosemary, -- then how well content I was to rest me like a breathless child With play-time rapture spent, -- To lapse and loiter till the change should come And the great floods turn seaward, roaring home. IX And now, O tranquil marshes, in your vast Serenity of vision and of dream, Wherethrough by every intricate vein have passed With joy impetuous and pain supreme The sharp, fierce tides that chafe the shores of earth In endless and controlless ebb and flow, Strangely akin you seem to him whose birth One hundred years ago With fiery succour to the ranks of song Defied the ancient gates of wrath and wrong. X Like yours, O marshes, his compassionate breast, Wherein abode all dreams of love and peace, Was tortured with perpetual unrest. Now loud with flood, now languid with release, Now poignant with the lonely ebb, the strife Of tides from the salt sea of human pain That hiss along the perilous coasts of life Beat in his eager brain; But all about the tumult of his heart Stretched the great calm of his celestial art. XI Therefore with no far flight, from Tantramar And my still world of ecstasy, to thee, Shelley, to thee I turn, the avatar Of Song, Love, Dream, Desire, and Liberty; To thee I turn with reverent hands of prayer And lips that fain would ease my heart o