But we sing sweet songs to our mother, and answer her back;

Gladly we answer our mother, sweetly repay.

Oh, we hear, we hear her singing wherever we roam,

Far, far away in the silence, calling us home.

Poor mortal, your ears are dull, and you cannot hear;

But we, we hear it, the breast of our mother abeat;

Low, far away, sweet and solemn and clear,

Under the hush of the night, under the noontide heat:

And we sing sweet songs to our mother, for so we shall please her best,

Songs of beauty and peace, freedom and infinite rest.

We sing, and sing, through the grass and the stones and the reeds,

And we never grow tired, though we journey ever and aye,

[Pg 40]

Dreaming, and dreaming, wherever the long way leads,

Of the far cool rocks and the rush of the wind and the spray.

Under the sun and the stars we murmur and dance and are free,

And we dream and dream of our mother, the width of the sheltering sea.

BETWEEN THE RAPIDS.

The point is turned; the twilight shadow fills

The wheeling stream, the soft receding shore,

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