CANADIAN SINGERS AND THEIR SONGS
Noon-Day on Lake Ontario.
The Sun strode laughing through the unguarded Heavens.
His darts that dealt mortality but yesterday to the clouds,
Now idle, sportive, he shook at the fugitives herded on the horizon,
Fainting afar to the limbo of forms forgotten.
Oh, fiercely merry he rattled his half-full quiver
And into the sea-broad lake, a sapphire fable,
He spilled ten thousand arrow-heads of glory!
So quenched he his ire and took his Victor's pleasure.
I saw the Lake leap up like Love's quick bosom
At every barb's keen point a mortal splendour—
A wound, a star, a diadem of rainbows!
Ten thousand pangs the ecstatic water suffered,
Ten thousand shafts rained down through panting ether,
So marched the Conqueror—Wanton through his zenith.
Mary Josephine Benson.
17
