Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.

Duncan Campbell Scott 1862–1947

Above St. Irénée

Scott-Du

I RESTED on the breezy height,

In cooler shade and clearer air,

Beneath a maple tree;

Below, the mighty river took

Its sparkling shade and sheeny light

Down to the sombre sea,

And clustered by the leaping brook

The roofs of white St. Irénée.

The sapphire hills on either hand

Broke down upon the silver tide,

The river ran in streams,

In streams of mingled azure-gray

With here a broken purple band,

And whorls of drab, and beams

Of shattered silver light astray,

Where far away the south shore gleams.

I walked a mile along the height

Between the flowers upon the road,

Asters and golden-rod;

And in the gardens pinks and stocks,

And gaudy poppies shaking light,

And daisies blooming near the sod,

And lowly pansies set in flocks

With purple monkshood overawed.

And there I saw a little child

Between the tossing golden-rod,

Coming along to me;

She was a tender little thing,

So fragile-sweet, so Mary-mild,

I thought her name Marie;

No other name methought could cling

To any one so fair as she.

And when we came at last to meet,

I spoke a simple word to her,

“Where are you going, Marie?”

She answered and she did not smile,

But oh, her voice,—her voice so sweet,

“Down to St. Irénée,”

And so passed on to walk her mile,

And left the lonely road to me.