Black and white the face of night,
And roar the rapids to the moon;
Dust of stars beyond the bars,
And mirthless laughter of the loon.
Swirling blades through inky shades,
And ghostly shadows slipping by;
Clogging beds of arrowheads,
And jagging spruce tops in the sky,
Rasping groans of birchen cones
Re-answering from shore to shore;
Through the hush the snapping brush—
Then silence, and the stars once more.
Mutters slow, appealing, low,
The throaty pleading of the bark;
Roar of might that rends the night—
His body bulking through the dark.
Then the white, cruel tongue of light
Leaps stinging in his startled eyes;
Red and black the night falls back,
The rocking echo drifts and dies.