Thursday, July 5, 2012

You Asked ~

Yes, the bookshop is air-conditioned! 

Today:  1:00 p.m. Reading ~ E. Pauline Johnson w/John Passfield

"Sleeps the overhanging willow"

In The Shadows

I am sailing to the leeward,
Where the current runs to seaward soft and slow,
Where the sleeping river grasses
Brush my paddle as it passes
To and fro.

On the shore the heat is shaking
All the golden sands awaking
In the cove;
And the quaint sand-piper, winging
O'er the shallows, ceases singing
When I move.

On the water's idle pillow
Sleeps the overhanging willow,
Green and cool;
Where the rushes lift their burnished
Oval heads from out the tarnished
Emerald pool.
~  ~
My canoe is growing lazy,
In the atmosphere so hazy,
While I dream;
Half in slumber I am guiding,
Eastward indistinctly gliding
Down the stream.

Note:  "In The Shadows" consists of nine verses. 

~ Flint and Feather, The Complete Poems of E. Pauline Johnson, Hodder and Stoughton, Ltd., 1917.

Photos:  lbwalker