While The Billy BoilsSearchRiver, O River, hath menial and master,When shall your coaxing and cruelty cease?To-day we are singing a dirge of disaster,To-morrow a summer-time paean of peace.Mute as a mirror and blue as the sky above,Placid as ponds where the love-lilies dream,Reflecting the flash of the white birds that fly above,Skimming the silent and shimmering stream.Scarcely a leaf by your borders a-quiver,River, O River!
River, O River, now placid, now passioned,Disaster and death in your foam-covered face.And all the white wings that poor mankind has fashionedAre fretted and frayed into shredding of lace.All the brave boats that we’ve planned and we’ve builded,All the clean craft that the zephyrs impelled;All the yachts stately, enamelled and gilded,Hard in the grip of the hurricane held.In your spindrift a shriek, in your surge a shiver,River, O River!
River, O River, a master almighty,A servant obedient, willing and suave;Above your broad bosom the sky fleeces flighty,Death in your deeps, in your oozes a grave.Now sunny, now shadowed, now sullen, now smiling,Till the guttering gale beats your waters to foam,And the cumulus clouds in the pallidness piling,Have sent all the frightened fleets hurrying home.A thousand lives lie in the hands of the Giver,River, O River!
River, O River, you carry us everTo feastings al fresco, to music and mirth;To the smell of wistaria, wattle, and clover,The crunch of clean sand and the soft, grassy earth.But when the storm lightning from inkiness flared you,And winds from the west split the silence apart,In dolorous depths lay the dead men who dared youIn weed-covered graves that no human may chart.What souls have you seared, and what hearts set a-quiver,River, O River!