The River Saguenay

Few poets yet in praise of thee Have tuned a passing lay, Yet art thou rich in beauties stern, Thou dark browed Saguenay! And those grand charms that surely form For earth her rarest crown On thee, with strangely lavish hand, Have all been showered down. Thine own wild flood, so deep, so dark; That holds the gaze enthralled As if by some weird spell, at once Entranced yet not appalled; Seeking in vain to pierce those depths, Where wave and rock have met, Those depths which, by the hand of man, Have ne’er been fathomed yet. And then thy shores—thy rock bound shores, Where giant cliffs arise, Raising their untrod, unknown heights Defiant to the skies, And casting from their steep, stern brows Shadows of deepest gloom Athwart thy wave, till it doth seem A passage to a tomb. Such art thou in thy solitude, Majestic Saguenay! As lonely and as sternly rude As in time past away, When the red man in his fragile bark Sped o’er thy glassy wave, And found amid thy forests wild His cradle, home and grave. All, all is changed—reigns in his stead Another race and name, But, in thy lonely grandeur still, Proud River, thou’rt the same!