The Pilot in the Mist

Steaming the northern rapids—(an old St. Lawrence reminis-cencereminiscence,

A sudden memory-flash comes back, I know not why,

Here waiting for the sunrise, gazing from this hill;)*

Again 'tis just at morning—a heavy haze contends with day-breakdaybreak,

Again the trembling, laboring vessel veers me—I press through foam-dash'd rocks that almost touch me,

Again I mark where aft the small thin Indian helmsman

Looms in the mist, with brow elate and governing hand.