On Losing A Pencil In French River (Sonnet XIII) - George Jehoshaphat Mountain

Ah! river named of France, let reason judge,

  My silver-mounted implement to thee,

If I am greatly blameable to grudge,

  Seized, swallow'd, as by ocean, plunderer free;

My only pencil left,— unhappy me!

  Far off, like misadventure chanced before,

And then I lost a gift of love; but see

  What thou hast done by robbing me once more.

Unfurnish'd — but my trifling now is o'er —

  I think of her whose hand the token gave,

When last I left my native Albion's shore,

  In happiest hope since yielded to the grave.

Full many a hundred lines her gift has traced;

Not all, I dare to hope, are wholly waste.

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George Jehoshaphat Mountain (1789–1863) Canada (born England but moved to Canada aged 14)

Source: All Poetry