The Lost Lagoon

by Emily Pauline JOHNSON (1862-1913)



It is dusk on the Lost Lagoon,
And we two dreaming the dusk away,
Beneath the drift of a twilight grey,
Beneath the drowse of an ending day,
And the curve of a golden moon.


It is dark in the Lost Lagoon,
And gone are the depths of haunting blue,
The grouping gulls, and the old canoe,
The singing firs, and the dusk and—you,
And gone is the golden moon.


O lure of the Lost Lagoon!—
I dream to-night that my paddle blurs
The purple shade where the seaweed stirs,
I hear the call of the singing firs
In the hush of the golden moon.

In 1916 the beautiful lagoon from Coal Harbour was transformed artificially in lake by the construction of Stanley Park. This poem gave the name "Lost Lagoon" for this man-made lake, name officially adopted in 1922 by The Vancouver Park Board .

Thank you, Pauline, for this beautiful and inspired name!