midnight
`` But we be lumbermen bold ! '' cried the nearest . And the song was passed on from one point to another , from shore to shore , all down the rapids , to the gangs below . Then all was silent again , for midnight loves not song , though it does demand a call from man to man through the dark . It loves better to listen , while the river tells of the dread sea-monster that yearly craves a human life , whether grown or child , but always a life a year . All things solemn and still now . The moon sits quiet as if in church , and jesting dies on the roughest lips .