1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533
534
535
536
537
538
539
540
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566
567
568
569
570
571
572
573
574
575
576
577
578
579
580
581
582
583
584
585
586
587
588
589
590
591
592
593
594
595
596
597
598
599
600
601
602
603
604
605
606
607
608
609
610
611
612
613
614
615
616
617
618
619
620
621
622
623
624
625
626
627
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649
650
651
652
653
654
655
656
657
658
659
660
661
662
663
664
665
666
667
668
669
670
671
672
673
674
675
676
677
678
679
680
681
682
683
684
685
686
687
688
689
690
691
692
693
694
695
696
697
698
699
700
701
702
703
704
705
706
707
708
709
710
711
712
713
714
715
716
717
718
719
720
721
722
723
724
725
726
727
728
729
730
731
732
733
734
735
736
737
738
739
740
741
742
743
744
745
746
747
748
749
750
751
752
753
754
755
756
757
758
759
760
761
762
763
764
765
766
767
768
769
770
771
772
773
774
775
776
777
778
779
780
781
782
783
784
785
786
787
788
789
790
791
792
793
794
795
796
797
798
799
800
801
802
803
804
805
806
807
808
809
810
811
812
813
814
815
816
817
818
819
820
821
822
823
824
825
826
827
828
829
830
831
832
833
834
835
836
837
838
839
840
841
842
843
844
845
846
847
848
849
850
851
852
853
854
855
856
857
858
859
860
861
862
863
864
865
866
867
868
869
870
871
872
873
874
875
876
877
878
879
880
881
882
883
884
885
886
887
888
889
890
891
892
893
894
895
896
897
898
899
900
901
902
903
904
905
906
907
908
909
910
911
912
913
914
915
916
917
918
919
920
921
922
923
924
925
926
927
928
929
930
931
932
933
934
935
936
937
938
939
940
941
942
943
944
945
946
947
948
949
950
951
952
953
954
955
956
957
958
959
960
961
962
963
964
965
966
967
968
969
970
971
972
973
974
975
976
977
978
979
980
981
982
983
984
985
986
987
988
989
990
991
992
993
994
995
996
997
998
999
1000
1001
1002
1003
1004
1005
1006
1007
1008
1009
1010
1011
1012
1013
1014
1015
1016
1017
1018
1019
1020
1021
1022
1023
1024
1025
1026
1027
1028
1029
1030
1031
1032
1033
1034
1035
1036
1037
1038
1039
1040
1041
1042
1043
1044
1045
1046
1047
1048
1049
1050
1051
1052
1053
1054
1055
1056
1057
1058
1059
1060
1061
1062
1063
1064
1065
1066
1067
1068
1069
1070
1071
1072
1073
1074
1075
1076
1077
1078
1079
1080
1081
1082
1083
1084
1085
1086
1087
1088
1089
1090
1091
1092
1093
1094
1095
1096
1097
1098
1099
1100
1101
1102
1103
1104
1105
1106
1107
1108
1109
1110
1111
1112
1113
1114
1115
1116
1117
1118
1119
1120
1121
1122
1123
1124
1125
1126
1127
1128
1129
1130
1131
1132
1133
1134
1135
1136
1137
1138
1139
1140
1141
1142
1143
1144
1145
1146
1147
1148
1149
1150
1151
1152
1153
1154
1155
1156
1157
1158
1159
1160
1161
1162
1163
1164
1165
1166
1167
1168
1169
1170
1171
1172
1173
1174
1175
1176
1177
1178
1179
1180
1181
1182
1183
1184
1185
1186
1187
1188
1189
1190
1191
1192
1193
1194
1195
1196
1197
1198
1199
1200
1201
1202
1203
1204
1205
1206
1207
1208
1209
1210
1211
1212
1213
1214
1215
1216
1217
1218
1219
1220
1221
1222
1223
1224
1225
1226
1227
1228
1229
1230
1231
1232
1233
1234
1235
1236
1237
1238
1239
1240
1241
1242
1243
1244
1245
1246
1247
1248
1249
1250
1251
1252
1253
1254
1255
1256
1257
1258
1259
1260
1261
1262
1263
1264
1265
1266
1267
1268
1269
1270
1271
1272
1273
1274
1275
1276
1277
1278
1279
1280
1281
1282
1283
1284
1285
1286
1287
1288
1289
1290
1291
1292
1293
1294
1295
1296
1297
1298
1299
1300
1301
1302
1303
1304
1305
1306
1307
1308
1309
1310
1311
1312
1313
1314
1315
1316
1317
1318
1319
1320
1321
1322
1323
1324
1325
1326
1327
1328
1329
1330
1331
1332
1333
1334
1335
1336
1337
1338
1339
1340
1341
1342
1343
1344
1345
1346
1347
1348
1349
1350
1351
1352
1353
1354
1355
1356
1357
1358
1359
1360
1361
1362
1363
1364
1365
1366
1367
1368
1369
1370
1371
1372
1373
1374
1375
1376
1377
1378
1379
1380
1381
1382
1383
1384
1385
1386
1387
1388
1389
1390
1391
1392
1393
1394
1395
1396
1397
1398
1399
1400
1401
1402
1403
1404
1405
1406
1407
1408
1409
1410
1411
1412
1413
1414
1415
1416
1417
1418
1419
1420
1421
1422
1423
1424
1425
1426
1427
1428
1429
1430
1431
1432
1433
1434
1435
1436
1437
1438
1439
1440
1441
1442
1443
1444
1445
1446
1447
1448
1449
1450
1451
1452
1453
1454
1455
1456
1457
1458
1459
1460
1461
1462
1463
1464
1465
1466
1467
1468
1469
1470
1471
1472
1473
1474
1475
1476
1477
1478
1479
1480
1481
1482
1483
1484
1485
1486
1487
1488
1489
1490
1491
1492
1493
1494
1495
1496
1497
1498
1499
1500
1501
1502
1503
1504
1505
1506
1507
1508
1509
1510
1511
1512
1513
1514
1515
1516
1517
1518
1519
1520
1521
1522
1523
1524
1525
1526
1527
1528
1529
1530
1531
1532
1533
1534
1535
1536
1537
1538
1539
1540
1541
1542
1543
1544
1545
1546
1547
1548
1549
1550
1551
1552
1553
1554
1555
1556
1557
1558
1559
1560
1561
1562
1563
1564
1565
1566
1567
1568
1569
1570
1571
1572
1573
1574
1575
1576
1577
1578
1579
1580
1581
1582
1583
1584
1585
1586
1587
1588
1589
1590
1591
1592
1593
1594
1595
1596
1597
1598
1599
1600
1601
1602
1603
1604
1605
1606
1607
1608
1609
1610
1611
1612
1613
1614
1615
1616
1617
1618
1619
1620
1621
1622
1623
1624
1625
1626
1627
1628
1629
1630
1631
1632
1633
1634
1635
1636
1637
1638
1639
1640
1641
1642
1643
1644
1645
1646
1647
1648
1649
1650
1651
1652
1653
1654
1655
1656
1657
1658
1659
1660
1661
1662
1663
1664
1665
1666
1667
1668
1669
1670
1671
1672
1673
1674
1675
1676
1677
1678
1679
1680
1681
1682
1683
1684
1685
1686
1687
1688
1689
1690
1691
1692
1693
1694
1695
1696
1697
1698
1699
1700
1701
1702
1703
1704
1705
1706
1707
1708
1709
1710
1711
1712
1713
1714
1715
1716
1717
1718
1719
1720
1721
1722
1723
1724
1725
1726
1727
1728
1729
1730
1731
1732
1733
1734
1735
1736
1737
1738
1739
1740
1741
1742
1743
1744
1745
1746
1747
1748
1749
1750
1751
1752
1753
1754
1755
1756
1757
1758
1759
1760
1761
1762
1763
1764
1765
1766
1767
1768
1769
1770
1771
1772
1773
1774
1775
1776
1777
1778
1779
1780
1781
1782
1783
1784
1785
1786
1787
1788
1789
1790
1791
1792
1793
1794
1795
1796
1797
1798
1799
1800
1801
1802
1803
1804
1805
1806
1807
1808
1809
1810
1811
1812
1813
1814
1815
1816
1817
1818
1819
1820
1821
1822
1823
1824
1825
1826
1827
1828
1829
1830
1831
1832
1833
1834
1835
1836
1837
1838
1839
1840
1841
1842
1843
1844
1845
1846
1847
1848
1849
1850
1851
1852
1853
1854
1855
1856
1857
1858
1859
1860
1861
1862
1863
1864
1865
1866
1867
1868
1869
1870
1871
1872
1873
1874
1875
1876
1877
1878
1879
1880
1881
1882
1883
1884
1885
1886
1887
1888
1889
1890
1891
1892
1893
1894
1895
1896
1897
1898
1899
1900
1901
1902
1903
1904
1905
1906
1907
1908
1909
1910
1911
1912
1913
1914
1915
1916
1917
1918
1919
1920
1921
1922
1923
1924
1925
1926
1927
1928
1929
1930
1931
1932
1933
1934
1935
1936
1937
1938
1939
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1947
1948
1949
1950
1951
1952
1953
1954
1955
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
2026
2027
2028
2029
2030
2031
2032
2033
2034
2035
2036
2037
2038
2039
2040
2041
2042
2043
2044
2045
2046
2047
2048
2049
2050
2051
2052
2053
2054
2055
2056
2057
2058
2059
2060
2061
2062
2063
2064
2065
2066
2067
2068
2069
2070
2071
2072
2073
2074
2075
2076
2077
2078
2079
2080
2081
2082
2083
2084
2085
2086
2087
2088
2089
2090
2091
2092
2093
2094
2095
2096
2097
2098
2099
2100
2101
2102
2103
2104
2105
2106
2107
2108
2109
2110
2111
2112
2113
2114
2115
2116
2117
2118
2119
2120
2121
2122
2123
2124
2125
2126
2127
2128
2129
2130
2131
2132
2133
2134
2135
2136
2137
2138
2139
2140
2141
2142
2143
2144
2145
2146
2147
2148
2149
2150
2151
2152
2153
2154
2155
2156
2157
2158
2159
2160
2161
2162
2163
2164
2165
2166
2167
2168
2169
2170
2171
2172
2173
2174
2175
2176
2177
2178
2179
2180
2181
2182
2183
2184
2185
2186
2187
2188
2189
2190
2191
2192
2193
2194
2195
2196
2197
2198
2199
2200
2201
2202
2203
2204
2205
2206
2207
2208
2209
2210
2211
2212
2213
2214
2215
2216
2217
2218
2219
2220
2221
2222
2223
2224
2225
2226
2227
2228
2229
2230
2231
2232
2233
2234
2235
2236
2237
2238
2239
2240
2241
2242
2243
2244
2245
2246
2247
2248
2249
2250
2251
2252
2253
2254
2255
2256
2257
2258
2259
2260
2261
2262
2263
2264
2265
2266
2267
2268
2269
2270
2271
2272
2273
2274
2275
2276
2277
2278
2279
2280
2281
2282
2283
2284
2285
2286
2287
2288
2289
2290
2291
2292
2293
2294
2295
2296
2297
2298
2299
2300
2301
2302
2303
2304
2305
2306
2307
2308
2309
2310
2311
2312
2313
2314
2315
2316
2317
2318
2319
2320
2321
2322
2323
2324
2325
2326
2327
2328
2329
2330
2331
2332
2333
2334
2335
2336
2337
2338
2339
2340
2341
2342
2343
2344
2345
2346
2347
2348
2349
2350
2351
2352
2353
2354
2355
2356
2357
2358
2359
2360
2361
2362
2363
2364
2365
2366
2367
2368
2369
2370
2371
2372
2373
2374
2375
2376
2377
2378
2379
2380
2381
2382
2383
2384
2385
2386
2387
2388
2389
2390
2391
2392
2393
2394
2395
2396
2397
2398
2399
2400
2401
2402
2403
2404
2405
2406
2407
2408
2409
2410
2411
2412
2413
2414
2415
2416
2417
2418
2419
2420
2421
2422
2423
2424
2425
2426
2427
2428
2429
2430
2431
2432
2433
2434
2435
2436
2437
2438
2439
2440
2441
2442
2443
2444
2445
2446
2447
2448
2449
2450
2451
2452
2453
2454
2455
2456
2457
2458
2459
2460
2461
2462
2463
2464
2465
2466
2467
2468
2469
2470
2471
2472
2473
2474
2475
2476
2477
2478
2479
2480
2481
2482
2483
2484
2485
2486
2487
2488
2489
2490
2491
2492
2493
2494
2495
2496
2497
2498
2499
2500
2501
2502
2503
2504
2505
2506
2507
2508
2509
2510
2511
2512
2513
2514
2515
2516
2517
2518
2519
2520
2521
2522
2523
2524
2525
2526
2527
2528
2529
2530
2531
2532
2533
2534
2535
2536
2537
2538
2539
2540
2541
2542
2543
2544
2545
2546
2547
2548
2549
2550
2551
2552
2553
2554
2555
2556
2557
2558
2559
2560
2561
2562
2563
2564
2565
2566
2567
2568
2569
2570
2571
2572
2573
2574
2575
2576
2577
2578
2579
2580
2581
2582
2583
2584
2585
2586
2587
2588
2589
2590
2591
2592
2593
2594
2595
2596
2597
2598
2599
2600
2601
2602
2603
2604
2605
2606
2607
2608
2609
2610
2611
2612
2613
2614
2615
2616
2617
2618
2619
2620
2621
2622
2623
2624
2625
2626
2627
2628
2629
2630
2631
2632
2633
2634
2635
2636
2637
2638
2639
2640
2641
2642
2643
2644
2645
2646
2647
2648
2649
2650
2651
2652
2653
2654
2655
2656
2657
2658
2659
2660
2661
2662
2663
2664
2665
2666
2667
2668
2669
2670
2671
2672
2673
2674
2675
2676
2677
2678
2679
2680
2681
2682
2683
2684
2685
2686
2687
2688
2689
2690
2691
2692
2693
2694
2695
2696
2697
2698
2699
2700
2701
2702
2703
2704
2705
2706
2707
2708
2709
2710
2711
2712
2713
2714
2715
2716
2717
2718
2719
2720
2721
2722
2723
2724
2725
2726
2727
2728
2729
2730
2731
2732
2733
2734
2735
2736
2737
2738
2739
2740
2741
2742
2743
2744
2745
2746
2747
2748
2749
2750
2751
2752
2753
2754
2755
2756
2757
2758
2759
2760
2761
2762
2763
2764
2765
2766
2767
2768
2769
2770
2771
2772
2773
2774
2775
2776
2777
2778
2779
2780
2781
2782
2783
2784
2785
2786
2787
2788
2789
2790
2791
2792
2793
2794
2795
2796
2797
2798
2799
2800
2801
2802
2803
2804
2805
2806
2807
2808
2809
2810
2811
2812
2813
2814
2815
2816
2817
2818
2819
2820
2821
2822
2823
2824
2825
2826
2827
2828
2829
2830
2831
2832
2833
2834
2835
2836
2837
2838
2839
2840
2841
2842
2843
2844
2845
2846
2847
2848
2849
2850
2851
2852
2853
2854
2855
2856
2857
2858
2859
2860
2861
2862
2863
2864
2865
2866
2867
2868
2869
2870
2871
2872
2873
2874
2875
2876
2877
2878
2879
2880
2881
2882
2883
2884
2885
2886
2887
2888
2889
2890
2891
2892
2893
2894
2895
2896
2897
2898
2899
2900
2901
2902
2903
2904
2905
2906
2907
2908
2909
2910
2911
2912
2913
2914
2915
2916
2917
2918
2919
2920
2921
2922
2923
2924
|
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<title>Fires of Driftwood.</title>
</head>
<body>
<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12475 ***</div>
<h1 align="center">FIRES OF DRIFTWOOD</h1>
<h2 align="center">BY ISABEL ECCLESTONE MACKAY</h2>
<h3 align="center">WITH DECORATIONS BY J.E.H. MACDONALD A.R.C.A.</h3>
<p>First published by McClelland & Stewart, Limited, Toronto, 1922.</p>
<hr>
<!-- Page 1 -->
<blockquote>The thanks of the author are due to the editors of <i>Ainslee’s Magazine,
The American Magazine, The Canadian Magazine, Canadian Home Journal,
The Canadian Bookman, The Forum, The Globe, Harper’s Magazine,
The Independent, The Ladies’ World, McClure’s Magazine, Metropolitan
Magazine, The Reader Magazine, Scribner’s Magazine, Saturday Night,</i>
and <i>The Youth’s Companion</i> for permission to publish this verse
in its present form.</blockquote>
<!-- Page 3 -->
<h3>CONTENTS</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="#Fires_of_Driftwood">FIRES OF DRIFTWOOD</a></li>
<li><a href="#When_as_a_Lad">WHEN AS A LAD</a></li>
<li><a href="#Laureate">LAUREATE</a></li>
<li><a href="#Out_of_Babylon">OUT OF BABYLON</a></li>
<li><a href="#Last_Spring">LAST SPRING</a></li>
<li><a href="#Presence">PRESENCE</a></li>
<li><a href="#In_an_Autumn_Garden">IN AN AUTUMN GARDEN</a></li>
<li><a href="#Rose_Dolores">ROSE DOLORES</a></li>
<li><a href="#A_Pilgrim">A PILGRIM</a></li>
<li><a href="#Spring_will_Come">SPRING WILL COME</a></li>
<li><a href="#Cosmos">COSMOS</a></li>
<li><a href="#The_Secret">THE SECRET</a></li>
<li><a href="#I_Watch_Swift_Pictures">I WATCH SWIFT PICTURES</a></li>
<li><a href="#Fear">FEAR</a></li>
<li><a href="#Resurrection">RESURRECTION</a></li>
<li><a href="#The_Lost_Name">THE LOST NAME</a></li>
<li><a href="#The_Happy_Traveller">THE HAPPY TRAVELLER</a></li>
<li><a href="#The_Dead_Bride">THE DEAD BRIDE</a></li>
<li><a href="#The_Crocus_Bed">THE CROCUS BED</a></li>
<li><a href="#The_Vision">THE VISION</a></li>
<li><a href="#The_Miracle">THE MIRACLE</a></li>
<li><a href="#The_Homesteader">THE HOMESTEADER</a></li>
<li><a href="#Wet_Weather">WET WEATHER</a></li>
<li><a href="#The_Sleeping_Beauty">THE SLEEPING BEAUTY</a></li>
<li><a href="#Down_at_the_Docks">DOWN AT THE DOCKS</a></li>
<li><a href="#Lake_Louise">LAKE LOUISE</a></li>
<li><a href="#The_Gatekeeper">THE GATEKEEPER</a></li>
<li><a href="#The_Bridge_Builder">THE BRIDGE BUILDER</a></li>
<li><a href="#The_Prairie_School">THE PRAIRIE SCHOOL</a></li>
<li><a href="#Calgary_Station">CALGARY STATION</a></li>
<li><a href="#Vale">VALE</a></li>
<li><a href="#The_Way_to_Wait">THE WAY TO WAIT</a></li>
<li><a href="#The_Passer-By">THE PASSER BY</a></li>
<li><a href="#First_Love">FIRST LOVE</a></li>
<li><a href="#Sad_One_Must_You_Weep">SAD ONE, MUST YOU WEEP</a></li>
<li><a href="#Joseph">JOSEPH</a></li>
<li><a href="#A_Christmas_Child">A CHRISTMAS CHILD</a></li>
<li><a href="#Spring_in_Nazareth">SPRING IN NAZARETH</a></li>
<li><a href="#Inheritance">INHERITANCE</a></li>
<li><a href="#Song_of_the_Sleeper">SONG OF THE SLEEPER</a></li>
<li><a href="#The_Tyrant">THE TYRANT</a></li>
<li><a href="#The_Gifts">THE GIFTS</a></li>
<li><a href="#The_Town_Between">THE TOWN BETWEEN</a></li>
<li><a href="#On_the_Mountain">ON THE MOUNTAIN</a></li>
<li><a href="#The_Prophet">THE PROPHET</a></li>
<li><a href="#Give_Me_a_Day">GIVE ME A DAY</a></li>
<li><a href="#Little_Brown_Bird">LITTLE BROWN BIRD</a></li>
<li><a href="#The_Watcher">THE WATCHER</a></li>
<li><a href="#Possession">POSSESSION</a></li>
<li><a href="#To_Arcady">TO ARCADY</a></li>
<li><a href="#The_Fields_of_Even">THE FIELDS OF EVEN</a></li>
<li><a href="#I_Love_My_Love">I LOVE MY LOVE</a></li>
<li><a href="#Spring_Awoke_To-Day">SPRING AWOKE TO-DAY</a></li>
<li><a href="#In_Town">IN TOWN</a></li>
<li><a href="#Summers_Passing">SUMMER’S PASSING</a></li>
<li><a href="#The_Doom_of_Ys">THE DOOM OF YS</a></li>
<li><a href="#Times_Garden">TIME’S GARDEN</a></li>
<li><a href="#The_Coming_of_Love">THE COMING OF LOVE</a></li>
<li><a href="#Premonition">PREMONITION</a></li>
<li><a href="#The_Child">THE CHILD</a></li>
<li><a href="#Intrusion">INTRUSION</a></li>
<li><a href="#The_Seas_Withholding">THE SEA’S WITHHOLDING</a></li>
<li><a href="#Love_Unkind">LOVE UNKIND</a></li>
<li><a href="#Christmas_in_Heaven">CHRISTMAS IN HEAVEN</a></li>
<li><a href="#I_Whispered_to_the_Bobolink">I WHISPERED TO THE BOB-O-LINK</a></li>
<li><a href="#You">YOU</a></li>
<li><a href="#The_Mother">THE MOTHER</a></li>
<li><a href="#The_Vassal">THE VASSAL</a></li>
<li><a href="#The_Troubadour">THE TROUBADOUR</a></li>
<li><a href="#Indian_Summer">INDIAN SUMMER</a></li>
<li><a href="#The_Unchanged">THE UNCHANGED</a></li>
<li><a href="#Indifference">INDIFFERENCE</a></li>
<li><a href="#Last_Things">LAST THINGS</a></li>
<li><a href="#Callous_Cupid">CALLOUS CUPID</a></li>
<li><a href="#The_Meeting">THE MEETING</a></li>
<li><a href="#The_Piper">THE PIPER</a></li>
<li><a href="#Wanderlust">WANDERLUST</a></li>
<li><a href="#Gold">GOLD</a></li>
<li><a href="#The_Materialist">THE MATERIALIST</a></li>
<li><a href="#Tir_Nan_Og">TIR NAN OG</a></li>
<li><a href="#The_Little_Man_in_Green">THE LITTLE MAN IN GREEN</a></li>
<li><a href="#The_Enchantress">THE ENCHANTRESS</a></li>
<li><a href="#The_Banshee">THE BANSHEE</a></li>
<li><a href="#The_Witch">THE WITCH</a></li>
<li><a href="#Fairy_Singing">FAIRY SINGING</a></li>
<li><a href="#Killed_in_Action">KILLED IN ACTION</a></li>
<li><a href="#Spring_Came_In">SPRING CAME IN</a></li>
<li><a href="#From_the_Trenches">FROM THE TRENCHES</a></li>
<li><a href="#The_Reasons">THE REASONS</a></li>
<li><a href="#To-Day">TO-DAY</a></li>
<li><a href="#Memory">MEMORY</a></li>
<li><a href="#Dream">DREAM</a></li>
<li><a href="#Perhaps">PERHAPS</a></li>
<li><a href="#Glamour">GLAMOUR</a></li>
<li><a href="#Friendship">FRIENDSHIP</a></li>
<li><a href="#The_Returned_Man">THE RETURNED MAN</a></li>
<li><a href="#Epitaph">EPITAPH</a></li>
<li><a href="#For_One_Who_Went_in_Spring">FOR ONE WHO WENT IN SPRING</a></li>
</ul>
<hr>
<!-- Page 9 -->
<h3 id="Fires_of_Driftwood">Fires of Driftwood</h3>
<p><i>ON what long tides<br>
Do you drift to my fire,<br>
You waifs of strange waters?<br>
From what far seas,<br>
What murmurous sands,<br>
What desolate beaches—<br>
Flotsam of those glories that were ships!</i></p>
<p><i>I gather you,<br>
Bitter with salt,<br>
Sun-bleached, rock-scarred, moon-harried,<br>
Fuel for my fire.</i></p>
<p><i>You are Pride’s end.<br>
Through all to-morrows you are yesterday.<br>
You are waste,<br>
You are ruin,<br>
For where is that which once you were?</i></p>
<p><i>I gather you.<br>
See! I set free the fire within you—<br>
You awake in thin flame!<br>
Tremulous, mistlike, your soul aspires,<br>
Blue, beautiful,<br>
Up and up to the clouds which are its kindred!<br>
What is left is nothing—<br>
Ashes blown along the shore!</i></p>
<!-- Page 10 -->
<h3 id="When_as_a_Lad">When as a Lad</h3>
<p> WHEN, as a lad, at break of day<br>
I watched the fishers sail away,<br>
My thoughts, like flocking birds, would follow<br>
Across the curving sky’s blue hollow,<br>
And on and on—<br>
Into the very heart of dawn!</p>
<p> For long I searched the world—ah, me!<br>
I searched the sky, I searched the sea,<br>
With much of useless grief and rueing<br>
Those wingéd thoughts of mine pursuing—<br>
So dear were they,<br>
So lovely and so far away!</p>
<p> I seek them still and always must<br>
Until my laggard heart is dust<br>
And I am free to follow, follow,<br>
Across the curving sky’s blue hollow,<br>
Those thoughts too fleet<br>
For any save the soul’s swift feet!</p>
<!-- Page 11 -->
<h3 id="Laureate">Laureate</h3>
<p>DEATH met a little child who cried<br>
For a bright star which earth denied,<br>
And Death, so sympathetic, kissed it,<br>
Saying: “With me<br>
All bright things be!”—<br>
And only the child’s mother missed it.</p>
<p>Death met a maiden on the brae,<br>
Her eyes held dreams life would betray,<br>
And gallant Death was greatly taken—<br>
“Leave,” whispered he,<br>
“Your dream with me<br>
And I will see you never waken.”</p>
<p>Death met an old man in a lane;<br>
So gnarled was he and full of pain<br>
That kindly Death was struck with pity—<br>
“Come you with me,<br>
Old man,” said he,<br>
“I’ll set you down in a fair city.”</p>
<p>So, kingly Death along the way<br>
Scatters rare gifts and asks no pay—<br>
Yet who to Death will write a sonnet?<br>
If any dare,<br>
Let him take care<br>
No foolish tear be spilled upon it!</p>
<!-- Page 12 -->
<h3 id="Out_of_Babylon">Out of Babylon</h3>
<p>THEIR looks for me are bitter,<br>
And bitter is their word—<br>
I may not glance behind unseen,<br>
I may not sigh unheard.</p>
<p>So fare we forth from Babylon,<br>
Along the road of stone;<br>
And no one looks to Babylon<br>
Save I—save I alone!</p>
<p>My mother’s eyes are glory-filled<br>
(Save when they fall on me)<br>
The shining of my father’s face<br>
I tremble when I see,</p>
<p>For they were slaves in Babylon,<br>
And now they’re walking free—<br>
They leave their chains in Babylon,<br>
I bear my chains with me!</p>
<p>At night a sound of singing<br>
The vast encampment fills;<br>
<i>“Jerusalem! Jerusalem!”</i><br>
It sweeps the nearing hills—</p>
<p>But no one sings of Babylon<br>
(Their home of yesterday)<br>
And no one prays for Babylon,<br>
And I—I dare not pray!</p>
<!-- Page 13 -->
<p>Last night the Prophet saw me;<br>
And, while he held me there,<br>
The holy fire within his eyes<br>
Burned all my secret bare.</p>
<p>“What! Sigh you so for Babylon?”<br>
(I turned away my face)<br>
“Here’s one who turns to Babylon,<br>
Heart traitor to her race!”</p>
<p>I follow and I follow!<br>
My heart upon the rack;<br>
I follow to Jerusalem—<br>
The long road stretches back</p>
<p>To Babylon, to Babylon!<br>
And every step I take<br>
Bears farther off from Babylon<br>
A heart that cannot break.</p>
<!-- Page 14 -->
<h3 id="Last_Spring">Last Spring</h3>
<p>THIS morning at the door<br>
I heard the Spring.<br>
Quickly I set it wide<br>
And, welcoming,<br>
“Come in, sweet Spring,” I cried,<br>
“The winter ash, long dried,<br>
Waits but your breath to rise<br>
On phantom wing.”</p>
<p>A brown leaf shivered by,<br>
A soulless thing—<br>
My heart in quick dismay<br>
Forgot to sing—<br>
Twisted and grim it lay,<br>
Kin to the ghost-ash gray,<br>
Dead, dead—strange herald this<br>
Of jocund Spring!</p>
<p>I spurned it from the door.<br>
I longed that Spring<br>
Should come with song and glow<br>
And rush of wing,<br>
Not this, not this!—But O<br>
Dead leaf, a year ago<br>
You were the dear first-born<br>
Of Hope and Spring!</p>
<!-- Page 15 -->
<h3 id="Presence">Presence</h3>
<p>BY a sense of Presence, keenly dear,<br>
I, who thought her distant,<br>
Knew her near.</p>
<p>By an echo that most sweetly woke,<br>
I, long keyed to silence,<br>
Knew she spoke.</p>
<p>By her nearness and the word she said,<br>
I, who thought her living,<br>
Knew her dead.</p>
<!-- Page 16 -->
<h3 id="In_an_Autumn_Garden">In an Autumn Garden</h3>
<p> TO-NIGHT the air discloses<br>
Souls of a million roses,<br>
And ghosts of hyacinths that died too soon;<br>
From Pan’s safe-hidden altar<br>
Dim wraiths of incense falter<br>
In waving spiral, making sweet the moon!</p>
<p> Aroused from fragrant covers,<br>
The vows of vanished lovers<br>
Take voice in whisperings that rise and pass;<br>
Where the crisped leaves are lying<br>
A tremulous, low sighing<br>
Breathes like a startled spirit o’er the grass.</p>
<p> Ah, Love! in some far garden,<br>
In Arcady or Arden,<br>
We two were lovers! Hush—remember not<br>
The years in which I’ve missed you—<br>
’Twas yesterday I kissed you<br>
Beneath this haunted moon! Have you forgot?</p>
<!-- Page 17 -->
<h3 id="Rose_Dolores">Rose Dolores</h3>
<p>THE moan of Rose Dolores, she made her plaint to me,<br>
“My hair is lifted by the wind that sweeps in from the sea;<br>
I taste its salt upon my lips—O jailer, set me free!”</p>
<p>“Content thee, Rose Dolores; content thee, child of care!<br>
There’s satin shoon upon thy feet and emeralds in thy hair,<br>
And one there is who hungers for thy step upon the stair.”</p>
<p>The moan of Rose Dolores, “O jailer, set me free!<br>
These satin shoon and green-lit gems are terrible to me;<br>
I hear a murmur on the wind, the murmur of the sea!”</p>
<p>“Bethink thee, Rose Dolores, bethink thee, ere too late!<br>
Thou wert a fisher’s child, alack, born to a fisher’s fate;<br>
Would’st lay thy beauty ’neath the yoke—would’st be a fisher’s mate?”</p>
<!-- Page 18 -->
<p>The moan of Rose Dolores “Kind jailer, let me go!<br>
There’s one who is a fisher—ah! my heart beats cold and slow<br>
Lest he should doubt I love him—I! who love not heaven so!”</p>
<p>“Alas, sweet Rose Dolores, why beat against the bars?<br>
Thy fisher lover drifteth where the sea is full of stars;<br>
Why weep for one who weeps no more?—since grief thy beauty mars!”</p>
<p>The moan of Rose Dolores (she prayed me patiently)<br>
“O jailer, now I know who called from out the calling sea,<br>
I know whose kiss was in the wind—O jailer, set me free!”</p>
<!-- Page 19 -->
<h3 id="A_Pilgrim">A Pilgrim</h3>
<p>ACROSS the trodden continent of years<br>
To shrines of long ago,<br>
My heart, a hooded pilgrim, turns with tears—<br>
For could I know<br>
That in the temple of thy constancy<br>
There still may burn a taper lit for me,<br>
’Twould be a star in starless heaven, to show<br>
That Heaven could be.</p>
<p>Bent with the weight of all that I desired<br>
And all that I forswore,<br>
My heart roams, mendicant, forlorn and tired,<br>
From door to door,<br>
Begging of every stern-faced memory<br>
An alms of pity—just to come to thee,<br>
No more thy knight, thy champion no more—<br>
Only thy devotee!</p>
<!-- Page 20 -->
<h3 id="Spring_will_Come">Spring will Come</h3>
<p>SPRING will come to help me: she’ll be back again,<br>
Back with the soft sun, the sun I knew before.<br>
She will wear her green gown, the emerald gown she wore<br>
When the white-faced windflowers blew along the lane.</p>
<p>Spring will come to help me: When her waking sigh<br>
Drifts across my sore heart all the pain will go.<br>
How shall hearts be aching when larks are flying low,<br>
Low across the fields of camas bluer than the sky?</p>
<p>I’ve a tryst with Spring here—maybe they’ll be few<br>
Now the world grows older—and shall I delay<br>
Just because a Winter has stolen joy away?<br>
What cares Spring for old joys, all her joys are new.</p>
<!-- Page 21 -->
<p>Maybe there’ll be singing in my sorrow yet—<br>
I have heard of such things—but, if there be not,<br>
Still there’ll be the green pool in the pasture lot,<br>
All a-trail with willow fingers, delicate and wet.</p>
<p>Winter is a passing thing and Spring is always gay;<br>
If she, too, be passing she does not weep to know it.<br>
Time she takes to quicken seed but never time to grow it—<br>
Naught she cares for harvest that lies so far away.</p>
<!-- Page 22 -->
<h3 id="Cosmos">Cosmos</h3>
<p>THE tiny thing of painted gauze that flutters in the sun<br>
And sinks upon the breast of night with all its living done;</p>
<p>The unconsidered seed that from the garden blows away,<br>
Blooming its little time to bloom in one short summer day;</p>
<p>The leaf the idle wind shakes down in autumn from the tree,<br>
The grasshopper who for an hour makes gayest minstrelsy—</p>
<p>These—and this restless soul of mine—are one with flaming spheres<br>
And cold, dead moons whose ghostly fires haunt unremembered years.</p>
<!-- Page 23 -->
<h3 id="The_Secret">The Secret</h3>
<p>IF I should tell you what I know<br>
Of where the first primroses grow,<br>
Betray the secrets of the lily,<br>
Bring crocus-gold and daffodilly,<br>
Would you tell me if charm there be<br>
To win a maiden, willy-nilly?</p>
<p>I lie upon the fragrant heath,<br>
Kin to the beating heart beneath;<br>
The nesting plover I discover<br>
Nor stir the scented screen above her,<br>
Yet am I blind—I cannot find<br>
What turns a maiden to her lover!</p>
<p>Through all the mysteries of May,<br>
Initiate, I take my way—<br>
Sure as the blithest lark or linnet<br>
To touch the pulsing soul within it—<br>
Yet with no art to reach Her heart,<br>
Nor skill to teach me how to win it!</p>
<!-- Page 24 -->
<h3 id="I_Watch_Swift_Pictures">I Watch Swift Pictures</h3>
<p>I WATCH swift pictures flash and fade<br>
On the closed curtains of my eyes,—<br>
A bit of river green as jade<br>
Under green skies;</p>
<p>A single bird that soars and dips<br>
Remote; a young and secret moon<br>
Stealing to kiss some flower’s lips<br>
Too shy for noon;</p>
<p>A pointing tree; a lifted hill,<br>
Sun-misted with a golden ring,—<br>
Were these once mine? And am I still<br>
Remembering?</p>
<p>A path that wanders wistfully<br>
With no beginning there nor here,<br>
Nor special grace that it should be<br>
So sharply dear,</p>
<p>Unless,—what if when every day<br>
Is yesterday, with naught to borrow,<br>
I may slip down this wistful way<br>
Into to-morrow?</p>
<!-- Page 25 -->
<h3 id="Fear">Fear</h3>
<p>I HEARD a sound of crying in the lane,<br>
A passionless, low crying,<br>
And I said, “It is the tears of the brown rain<br>
On the leaves within the lane!”</p>
<p>I heard a sudden sighing at the door,<br>
A soft, persuasive sighing,<br>
And I said, “The summer breeze has sighed before,<br>
Gustily, outside the door!”</p>
<p>Yet from the place I fled, nor came again,<br>
With my heart beating, beating!<br>
For I knew ’twas not the breeze nor the brown rain<br>
At the door and in the lane!</p>
<!-- Page 26 -->
<h3 id="Resurrection">Resurrection</h3>
<p>I BURIED Joy; and early to the tomb<br>
I came to weep—so sorrowful was I<br>
Who had not dreamed that Joy, my Joy, could die.</p>
<p>I turned away, and by my side stood Joy<br>
All glorified—ah, so ashamed was I<br>
Who dared to dream that Joy, my Joy, could die!</p>
<!-- Page 27 -->
<h3 id="The_Lost_Name">The Lost Name</h3>
<p>THE voice of my true love is low<br>
And exquisitely kind,<br>
Warm as a flower, cold as snow—<br>
I think it is the Wind.</p>
<p>My true love’s face is white as mist<br>
That moons have lingered on,<br>
Yet rosy as a cloud, sun-kissed—<br>
I think it is the Dawn.</p>
<p>The breath of my true love is sweet<br>
As gardens at day’s close<br>
When dew and dark together meet—<br>
I think it is a Rose.</p>
<p>My true love’s heart is wild and shy<br>
And folded from my sight,<br>
A world, a star, a whispering sigh—<br>
I think it is the Night.</p>
<p>My true love’s name is lost to me,<br>
The prey of dusty years,<br>
But in the falling Rain I see<br>
And know her by her tears!</p>
<!-- Page 28 -->
<h3 id="The_Happy_Traveller">The Happy Traveller</h3>
<p>WHO is the monarch of the Road?<br>
I, the happy rover!<br>
Lord of the way which lies before<br>
Up to the hill and over—<br>
Owner of all beneath the blue,<br>
On till the end, and after, too!</p>
<p>I am the monarch of the Road!<br>
Mine are the keys of morning,<br>
I know where evening keeps her store<br>
Of stars for night’s adorning,<br>
I know the wind’s wild will, and why<br>
The lone thrush hurries down the sky!</p>
<p>I am the monarch of the Road!<br>
My court I hold with singing,<br>
Each bird a gay ambassador,<br>
Each flower a censer, swinging;<br>
And every little roadside thing<br>
A wonder to confound a king.</p>
<p>I am the monarch of the Road!<br>
I ask no leave for living;<br>
I take no less, I seek no more<br>
Than nature’s fullest giving—<br>
And ever, westward with the day,<br>
I travel to the far away!</p>
<!-- Page 29 -->
<h3 id="The_Dead_Bride">The Dead Bride</h3>
<p>WITHIN my circled arm she lay and faintly smiled the long night through,<br>
And oh, but she was fair to view, fair to view!</p>
<p>Upon the whiteness of her robe the dew distilled, and on her veil<br>
And on her cheek of carvéd pearl that gleamed so pale.</p>
<p>(How still the air is in the night, how near and kind the heavens are,<br>
One might a naked hand outstretch and grasp a star!)</p>
<p>I kissed her heavy, folded hair. I kissed her heavy lids full oft;<br>
Beneath the shining of the stars her eyes shone soft.</p>
<p>“Love, Love!” I said, “the day was long”—“Oh, long indeed,” she sighing said.<br>
“I grow so jealous of the sun, since I am dead.”</p>
<p>(How sweet the air is in the night, how sweet, sweet, sweet the flowers seem—<br>
But oh, the emptiness of dawn that breaks the dream!)</p>
<!-- Page 30 -->
<h3 id="The_Crocus_Bed">The Crocus Bed</h3>
<p>YELLOW as the noonday sun,<br>
Purple as a day that’s done,<br>
White as mist that lingers pale<br>
On the edge of morning’s veil,<br>
Delicate as love’s first kiss—<br>
Crocuses are just like this.</p>
<p>Ere the robin paints his breast,<br>
Ere the daffodil is drest,<br>
Ere the iris’ lovely head<br>
Waves above her perfumed bed<br>
Comes the crocus—and the Spring<br>
Follows after, wing on wing!</p>
<p>Sweet perfection, holding up<br>
Magic dew in topaz cup,<br>
Alabaster, amethyst—<br>
Curling lips which Earth has kissed,<br>
Folded hearts where secrets hide,<br>
Secrets old when Eve was bride!</p>
<p>Beauty’s soul was born with wings,<br>
Flight inspires all lovely things—<br>
Would you gather rainbow fire?<br>
See the rose of dawn’s desire<br>
Turn to ash beneath the moon?—<br>
Crocuses must leave us soon.</p>
<!-- Page 31 -->
<h3 id="The_Vision">The Vision</h3>
<p>“O SISTER, sister, from the casement leaning,<br>
What sees thy trancéd eye, what is the meaning<br>
Of the strange rapture that thy features know?”<br>
<i>“I see,” she said, “the sunset’s crimson glow.”</i></p>
<p>“O sister, sister, from the casement turning,<br>
What saw’st thou there save sunset’s sullen burning?<br>
—Thy hand is ice, and fever lights thine eye!”<br>
<i>“I saw,” she said, “the twilight drifting by.”</i></p>
<p>“O sister, oft the sun hath set and often<br>
Have we beheld the twilight fold and soften<br>
The edge of day— In this no mystery lies!”<br>
<i>“I saw,” she said, “the crescent moon arise.”</i></p>
<p>“O sister, speak! I fear when on me falleth<br>
Thine empty glance which some wild spell enthralleth!<br>
—How chill the air blows through the open door!”<br>
<i>“I saw,” she said, “I saw”—and spake no more.</i></p>
<!-- Page 32 -->
<h3 id="The_Miracle">The Miracle</h3>
<p>THERE’S not a leaf upon the tree<br>
To show the sap is leaping,<br>
There’s not a blade and not an ear<br>
Escaped from winter’s keeping—<br>
But there’s a something in the air<br>
A something here, a something there,<br>
A restless something everywhere—<br>
A stirring in the sleeping!</p>
<p>A robin’s sudden, thrilling note!<br>
And see—the sky is bluer!<br>
The world, so ancient yesterday,<br>
To-day seems strangely newer;<br>
All that was wearisome and stale<br>
Has wrapped itself in rosy veil—<br>
The wraith of winter, grown so pale<br>
That smiling spring peeps through her!</p>
<!-- Page 33 -->
<h3 id="The_Homesteader">The Homesteader</h3>
<p>WIND-SWEPT and fire-swept and swept with bitter rain,<br>
This was the world I came to when I came across the sea—<br>
Sun-drenched and panting, a pregnant, waiting plain<br>
Calling out to humankind, calling out to me!<br>
<br>
Leafy lanes and gentle skies and little fields all green,<br>
This was the world I came from when I fared across the sea—<br>
The mansion and the village and the farmhouse in between,<br>
Never any room for more, never room for me!</p>
<p>I’ve fought the wind and braved it; I cringe to it no more!<br>
I’ve fought the creeping fire back and cheered to see it die.<br>
I’ve shut the bitter rain outside and, safe within my door,<br>
Laughed to think I feared a thing not so strong as I!</p>
<!-- Page 34 -->
<p>I mind the long, white road that ran between the hedgerows neat,<br>
In that little, strange old world I left behind me long ago,<br>
I mind the air so full of bells at evening, far and sweet—<br>
All and all for someone else—I had leave to go!</p>
<p>It cost a tear to leave it—but here across the sea<br>
With miles and miles of unused sky, and miles of unturned loam,<br>
And miles of room for someone else, and miles of room for me<br>
I’ve found a bigger meaning for the little word called “Home.”</p>
<!-- Page 35 -->
<h3 id="Wet_Weather">Wet Weather</h3>
<p>IT is the English in me that loves the soft, wet weather—<br>
The cloud upon the mountain, the mist upon the sea,<br>
The sea-gull flying low and near with rain upon each feather,<br>
The scent of deep, green woodlands where the buds are breaking free.</p>
<p>A world all hot with sunshine, with a hot, white sky above it—<br>
Oh then I feel an alien in a land I’d call my own;<br>
The rain is like a friend’s caress, I lean to it and love it,<br>
’Tis like a finger on a nerve that thrills for it alone!</p>
<p>Is it the secret kinship which each new life is given<br>
To link it by an age-long chain to those whose lives are through,<br>
That wheresoever he may go, by fate or fancy driven,<br>
The home-star rises in his heart to keep the compass true?</p>
<!-- Page 36 -->
<p>Ah, ’tis the English in me that loves the soft, gray weather—<br>
The little mists that trail along like bits of wind-flung foam,<br>
The primrose and the violet—all wet and sweet together,<br>
And the sound of water calling, as it used to call at home.</p>
<!-- Page 37 -->
<h3 id="The_Sleeping_Beauty">*The Sleeping Beauty</h3>
<p>SO has she lain for centuries unguessed,<br>
Her waiting face to waiting heaven turned,<br>
While winds have wooed and ardent suns have burned<br>
And stars have died to sentinel her rest.</p>
<p>Only the snow can reach her as she lies,<br>
Far and serene, and with cold finger-tips<br>
Seal soft the lovely quiet of her lips<br>
And lightly veil the shadows of her eyes.</p>
<p>Man has no part—his little, noisy years<br>
Rise to her silence thin and impotent—<br>
There are no echoes in that vast content,<br>
No doubts, no dreams, no laughter and no tears!</p>
<blockquote>* A formation of mountain peaks above Vancouver
Harbor, outlining the profile and form of a sleeping maiden.</blockquote>
<!-- Page 38 -->
<h3 id="Down_at_the_Docks">Down at the Docks</h3>
<p>DOWN at the docks—when the smoke clouds lie,<br>
Wind-ript and red, on an angry sky—<br>
Coal-dumps and derricks and piled-up bales,<br>
Tar and the gear of forgotten sails,<br>
Rusted chains and a broken spar<br>
(Yesterday’s breath on the things that are)<br>
A lone, black cat and a snappy cur,<br>
Smell of high-tide and of newcut fir,<br>
Smell of low-tide, fish, weed!—I swear<br>
I love every blesséd smell that’s there—<br>
For, aeons ago when the sea began,<br>
My soul was the soul of a sailorman.</p>
<p>Down at the docks—where the ships come in,<br>
And the endless trails of the sea begin,<br>
Where the shining wake of a steamer’s track<br>
Is barred by the tow of the tugboats black,<br>
Where slim yachts dip to the singing spray<br>
And a gay wind whistles the world away—<br>
Here sad ships lie which will sail no more,<br>
But new ships build on the noisy shore,<br>
And always the breath of the wind and tide<br>
Whispers the lure of the sea outside,<br>
Till now and to-morrow and yesterday<br>
Are linked by the spell of the faraway!</p>
<!-- Page 39 -->
<p>Down at the docks—when the morning’s new<br>
And the air is gold and the distance blue,<br>
There’s a pull at the heart! But best of all<br>
Is to see the sun shrink, red and small,<br>
While the fog steals in (more surely fleet<br>
Than the smacks that run from her white-shod feet)<br>
And clamours of startled calls arise<br>
From bewildered ships that have lost their eyes;<br>
The fog horn bellows its deep-mouthed shout,<br>
The little lights on the shore blur out<br>
And strange, dim shapes pass wistfully<br>
With a secret tide to a secret sea.</p>
<!-- Page 40 -->
<h3 id="Lake_Louise">Lake Louise</h3>
<p>I THINK that when the Master Jeweler tells<br>
His beads of beauty over, seeking there<br>
One gem to name as most supremely fair,<br>
To you He turns, O lake of hidden wells!</p>
<p>So very lovely are you, Lake Louise,<br>
The stars which crown your lifted peaks at even<br>
Mistake you for a little sea in heaven<br>
And nightly launch their shining argosies.</p>
<p>From shore to dim-lit shore a ripple slips,<br>
The happy sigh of faintly stirring night<br>
Where safe she sleeps upon this virgin height<br>
Captive of dream and smiling with white lips.</p>
<p>Surely a spell, creation-old, was made<br>
For you, O lake of silences, that all<br>
Earth’s fretting voices here should muted fall,<br>
As if a finger on their lips were laid!</p>
<!-- Page 41 -->
<h3 id="The_Gatekeeper">The Gatekeeper</h3>
<p>THE sunlight falls on old Quebec,<br>
A city framed of rose and gold,<br>
An ancient gem more beautiful<br>
In that its beauty waxes old.<br>
O Pearl of Cities! I would set<br>
You higher in our diadem,<br>
And higher yet and higher yet,<br>
That generations still to be<br>
May kindle at your history!</p>
<p>’Twas here that gallant Champlain stood<br>
And gazed upon this mighty stream,<br>
These towering rock-walls, buttressed high—<br>
A gateway to a land of dream;<br>
And all his silent men stood near<br>
While the great fleur-de-lis fell free,<br>
(Too awe-struck they to raise a cheer)<br>
And while the shining folds outspread<br>
The sunset burned a sudden red.</p>
<p>Here paced the haughty Frontenac,<br>
His great heart torn with pride and pain,<br>
His clear eye dimming as it swept<br>
The land he might not see again,<br>
This infant world, this strange New France<br>
Dropped down as by some vagrant wind<br>
Upon the New World’s vast expanse,<br>
Threatened yet safe! Through storm and stress<br>
Time’s challenge to the wilderness.</p>
<!-- Page 42 -->
<p>Here, when to ease her tangled skein<br>
Fate cut her threads and formed anew<br>
The pattern of the thing she planned<br>
And red war slipped the shuttle through,<br>
Montcalm met Wolfe! The bitter strife<br>
Of flag and flag was ended here—<br>
And every man who gave his life<br>
Gave it that now one flag may wave,<br>
One nation rise upon his grave!</p>
<p>The twilight falls on old Quebec<br>
And in the purple shines a star,<br>
And on her citadel lies peace<br>
More powerful than armies are.<br>
O fair dream city! Ebb and flow<br>
Of race feuds vex no more your walls.<br>
Can they of old see this? and know<br>
That, even as they dreamed, you stand<br>
Gatekeeper of a peace-filled land!</p>
<!-- Page 43 -->
<h3 id="The_Bridge_Builder">The Bridge Builder</h3>
<p>OF old the Winds came romping down,<br>
Oh, wild and free were they!<br>
They bent the prairie grasses low<br>
And made a place to play.</p>
<p>Then, that the gods might hear their voice<br>
On purple days of spring,<br>
They sought the tossing, pine-clad slope<br>
And made a place to sing.</p>
<p>Tired at last of song and play,<br>
They found a canyon deep<br>
And in its echoing silences<br>
They made a place to weep.</p>
<p>Man came, a small and feeble thing,<br>
And looked upon the plain.<br>
“Lo, this is mine,” he said, and set<br>
A seal of golden grain.</p>
<p>Upon the mountain slopes he gazed,<br>
Where the great pine trees grow,<br>
Then gashed their mighty sides and laid<br>
Their singing branches low.</p>
<p>He clung upon the canyon’s ledge<br>
And from its topmost ridge,<br>
Above its vast and awful deeps,<br>
He built himself a bridge.</p>
<!-- Page 44 -->
<p>A bauble in the light of day,<br>
New gilded by the sun,<br>
It seemed like some great, golden web<br>
By giant spider spun!</p>
<p>The homeless winds came rushing down—<br>
Oh they were wild and free!<br>
And angry for their stolen plain<br>
And for their felled pine tree—</p>
<p>And angry—angry most of all<br>
For that brave bridge of gold!<br>
With deep-mouthed shout they hurtled down<br>
To tear it from its hold—</p>
<p>The girders shrieked, the cables strained<br>
And shuddered at the roar—<br>
Yet, when the winds had passed, the bridge<br>
Held firmly as before!</p>
<p>Still fairy-like and frail it shone<br>
Against the sunset’s glow—<br>
But one, the builder of the bridge,<br>
Lay silent, far below!</p>
<!-- Page 45 -->
<h3 id="The_Prairie_School">The Prairie School</h3>
<p>THE sweet west wind, the prairie school a break in the yellow wheat,<br>
The prairie trail that wanders by to the place where the four winds meet—<br>
A trail with never an end at all to the children’s eager feet.</p>
<p>The morning scents, the morning sun, a morning sky so blue<br>
The distance melts to meet it till both are lost to view<br>
In a little line of glory where the new day beckons through—</p>
<p>And out of the glow, the children: a whoop and a calling gay,<br>
A clink of lunch-pails swinging as they clash in mimic fray,<br>
A shout and a shouting echo from a world as young as they!</p>
<p>The prairie school! The well-tramped earth, so ugly and so dear,<br>
The piney steps where teacher stands, a saucy gopher near,<br>
A rough-cut pole where the flag flies up to a shrill voiced children’s cheer.</p>
<!-- Page 46 -->
<p>So stands the outpost! Time and change will crowd its widening door,<br>
Big with the dreams we visioned and the hopes we battled for—<br>
A legacy to those who come from those who come no more.</p>
<!-- Page 47 -->
<h3 id="Calgary_Station">Calgary Station</h3>
<p>DAZZLED by sun and drugged by space they wait,<br>
These homeless peoples, at our prairie gate;<br>
Dumb with the awe of those whom fate has hurled,<br>
Breathless, upon the threshold of a world!</p>
<p>From near-horizoned, little lands they come,<br>
From barren country-side and deathly slum,<br>
From bleakest wastes, from lands of aching drouth,<br>
From grape-hung valleys of the smiling South,<br>
From chains and prisons, ay, from horrid fear,<br>
(Mark you the furtive eye, the listening ear!)<br>
And all amazed and silent, scared and shy—<br>
An alien group beneath an alien sky!</p>
<p>See—on that bench beside the busy door—<br>
There sleeps a Roman born: upon the floor<br>
His wife, dark-haired and handsome, takes her rest,<br>
Their black-eyed baby tugging at her breast.<br>
Her hands lie still. Her brooding glances roam<br>
Above the pushing crowd to her far home,<br>
And slow she smiles to think how fine ’twill be<br>
When they (so rich!) return to Italy.</p>
<!-- Page 48 -->
<p>Yonder, with stolid face and tragic eye,<br>
Sits a lone Russian; as we pass him by<br>
He neither stirs nor looks; his inner gaze<br>
Sees not the future fair, but, troubled, strays<br>
To the dark land he left but can’t forget,<br>
Whose bonds, though broken, hold him prisoner yet.</p>
<p>Here is a Pole—a worker; though so slim<br>
His muscle is of steel—no fear for him;<br>
He is the breed which conquers; he is nerved<br>
To fight and fight again. Too long he served,<br>
Man of a subject race! His fierce, blue eye<br>
Roams like a homing eagle o’er the sky,<br>
So limitless, so deep! for such as he<br>
Life has no higher bliss than to be free.</p>
<p>This little Englishman with jaunty air<br>
And tweed cap perched awry on close-trimmed hair—<br>
He, with his faded wife and noisy band,<br>
Has come from Home to seek a promised land—<br>
He feels himself aggrieved, for no one said<br>
That things would be so big and so—outspread!<br>
He thinks of London with a pang of grief;<br>
His wife is sobbing in her handkerchief.<br>
But all his children stare with eager eyes.<br>
This is their land. Already they surmise<br>
Their heritage, their chance to live and grow,<br>
Won for them by their fathers, long ago!</p>
<!-- Page 49 -->
<p>Another generation, and this Scot,<br>
Whose longing for the hills is ne’er forgot,<br>
Shall rear a son whose eye will never be<br>
Dim with a craving for that distant sea,<br>
Those barren rocks, that heather’s purple glow—<br>
The ache, the burn that only exiles know!</p>
<p>This Irishman, who, when he sees the Green,<br>
Turns that his shaking lips may not be seen,<br>
He, too, shall bear a son who, blythe and gay,<br>
Sings the old songs but in a cheerier way!<br>
Who has the love, without the anguish sharp,<br>
For Erin dreamingly by her golden harp!</p>
<p>All these and many others, patient, wait<br>
Before our ever-open prairie gate<br>
And, filing through with laughter or with tears,<br>
Take what their hands can glean of fruitful years.<br>
Here some find home who knew not home before;<br>
Here some seek peace and some wage glorious war.<br>
Here some who lived in night see morning dawn<br>
And some drop out and let the rest go on.<br>
And of them all the years take toll; they pass<br>
As shadows flit above the prairie grass.</p>
<!-- Page 50 -->
<p>From every land they come to know but one—<br>
The kindly earth that hides them from the sun—<br>
But, in their places, children live, and they<br>
Turn with glad faces to a common day.<br>
Of every land, they too, but one land claim—<br>
The land that gives them place and hope and name—<br>
Canadians, they, and proud and glad to be<br>
A part of Canada’s sure destiny!<br>
What if within their hearts deep memories hide<br>
Of lands their fathers grieved for, till they died?<br>
The bitterness is gone and in its stead<br>
New understanding and new hopes are bred,<br>
With wider vision which may show the world<br>
Its cannon dumb, its battle-flags close furled!<br>
—Dreams? We may dream indeed, with heart elate,<br>
While a new Nation clamors at our gate!</p>
<!-- Page 51 -->
<h3 id="Vale">Vale*</h3>
<p>LONE Voyager! Thy Ship of Dreams<br>
Spreads its free sail and slips away<br>
Into the distant visioning<br>
That lies behind the end of day.</p>
<p>The restless tide’s impatient wave<br>
In from the broad Pacific rolls<br>
And sunset marks a mystic way<br>
To the far-shining Port of Souls.</p>
<p>We, watching on the darkening shore,<br>
Wave you farewell, and strain our eyes<br>
Till that bright speck which is your sail<br>
Is lost in the enfolding skies.</p>
<p>Brave Heart, Sweet Singer! Speed you well<br>
To those dim islands of the blest,<br>
Far—far—and ever farther, till<br>
The end of distance brings you rest!</p>
<blockquote>* For Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake.)</blockquote>
<!-- Page 52 -->
<h3 id="The_Way_to_Wait">The Way to Wait</h3>
<p>O WHETHER by the lonesome road that lies across the lea<br>
Or whether by the hill that stoops, rock-shadowed, to the sea,<br>
Or by a sail that blows from far, my love returns to me!</p>
<p>No fear is hidden in my heart to make my face less fair,<br>
No tear is hidden in my eye to dim the brightness there—<br>
I wear upon my cheek the rose a happy bride should wear.</p>
<p>For should he come not by the road, and come not by the hill<br>
And come not by the far seaway, yet come he surely will—<br>
Close all the roads of all the world, love’s road is open still!</p>
<p>My heart is light with singing (though they pity me my fate<br>
And drop their merry voices as they pass the garden gate)<br>
For love that finds a way to come, can find a way to wait!</p>
<!-- Page 53 -->
<h3 id="The_Passer-By">The Passer-By</h3>
<p>WE are as children in a field at play<br>
Beside a road whose way we do not know,<br>
Save that somewhere it meets the end of day.</p>
<p>Upon the road there is a Passer-By<br>
Who, pausing, beckons one of us—and lo!<br>
Quickly he goes, nor stays to tell us why.</p>
<p>One day I shall look up and see him there<br>
Beckoning me, and with the Passer-By<br>
I, too, shall take the road—I wonder where?</p>
<!-- Page 54 -->
<h3 id="First_Love">First Love</h3>
<p>BY the pulse that beats in my throat<br>
By my heart like a bird<br>
I know who passed through the dusk<br>
Though he spoke no word!</p>
<p>I cannot move in my place,<br>
I am chained and still;<br>
I pray that the moon pause not<br>
By my window-sill.</p>
<p>I have hidden my face in my hair<br>
And my eyes are veiled—<br>
Not even a star must know<br>
How my lips have paled—</p>
<p>Was ever a night so quick<br>
’Neath a moon so round?<br>
I hear the earth as it turns—<br>
And my heart’s low sound!</p>
<!-- Page 55 -->
<h3 id="Sad_One_Must_You_Weep">Sad One, Must You Weep</h3>
<p>“SAD one, must you weep alway?<br>
Youth’s ill wedded with despair;<br>
Ringless hand and robe of grey<br>
Mock the charms which they declare.”</p>
<p>Sad and sweetly answered she,<br>
“What are comely robes to me?<br>
I would wear a grass green dress,<br>
Dew pearls for my gems—no less<br>
Now can comfort me.”</p>
<p>“Sweet, the shining of your hair<br>
(All forgotten and undone)<br>
Squanders ’neath the veil you wear<br>
Gold whose loss bereaves the sun.”</p>
<p>Very sad and low said she,<br>
“What is shining hair to me?<br>
When from out the rain-wet mold<br>
Kingcups borrow of its gold<br>
Sweet and sweet ’twill be.”</p>
<p>“Love, O Love! your hand is chill<br>
As a snowflake lost in spring,<br>
Wild it flutters—then lies still<br>
As a bird with prisoned wing!”</p>
<p>Sad and patient answered she,<br>
“As a bird I would be free;<br>
As the spring I would find birth<br>
In the sweet, forgetful earth—<br>
Pray you, let it be!”</p>
<!-- Page 56 -->
<h3 id="Joseph">Joseph</h3>
<p>NEVER in all her sweet and holy youth<br>
Seemed she so beautiful! The tired lines<br>
Etch her white face with look so wholly pure<br>
I tremble—dare I speak to her of aught?—<br>
She is so wrapt in silence. Yet her lips<br>
Part on a word whose honey she doth taste<br>
And fears to lose by uttering too soon.<br>
I know the word; its meaning is plain writ<br>
In the wide eyes she turns upon the Child.<br>
I dare not speak. No word of mine could find<br>
Its way into a soul close sealed with God<br>
And busy with the thousand mysteries<br>
Revealed to every mother. The soft hair<br>
Veiling her placid brow is all unbound,<br>
Ungentle hands are mine but, trained by love,<br>
She might conceive them gentle—yet, I pause—<br>
I’ll not disturb her thought . . . . .</p>
<p>
What
meant those men,<br>
Far-famed and wise, who came to see the Child?<br>
Their gifts lie by forgotten, though the Babe<br>
Smiled on the shining treasure in his hands.<br>
(Those tiny hands like crumpled bits of gauze)<br>
Their sayings were mysterious to me.<br>
“A King!” they said. What King?</p>
<!-- Page 57 -->
<p>
The
mother smiled<br>
As one who knew; and it is true they knelt<br>
As to a King. The thing disturbs me much!<br>
I’ll ask—but no . . . . .</p>
<p>
The
breathless shepherds, too;<br>
Plain men, blank-eyed with awe, in broken speech<br>
Stumbling some strange, glad tale of midnight sky<br>
A-shine with angel wings! And at their word<br>
Again the mother smiled, as one who sees<br>
No wonder but what well might happen since<br>
A child is born to her. Are mothers so?<br>
And are they prone to dream the careless earth<br>
And distant heaven wait upon their joy?<br>
I’ll speak to her . . . . .</p>
<p>
What
is that in her look<br>
Which answers me—yet leaves me wondering still,<br>
With wonder so like rapture that I seem<br>
Caught up a breathless second into Heaven?<br>
She turns deep eyes upon me, and she smiles,<br>
Always she smiles! Ah, Mary! could I know<br>
The source of that glad smile—what would I know?<br>
I dare not dream, save that the mystery<br>
Is not yet given . . . one day I may know!</p>
<!-- Page 58 -->
<h3 id="A_Christmas_Child">A Christmas Child</h3>
<p>SHE came to me at Christmas time and made me mother, and it seemed<br>
There was a Christ indeed and He had given me the joy I’d dreamed.</p>
<p>She nestled to me, and I kept her near and warm, surprised to find<br>
The arms that held my babe so close were opened wider to her kind.</p>
<p>I hid her safe within my heart. “My heart” I said, “is all for you,”<br>
But lo! She left the door ajar and all the world came flocking through.</p>
<p>She needed me. I learned to know the royal joy that service brings,<br>
She was so helpless that I grew to love all little helpless things.</p>
<p>She trusted me, and I who ne’er had trusted, save in self, grew cold<br>
With panic lest this precious life should know no stronger, surer hold.</p>
<p>She lay and smiled and in her eyes I watched my narrow world grow broad,<br>
Within her tiny, crumpled hand I touched the mighty hand of God!</p>
<!-- Page 59 -->
<h3 id="Spring_in_Nazareth">Spring in Nazareth</h3>
<p>“THE Spring is come!” a shepherd saith;<br>
<i>Sing, sweet Mary,</i><br>
“The Spring is come to Nazareth<br>
And swift the Summer hurrieth.”<br>
<i>Sing low, the barley and the corn!</i></p>
<p>Across the field a path is set—<br>
<i>Sing, sweet Mary,</i><br>
Green shadow in a golden net—<br>
The tears of night have left it wet.<br>
<i>Sing low, the barley and the corn!</i></p>
<p>The Babe forsakes His mother’s knee,<br>
<i>Haste, sweet Mary—</i><br>
See how He runneth merrily,<br>
One foot upon the path hath He—<br>
<i>Green, green, the barley and the corn!</i></p>
<p>The mother calls with mother-fear—<br>
<i>Hush, sweet Mary!</i><br>
Another sound is in His ear,<br>
A sound he cannot choose but hear—<br>
<i>Hush, hush, the barley and the corn!</i></p>
<p>Far and still far—through years yet dim<br>
<i>List, sweet Mary!</i><br>
From o’er the waking earth’s green rim<br>
Another Springtime calleth Him!<br>
<i>Bend low, the barley and the corn!</i></p>
<!-- Page 60 -->
<p>Call low, call high, and call again,<br>
<i>Ah, poor Mary!</i><br>
Know, by thy heart’s prophetic pain,<br>
That one day thou shalt call in vain—<br>
<i>Moan, moan, the barley and the corn!</i></p>
<p>O mother! make thine arms a shield,<br>
<i>Sing, sweet Mary!</i><br>
While love still holds what love must yield<br>
Hide well the path across the field!—<br>
<i>Sing low, the barley and the corn!</i></p>
<p>. . . . .</p>
<p>“The Spring is come!” a shepherd saith;<br>
<i>Rest thee, Mary—</i><br>
The passing years are but a breath<br>
And Spring still comes to Nazareth—<br>
<i>Green, green, the barley and the corn!</i></p>
<!-- Page 61 -->
<h3 id="Inheritance">Inheritance</h3>
<p>THERE lived a man who raised his hand and said,<br>
“I will be great!”<br>
And through a long, long life he bravely knocked<br>
At Fame’s closed gate.</p>
<p>A son he left who, like his sire, strove<br>
High place to win;—<br>
Worn out, he died and, dying, left no trace<br>
That he had been.</p>
<p>He also left a son, who, without care<br>
Or planning how,<br>
Bore the fair letters of a deathless fame<br>
Upon his brow.</p>
<p>“Behold a genius, filled with fire divine!”<br>
The people cried;<br>
Not knowing that to make him what he was<br>
Two men had died.</p>
<!-- Page 62 -->
<h3 id="Song_of_the_Sleeper">Song of the Sleeper</h3>
<p>SLEEPER rest quietly<br>
Deep underground!<br>
Lord of your kingdom<br>
Of murmurous sound.<br>
Hear the grass growing<br>
Sweet for the mowing;<br>
Hear the stars sing<br>
As they travel around—<br>
Grass blade and star dust,<br>
You, I, and all of us,<br>
One with the cause of us,<br>
Deep underground!</p>
<p>Murmur not, sleeper!<br>
Yours is the key<br>
To all things that were and<br>
To all things that be—<br>
While the lark’s trilling,<br>
While the grain’s filling,<br>
Laugh with the wind<br>
At Life’s Riddle-me-ree!<br>
How you were born of it?<br>
Why was the thorn of it?<br>
Where the new morn of it?<br>
Yours is the Key!</p>
<p>Sleep deeper, brother!<br>
Sleep and forget<br>
Red lips that trembled<br>
Eyes that were wet—<br><!-- Page 63 -->
Though love be weeping,<br>
Turn to your sleeping,<br>
Life has no giving<br>
That death need regret.<br>
Here at the end of all<br>
Hear the Beginning call,<br>
Life’s but death’s seneschal—<br>
Sleep and forget!</p>
<!-- Page 64 -->
<h3 id="The_Tyrant">The Tyrant</h3>
<p>ONE comes with foot insistent to my door,<br>
Calling my name;<br>
Nor voice nor footstep have I heard before,<br>
Yet clear the calling sounds and o’er and o’er—<br>
It seems the sunlight burns along the floor<br>
With paler flame!</p>
<p>“’Tis vain to call with morning on the wing,<br>
With noon so near,<br>
With Life a dancer in the masque of Spring<br>
And Youth new wedded with a golden ring—<br>
When falls the night and birds have ceased to sing<br>
My heart may hear!</p>
<p>“’Tis vain to pause. Pass, friend, upon your way!<br>
I may not heed;<br>
Too swift the hours; too sweet, too brief the day:<br>
Only one life, one spring, one perfect May—<br>
I crush each moment, with its sweets to stay<br>
Life’s joyous greed!</p>
<p>“Call not again! The wind is roaming by<br>
Across the heath—<br>
The Wind’s a tell-tale and will bear your sigh<br>
To dim the smiling gladness of the sky<br><!-- Page 65 -->
Or kill the spring’s first violets that lie<br>
In purple sheath—</p>
<p>“If you must call, call low! My heart grows still,<br>
Still as my breath,<br>
Still as your smile, O Ancient One! A chill<br>
Strikes through the sun upon the window-sill—<br>
<i>I know you now</i>—I follow where you will,<br>
O tyrant Death!”</p>
<!-- Page 66 -->
<h3 id="The_Gifts">The Gifts</h3>
<p>I GIVE you Life, O child, a garden fair;<br>
I give you Love, a rose that blossoms there—<br>
I give a day to pluck it and to wear!</p>
<p>I give you Death, O child—a boon more great—<br>
That, when your Rose has withered and ’tis late,<br>
You may pass out and, smiling, close the gate!</p>
<!-- Page 67 -->
<h3 id="The_Town_Between">The Town Between</h3>
<p>A WALL impregnable surrounds<br>
The Town wherein I dwell;<br>
No man may scale it and it has<br>
Two gates that guard it well.</p>
<p>One opened long ago, and I<br>
A vagrant soul, slipped through,<br>
Bewildered and forgetting all<br>
The wider world I knew.</p>
<p>I love the Town, the narrow ways,<br>
The common, yellow sun,<br>
The handclasp and the jesting and<br>
The work that must be done!</p>
<p>I shun the other gate that stands<br>
Beyond the crowded mart—<br>
I need but glance that way to feel<br>
Cold fingers on my heart!</p>
<p>It stands alone and somberly<br>
Within a shaded place,<br>
And every man who turns that way<br>
Has quiet on his face.</p>
<p>And every man must rise and leave<br>
His pleasant homely door<br>
To vanish through this silent gate<br>
And enter in no more—</p>
<!-- Page 68 -->
<p>Yet—once—I saw its opening throw<br>
A brighter light about<br>
And glimpsed strange glory on the brow<br>
Of someone passing out!</p>
<p>I wonder if Outside may be<br>
One fair and great demesne<br>
Where both gates open, careless of<br>
The Town that lies between?</p>
<!-- Page 69 -->
<h3 id="On_the_Mountain">On the Mountain</h3>
<p>THE top of the world and an empty morning,<br>
Mist sweeping in from the dim Outside,<br>
The door of day just a little bit open—<br>
The wind’s great laugh as he flings it wide!</p>
<p>O wind, here’s one who would travel with you<br>
To the far bourne you alone may know—<br>
There would I seek what some one is hiding,<br>
There would I find where my longings go!</p>
<p>To some deep calm would I drift and nestle<br>
Close to the heart of the Great Surprise.<br>
O strong wind, do you laugh to see us?<br>
We are so little and oh, so wise!</p>
<!-- Page 70 -->
<h3 id="The_Prophet">The Prophet</h3>
<p>HE trod upon the heights; the rarer air<br>
Which common people seek, yet cannot bear,<br>
Fed his high soul and kindled in his eye<br>
The fire of one who cries “I prophesy!”</p>
<p>“Look up!” he said. They looked but could not see.<br>
“Help us!” they cried. He strove, but uselessly—<br>
The very clouds which veiled the heaven they sought<br>
Hid from his eyes the hearts of them he taught!</p>
<!-- Page 71 -->
<h3 id="Give_Me_a_Day">Give Me a Day</h3>
<p>GIVE me a day, beloved, that I may set<br>
A jewel in my heart—I’ll brave regret,<br>
If, on the morrow, you shall say “forget”!</p>
<p>One golden day when dawn shall blush to noon<br>
And noon incline to dark, and, oversoon,<br>
My joy lie buried ’neath a rounded moon.</p>
<p>Only a day—it’s worth you scarce could tell<br>
From other days; but in my life ’twill dwell<br>
An oasis with palm trees and a well!</p>
<!-- Page 72 -->
<h3 id="Little_Brown_Bird">Little Brown Bird</h3>
<p>O LITTLE brown bird in the rain,<br>
In the sweet rain of spring,<br>
How you carry the youth of the world<br>
In the bend of your wing!<br>
For you the long day is for song<br>
And the night is for sleep—<br>
With never a sunrise too soon<br>
Or a midnight too deep!</p>
<p>For you every pool is the sky,<br>
Breaking clouds chasing through,—<br>
A heaven so instant and near<br>
That you bathe in its blue!—<br>
And yours is the freedom to rise<br>
To some song-haunted star<br>
Or sink on soft wing to the wood<br>
Where your brown nestlings are.</p>
<p>So busy, so strong and so glad,<br>
So care-free and young,<br>
So tingling with life to be lived<br>
And with songs to be sung,<br>
O little brown bird!—with your heart<br>
That’s the heart of the Spring—<br>
How you carry the hope of the world<br>
In the bend of your wing!</p>
<!-- Page 73 -->
<h3 id="The_Watcher">The Watcher</h3>
<p>THE long road and the low shore, a sail against the sky,<br>
The ache in my heart’s core, and hope so hard to die—<br>
Ah me, but the day’s long—and all the sails go by!</p>
<p>The long road and the dark shore, pools with stars aflame,<br>
The ache in my heart’s core, the hope I dare not name—<br>
Ah, me, but the night’s long—and every night the same!</p>
<!-- Page 74 -->
<h3 id="Possession">Possession</h3>
<p>A YOUTH sat down on a wayside stone,<br>
A pack on his back and a staff at his knee.<br>
He whistled a tune which he called his own,<br>
“It’s a fine new tune, that tune!” said he.</p>
<p>In his pack he carried a crust of bread,<br>
And he drank from his hands at a brook hard by;<br>
“Spring water is wonderful cool,” he said,<br>
“And wonderful soft is the summer sky!”</p>
<p>He looked to the hill which his steps had passed,<br>
He looked to the slope where a brooklet purled,<br>
He looked to the distance blue and vast<br>
And “Ah,” cried he, “what a fine, wide world!”</p>
<p>The youth passed on down the winding track<br>
That led to the beckoning distance dim,<br>
And though he carried but staff and pack,<br>
The world and its giving belonged to him.</p>
<!-- Page 75 -->
<h3 id="To_Arcady">To Arcady</h3>
<p>“TELL me, Singer, of the way<br>
Winding down to Arcady?<br>
Of the world’s roads I am weary—<br>
You, with song so brave and cheery,<br>
Happy troubadour must be<br>
On the way to Arcady?”</p>
<p>Pausing on a muted note,<br>
Song forsook the Singer’s throat,<br>
“Friend,” sighed he, “you come too late,<br>
Once I could the way relate,<br>
Once—but long ago; Ah me,<br>
Far away is Arcady!”</p>
<p>“Tell me, Poet, of the way<br>
Winding down to Arcady?<br>
Haunting is your verse and airy<br>
With the grace and gleam of faery—<br>
Dweller you must surely be<br>
In the land of Arcady?”</p>
<p>Slow the Poet raised his eyes,<br>
Sad were they as winter skies,<br>
“Once, I sojourned there,” he said;<br>
Then, no more—but with bent head<br>
Whispered low, “Ask not of me<br>
That lost road to Arcady!”</p>
<!-- Page 76 -->
<p>Tell me, Lover, of the way<br>
Winding down to Arcady?<br>
Some sweet bourne your haste confesses—<br>
Know you paths no other guesses?<br>
Does your gaze, so far away,<br>
See the road to Arcady?</p>
<p>In the Lover’s eyes there gleamed<br>
Radiance of all things dreamed—<br>
“Nay, detain me not,” he cried<br>
“I am hasting to my bride;<br>
What have roads to do with me,<br>
Love’s at home in Arcady!”</p>
<!-- Page 77 -->
<h3 id="The_Fields_of_Even">The Fields of Even</h3>
<p>O STILLER than the fields that lie<br>
Beneath the morning heaven,<br>
And sweeter than day’s gardens are<br>
The purple fields of even!</p>
<p>The vapor rises, silver-eyed,<br>
Leaving the dew-wet clover,<br>
With groping, mist-white hands outspread<br>
To greet the sky, her lover.</p>
<p>Ripples the brook, a thread of sound<br>
Close-woven through the quiet,<br>
Blending the jarring tones that day<br>
Would stir to noisy riot.</p>
<p>And all the glory seems so near<br>
A common man may win it—<br>
When every earth-bound lakelet holds<br>
A million stars within it.</p>
<p>A common man, who in the day<br>
Lifts not his eyes above him,<br>
Roaming the fields of even through<br>
May find a God to love him!</p>
<!-- Page 78 -->
<h3 id="I_Love_My_Love">I Love My Love</h3>
<p>I LOVE my love for she is like a garden in the dawn,<br>
Pale, yet pink-flushed, with softly waking eyes,<br>
And primrose hair that brightens to gold skies,<br>
And petalled lips for dew to linger on.</p>
<p>I love my love for she is like the mirror of the moon,<br>
(A sweet, small moon but newly come to birth)<br>
So full of heaven is she, so close to earth,<br>
So versed in holy spell and magic rune.</p>
<p>I love my love. O words that be too feeble and too few!<br>
I love my love!—as April on the hill<br>
Brings back earth’s morning with each daffodil,<br>
So she within my heart makes all things new.</p>
<!-- Page 79 -->
<h3 id="Spring_Awoke_To-Day">Spring Awoke To-Day</h3>
<p>SPRING awoke to-day!<br>
Somewhere—far away—<br>
Spring awoke to-day<br>
From the depth of dream.</p>
<p>Through the air bestirred<br>
Pulse of winging bird,<br>
Through the air bestirred<br>
Laugh of hidden stream.</p>
<p>On the world’s cold lips<br>
Fell warm finger-tips;<br>
On the world’s cold lips<br>
Woke the glow and gleam!</p>
<p>Spring awoke to-day!<br>
Somewhere—far away—<br>
Spring awoke to-day<br>
From the depth of dream!</p>
<!-- Page 80 -->
<h3 id="In_Town">In Town</h3>
<p>SOMEWHERE there’s a willow budding<br>
In a hollow by the river,<br>
Where the autumn leaves lie sodden,<br>
Turning all the pool to brown;<br>
There’s a thrush who’s building early,<br>
With his feathers all a-shiver,<br>
And the maple sap is rising—<br>
But I’m glad that I’m in town.</p>
<p>Somewhere out there in the country<br>
There’s a brook that’s overflowing,<br>
And a quaker pussy-willow<br>
Sews grey velvet on her gown;<br>
Rushes whisper to each other<br>
That marsh marigolds are showing,<br>
And those saucy crocus fellows—<br>
But I’m glad that I’m in town.</p>
<p>Long ago, when we were younger,<br>
How those little things enthralled us;<br>
King-birds nesting in the hedges,<br>
Baby field-mice soft as down,<br>
Muskrats in the sun-warmed shallows—<br>
Strange how all these voices called us!—<br>
Hark, was that a robin singing?<br>
<i>When’s the next train out of town?</i></p>
<!-- Page 81 -->
<h3 id="Summers_Passing">Summer’s Passing</h3>
<p>A SINGLE branch of flaming red,<br>
A branch of tawny yellow<br>
And every branch in gorgeousness<br>
A rival of its fellow;<br>
Some russet brown and faded green<br>
With golden shadows in between<br>
And mist-hid sun to mellow.</p>
<p>An instinct as of music near—<br>
A breath the wind is bringing,<br>
Broken and sweet, as from a host<br>
Of swift and solemn winging—<br>
A mystery born of light and sound<br>
Wrapping our trancéd progress round—<br>
A sighing and a singing!</p>
<p>Thus in a certain lovely pomp<br>
We leave the Summer lying—<br>
These are her funeral banners, this<br>
The pageantry of dying!<br>
The music that we almost hear<br>
Is wafted from her passing bier—<br>
The singing and the sighing!</p>
<!-- Page 82 -->
<h3 id="The_Doom_of_Ys">The Doom of Ys</h3>
<p>DO you hear the bell? ’Tis a silver chime<br>
But it ringeth not in the bourne of time.</p>
<p>With the wind it swells, with the wind ’twill sink,<br>
Dying at last by the sea’s dim brink.</p>
<p>By mortal hands the bell was hung<br>
By mortal hands ’tis never swung.</p>
<p>When the moon’s at full and the long tide creeps<br>
It rings o’er the town that the deep sea keeps—</p>
<p>The town of Ys, that, unafraid,<br>
Cursed God’s good bells for the noise they made,</p>
<p>Cursed them well and pulled them down<br>
From every belfry in the town!</p>
<p>For that sin of pride and that pride of sin,<br>
Deathly and soft, a Doom stole in.</p>
<p>It sucked through the stone, it stole through the street,<br>
It rose in the hall, silent and fleet;</p>
<p>Soundless it swept through the market-place<br>
Folding the town in a chill embrace;</p>
<p>No ruth it knew, it heard no call,<br>
Sinner and saint it gathered them all,</p>
<!-- Page 83 -->
<p>Gathered them all, while over them<br>
The bells they had cursed tolled requiem.</p>
<p>Do you hear the bell? When the full moon rides<br>
It rings o’er the town that the deep sea hides!</p>
<!-- Page 84 -->
<h3 id="Times_Garden">Time’s Garden</h3>
<p>YEARS are the seedlings which we careless sow<br>
In Time’s bare garden. Dead they seem to be—<br>
Dead years! We sigh and cover them with mould,<br>
But though the vagrant wind blow hot, blow cold,<br>
No hint of life beneath the dust we see;<br>
Then comes the magic hour when we are old,<br>
And lo! they stir and blossom wondrously.</p>
<p>Strange spectral blooms in spectral plots aglow!<br>
Here a great rose and here a ragged tare;<br>
And here pale, scentless blossoms without name,<br>
Robbed to enrich this poppy formed of flame;<br>
Here springs some hearts’ease, scattered unaware;<br>
Here, hawthorn-bloom to show the way Love came;<br>
Here, asphodel, to image Love’s despair!</p>
<p>When I am old and master of the spell<br>
To raise these garden ghosts of memory,<br>
My feet will turn aside from common ways,<br><!-- Page 85 -->
Where common flowers mark the common days,<br>
To one green plot; and there I know will be<br>
Fairest of all (O perfect beyond praise!)<br>
The year you gave, beloved, your rosemary.</p>
<!-- Page 86 -->
<h3 id="The_Coming_of_Love">The Coming of Love</h3>
<p>HOW shall I know? Shall I hear Love pass<br>
In the wind that sighs through the poplar tree?<br>
Shall I follow his passing over the grass<br>
By the prisoned scents which his footsteps free?</p>
<p>Shall I wake one day to a sky all blue<br>
And meet with Spring in a crowded street?<br>
Shall I open a door and, looking through,<br>
Find, on a sudden, the world more sweet?</p>
<p>How shall I know?—last night I lay<br>
Counting the hours’ dreary sum<br>
With naught in my heart save a wild dismay<br>
And a fear that whispered, “Love is come!”</p>
<!-- Page 87 -->
<h3 id="Premonition">Premonition</h3>
<p>LAST night I dreamed<br>
No dream of joy or sorrow,<br>
Yet, when I woke, I wept,<br>
Knowing the brightness of some far to-morrow<br>
Had darkened while I slept!</p>
<!-- Page 88 -->
<h3 id="The_Child">The Child</h3>
<p>I MAY not lift him in my arms. His face I may not see—<br>
Are angel hands more tender than a mother’s hands may be?<br>
And does he smile to hear the song an angel stole from me?</p>
<p>The wise King said, “He cannot come but I will go to him!”<br>
O David! did you seek with words to make the grave less grim?<br>
And did you think to cheat, with words, the jealous seraphim?</p>
<p>So! he will learn of heaven—he, who scarcely knew the earth.<br>
All fullness waits the baby eyes that never looked on dearth—<br>
The mystery of death usurps the mystery of birth!</p>
<p>What light has earth to give me for the light that heaven beguiled?<br>
What is the calm of heaven to him who has not known the wild?—<br>
O, we are both bereft, bereft—the mother and the child!</p>
<!-- Page 89 -->
<h3 id="Intrusion">Intrusion</h3>
<p>I BUILT myself a pleasant house.<br>
Content was I to dwell in it—<br>
Its door was fast against the wind<br>
With all the gusty swell of it.</p>
<p>It had two windows, high and clear,<br>
With trees and skies to shine through them,<br>
They were acquainted with the moon,<br>
And every star was mine through them.</p>
<p>Its walls were silent walls; its hearth<br>
Held little fires to gladden me—<br>
And though the nights might weep outside<br>
No sob crept through to sadden me.</p>
<p>Then came your hand upon the latch<br>
(Although I had not sent for you)<br>
And all Outside came blowing in<br>
The way I had not meant it to!</p>
<p>Upon the hearth my tended flame<br>
Leapt to a blaze and died in it.<br>
The night sought out a hidden place<br>
I had forgot and sighed in it.</p>
<p>My window that had known the stars<br>
Seemed suddenly not high at all.<br>
The trees drew back; the friendly birds<br>
Swept dumbly by, too shy to call.</p>
<!-- Page 90 -->
<p>Said you: “It is a pleasant house,<br>
But surely somewhat small for two!”—<br>
And at your word my walls fell down,<br>
Leaving no house at all, just you.</p>
<!-- Page 91 -->
<h3 id="The_Seas_Withholding">The Sea’s Withholding</h3>
<p>THE ladye’s bower faced the sea,<br>
Its casements framed a sea-born day.<br>
She saw the fishers sail away,<br>
And, far and high,<br>
The gulls sweep by<br>
Within the hollow of the sky!</p>
<p>She saw the laggard twilight come<br>
And, chased by rippling wakes of foam,<br>
She saw the fisher fleet come home—<br>
Brown sails a-sheen<br>
Against the green<br>
With shadows creeping in between!</p>
<p>She saw, when it was evening, all<br>
Day’s banners stream in crimson rout<br>
Till night’s soft finger blurred them out,<br>
And, high and far,<br>
A perfect star<br>
Shone where the keys of heaven are!</p>
<p>“O far and constant star,” she said,<br>
“O passing sail, O passing bird,<br>
O passing day—bring you no word<br>
Of winds that steer<br>
His ship a-near?<br>
Where sails my love that sails not here?</p>
<!-- Page 92 -->
<p>“The days in splendid pageant pass,<br>
In lovely peace the nights go by,<br>
And day and night are sweet; but I—<br>
I cannot say<br>
Lo, the bright day!<br>
Can it be dawn and love away?”</p>
<!-- Page 93 -->
<h3 id="Love_Unkind">Love Unkind</h3>
<p>OUT upon the bleak hillside, the bleak hillside, he lay—<br>
Her lips were red, and red the stream that slipped his life away.<br>
Ah, crimson, crimson were her lips, but his were turning gray.</p>
<p>The troubled sky seemed bending low, bending low to hide<br>
The foam-white face so wild upturned from off the bleak hillside—<br>
White as the beaten foam her face, and she was wond’rous eyed.</p>
<p>The soft, south-wind came creeping up, creeping stealthily<br>
To breathe upon his clay-cold face—but all too cold was he,<br>
Too cold for you to warm, south-wind, since cold at heart was she!</p>
<p>Sweet morning peeped above the hill, above the hill to find<br>
The shattered, useless, godlike thing the night had left behind—<br>
Wept the sweet morn her crystal tears that love should prove unkind!<br>
</p>
<!-- Page 94 -->
<h3 id="Christmas_in_Heaven">Christmas in Heaven</h3>
<p>HOW hushed they were in Heaven that night,<br>
How lightly all the angels went,<br>
How dumb the singing spheres beneath<br>
Their many-candled tent!</p>
<p>How silent all the drifting throng<br>
Of earth-freed spirits, strangely torn<br>
By dim and half-remembered pain<br>
And joy but newly born!</p>
<p>The Glory in the Highest flamed<br>
With awful, unremembered ray—<br>
But quiet as the falling dew<br>
Was He who went away.</p>
<p>So swift He went, His passing left<br>
A low, bright door in Heaven ajar—<br>
With God it was a covenant,<br>
To man it seemed a star.</p>
<!-- Page 95 -->
<h3 id="I_Whispered_to_the_Bobolink">I Whispered to the Bobolink</h3>
<p>I WHISPERED to the bobolink:<br>
“Sweet singer of the field,<br>
Teach me a song to reach a heart<br>
In maiden armor steeled.”</p>
<p> <i>“If there be such a song,” sang he,<br>
“No bird can tell its mystery.”</i></p>
<p>I bent above the sweetest rose,<br>
A deeper sweet to stir—<br>
“O Rose,” I begged, “what charm will wake<br>
The deep, sweet heart of her?”</p>
<p> <i>“Alas, poor lover,” sighed the rose,<br>
“The charm you seek no flower knows.”</i></p>
<p>I wandered by the midnight lake<br>
Where heaven lay confessed<br>
“Tell me,” I cried, “what draws the stars<br>
To lie upon your breast?”</p>
<p> <i>The silence woke to soft reply<br>
“When Heaven stoops—demand not why!”</i></p>
<p>“Alas, sweet maid, love’s potent charm<br>
I cannot beg or buy,<br>
I cannot wrest it from the wind<br>
Or steal it from the sky—”</p>
<p> <i>Breathless, I caught her whisper low,<br>
“I love you—why, I do not know!”</i></p>
<!-- Page 96 -->
<h3 id="You">You</h3>
<p>SLANTING rain and a sky of gray,<br>
Drifting mist and a wind astray,<br>
The leaden end of a leaden day<br>
And you—away!</p>
<p>Light in the west! The sky’s pale dome<br>
Gemmed with a star; a scented gloam<br>
Of bursting buds and rain-wet loam<br>
And you—at home!</p>
<!-- Page 97 -->
<h3 id="The_Mother">The Mother</h3>
<p>LAST night he lay within my arm,<br>
So small, so warm—a mystery<br>
To which God only held the key—<br>
But mine to keep from fear and harm!</p>
<p>Ah! He was all my own, last night,<br>
With soft, persuasive, baby eyes,<br>
So wondering and yet so wise,<br>
And hands that held my finger tight.</p>
<p>Why was it that he could not stay—<br>
Too rare a gift? Yet who could hold<br>
A treasure with securer hold<br>
Than I, to whom love taught the way?</p>
<p>As with a flood of golden light<br>
The first sun tipped earth’s golden rim<br>
So all my world grew bright with him<br>
And with his going fell the night—</p>
<p>O God, is there an angel arm<br>
More strong, more tender than the rest?<br>
Lay Thou my baby on his breast<br>
To keep him safe from fear and harm!</p>
<!-- Page 98 -->
<h3 id="The_Vassal">The Vassal</h3>
<p>WIND of the North, O far, wild wind<br>
Born of a far, lone sea—<br>
When suns are soft and breezes kind<br>
Why are you kin to me?</p>
<p><i>Uncounted years above the sea,<br>
Rock-fortressed from its rage,<br>
The fishermen, your fathers, kept<br>
A barren heritage—<br>
Grim as the sea they forced to pay<br>
The sea-toll of their wage.</i></p>
<p><i>And lo! The fate which made you hers<br>
And gave you of her best<br>
And set you in a sunny place,<br>
Down-sloping to the West,<br>
Forgot to change your fisher’s heart<br>
Serf to the sea’s unrest!</i></p>
<p>Wind of the North! O bitter wind,<br>
I hear the wild seas fret—<br>
In the dim spaces of the mind<br>
They claim me vassal yet!</p>
<!-- Page 99 -->
<h3 id="The_Troubadour">The Troubadour</h3>
<p>THE wind blows salt from off the sea<br>
And sweet from where the land lies green;<br>
I travel down the great highway<br>
That runs so straight and white between—<br>
I watch the sea-wind strain the sheet,<br>
The land-wind toss the yellow wheat!</p>
<p>Song is my mistress, fickle she,<br>
Yet dear beyond all dearth of speech;<br>
Child of the winds of land and sea<br>
She charms me with the charm of each—<br>
Full soft and sweet she sings and then<br>
She sings wild songs for sailor-men!</p>
<p>No staff I carry in my hand,<br>
No pack I carry on my back,<br>
No foot of earth I call my own,<br>
For castle or for cot I lack—<br>
I travel fast, I travel slow,<br>
And where my mistress bids I go!</p>
<p>My gems, the pearl upon the leaf<br>
At mystic hour of the morn;<br>
My gold, the gold that rims the sea<br>
A moment ere the day is born;<br>
And on my breezy couch o’ nights<br>
The stars shine down—my taper lights!</p>
<!-- Page 100 -->
<p>Happy am I that sing of love,<br>
Yet from the thrall of love am free;<br>
Happy am I that sing of pain<br>
And quick forget what pain may be!<br>
I sing of death—and lo! To me<br>
Life is supremest ecstacy!</p>
<!-- Page 101 -->
<h3 id="Indian_Summer">Indian Summer</h3>
<p>I HAVE strayed from silent places,<br>
Where the days are dreaming always;<br>
And fair summer lies a-dying,<br>
Roses withered on her breast.<br>
I have stolen all her beauty,<br>
All her softness, all her sweetness;<br>
In her robe of folden sunshine<br>
I am drest.</p>
<p>I will breathe a mist about me<br>
Lest you see my face too clearly,<br>
Lest you follow me too boldly<br>
I will silence every song.<br>
Through the haze and through the silence<br>
You will know that I am passing;<br>
When you break the spell that holds you,<br>
I am gone!</p>
<!-- Page 102 -->
<h3 id="The_Unchanged">The Unchanged</h3>
<p>IF we could salvage Babylon<br>
From times’s grim heap of dust and bones;<br>
If we could charm cool waters back<br>
To sing against her thirsty stones;<br>
If, on a day,<br>
We two should stray<br>
Down some long, Babylonian way—<br>
Perhaps the strangest sight of all<br>
Would be the street boys playing ball.</p>
<p>If through Pompeii’s agelong night<br>
A yellow sun again might shine,<br>
And little, sea-born breezes lift<br>
The hair of lovers sipping wine,<br>
If, in some fair,<br>
Dim temple there,<br>
We watched Pompeii come to prayer—<br>
Not the strange altar would surprise<br>
But strangeness of familiar eyes!</p>
<p>Ay, should our magic straightly wake<br>
Atlantis from her sea-rocked sleep<br>
And we on some Processional<br>
Look down where dancing maidens leap,<br>
If one flushed maid<br>
Beside us stayed<br>
To tie more firm her loosened braid—<br>
Would not the shaking wonder be<br>
To find her just like you and me?</p>
<!-- Page 103 -->
<h3 id="Indifference">Indifference</h3>
<p>A BIRD, a wild-flower and a tree—<br>
I care for them, not they for me.</p>
<p>I see all heaven in a pool—<br>
But the frog there takes me for a fool.</p>
<p>To this dead thrush a tear I gave—<br>
All Spring shall sing above my grave,</p>
<p>And naught I spend my heart upon<br>
Know lack or loss that I am gone—</p>
<p>A bird, a wild-flower and a tree,<br>
I cherish them; they suffer me!</p>
<!-- Page 104 -->
<h3 id="Last_Things">Last Things</h3>
<p>THERE is no one to do it for me,<br>
But I know what I shall do<br>
When the last dawn breaks o’er me<br>
And the last night is through.</p>
<p>I shall set in pleasant order<br>
The little books I knew,<br>
With flowers on the window ledge<br>
In a shallow bowl of blue.</p>
<p>I’ll leave the out door swinging,<br>
(As it might swing for you)<br>
And on the clean swept door-sill<br>
Wild roses I shall strew—</p>
<p>So when pale Death comes trailing<br>
Her branch of sodden rue<br>
She’ll gather up my gay content<br>
And know contentment too!</p>
<!-- Page 105 -->
<h3 id="Callous_Cupid">Callous Cupid</h3>
<p>CUPID does not care for sighs<br>
Does not care for lover’s weeping!<br>
Fair One, dry your pretty eyes,<br>
Cupid does not care for sighs,<br>
Laugh with him if you are wise,<br>
Steel the heart he has in keeping;<br>
Cupid does not care for sighs<br>
Does not care for lover’s weeping!</p>
<!-- Page 106 -->
<h3 id="The_Meeting">The Meeting</h3>
<p>SHE flitted by me on the stair—<br>
A moment since I knew not of her.<br>
A look, a smile—she passed! but where<br>
She flitted by me on the stair<br>
Joy cradled exquisite despair;<br>
For who am I that I should love her?<br>
She flitted by me on the stair—<br>
A moment since I knew not of her!</p>
<!-- Page 107 -->
<h3 id="The_Piper">The Piper</h3>
<p>I’VE heard the pipes of Pan<br>
Somewhere, just beyond,—<br>
Over the edge of dawn, I think,<br>
Where the clouds hang soft on the world’s dim brink,<br>
Where the red suns rise and the blue stars sink,<br>
I heard the pipes of Pan!</p>
<p><i>Hush! what you heard was the wind,<br>
The feet of the wind through the leaves,<br>
Or the sigh of the waking night as it stirred.<br>
Or a bird’s note afar,<br>
Or the deep breath of June,<br>
Or the fall of a star,<br>
Or the shimmering skirts of the sea-slipping tide<br>
In the wake of the wandering moon!</i></p>
<p>Nay! ’twas the pipes of Pan!<br>
Somewhere—just beyond—<br>
My soul awoke with a rapturous sigh<br>
(Would I wake my soul for a night bird’s cry?)<br>
I heard the winds of the worlds sweep by<br>
To follow the pipes of Pan!</p>
<p><i>Stay! ’twas a voice that you heard,<br>
A voice that you love, in the wood,<br>
The vibrating note of a half spoken word—<br>
For the great Pan is slain,</i><br><!-- Page 108 -->
Of his pipings we know not one magical strain,<br>
They have fled down the years of a world that was young<br>
Oh, ages and ages ago!</p>
<p>Nay, ’twas the pipes of Pan!<br>
Somewhere—just beyond—<br>
Far as a star, yet piercing sweet,<br>
A passionate, poignant, rhythmic beat—<br>
Till my mad blood raced with my racing feet<br>
To follow the piper—Pan!</p>
<!-- Page 109 -->
<h3 id="Wanderlust">Wanderlust</h3>
<p>THE highways and the byways, the kind sky folding all,<br>
And never a care to drag me back and never a voice to call;<br>
Only the call of the long, white road to the far horizon’s wall.</p>
<p>The glad seas and the mad seas, the seas on a night in June,<br>
And never a hand to beckon back from the path of the new-lit moon;<br>
Never a night that lasts too long or a dawn that breaks too soon!</p>
<p>The shrill breeze and the hill breeze, the sea breeze, fierce and bold,<br>
And never a breeze that gives the lie to a tale that a breeze has told;<br>
Always the tale of the strange and new in the countries strange and old.</p>
<p>The lone trail and the known trail, the trail you must take on trust,<br>
And never a trail without a grave where a wanderer’s bones are thrust—<br>
Never a look or a turning back till the dust shall claim the dust!</p>
<!-- Page 110 -->
<h3 id="Gold">Gold</h3>
<p>WHEN life wakened in the Spring<br>
All the world was gold and green!<br>
Sunlight lay on everything,<br>
Sailing cloud and soaring wing,<br>
Emerald banks where snow had been,<br>
Drifts of daffodils between.</p>
<p>When Life’s pulse beat strong and high<br>
Shone the world in gold and blue!<br>
Canopied with turquoise sky<br>
Summer passed superbly by,<br>
Bluest midnight cupped the dew<br>
Golden morn might sparkle through!</p>
<p>Now that life would rest again<br>
Soft she lies in gold and brown,<br>
Brown the fields and gold the grain,<br>
Brown the little pools of rain,<br>
Gold the leaves that falter down<br>
To brown pavements in the town.</p>
<!-- Page 111 -->
<h3 id="The_Materialist">The Materialist</h3>
<p>MY soul has left its tent of clay<br>
And seeks from star to star,<br>
’Mid flaming worlds that are to be,<br>
And fruitful worlds that are,<br>
The Voice which spake and said “Live on!”<br>
(When Death said, “You may die”)<br>
And sent my spirit wandering<br>
The stairway of the sky.</p>
<p>Still must I seek what on the earth<br>
I sought as fruitlessly—<br>
The world I knew, the heaven I scorned<br>
Lost in infinity:<br>
Alone, and on the ageless breath<br>
Of cosmic whirlwinds spun,<br>
I hurtle through the outer dark<br>
Toward some fantastic sun!—</p>
<p>O God! how happy is the leaf,<br>
A sweet and soulless thing,<br>
Dying to live but in the green<br>
Of yet another Spring—<br>
These heights, these depths, these flaming worlds,<br>
This stairway of the sky<br>
I’d give, had no Voice said “Live on!”<br>
When Death said, “You may die.”</p>
<!-- Page 112 -->
<h3 id="Tir_Nan_Og">Tir Nan Og</h3>
<p>THE breeze blows out from the land and it seeks the sea,<br>
O and O! that my sail were set and away—<br>
Fast and free on its wings would my sailing be<br>
To the west: to the Tir Nan Og, where the blesséd stay!</p>
<p>The darkness stirs, it awakes, it outspreads its arms,<br>
O and O! and the birds in their nests are still,<br>
The red-browed hill bleats low with the lamb’s alarms,<br>
And a sound of singing comes from the slipping rill.</p>
<p>My soul is awake alone, all alone in the earth,<br>
O and O! and around is the lonely night.<br>
As with the sun, would my soul go forth to its birth—<br>
O’er the darkling sea, to the west—to the light, to the light!</p>
<p>Do they say, “Be content with the land of the Innis Fail,<br>
O and O! there is friendship here, there is song.”<br>
But they smile to your face, when you turn they stammer and rail<br><!-- Page 113 -->
And the song of the singer has tears and is over long!</p>
<p>A call comes out of the west and it calls a name,<br>
O and O! it is soft, it is far, it is low—<br>
Sweet, so sweet that it touches my soul with a flame<br>
That burns the heart from my breast with the wish to go!</p>
<blockquote>(Translated from the Celtic.)</blockquote>
<!-- Page 114 -->
<h3 id="The_Little_Man_in_Green">The Little Man in Green</h3>
<p>’TWAS a little man in green,<br>
And he sat upon a stone;<br>
And he sat there all alone,<br>
Whispering.</p>
<p>“One and two,” so whispered he.<br>
(’Twas an ancient man and hoar)<br>
“One and two,” and then no more—<br>
Never, “Three”.</p>
<p>Hawthorn trees were quick with May—<br>
“Sir,” said I, “Good-day to you”!<br>
But he counted. “One and two”<br>
In strange way.</p>
<p>Fool I was—oh, fool was I<br>
(Who should know the ways of them!)<br>
That I touched his cloak’s green hem,<br>
Passing by.</p>
<p>I was fey with spring and mirth—<br>
Speaking him without a thought—<br>
Now is joy a thing forgot<br>
On the earth.</p>
<p>Ere the sweet thorn-buds were through,<br>
Wife and child doom-stricken lay,<br>
Cold as winter, white as spray—<br>
<i>“One and two!”</i></p>
<!-- Page 115 -->
<p>Now I seek eternally<br>
That grim Counter of the fen,<br>
Praying he may count again—<br>
Counting, “Three”.</p>
<blockquote>* In the bad chance of a meeting with the “Little People” the
mortal is cautioned not to speak to them nor to touch, but to pass
by quickly with averted eye.—Old tale.</blockquote>
<!-- Page 116 -->
<h3 id="The_Enchantress">The Enchantress</h3>
<p>I FEAR Eileen, the wild Eileen—<br>
The eyes she lifts to mine,<br>
That laugh and laugh and never tell<br>
The half that they divine!</p>
<p>She draws me to her lonely cot<br>
Ayont the Tulloch Hill;<br>
And, laughing, draws me to her door<br>
And, laughing, holds me still.</p>
<p>I bless myself and bless myself,<br>
But in the holy sign,<br>
There seems to be no heart of love,<br>
To still the pain in mine.</p>
<p>The morning, bright above the moor,<br>
Is bright no more for me—<br>
A weary bit of burning pain<br>
Is where my heart should be!</p>
<p>For since the wild, sweet laugh of her<br>
Has drawn me to her snare,<br>
The only sunlight in the world<br>
Is shining from her hair.</p>
<p>Yet well I know, ah, well I know<br>
Why ’tis so sweet and wild—<br>
She slept beneath a faery thorn,<br>
She is a faery child!</p>
<!-- Page 117 -->
<p>And so I leave my mother lone,<br>
No meal to fill the pot,<br>
And follow, follow wild Eileen.<br>
If so I will or not.</p>
<p>I fear to meet her in the glen,<br>
Or seek her by the shore;<br>
I fear to lift her cabin’s latch,<br>
But—should she come no more!—</p>
<p>O Eileen Og, O wild Eileen,<br>
My heart is wracked with fear<br>
Lest you should meet your faery kin,<br>
And, laughing, leave me here!</p>
<!-- Page 118 -->
<h3 id="The_Banshee">The Banshee</h3>
<p>THE Banshee cries on the rising wind<br>
<i>“O-hoho, O hoho-o-o!”</i><br>
The dead to free and the quick to bind—<br>
(Close fast the shutter and draw the blind!)<br>
<i>“O-hoho, O hoho-o-o!”</i></p>
<p>Why are you paler my dearest dear?<br>
<i>“O-hoho, O hoho-o-o!”</i><br>
’Tis but the wind in the elm tree near—<br>
(Acushla, hush! lest the Banshee hear!)<br>
<i>“O-hoho, O hoho-o-o!”</i></p>
<p>See, how the crackling fire up-springs,<br>
<i>“O-hoho, O hoho-o-o!”</i><br>
Up and up on its flame-red wings;<br>
Hark, how the cheerful kettle sings!<br>
<i>“O-hoho, O hoho-o-o!”</i></p>
<p>Core of my heart! How cold your lips!<br>
<i>“O-hoho, O hoho-o-o!”</i><br>
White as the spray the wild wind whips,<br>
Still as your icy finger tips!<br>
<i>“O-hoho, O hoho-o-o!”</i></p>
<p>On the rising wind the Banshee cries—<br>
<i>“O-hoho, O hoho-o-o!”</i><br>
I kiss your hair. I kiss your eyes—<br>
The kettle is dumb; the red flame dies!<br>
<i>“Ochone! Ochone! Ochone!”</i></p>
<!-- Page 119 -->
<h3 id="The_Witch">The Witch</h3>
<p>HER hair was gold and warm it lay<br>
Upon the pallor of her brow;<br>
Her eyes were deep, aye, deep and gray—<br>
And in their depths he drowned his vow.</p>
<p>She wandered where the sands were wet,<br>
Weaving the sea-weed for a crown,<br>
And there at eve a monk she met—<br>
A holy monk in cowl and gown.</p>
<p>She held him with her witch’s stare<br>
(A sweet, child-look—it witched him well!)<br>
Upon his lip she froze the prayer,<br>
And in his ear she breathed a spell.</p>
<p>He babbled ever of her name<br>
And of her brow that gleamed like dawn,<br>
And of her lips—a lovely shame<br>
No holy man should think upon.</p>
<p>They hunted her along the sea,<br>
“Witch, Witch!” they cried and hissed their hate—<br>
Her hair unbound fell to her knee<br>
And made a glory where she sate.</p>
<p>Her song she hushed and, wonder-eyed,<br>
She gazed upon their bell and book;<br>
The zealous priests were fain to hide<br>
Lest they be holden by her look.</p>
<!-- Page 120 -->
<p>Most innocent she seemed to be<br>
(“The Devil’s sly!” the fathers say)<br>
Her eyes were dreaming eyes that see<br>
Things strange and fair and far away.</p>
<p>They stood her in the judgment hall.<br>
“Confess,” they cried, “the blasting spell<br>
That holds yon crazéd monk in thrall?”<br>
“Good sirs,” she said, “he loved me well.”</p>
<p>They haled her to a witch’s doom,<br>
They matched her shining hair with flame—<br>
But ever through the cloister’s gloom<br>
The mad monk babbles of her name!</p>
<p>And, when the red sun droppeth down<br>
And wet sand gleameth ghostily,<br>
Men see her weave a sea-weed crown<br>
Between the twilight and the sea.</p>
<!-- Page 121 -->
<h3 id="Fairy_Singing">Fairy Singing</h3>
<p>SHE was my love and the pulse of my heart;<br>
Lovely she was as the flowers that start<br>
Straight to the sun from the earth’s tender breast,<br>
Sweet as the wind blowing out of the west—<br>
Elana, Elana, my strong one, my white one,<br>
Soft be the wind blowing over your rest!</p>
<p><i> She crept to my side<br>
In the cold mist of morning.<br>
“O wirra” she cried,<br>
“’Tis farewell now, mavourneen!<br>
When the crescent moon hung<br>
Like a scythe in the sky,<br>
I heard in the silence<br>
The Little Folks cry.</i></p>
<p><i> “’Twas like a low sighing,<br>
A sobbing, a singing;<br>
It came from the west,<br>
Where the low moon was swinging:<br>
‘Elana, Elana’<br>
Was all of their crying.<br>
Mavrone! I must go—<br>
To refuse them, I dare not.<br>
Alone I must go;<br>
They have called and they care not—<br>
Naught do they care that they call me apart<br><!-- Page 122 -->
From the warmth and the light and the love of your heart.<br>
Hark! How their singing<br>
Comes winging, comes winging,<br>
Through your close arms, beloved,<br>
Straight to my heart!”</i></p>
<p>White grew her face as the thorn’s tender bloom,<br>
White as the mist from the valley of doom!<br>
Swift was her going—her head on my breast<br>
Drooped like a flower that winter has pressed—<br>
Elana, Elana! My strong one, my white one!<br>
Empty the arms that your beauty had blessed.</p>
<!-- Page 123 -->
<h3 id="Killed_in_Action">Killed in Action</h3>
<p>MY father lived his three-score years; my son lived twenty-two;<br>
One looked long back on work well done, and one had all to do—<br>
Yet which the better served his world, I know not, nor do you!</p>
<p>Life taught my father all her lore till he grew wise and gray,<br>
She did but whisper to my son before she turned away—<br>
Yet which her deepest secret held only they two might say.</p>
<p>Peace brought my father restful days, with love and fame for wage;<br>
War gave my son an unmarked grave and an unwritten page—<br>
Who shall declare which gift conveyed the greater heritage?</p>
<!-- Page 124 -->
<h3 id="Spring_Came_In">Spring Came In</h3>
<p>SPRING came in with a red-wing’s feather<br>
And yellow clumps of the wild marshmallow—<br>
O happy bird, can you tell me whether<br>
In distant France they have April weather?<br>
And little pools that are sunny and shallow?</p>
<p>My soul is awake and my pulse is racing—<br>
My heart is aware that the birds are mating—<br>
Oh, my heart’s like a cloud that the wind is chasing<br>
O’er the earth’s green blur with its silver tracing<br>
To that sad France where there’s someone waiting!</p>
<p>O Spring! begone with your too-sweet clover<br>
And all your bees with honey to carry—<br>
Come again when the war is over,<br>
Come, dear Spring, when you bring my lover!<br>
Yet come no more, should he tarry . . . tarry!</p>
<!-- Page 125 -->
<h3 id="From_the_Trenches">From the Trenches</h3>
<p>OH, to be in Canada now that Spring is merry,<br>
Happy apple blossoms gay against the smiling green;<br>
Here the lilac’s purple plume and here the pink of cherry,<br>
Hillsides just a drift of bloom with clover in between!</p>
<p>Oh, to be in Canada! there’s a road that rambles<br>
Through a leafing maple-wood and up a windy hill,<br>
Velvet pussy-willows press soft hands amid the brambles<br>
Fringing round a sky-filled pool where cattle drink their fill.</p>
<p>Oh, to be in Canada! there’s a farmhouse hidden<br>
Where the hollow meets the hill and Spring’s first footsteps show—<br>
Not a drop of honey there to any bee forbidden,<br>
Not a cherry on a tree but all the robins know!</p>
<p>Oh, to be in Canada, now that Spring is calling<br>
Sweet, so sweet it breaks the heart to let its sweetness through,<br><!-- Page 126 -->
Oh, to breast the windy hill while yet the dew is falling—<br>
Waking all the meadow-larks to carol in the blue!</p>
<p>Smile upon us, Canada! None shall fail who love you<br>
While they hold a memory of your fields where flowers are—<br>
High the task to keep unstained the skies that bend above you,<br>
Proud the life that shields you from the flaming wind of war!</p>
<!-- Page 127 -->
<h3 id="The_Reasons">The Reasons</h3>
<p>THEY sat before a dugout<br>
In the unfamiliar quiet of silenced guns.<br>
And one said:<br>
“Now that it’s over<br>
What about a bit of truth?<br>
Let us say why we came to fight—<br>
No frills—<br>
You first, old Fire-eater!”—</p>
<p>One with a whimsical face spoke freely;<br>
“I?—I sought some stir,<br>
Some urge in living,<br>
Some sense in dying.<br>
I sought a mountain top<br>
With a view!”</p>
<p>“And the answer?”</p>
<p>“I have seen others find<br>
What I sought.”</p>
<p>. . . . . . .</p>
<p>“I don’t know that it’s anyone’s business<br>
Why I came,”<br>
(Another spoke as if unwillingly),<br>
“A girl laughed, I think—<br>
Funny?—Yes, funny as hell!”—</p>
<p>. . . . . . .</p>
<p>His neighbor said,<br>
“I was a business man,<br>
No sentiment,<br><!-- Page 128 -->
Nothing of that kind,—<br>
But the band played<br>
And, suddenly, I saw<br>
My country,<br>
A woman, with hands outstretched,<br>
Her back to the wall—”</p>
<p>“U—um,” they nodded,<br>
<i>“She’s got a pull,<br>
That old lady.”</i></p>
<p>. . . . . . .</p>
<p>“As for me,” the speaker was abrupt,<br>
“I was afraid!<br>
I saw pictures,<br>
I heard things—<br>
I couldn’t sleep<br>
For the Beast that was abroad—<br>
Fear!<br>
That’s what brought me!”</p>
<p>. . . . . . .</p>
<p>They sat silent for a moment<br>
In the sun.<br>
Then an older man said briefly,<br>
“We were all afraid . . . . .<br>
. . . But what of hate?<br>
Did no one come because of hate?”<br>
. . . . . .</p>
<p>“Yes—I”—<br>
They looked at this man<br>
Curiously,<br><!-- Page 129 -->
But he added nothing,<br>
And no one questioned.</p>
<p>. . . . . . .</p>
<p>A fresh-faced boy spoke modestly;<br>
“Our family are all Army people—<br>
So, of course—<br>
And it’s all over now.<br>
We got through.<br>
But it was a near thing—<br>
What?”</p>
<!-- Page 130 -->
<h3 id="To-Day">To-Day</h3>
<p>TO-DAY is a room<br>
With windows upon one side<br>
And upon the other<br>
A door—<br>
Through the windows we may look<br>
But cannot pass;<br>
Through the door we must pass<br>
But cannot look,<br>
And there are no windows<br>
Upon that side.</p>
<!-- Page 131 -->
<h3 id="Memory">Memory</h3>
<p>A YEAR is a thief<br>
Who comes in the guise of a friend<br>
Saying, “Let us travel together,<br>
We have much to give each other.<br>
See, I hold back nothing—<br>
For what is giving<br>
Between friends?”</p>
<p>Yet when the year departs<br>
He takes his gifts with him—<br>
“Oh, Robber!” we cry,<br>
Aghast and weeping,<br>
“Nay,” he replies, “I did but lend.<br>
Still, for your weeping, I will leave you something.</p>
<p>It is not the real thing<br>
But you may keep it always.”</p>
<!-- Page 132 -->
<h3 id="Dream">Dream</h3>
<p>I SEE a spirit<br>
Young and eager,<br>
Beautiful, too, I think,<br>
(Although I cannot see it clearly)<br>
It is, by right of its own being,<br>
One with all lovely, youthful things;<br>
And they, its age-old kindred,<br>
Welcome it<br>
Saying, “Come, you too are one of us!”</p>
<p>. . . . . . .</p>
<p>This spirit is my own happy ghost—<br>
But I, myself,—alas!</p>
<!-- Page 133 -->
<h3 id="Perhaps">Perhaps</h3>
<p>THERE was a man, once, and a woman<br>
Whose love was so entire<br>
That an angel, watching them,<br>
Said wistfully, “Would I were no angel<br>
But a mortal,<br>
Loving so, and so beloved!”<br>
. . . . Yet, when these two mated,<br>
A muddied drop, from some forgotten vial of ancestry,<br>
Brought them a child whose mind was dark;<br>
Who lived—and never called them by their names . . .<br>
. . . . They tended her<br>
For twenty years.<br>
Only when she died<br>
Did they weep, whispering,<br>
“Why?”<br>
The years could find no answer,<br>
Though they went questioning<br>
Until the end.</p>
<p>. . . . . . .</p>
<p>Still wondering<br>
They wandered out into the other country . . . .<br>
It was lonely there,<br>
Being parted from familiar things,<br>
And there was no one to answer questions,<br>
But, suddenly,<br><!-- Page 134 -->
(As a wind blows or a swallow flies against the sun)<br>
Came a young girl—eager!<br>
She ran to them,<br>
Calling dear names,<br>
(Names that would open heaven)<br>
“Who are you?” they entreated, trembling . . . .<br>
But they knew!—<br>
Had they not dreamed her so<br>
For twenty years?</p>
<!-- Page 135 -->
<h3 id="Glamour">Glamour</h3>
<p>THE knowledge of love<br>
Is like sudden sun upon a river—<br>
The slipping water<br>
Is instantly opaque and glorious.<br>
No longer can we look into it<br>
Counting the pebbles,<br>
Watching the ribboned water-reeds,<br>
Or searching idly<br>
For that something which we lost<br>
(A ring with gems)<br>
It is all glamour, now!<br>
We turn away, shading our eyes.</p>
<!-- Page 136 -->
<h3 id="Friendship">Friendship</h3>
<p>I THOUGHT of friendship<br>
As a golden ring,<br>
Round as the world<br>
Yet fitted to my finger;<br>
I thought of friendship<br>
As a path in spring<br>
Where there are flowers<br>
And the footsteps linger;<br>
I thought of friendship<br>
As a globe of light,<br>
Yellow before the doorway of my life,<br>
A flame diffused<br>
Yet potent against night;<br>
I thought—but thought itself in ruin lies<br>
Since, yesterday, you passed with lowered eyes!</p>
<!-- Page 137 -->
<h3 id="The_Returned_Man">The Returned Man</h3>
<p>THEY thought that he would come back<br>
Quieter,<br>
Less boyish,<br>
But still a hero with tales to tell.<br>
So, when there were no tales,<br>
Only blank silences—<br>
When he lay for hours<br>
Staring through leafing branches<br>
And forgot them<br>
Utterly—<br>
They tried to arouse him, saying:<br>
“The war is over.”<br>
But when he turned on them<br>
His shadowed eyes<br>
They stammered—<br>
Knowing that they lied!</p>
<!-- Page 138 -->
<h3 id="Epitaph">Epitaph</h3>
<blockquote>(For the unknown soldier buried in Westminster Abbey.)</blockquote>
<p>YOU who died fighting<br>
For me and my little children;<br>
You who are a million<br>
Yet are but one,<br>
I lay upon your grave<br>
A rose and a tear—<br>
The tear is the world’s sorrow,<br>
The rose is your joy.</p>
<!-- Page 139 -->
<h3 id="For_One_Who_Went_in_Spring">For One Who Went in Spring</h3>
<p>SHE did not go, as others do,<br>
With backward look and beckoning;<br>
With no farewell for anything<br>
She passed the open doorway through.</p>
<p>The little things she left behind<br>
Lie where they fell from hands content—<br>
Fame a forgotten incident<br>
And life a season out of mind.</p>
<p>The spring will find her footstep gone,<br>
But spring is kind to vanished things,<br>
Camas and buttercups she brings<br>
With green that tears have brightened on.</p>
<p>And we, who walked with her last year<br>
While April in the lilacs stirred,<br>
Will turn with sudden look or word—<br>
Forgetting that she is not here.</p>
<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12475 ***</div>
</body>
</html>
|
