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diff --git a/22717.txt b/22717.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9832c6c --- /dev/null +++ b/22717.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3750 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Lundy's Lane and Other Poems, by Duncan Campbell Scott + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Lundy's Lane and Other Poems + +Author: Duncan Campbell Scott + +Release Date: September 22, 2007 [EBook #22717] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LUNDY'S LANE AND OTHER POEMS *** + + + + +Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +_Lundy's Lane + +and Other Poems_ + + + + +_By_ + +_Duncan Campbell Scott_ + + +_Author of "The Magic House," +"In the Village of Viger," etc., etc._ + + + +_McClelland, Goodchild & Stewart_ +_Publishers_ :: :: :: :: _Toronto_ + +Copyright, 1916, +By GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + +Printed in the United States of America + + + + +To the Memory of My Daughter + +ELIZABETH DUNCAN SCOTT + +1895-1907 + + + + +CONTENTS + + + Page + +THE BATTLE OF LUNDY'S LANE 13 + +VIA BOREALIS-- + Spring on Mattagami 25 + An Impromptu 36 + The Half-Breed Girl 38 + Night Burial in the Forest 41 + Dream Voyageurs 44 + Song: Creep into My Heart 45 + Ecstasy 46 + +LYRICS, SONGS AND SONNETS-- + Meditation at Perugia 49 + At William MacLennan's Grave. Near Florence 53 + The Wood-Spring to the Poet 56 + The November Pansy 63 + The Height of Land 68 + New Year's Night, 1916 77 + Fragment of an Ode to Canada 79 + Fantasia 84 + The Lover to His Lass 86 + The Ghost's Story 90 + Night 92 + The Apparition 94 + At Sea 96 + Madonna with Two Angels 98 + Mid-August 100 + Mist and Frost 105 + The Beggar and the Angel 110 + Improvisation on an Old Song 117 + O Turn Once More 121 + At the Gill-Nets 124 + A Love Song 126 + Three Songs: + I Where love is life 128 + II Nothing came here but sunlight 129 + III I have songs of dancing pleasure 129 + The Sailor's Sweetheart 131 + Feuilles d'Automne 133 + To the Heroic Soul: + I Nurture thyself, O Soul! 135 + II Be strong, O Warring Soul! 136 + Retrospect 138 + Frost Magic: + I Now in the moonrise, from a wintry sky 139 + II With these alone he draws in magic lines 140 + In Snow-Time 142 + To a Canadian Lad Killed in the War 143 + +THE CLOSED DOOR-- + By a Child's Bed 147 + Elizabeth Speaks 149 + A Legend of Christ's Nativity 154 + Willow-Pipes 163 + Angel 164 + Christmas Folk-Song 165 + From Beyond 166 + The Leaf 167 + A Mystery Play 168 + +LINES IN MEMORY OF EDMUND MORRIS 179 + + + + +THE BATTLE OF LUNDY'S LANE + + + + +THE BATTLE OF LUNDY'S LANE + +Rufus Gale speaks--1852 + + +Yes,--in the Lincoln Militia,--in the war of eighteen-twelve; +Many's the day I've had since then to dig and delve-- +But those are the years I remember as the brightest years of all, +When we left the plow in the furrow to follow the bugle's call. +Why, even our son Abner wanted to fight with the men! +"Don't you go, d'ye hear, sir!"--I was angry with him then. +"Stay with your mother!" I said, and he looked so old and grim-- +He was just sixteen that April--I couldn't believe it was him; +But I didn't think--I was off--and we met the foe again, +Five thousand strong and ready, at the hill by Lundy's Lane. +There as the night came on we fought them from six to nine, +Whenever they broke our line we broke their line, +They took our guns and we won them again, and around the levels +Where the hill sloped up--with the Eighty-ninth,--we fought like devils +Around the flag;--and on they came and we drove them back, + Until with its very fierceness the fight grew slack. + +It was then about nine and dark as a miser's pocket, +When up came Hercules Scott's brigade swift as a rocket, +And charged,--and the flashes sprang in the dark like a lion's eyes; +The night was full of fire--groans, and cheers, and cries; +Then through the sound and the fury another sound broke in-- +The roar of a great old duck-gun shattered the rest of the din; +It took two minutes to charge it and another to set it free. +Every time I heard it an angel spoke to me; +Yes, the minute I heard it I felt the strangest tide +Flow in my veins like lightning, as if, there, by my side, +Was the very spirit of Valor. But 'twas dark--you couldn't see-- +And the one who was firing the duck-gun fell against me +And slid down to the clover, and lay there still; +Something went through me--piercing--with a strange, swift thrill; +The noise fell away into silence, and I heard as clear as thunder +The long, slow roar of Niagara: O the wonder +Of that deep sound. But again the battle broke +And the foe, driven before us desperately--stroke upon stroke, +Left the field to his master, and sullenly down the road +Sounded the boom of his guns, trailing the heavy load +Of his wounded men and his shattered flags, sullen and slow, +Setting fire in his rage to Bridgewater mills and the glow +Flared in the distant forest. We rested as we could, +And for a while I slept in the dark of a maple wood: +But when the clouds in the east were red all over, +I came back there to the place we made the stand in the clover; +For my heart was heavy then with a strange deep pain, +As I thought of the glorious fight, and again and again +I remembered the valiant spirit and the piercing thrill; +But I knew it all when I reached the top of the hill,-- +For there, there with the blood on his dear, brave head, +There on the hill in the clover lay our Abner--dead!-- +No--thank you--no, I don't need it; I'm solid as granite rock, +But every time that I tell it I feel the old, cold shock, +I'm eighty-one my next birthday--do you breed such fellows now? +There he lay with the dawn cooling his broad fair brow, +That was no dawn for him; and there was the old duck-gun +That many and many's the time,--just for the fun, +We together, alone, would take to the hickory rise, +And bring home more wild pigeons than ever you saw with your eyes. +Up with Hercules Scott's brigade, just as it came on night-- +He was the angel beside me in the thickest of the fight-- +Wrote a note to his mother--He said, "I've got to go; +Mother what would home be under the heel of the foe!" +Oh! she never slept a wink, she would rise and walk the floor; +She'd say this over and over, "I knew it all before!" +I'd try to speak of the glory to give her a little joy. +"What is the glory to me when I want my boy, my boy!" +She'd say, and she'd wring her hands; her hair grew white as snow-- +And I'd argue with her up and down, to and fro, +Of how she had mothered a hero, and his was a glorious fate, +Better than years of grubbing to gather an estate. +Sometimes I'd put it this way: "If God was to say to me now +'Take him back as he once was helping you with the plow,' +I'd say, 'No, God, thank You kindly; 'twas You that he obeyed; +You told him to fight and he fought, and he wasn't afraid; +You wanted to prove him in battle, You sent him to Lundy's Lane, +'Tis well!" But she only would answer over and over again, +"Give me back my Abner--give me back my son!" +It was so all through the winter until the spring had begun, +And the crocus was up in the dooryard, and the drift by the fence + was thinned, +And the sap drip-dropped from the branches wounded by the wind, +And the whole earth smelled like a flower,--then she came to me one + night-- +"Rufus!" she said, with a sob in her throat,--"Rufus, you're right." +I hadn't cried till then, not a tear--but then I was torn in two-- +There, it's all right--my eyes don't see as they used to do! + +But O the joy of that battle--it was worth the whole of life, +You felt immortal in action with the rapture of the strife, +There in the dark by the river, with the flashes of fire before, +Running and crashing along, there in the dark, and the roar +Of the guns, and the shrilling cheers, and the knowledge that filled + your heart +That there was a victory making and you must do your part, +But--there's his grave in the orchard where the headstone glimmers + white: +We could see it, we thought, from our window even on the darkest + night; +It is set there for a sign that what one lad could do +Would be done by a hundred hundred lads whose hearts were stout and + true. +And when in the time of trial you hear the recreant say, +Shooting his coward lips at us, "You shall have had your day: +For all your state and glory shall pass like a cloudy wrack, +And here some other flag shall fly where flew the Union Jack,"-- +Why tell him a hundred thousand men would spring from these sleepy + farms, +To tie that flag in its ancient place with the sinews of their arms; +And if they doubt you and put you to scorn, why you can make it plain, +With the tale of the gallant Lincoln men and the fight at Lundy's Lane. + +1908. + + + + +VIA BOREALIS + +TO + +_Pelham Edgar_ + + + + +SPRING ON MATTAGAMI + + +Far in the east the rain-clouds sweep and harry, + Down the long haggard hills, formless and low, +Far in the west the shell-tints meet and marry, + Piled gray and tender blue and roseate snow; +East--like a fiend, the bolt-breasted, streaming + Storm strikes the world with lightning and with hail; +West--like the thought of a seraph that is dreaming, + Venus leads the young moon down the vale. + +Through the lake furrow between the gloom and bright'ning + Firm runs our long canoe with a whistling rush, +While Potan the wise and the cunning Silver Lightning + Break with their slender blades the long clear hush; +Soon shall I pitch my tent amid the birches, + Wise Potan shall gather boughs of balsam fir, +While for bark and dry wood Silver Lightning searches; + Soon the smoke shall hang and lapse in the moist air. + +Soon shall I sleep--if I may not remember + One who lives far away where the storm-cloud went; +May it part and starshine burn in many a quiet ember, + Over her towered city crowned with large content; +Dear God, let me sleep, here where deep peace is, + Let me own a dreamless sleep once for all the years, +Let me know a quiet mind and what heart ease is, + Lost to light and life and hope, to longing and to tears. + +Here in the solitude less her memory presses, + Yet I see her lingering where the birches shine, +All the dark cedars are sleep-laden like her tresses, + The gold-moted wood-pools pellucid as her eyen; +Memories and ghost-forms of the days departed + People all the forest lone in the dead of night; +While Potan and Silver Lightning sleep, the happy-hearted, + Troop they from their fastnesses upon my sight. + +Once when the tide came straining from the Lido, + In a sea of flame our gondola flickered like a sword, +Venice lay abroad builded like beauty's credo, + Smouldering like a gorget on the breast of the Lord: +Did she mourn for fame foredoomed or passion shattered + That with a sudden impulse she gathered at my side? +But when I spoke the ancient fates were flattered, + Chill there crept between us the imperceptible tide. + +Once I well remember in her twilight garden, + She pulled a half-blown rose, I thought it meant for me, +But poising in the act, and with half a sigh for pardon, + She hid it in her bosom where none may dare to see: +Had she a subtle meaning?--would to God I knew it, + Where'er I am I always feel the rose leaves nestling there, +If I might know her mind and the thought which then flashed through it, + My soul might look to heaven not commissioned to despair. + +Though she denied at parting the gift that I besought her, + Just a bit of ribbon or a strand of her hair; +Though she would not keep the token that I brought her, + Proud she stood and calm and marvellously fair; +Yet I saw her spirit--truth cannot dissemble-- + Saw her pure as gold, staunch and keen and brave, +For she knows my worth and her heart was all atremble, + Lest her will should weaken and make her heart a slave. + +If she could be here where all the world is eager + For dear love with the primal Eden sway, +Where the blood is fire and no pulse is thin or meagre, + All the heart of all the world beats one way! +There is the land of fraud and fame and fashion, + Joy is but a gaud and withers in an hour, +Here is the land of quintessential passion, +Where in a wild throb Spring wells up with power. + +She would hear the partridge drumming in the distance, + Rolling out his mimic thunder in the sultry noons; +Hear beyond the silver reach in ringing wild persistence + Reel remote the ululating laughter of the loons; +See the shy moose fawn nestling by its mother, + In a cool marsh pool where the sedges meet; +Rest by a moss-mound where the twin-flowers smother + With a drowse of orient perfume drenched in light and heat: + +She would see the dawn rise behind the smoky mountain, + In a jet of colour curving up to break, +While like spray from the iridescent fountain, + Opal fires weave over all the oval of the lake: +She would see like fireflies the stars alight and spangle + All the heaven meadows thick with growing dusk, +Feel the gipsy airs that gather up and tangle +The woodsy odours in a maze of myrrh and musk: + +There in the forest all the birds are nesting, + Tells the hermit thrush the song he cannot tell, +While the white-throat sparrow never resting, + Even in the deepest night rings his crystal bell: +O, she would love me then with a wild elation, + Then she must love me and leave her lonely state, +Give me love yet keep her soul's imperial reservation, + Large as her deep nature and fathomless as fate: + +Then, if she would lie beside me in the even, + On my deep couch heaped of balsam fir, +Fragrant with sleep as nothing under heaven, + Let the past and future mingle in one blur; +While all the stars were watchful and thereunder + Earth breathed not but took their silent light, +All life withdrew and wrapt in a wild wonder + Peace fell tranquil on the odorous night: + +She would let me steal,--not consenting or denying-- + One strong arm beneath her dusky hair, +She would let me bare, not resisting or complying, + One sweet breast so sweet and firm and fair; +Then with the quick sob of passion's shy endeavour, + She would gather close and shudder and swoon away, +She would be mine for ever and for ever, + Mine for all time and beyond the judgment day. + +Vain is the dream, and deep with all derision-- + Fate is stern and hard--fair and false and vain-- +But what would life be worth without the vision, + Dark with sordid passion, pale with wringing pain? +What I dream is mine, mine beyond all cavil, + Pure and fair and sweet, and mine for evermore, +And when I will my life I may unravel, + And find my passion dream deep at the red core. + +Venus sinks first lost in ruby splendour, + Stars like wood-daffodils grow golden in the night, +Far, far above, in a space entranced and tender, + Floats the growing moon pale with virgin light. +Vaster than the world or life or death my trust is + Based in the unseen and towering far above; +Hold me, O Law, that deeper lies than Justice, + Guide me, O Light, that stronger burns than Love. + + + + +AN IMPROMPTU + + +Here in the pungent gloom +Where the tamarac roses glow +And the balsam burns its perfume, +A vireo turns his slow +Cadence, as if he gloated +Over the last phrase he floated; +Each one he moulds and mellows +Matching it with its fellows: +So have you noted +How the oboe croons, +The canary-throated, +In the gloom of the violoncellos +And bassoons. + +But afar in the thickset forest +I hear a sound go free, +Crashing the stately neighbours +The pine and the cedar tree, +Horns and harps and tabors, +Drumming and harping and horning +In savage minstrelsy-- +It wakes in my soul a warning +Of the wind of destiny. + +My life is soaring and swinging +In triple walls of quiet, +In my heart there is rippling and ringing +A song with melodious riot, +When a fateful thing comes nigh it +A hush falls, and then +I hear in the thickset world +The wind of destiny hurled +On the lives of men. + + + + +THE HALF-BREED GIRL + + +She is free of the trap and the paddle, + The portage and the trail, +But something behind her savage life + Shines like a fragile veil. + +Her dreams are undiscovered, + Shadows trouble her breast, +When the time for resting cometh + Then least is she at rest. + +Oft in the morns of winter, + When she visits the rabbit snares, +An appearance floats in the crystal air + Beyond the balsam firs. + +Oft in the summer mornings + When she strips the nets of fish, +The smell of the dripping net-twine + Gives to her heart a wish. + +But she cannot learn the meaning + Of the shadows in her soul, +The lights that break and gather, + The clouds that part and roll, + +The reek of rock-built cities, + Where her fathers dwelt of yore, +The gleam of loch and shealing, + The mist on the moor, + +Frail traces of kindred kindness, + Of feud by hill and strand, +The heritage of an age-long life + In a legendary land. + +She wakes in the stifling wigwam, + Where the air is heavy and wild, +She fears for something or nothing + With the heart of a frightened child. + +She sees the stars turn slowly + Past the tangle of the poles, +Through the smoke of the dying embers, + Like the eyes of dead souls. + +Her heart is shaken with longing + For the strange, still years, +For what she knows and knows not, + For the wells of ancient tears. + +A voice calls from the rapids, + Deep, careless and free, +A voice that is larger than her life + Or than her death shall be. + +She covers her face with her blanket, + Her fierce soul hates her breath, +As it cries with a sudden passion + For life or death. + + + + +NIGHT BURIAL IN THE FOREST + + +Lay him down where the fern is thick and fair. +Fain was he for life, here lies he low: +With the blood washed clean from his brow and his beautiful hair, +Lay him here in the dell where the orchids grow. + +Let the birch-bark torches roar in the gloom, +And the trees crowd up in a quiet startled ring +So lone is the land that in this lonely room +Never before has breathed a human thing. + +Cover him well in his canvas shroud, and the moss +Part and heap again on his quiet breast, +What recks he now of gain, or love, or loss +Who for love gained rest? + +While she who caused it all hides her insolent eyes +Or braids her hair with the ribbons of lust and of lies, +And he who did the deed fares out like a hunted beast +To lurk where the musk-ox tramples the barren ground +Where the stroke of his coward heart is the only sound. + +Haunting the tamarac shade, +Hear them up-thronging +Memories foredoomed +Of strife and of longing: +Haggard or bright +By the tamaracs and birches, +Where the red torch light +Trembles and searches, +The wilderness teems +With inscrutable eyes +Of ghosts that are dreams +Commingled with memories. + +Leave him here in his secret ferny tomb, +Withdraw the little light from the ocean of gloom, +He who feared nought will fear aught never, +Left alone in the forest forever and ever. + +Then, as we fare on our way to the shore +Sudden the torches cease to roar: +For cleaving the darkness remote and still +Comes a wind with a rushing, harp-like thrill, +The sound of wings hurled and furled and unfurled, +The wings of the Angel who gathers the souls from the wastes of + the world. + + + + +DREAM VOYAGEURS + + +To ports of balm through isles of musk +The gentle airs are leading us; +To curtained calm and tents of dusk, +The wood-wild things unheeding us +Will share their hoards of hardihood, +Cool dew and roots of fern for food, +Frail berries full of the sun's blood. + +To planets bland with dales of dream +A tranquil life is leading us, +We shall land from the languid stream, +The musing shades, unheeding us, +Will share their veils of angelhood, +Thoughts that are tranced with mystic food, +Still broodings tinct with a seraph's blood. + + + + +SONG + + +Creep into my heart, creep in, creep in, +Afar from the fret, the toil and the din, +Where the spring of love forever flows, +As clear as light and as sweet as the rose; +(Creep into my heart), +Where the dreams never wilt but their tints refine, +Rooted in beautiful thoughts of thine; +Where morn falls cool on the soul, like sleep, +And the nights are tranquil and tranced and deep; +Where the fairest thing of all the fair +Thou art, who hast somehow crept in there, +Deep into my heart, +Deep into my heart. + + + + +ECSTASY + + +The shore-lark soars to his topmost flight, + Sings at the height where morning springs, +What though his voice be lost in the light, + The light comes dropping from his wings. + +Mount, my soul, and sing at the height + Of thy clear flight in the light and the air, +Heard or unheard in the night in the light + Sing there! Sing there! + + + + +LYRICS, SONGS AND SONNETS + + + + +MEDITATION AT PERUGIA + + +The sunset colours mingle in the sky, + And over all the Umbrian valleys flow; + Trevi is touched with wonder, and the glow +Finds high Perugia crimson with renown; + Spello is bright; +And, ah! St. Francis, thy deep-treasured town, + Enshrined Assisi, fully fronts the light. + +This valley knew thee many a year ago; + Thy shrine was built by simpleness of heart; + And from the wound called life thou drew'st the smart: +Unquiet kings came to thee and the sad poor-- + Thou gavest them peace; +Far as the Sultan and the Iberian shore + Thy faith and abnegation gave release. + +Deeper our faith, but not so sweet as thine; + Wider our view, but not so sanely sure; + For we are troubled by the witching lure +Of Science, with her lightning on the mist; + Science that clears, +Yet never quite discloses what she wist, + And leaves us half with doubts and half with fears. + +We act her dreams that shadow forth the truth, + That somehow here the very nerves of God + Thrill the old fires, the rocks, the primal sod; +We throw our speech upon the open air, + And it is caught +Far down the world, to sing and murmur there; + Our common words are with deep wonder fraught. + +Shall not the subtle spirit of man contrive + To charm the tremulous ether of the soul, + Wherein it breathes?--until, from pole to pole, +Those who are kin shall speak, as face to face, + From star to star, +Even from earth to the most secret place, + Where God and the supreme archangels are. + +Shall we not prove, what thou hast faintly taught, + That all the powers of earth and air are one, + That one deep law persists from mole to sun? +Shall we not search the heart of God and find + That law empearled, +Until all things that are in matter and mind + Throb with the secret that began the world? + +Yea, we have journeyed since thou trod'st the road, + Yet still we keep the foreappointed quest; + While the last sunset smoulders in the West, +Still the great faith with the undying hope + Upsprings and flows, +While dim Assisi fades on the wide slope + And the deep Umbrian valleys fill with rose. + + + + +AT WILLIAM MACLENNAN'S GRAVE + + +Here where the cypress tall +Shadows the stucco wall, + Bronze and deep, +Where the chrysanthemums blow, +And the roses--blood and snow-- + He lies asleep. + +Florence dreameth afar; +Memories of foray and war, + Murmur still; +The Certosa crowns with a cold +Cloud of snow and gold + The olive hill. + +What has he now for the streams +Born sweet and deep with dreams + From the cedar meres? +Only the Arno's flow, +Turbid, and weary, and slow + With wrath and tears. + +What has he now for the song +Of the boatmen, joyous and long, + Where the rapids shine? +Only the sound of toil, +Where the peasants press the soil + For the oil and wine. + +Spirit-fellow in sooth +With bold La Salle and Duluth, + And La Verandrye,-- +Nothing he has but rest, +Deep in his cypress nest + With memory. + +Hearts of steel and of fire, +Why do ye love and aspire, + When follows +Death--all your passionate deeds, +Garnered with rust and with weeds + In the hollows? + +God that hardened the steel, +Bid the flame leap and reel, + Gave us unrest; +We act in the dusk afar, +In a star beyond your star, + His behest. + +"We leave you dreams and names +Still we are iron and flames, + Biting and bright; +Into some virgin world, +Champions, we are hurled, + Of venture and fight." + +Here where the shadows fall, +From the cypress by the wall, + Where the roses are-- +Here is a dream and a name, +There, like a rose of flame, + Rises--a star. + + + + +THE WOOD-SPRING TO THE POET + + +Dawn-cool, dew-cool +Gleams the surface of my pool +Bird haunted, fern enchanted, +Where but tempered spirits rule; +Stars do not trace their mystic lines +In my confines; +I take a double night within my breast +A night of darkened heavens, a night of leaves, +And in the two-fold dark I hear the owl +Puff at his velvet horn +And the wolves howl. +Even daylight comes with a touch of gold +Not overbold, +And shows dwarf-cornel and the twin-flowers, +Below the balsam bowers, +Their tints enamelled in my dew-drop shield. +Too small even for a thirsty fawn +To quench upon, +I hold my crystal at one level +There where you see the liquid bevel +Break in silver and go free +Singing to its destiny. + +Give, Poet, give! +Thus only shalt thou live. +Give! for 'tis thy joyous doom +To charm, to comfort, to illume. + +Speak to the maiden and the child +With accents deep and mild, +Tell them of the world so wide +In words of wonder and pure pride, +Touched with the rapture of surprise +That dwells in a child angel's eyes, +Awed with the strangeness of new-birth, +When the flaming seraph sent +To lead him into Paradise, +Calls his name with the mother's voice +He has just ceased to hear on earth. + +Give to the youth his heart's content, +But power with prudence blent, +Thicken his sinews with love, +With courage his heart prove, +Till over his spirit shall roll +The vast wave of control. +In the cages and dens of strife, +Where men draw breath +Thick with a curse at the dear thing called life, +Give them courage to bear, +Strength to aspire and dare; +Give them hopes rooted in stone, +That the loveliest flowers take on, +Bind on their brows with a gesture free +The palm green bays of liberty. + +Give to the mothers of men + The knowledge of joy in pain, +Give them the sense of reward +That grew in the breast of the Lord +On the dawn of the seventh morn; +For 'tis they who re-create the world +Whenever a child is born. + +Give, Poet, give! +Give them songs that charm and fill +The soul with an alluring pleasure, +Prelusive to a deeper thrill, +A richer tone, a fuller measure; +Like voices, veiled with hidden treasure, +Of angels on a windy morning, +That first far off, then all together, +Come with a glorious clarion calling; +And when they swoon beneath the spell +Recapture them to hear the echoes +Falling--falling--falling. + +To those stoned for the truth +Give ruth; +Give manna for the mourner's mouth +Sovereign as air; +For his heart's drouth +A prayer. + +Give to dead souls that mock at life +Aweary of their cankered hearts, +Weary of sleep and weary of strife, +Weary of markets and of arts,-- +Helve them a song of life, +Two-edged with joyous life, +Tempered trusty with life, +Proud pointed with wild life, +Plunge it as lightning plunges, +Stab them to life! + +Give to those who grieve in secret, +Those who bear the sorrows of earth, +The deep unappeasable longings +Which beset them with throngings and throngings, +(As, on a windless night, +Through the fold of a dark mantle furled, +Gleams on our world, world after unknown world) +Give them peace, +Wide as the veil that hides God's face, +The pure plenitude of space, +In which our universe is but a glittering crease,-- +Give them such peace. + +Give, Poet, give! +Thus only shalt thou live: +Give as we give who are hidden +In myriad dimples of rock and fern; +Give as we give unbidden +To tarn and rillet and burn, +Where the lake dreams, +Where the fall is hurled, +Striving to sweeten +The oceans of the world. + +Should my song for a moment cease, +Silence fall in the woodland peace; +Should I wilfully check the flow +Bubbling and dancing up from below; +Say to my heart be still--be still, +Let the murmur die with the rill; +Then should the glittering, grey sea-things +Sigh as they wallow the under springs; +Where the deep brine-pools used to lie +Deserts vast would stare at the sky, +And even thy rich heart +(O Poet, Poet!) +Even thy rich heart run dry. + + + + +THE NOVEMBER PANSY + + +This is not June,--by Autumn's stratagem +Thou hast been ambushed in the chilly air; + Upon thy fragile crest virginal fair +The rime has clustered in a diadem; + The early frost +Has nipped thy roots and tried thy tender stem, + Seared thy gold petals, all thy charm is lost. + +Thyself the only sunshine: in obeying +The law that bids thee blossom in the world + Thy little flag of courage is unfurled; +Inherent pansy-memories are saying + That there is sun, +That there is dew and colour and warmth repaying + The rain, the starlight when the light is done. + +These are the gaunt forms of the hollyhocks +That shower the seeds from out their withered purses; + Here were the pinks; there the nasturtium nurses +The last of colour in her gaudy smocks; + The ruins yonder +Show but a vestige of the flaming phlox; + The poppies on their faded glory ponder. + +Here visited the vagrant humming-bird, +The nebulous darting green, the ruby-throated; + The warm fans of the butterfly here floated; +Those two nests reared the robins, and the third + Was left forlorn +Muffled in lilacs, whence the perfume stirred + The tremulous eyelids of the dewy morn. + +Thy sisters of the early summer-time +Were masquers in this carnival of pleasure; + Each in her turn unrolled her golden treasure, +And thou hast but the ashes of the prime; + 'Tis life's own malice +That brings the peasant of a race sublime + To feed her flock around her ruined palace. + +Yet for withstanding thus the autumn's dart +Some deeper pansy-insight will atone; + It comes to souls neglected and alone, +Something that prodigals in pleasure's mart + Lose in the whirl; +The peasant child will have a purer heart + Than the vain favourite of the vanished earl. + +And far above this tragic world of ours +There is a world of a diviner fashion, + A mystic world, a world of dreams and passion +That each aspiring thing creates and dowers + With its own light; +Where even the frail spirits of trees and flowers + Pause, and reach out, and pass from height to height. + +Here will we claim for thee another fief, +An upland where a glamour haunts the meadows, + Snow peaks arise enrobed in rosy shadows, +Fairer the under slopes with vine and sheaf + And shimmering lea; +The paradise of a simple old belief, + That flourished in the Islands of the Sea. + +A snow-cool cistern in the fairy hills +Shall feed thy roots with moisture clear as dew; + A ferny shield to temper the warm blue +That heaven is; a thrush that thrills + To answer his mate, +And when above the ferns the shadow fills, + Fireflies to render darkness consolate. + +Here muse and brood, moulding thy seed and die +And re-create thy form a thousand fold, + Mellowing thy petals to more lucent gold, +Till they expand, tissues of amber sky; + Till the full hour, +And the full light and the fulfilling eye + Shall find amid the ferns the perfect flower. + + + + +THE HEIGHT OF LAND + + +Here is the height of land: +The watershed on either hand +Goes down to Hudson Bay +Or Lake Superior; +The stars are up, and far away +The wind sounds in the wood, wearier +Than the long Ojibway cadence +In which Potan the Wise +Declares the ills of life +And Chees-que-ne-ne makes a mournful sound +Of acquiescence. The fires burn low +With just sufficient glow +To light the flakes of ash that play +At being moths, and flutter away +To fall in the dark and die as ashes: +Here there is peace in the lofty air, +And Something comes by flashes +Deeper than peace;-- +The spruces have retired a little space +And left a field of sky in violet shadow +With stars like marigolds in a water-meadow. + +Now the Indian guides are dead asleep; +There is no sound unless the soul can hear +The gathering of the waters in their sources. + +We have come up through the spreading lakes +From level to level,-- +Pitching our tents sometimes over a revel +Of roses that nodded all night, +Dreaming within our dreams, +To wake at dawn and find that they were captured +With no dew on their leaves; +Sometimes mid sheaves +Of braken and dwarf-cornel, and again +On a wide blue-berry plain +Brushed with the shimmer of a bluebird's wing; +A rocky islet followed +With one lone poplar and a single nest +Of white-throat-sparrows that took no rest +But sang in dreams or woke to sing,-- +To the last portage and the height of land--: +Upon one hand +The lonely north enlaced with lakes and streams, +And the enormous targe of Hudson Bay, +Glimmering all night +In the cold arctic light; +On the other hand +The crowded southern land +With all the welter of the lives of men. +But here is peace, and again +That Something comes by flashes +Deeper than peace,--a spell +Golden and inappellable +That gives the inarticulate part +Of our strange being one moment of release +That seems more native than the touch of time, +And we must answer in chime; +Though yet no man may tell +The secret of that spell +Golden and inappellable. + +Now are there sounds walking in the wood, +And all the spruces shiver and tremble, +And the stars move a little in their courses. +The ancient disturber of solitude +Breathes a pervasive sigh, +And the soul seems to hear +The gathering of the waters at their sources; +Then quiet ensues and pure starlight and dark; +The region-spirit murmurs in meditation, +The heart replies in exaltation +And echoes faintly like an inland shell +Ghost tremors of the spell; +Thought reawakens and is linked again +With all the welter of the lives of men. + +Here on the uplands where the air is clear +We think of life as of a stormy scene,-- +Of tempest, of revolt and desperate shock; +And here, where we can think, on the bright uplands +Where the air is clear, we deeply brood on life +Until the tempest parts, and it appears +As simple as to the shepherd seems his flock: +A Something to be guided by ideals-- +That in themselves are simple and serene-- +Of noble deed to foster noble thought, +And noble thought to image noble deed, +Till deed and thought shall interpenetrate, +Making life lovelier, till we come to doubt +Whether the perfect beauty that escapes +Is beauty of deed or thought or some high thing +Mingled of both, a greater boon than either: +Thus we have seen in the retreating tempest +The victor-sunlight merge with the ruined rain, +And from the rain and sunlight spring the rainbow. + +The ancient disturber of solitude +Stirs his ancestral potion in the gloom, +And the dark wood +Is stifled with the pungent fume +Of charred earth burnt to the bone +That takes the place of air. +Then sudden I remember when and where,-- +The last weird lakelet foul with weedy growths +And slimy viscid things the spirit loathes, +Skin of vile water over viler mud +Where the paddle stirred unutterable stenches, +And the canoes seemed heavy with fear, +Not to be urged toward the fatal shore +Where a bush fire, smouldering, with sudden roar +Leaped on a cedar and smothered it with light +And terror. It had left the portage-height +A tangle of slanted spruces burned to the roots, +Covered still with patches of bright fire +Smoking with incense of the fragrant resin +That even then began to thin and lessen +Into the gloom and glimmer of ruin. + +'Tis overpast. How strange the stars have grown; +The presage of extinction glows on their crests + And they are beautied with impermanence; + They shall be after the race of men + And mourn for them who snared their fiery pinions, +Entangled in the meshes of bright words. + +A lemming stirs the fern and in the mosses +Eft-minded things feel the air change, and dawn +Tolls out from the dark belfries of the spruces. +How often in the autumn of the world +Shall the crystal shrine of dawning be rebuilt +With deeper meaning! Shall the poet then, +Wrapped in his mantle on the height of land, +Brood on the welter of the lives of men +And dream of his ideal hope and promise +In the blush sunrise? Shall he base his flight +Upon a more compelling law than Love +As Life's atonement; shall the vision +Of noble deed and noble thought immingled +Seem as uncouth to him as the pictograph +Scratched on the cave side by the cave-dweller +To us of the Christ-time? Shall he stand +With deeper joy, with more complex emotion, +In closer commune with divinity, +With the deep fathomed, with the firmament charted, +With life as simple as a sheep-boy's song, +What lies beyond a romaunt that was read +Once on a morn of storm and laid aside +Memorious with strange immortal memories? +Or shall he see the sunrise as I see it +In shoals of misty fire the deluge-light +Dashes upon and whelms with purer radiance, +And feel the lulled earth, older in pulse and motion, +Turn the rich lands and the inundant oceans +To the flushed color, and hear as now I hear +The thrill of life beat up the planet's margin +And break in the clear susurrus of deep joy +That echoes and reechoes in my being? +O Life is intuition the measure of knowledge +And do I stand with heart entranced and burning +At the zenith of our wisdom when I feel +The long light flow, the long wind pause, the deep +Influx of spirit, of which no man may tell +The Secret, golden and inappellable? + + + + +NEW YEAR'S NIGHT, 1916 + + +The Earth moans in her sleep +Like an old mother +Whose sons have gone to the war, +Who weeps silently in her heart +Till dreams comfort her. + +The Earth tosses +As if she would shake off humanity, +A burden too heavy to be borne, +And free of the pest of intolerable men, +Spin with woods and waters +Joyously in the clear heavens +In the beautiful cool rains, +Bearing gladly the dumb animals, +And sleep when the time comes +Glistening in the remains of sunlight +With marmoreal innocency. + +Be comforted, old mother, +Whose sons have gone to the war; +And be assured, O Earth, +Of your burden of passionate men, +For without them who would dream the dreams +That encompass you with glory, +Who would gather your youth +And store it in the jar of remembrance, +Who would comfort your old heart +With tales told of the heroes, +Who would cover your face with the cerecloth +All rustling with stars, +And mourn in the ashes of sunlight, +Mourn your marmoreal innocency? + + + + +FRAGMENT OF AN ODE TO CANADA + + + This is the land! +It lies outstretched a vision of delight, +Bent like a shield between the silver seas +It flashes back the hauteur of the sun; +Yet teems with humblest beauties, still a part +Of its Titanic and ebullient heart. + +Land of the glacial, lonely mountain ranges, +Where nothing haps save vast AEonian changes, +The slow moraine, the avalanche's wings, +Summer and Sun,--the elemental things, +Pulses of Awe,--Winter and Night and the lightnings. +Land of the pines that rear their dusky spars +A ready midnight for the earliest stars. +The land of rivers, rivulets, and rills, +Straining incessant everyway to the sea +With their white thunder harnessed in the mills, +Turning one wealth to another wealth perpetually; +Spinning the lightning with dynamic spindles, +Till some far city dowered with fire enkindles. + +The land of fruit, fine-flavoured with the frost, +Land of the cattle, the deep-chested host, +The happy-souled, that contemplate the hours, +Their dew-laps buried in the grass and flowers. +And, O! the myriad-miracle of the grain +Cresting the hill, brimming the level plain, +The miracle of the flower and milk and kernel, +Nurtured by sun-fire and frost-fire supernal, +Until the farmer turns it in his hand, +The million-millioned miracle of the land. + +And yet with all these pastoral and heroic graces, +Our simplest flowers wear the loveliest faces; +The sparrows are our most enraptured singers, +And round their songs the fondest memory lingers; +Our forests tower and tremble, star-enchanted, +Their roots are by the timid spirits haunted +Of hermit thrushes,--tranced is the air, +Ever in doubt when they shall sing or where; +The mountains may with ice and avalanche wrestle, +Far down their rugged steeps dimple and nestle +The still, translucent, turquoise-hearted tarns. + + * * * * * + +And Thou, O Power, that 'stablishest the Nation, +Give wisdom in the midst of our elation; +Who are so free that we forget we are-- +That freedom brings the deepest obligation: +Grant us this presage for a guiding star, +To lead the van of Peace, not with a craven spirit, +But with the consciousness that we inherit +What built the Empire out of blood and fire, +And can smite, too, in passion and with ire. +Purge us of Pride, who are so quick in vaunting +Thy gift, this land, that is in nothing wanting; +Give Mind to match the glory of the gift, +Give great Ideals to bridge the sordid rift +Between our heritage and our use of it. + +Then in some day of terror for the world, +When all the flags of the Furies are unfurled, +When Truth and Justice, wildered and unknit, +Shall turn for help to this young, radiant land, +We shall be quick to see and understand: +What shall we answer in that stricken hour? +Shall the deep thought be pregnant then with power? +Shall the few words spring swift and grave and clear? +Use well the present moment. They shall hear. + +August, 1911. + + + + +FANTASIA + + +Here in Samarcand they offer emeralds, +Pure as frozen drops of sea-water, +Rubies, pale as dew-ponds stained with slaughter, +Where the fairies fought for a king's daughter +In the elfin upland. +Here they sell you jade and calcedony, +And the matrix of the turquoise, +Spheres of onyx held in eagles' claws, +But they keep the gems as far asunder +From the dull stones as the lightning from the thunder; +They can never come together +On the mats of Turkish leather +In the booths of Samarcand. + +Here they sell you balls of nard and honey, +And squat jars of clarid butter, +And the cheese from Kurdistan. +When you offer Frankish money, +Then they scowl and curse and mutter, +Deep in Kurdish or Persan +For they want your heart out and my hand +In the booths of Samarcand. + +They would sell your heart's blood separate, +In a jar with a gold brim, +With a text of burning hatred +Coiled around the rim; +They would sell my hand upon a beam of teak wood, +In the other scale a feather curled; +They would sell your heart upon a silver balance +Weighed against the world. +But your heart could never touch my hand, +They could never come together +On the mats of Turkish leather +In the booths of Samarcand. + + + + +THE LOVER TO HIS LASS + + +Crown her with stars, this angel of our planet, + Cover her with morning, this thing of pure delight, +Mantle her with midnight till a mortal cannot + See her for the garments of the light and the night. + +How far I wandered, worlds away and far away, + Heard a voice but knew it not in the clear cold, +Many a wide circle and many a wan star away, + Dwelling in the chambers where the worlds were growing old. + +Saw them growing old and heard them falling + Like ripe fruit when a tree is in the wind; +Saw the seraphs gather them, their clarion voices calling + In rounds of cheering labour till the orchard floor was thinned. + +Saw a whole universe turn to its setting, + Old and cold and weary, gray and cold as death, +But before mine eyes were veiled in forgetting, + Something always caught my soul and held its breath. + +Caught it up and held it, now I know the reason; + Governed it and soothed it, now I know why; +Nurtured it and trained it and kept it for the season + When new worlds should blossom in the springtime sky. + +How have they blossomed, see the sky is like a garden! + Ah! how fresh the worlds look hanging on the slope! +Pluck one and wear it, Love, and ask the Gardener's pardon, + Pluck out the Pleiads like a spray of heliotrope. + +See Aldebaran like a red rose clamber, + See brave Betelgeux pranked with poppy light; +This young earth must float in floods of amber + Glowing with a crocus flame in the dells of night. + +O you cannot cheat the soul of an inborn ambition, + 'Tis a naked viewless thing living in its thought, +But it mounts through errors and by valleys of contrition + Till it conquers destiny and finds the thing it sought. + +Crown her with stars, this angel of our planet, + Cover her with morning, this thing of pure delight, +Mantle her with midnight till a mortal cannot + See her for the garments of the light and the night. + + + + +THE GHOST'S STORY + + +All my life long I heard the step + Of some one I would know, +Break softly in upon my days + And lightly come and go. + +A foot so brisk I said must bear + A heart that's clean and clear; +If that companion blithe would come, + I should be happy here. + +But though I waited long and well, + He never came at all, +I grew aweary of the void, + Even of the light foot-fall. + +From loneliness to loneliness + I felt my spirit grope-- +At last I knew the uttermost, + The loneliness of hope. + +And just upon the border land, + Where flesh and spirit part, +I knew the secret foot-fall was + The beating of my heart. + + + + +NIGHT + + +The night is old, and all the world + Is wearied out with strife; +A long gray mist lies heavy and wan + Above the house of life. + +Four stars burn up and are unquelled + By the low, shrunken moon; +Her spirit draws her down and down-- + She shall be buried soon. + +There is a sound that is no sound, + Yet fine it falls and clear, +The whisper of the spinning earth + To the tranced atmosphere. + +An odour lives where once was air, + A strange, unearthly scent, +From the burning of the four great stars + Within the firmament. + +The universe, deathless and old, + Breathes, yet is void of breath: +As still as death that seems to move + And yet is still as death. + + + + +THE APPARITION + + +Gentle angel with your mantle, + All of tender green, +I was yearning for a vision + Of the life unseen. + +When you hovered in the sunset, + Just as rain was done; +Where the dropping from the poplars + Seemed like rain begun. + +There you gathered forming slowly + Rounding into view: +All your vesture glowed like verdure + When the sap is new. + +Then you mutely gave your warning + And I felt the stress +Of its passion and its presage + And its utterness. + +There you swayed one tranquil moment, + Mystically fair, +Then you were not of the sunset, + Were not in the air. + + + + +AT SEA + + +Three are emerald pools in the sea, + And wing-like flashes of light; +The sea is bound with the heavens + In a large delight. + +Night comes out of the east + And rushes down on the sun; +The emerald pools and the light pools + Are darkened and done. + +Our boat dips and cleaves onward, + Careless of night or of light, +Following the line of her compass + By her engines' might. + +Through the desert of air and of water; + Like the lonely soul of man, +Following her fate to the ending, + Unaware of the hidden plan. + +Sure only of battle and longing, + Of the pain and the quest, +And beyond in the darkness somewhere + Sure of her rest. + + + + +MADONNA WITH TWO ANGELS + + +Under the sky without a stain +The long, ripe, rippling of the grain; +Light, broadcast from the golden oats +Over the blackberry fences floats. +Madonna sits in a cedar chair +Tranquillized by the warm, still air; +One of the angels asleep on her knee +Under the shade of an apple tree. +The other angel holds a doll, +Covered warm in a tiny shawl; +The toy is supposed to be fast asleep +As the sister angel: in dimples deep +The grave, sweet charm on the baby face +Repeats the look of maturer grace +That hovers about Madonna's eyes, +One of the heavenly mysteries +From far ethereal latitudes +Where neither doubt nor trouble intrudes. +Ponder here in the orchard nest +On the truth of life made manifest: +The struggle and effort was all to prove +That the best of the world is home and love. + + + + +MID-AUGUST + + +From the upland hidden, + Where the hill is sunny + Tawny like pure honey + In the August heat, +Memories float unbidden + Where the thicket serries + Fragrant with ripe berries + And the milk-weed sweet. + +Like a prayer-mat holy + Are the patterned mosses + Which the twin-flower crosses + With her flowerless vine; +In fragile melancholy + The pallid ghost flowers hover + As if to guard and cover + The shadow of a shrine. + +Where the pine-linnet lingered + The pale water searches, + The roots of gleaming birches + Draw silver from the lake; +The ripples, liquid-fingered, + Plucking the root-layers, + Fairy like lute players + Lulling music make. + +O to lie here brooding + Where the pine-tree column + Rises dark and solemn + To the airy lair, +Where, the day eluding, + Night is couched dream laden, + Like a deep witch-maiden + Hidden in her hair. + +In filmy evanescence + Wraithlike scents assemble, + Then dissolve and tremble + A little until they die; +Spirits of the florescence + Where the bees searched and tarried + Till the blossoms all were married + In the days before July. + +Light has lost its splendour, + Light refined and sifted, + Cool light and dream drifted + Ventures even where, +(Seeping silver tender) + In the dim recesses, + Trembling mid her tresses, + Hides the maiden hair. + +Covered with the shy-light, + Filling in the hushes, + Slide the tawny thrushes + Calling to their broods, +Hoarding till the twilight + The song that made for noon-days + Of the amorous June days + Preludes and interludes. + +The joy that I am feeling + Is there something in it + Unlike the warble the linnet + Phrases and intones? +Or is a like thought stealing + With a rapture fine, free + Through the happy pine tree + Ripening her cones? + +In some high existence + In another planet + Where their poets cannot + Know our birds and flowers, +Does the same persistence + Give the dreams they issue + Something like the tissue + Of these dreams of ours? + +O to lie athinking-- + Moods and whims! I fancy + Only necromancy + Could the web unroll, +Only somehow linking + Beauties that meet and mingle + In this quiet dingle + With the beauty of the whole. + + + + +MIST AND FROST + + +Veil-like and beautiful +Gathered the dutiful + Mist in the night, +True to the messaging, +Dreamful and presaging + Vapour and light. + +Ghostly and chill it is, +Pallid and still it is, + Sudden uprist; +What is there tragical, +Moving or magical, + Hid in the mist? + +Millions of essences, +Fairy-like presences + Formless as yet; +Light-riven spangles, +Crystalline tangles + Floating unset. + +Frost will come shepherding +Nowise enjeoparding + Frondage or flower; +Just a degree of it, +Nought can we see of it + Only its power. + +Earth like a Swimmer +Plunged into the dimmer + Wave of the night, +Now is uprisen, +An Elysian vision + Of spray and of light. + +'Tis the intangible +Delicate frangible + Secret of mist, +Breathing may banish it, +Thought may evanish it,-- + Ponder and whist! + +Passionless purity, +Calmness in surety + Dwells everywhere, +A winnowed whiteness, +A lunar lightness + Glows in the air. + +But in the heart of it +Every least part of it + Blooms with the charm, +Star-shape and frondage +Broken from bondage + Forged into form. + +Crystals encrusted, +Diamonds dusted + Line everything, +Tiny the stencillings +Are as the pencillings + On a moth's wing. + +And O, what a wonder! +No farther asunder + Than atoms are laid, +The arches and angles +Of star-froth and spangles + Cast their own shade. + +Out from the chalices, +The pigmy palaces + Where the tint hides, +Opal and sapphire +Half-pearl and half-fire + The colour slides; + +Till the frail miracle +Rapturous lyrical + Flushes and glows +With a wraith of florescence +That tempers or lessens + The light of the snows. + +Held all aquiver,-- +But now with a shiver + The power of the sun +Dissolves the laces +Of the tender mazes, + All is undone. + +But the old Earth brooding, +All wisdom including, + Affirms and assures +That above the material, +Triumphal imperial + Beauty endures. + + + + +THE BEGGAR AND THE ANGEL + + +An angel burdened with self-pity +Came out of heaven to a modern city. + +He saw a beggar on the street, +Where the tides of traffic meet. + +A pair of brass-bound hickory pegs +Brought him his pence instead of legs. + +A murky dog by him did lie, +Poodle, in part, his ancestry. + +The angel stood and thought upon +This poodle-haunted beggar man. + +"My life is grown a bore," said he, +"One long round of sciamachy; + +I think I'll do a little good, +By way of change from angelhood." + +He drew near to the beggar grim, +And gravely thus accosted him: + +"How would you like, my friend, to fly +All day through the translucent sky; + +To knock at the door of the red leaven, +And even to enter the orthodox heaven? + +If you would care to know this joy, +I will surrender my employ, + +And take your ills, collect your pelf, +An humble beggar like yourself. + +For ages you these joys may know, +While I shall suffer here below; + +And in the end we both may gain +Access of pleasure from my pain." + +The stationary vagrant said, +"I do not mind, so go ahead." + +The angel told the heavenly charm, +He felt a wing on either arm; + +"Good-day," he said, "this floating's queer +If I should want to change next year--?" + +"Pull out that feather!" the angel said, +"The one half black and the other half red." + +The cripple cried, "Before you're through +You may get fagged, and if you do,--" + +The angel superciliously-- +"My transformed friend, don't think of me. + +I shall be happy day and night, +In doing what I think is right." + +"So so," the feathered beggar said, +"Good-bye, I am just overhead." + + * * * * * + +The angel when he grasped the dish, +Began to criticize his wish. + +The seat was hard as granite rocks, +His real legs were in the box. + +His knees were cramped, his shins were sore, +The lying pegs stuck out before. + +In vain he clinked the dish and whined. +The passers-by seemed deaf and blind. + +As pious looking as Saint Denis, +An urchin stole his catch-penny. + +And even the beggar's drab-fleeced poodle +Began to know him for a noodle. + +"It has an uncelestial scent, +The clothing of this mendicant;" + +He cried, "That trickling down my spine +Is anything but hyaline. + +This day is like a thousand years: +I'd give an age of sighs and tears + +To see with his confectioned grin +One cherub sitting on his chin. + +That cripple was by far too sly-- +I wish he'd tumble from the sky, + +That things might be as they were before; +I really cannot stand much more!" + + * * * * * + +The beggar in the angel's guise, +Rose far above the smoky skies. + +But being a beggar, never saw +The charm of the compelling law + +That turned the swinging universe: +'Twas gloomy as an empty purse. + +Often with heaven in his head, +He blundered on a planet dead. + +And when with an immortal fuss, +He singed his wings at Sirius. + +He plucked the feather with his teeth, +The charm was potent and beneath, + +He saw the turmoil of the way +Grown wilder at the close of day, + +With the sad poodle, can in hand, +The angel still at the old stand. + +"My friend," said the angel, hemming and humming, +"Truly I thought you were never coming." + +"That's an unhandsome thing to say, +Seeing I've only been gone a day. + +But there's nothing in all your brazen sky +To match the cock of that poodle's eye. + +Take your dish and give me my wings, +'Tis but a fair exchange of things." + + * * * * * + +The beggar felt his garment's rot, +The horn ridge of each callous spot; + +He clinked his can and was content; +His poverty was permanent. + + + + +IMPROVISATION ON AN OLD SONG + +(The refrain is quoted by Edward Fitzgerald in +one of his letters) + + +I + +Growing, growing, all the glory going; +Flashing out of fire and light, burning to a husk, +All the world's a-dying and failing in the dusk-- + _Growing, growing, all the glory going._ + +Rust is on the door-latch, ashes at the root, +Dry rot in the ridge-pole, canker in the fruit; + _Growing, growing, all the glory going._ + +Plot, ye subtle statesmen,--a trace of melted wax; +Bind, ye haughty prelates,--a thread of ravelled flax; + _Growing, growing, all the glory going._ + +March, ye mighty captains,--an eddy in the dust; +Rave, ye furious lovers,--a stain of crimson rust; + _Growing, growing, all the glory going._ + +Pictures, poems, music--their essential soul, +Idle as dry roses in a silver bowl; + _Growing, growing, all the glory going._ + +London is a hearsay, Paris but a myth, +Rome a wand of sweet-flag withered to the pith; + _Growing, growing, all the glory going._ + +Palsy shakes the planets, frost has chilled the sun, +In a crushing silence the All is dead and done. + _Growing, growing, all the glory going._ + + +II + +Going, going, all the glory growing, +See it stir and flutter; that is singing, hark! +Singing in the caverns of the primal dark. + _Going, going, all the glory growing._ + +What is in the making, what immortal plan +Draws to its unfolding? 'Tis the Soul of man. + _Going, going, all the glory growing._ + +See it mount and hover, singing as it goes, +Battling with the darkness, nourished by its woes; + _Going, going, all the glory growing._ + +The bale-fires of midnight glaring in its eyes, +Past the phantom shadows see it rush and rise; + _Going, going, all the glory growing._ + +The supernal morning on its dewy wings, +Soaring and scorning the lust of earthy things; + _Going, going, all the glory growing._ + +The beatific noontide on its eager breast +Springing and singing to its halcyon rest; + _Going, going, all the glory growing._ + +In its starry vesture not a vestige of the sod, +Winging still and singing to the heart of God. + _Going, going, all the glory growing._ + + + + +O TURN ONCE MORE + + +O turn once more! + The meadows where we mused and strayed together +Abound and glow yet with the ruby sorrel; +'Twas there the bluebirds fought and played together, +Their quarrel was a flying bluebird-quarrel; +Their nest is firm still in the burnished cherry, +They will come back there some day and be merry; + O turn once more. + +O turn once more! + The spring we lingered at is ever steeping +The long, cool grasses where the violets hide, +Where you awoke the flower-heads from their sleeping +And plucked them, proud in their inviolate pride; +You left the roots, the roots will flower again, +O turn once more and pluck the flower again; + O turn once more. + +O turn once more! + We were the first to find the fairy places +Where the tall lady-slippers scarf'd and snooded, +Painted their lovely thoughts upon their faces, +And then, bewitched by their own beauty brooded; +This will recur in some enchanted fashion; +Time will repeat his miracles of passion; + O turn once more. + +O turn once more! + What heart is worth the longing for, the winning, +That is not moved by currents of surprise; +Who never breaks the silken thread in spinning, +Shows a bare spindle when the daylight dies; +The constant blood will yet flow full and tender; +The thread will mended be though gossamer-slender; + O turn once more. + + + + +AT THE GILL-NETS + + +Tug at the net, +Haul at the net, +Strip off the quivering fish; +Hid in the mist +The winds whist, +Is like my heart's wish. + +What is your wish, +Your heart's wish? +Is it for home on the hills? +Strip off the fish, +The silver fish, +Caught by their rosy gills. + +How can I know, +I love you so, +Each little thought I get +Is held so, +It dies you know, +Caught in your heart's net. + +Tug at your net, +Your heart's net, +Strip off my silver fancies; +Keep them in rhyme, +For a dull time, +Fragile as frost pansies. + + + + +A LOVE SONG + + +I gave her a rose in early June, +Fed with the sun and the dew, +Each petal I said is a note in the tune, +The rose is the whole tune through and through, +The tune is the whole red-hearted rose, +Flush and form, honey and hue, +Lull with the cadence and throb to the close, +I love you, I love you, I love you. + +She gave me a rose in early June, +Fed with the sun and the dew, +Each petal she said is a mount in the moon, +The rose is the whole moon through and through, +The moon is the whole pale-hearted rose, +Round and radiance, burnish and blue, +Break in the flood-tide that murmurs and flows, +I love you, I love you, I love you. + +This is our love in early June, +Fed with the sun and the dew, +Moonlight and roses hid in a tune, +The roses are music through and through, +The moonlight falls in the breath of the rose, +Light and cadence, honey and hue, +Mingle, and murmur, and flow to the close, +I love you, I love you, I love you. + + + + +THREE SONGS + + +I + +Where love is life +The roses blow, +Though winds be rude +And cold the snow, +The roses climb +Serenely slow, +They nod in rhyme +We know--we know +Where love is life +The roses blow. + +Where life is love +The roses blow, +Though care be quick +And sorrows grow, +Their roots are twined +With rose-roots so +That rosebuds find +A way to show +Where life is love +The roses blow. + + +II + +Nothing came here but sunlight, + Nothing fell here but rain, +Nothing blew but the mellow wind, + Here are the flowers again! + +No one came here but you, dear, + You with your magic train +Of brightness and laughter and lightness, + Here is my joy again! + + +III + +I have songs of dancing pleasure, + I have songs of happy heart, +Songs are mine that pulse in measure + To the throbbing of the mart. + +Songs are mine of magic seeming, + In a land of love forlorn, +Where the joys are had for dreaming, + At a summons from the horn. + +But my sad songs come unbidden, + Rising with a wilder zest, +From the bitter pool that's hidden, + Deep--deep--deep within my breast. + + + + +THE SAILOR'S SWEETHEART + + +O if love were had for asking, + In the markets of the town, +Hardly a lass would think to wear + A fine silken gown: +But love is had by grieving +By choosing and by leaving, +And there's no one now to ask me +If heavy lies my heart. + +O if love were had for a deep wish + In the deadness of the night, +There'd be a truce to longing + Between the dusk and the light: +But love is had for sighing, +For living and for dying, +And there's no one now to ask me +If heavy lies my heart. + +O if love were had for taking + Like honey from the hive, +The bees that made the tender stuff + Could hardly keep alive: +But love it is a wounded thing, +A tremor and a smart, +And there's no one left to kiss me now +Over my heavy heart. + + + + +FEUILLES D'AUTOMNE + + +Gather the leaves from the forest + And blow them over the world, +The wind of winter follows + The wind of autumn furled. + +Only the beech tree cherishes + A leaf or two for ruth, +Their stems too tough for the tempest, + Like thoughts of love and of youth. + +You may sit by the fire and ponder + While darkness veils the pane, +And fear that your memories are rushing away + In the wind and the rain. + +But you'll find them in the quiet + When the clouds race with the moon, +Making the tender silver sound + Of a beech in the month of June. + +For you cannot rob the memory + Of the leaves it loves the best; +The wind of time may harry them, + It rushes away with the rest. + + + + +TO THE HEROIC SOUL + + +I + +Nurture thyself, O Soul, from the clear spring +That wells beneath the secret inner shrine; +Commune with its deep murmur,--'tis divine; +Be faithful to the ebb and flow that bring +The outer tide of Spirit to trouble and swing +The inlet of thy being. Learn to know +These powers, and life with all its venom and show +Shall have no force to dazzle thee or sting: + +And when Grief comes thou shalt have suffered more +Than all the deepest woes of all the world; +Joy, dancing in, shall find thee nourished with mirth; +Wisdom shall find her Master at thy door; +And Love shall find thee crowned with love empearled; +And death shall touch thee not but a new birth. + + +II + +Be strong, O warring soul! For very sooth +Kings are but wraiths, republics fade like rain, +Peoples are reaped and garnered as the grain, +And that alone prevails which is the truth: +Be strong when all the days of life bear ruth +And fury, and are hot with toil and strain: +Hold thy large faith and quell thy mighty pain: +Dream the great dream that buoys thine age with youth. + +Thou art an eagle mewed in a sea-stopped cave: +He, poised in darkness with victorious wings, +Keeps night between the granite and the sea, +Until the tide has drawn the warder-wave: +Then from the portal where the ripple rings, +He bursts into the boundless morning,--free! + + + + +RETROSPECT + + +This is the mockery of the moving years; +Youth's colour dies, the fervid morning glow +Is gone from off the foreland; slow, slow, +Even slower than the fount of human tears +To empty, the consuming shadow nears +That Time is casting on the worldly show +Of pomp and glory. But falter not;--below +That thought is based a deeper thought that cheers. + +Glean thou thy past; that will alone inure +To catch thy heart up from a dark distress; +It were enough to find one deed mature, +Deep-rooted, mighty 'mid the toil and press; +To save one memory of the sweet and pure, +From out life's failure and its bitterness. + + + + +FROST MAGIC + + +I + +Now, in the moonrise, from a wintry sky, +The frost has come to charm with elfin might +This quiet room; to draw with symbols bright +Faces and forms in fairest charactery +Upon the casement; all the thoughts that lie +Deep hidden in my heart's core he would tell, +How the red shoots of fancy strike and swell, +How they are watered, what soil nourished by. + +With eerie power he piles his atomies, +Incrusted gems, star-glances overborne +With lids of sleep pulled from the moth's bright eyes, +And forests of frail ferns, blanched and forlorn, +Where Oberon of unimagined size +Might in the silver silence wind his horn. + + +II + +With these alone he draws in magic lines, +Faces that people dreams, and chiefly one +Happy and brilliant as the northern sun, +And by its darling side there gleams and shines +One of God's children with the laughing signs +Of dimples, and glad accents, and sweet cries, +That angels are and heaven's memories: +The wizard thus my soul's estate divines; + +All it holds dear he sets alone apart, +Etches the past in likeness of dim groves +Silvered in quiet rime and with rare art, +In crystal spoils and fairy treasure-troves, +He draws the picture of the happy heart, +By those who love it most, whom most it loves. + + + + +IN SNOW-TIME + + +I have seen things that charmed the heart to rest: +Faint moonlight on the towers of ancient towns, +Flattering the soul to dream of old renowns; +The first clear silver on the mountain crest +Where the lone eagle by his chilly nest +Called the lone soul to brood serenely free; +Still pools of sunlight shimmering in the sea, +Calm after storm, wherein the storm seemed blest. + +But here a peace deeper than peace is furled, +Enshrined and chaliced from the changeful hour; +The snow is still, yet lives in its own light. +Here is the peace which brooded day and night, +Before the heart of man with its wild power +Had ever spurned or trampled the great world. + + + + +TO A CANADIAN LAD KILLED IN THE WAR + + +O noble youth that held our honour in keeping, +And bore it sacred through the battle flame, +How shall we give full measure of acclaim +To thy sharp labour, thy immortal reaping? +For though we sowed with doubtful hands, half sleeping, +Thou in thy vivid pride hast reaped a nation, +And brought it in with shouts and exultation, +With drums and trumpets, with flags flashing and leaping. + +Let us bring pungent wreaths of balsam, and tender +Tendrils of wild-flowers, lovelier for thy daring, +And deck a sylvan shrine, where the maple parts +The moonlight, with lilac bloom, and the splendour +Of suns unwearied; all unwithered, wearing +Thy valor stainless in our heart of hearts. + + + + +THE CLOSED DOOR + + +_The dew falls and the stars fall, +The sun falls in the west, +But never more +Through the closed door, +Shall the one that I loved best +Return to me: +A salt tear is the sea, +All earth's air is a sigh, +But they never can mourn for me +With my heart's cry, +For the one that I loved best +Who caressed me with her eyes, +And every morning came to me, +With the beauty of sunrise, +Who was health and wealth and all, +Who never shall answer my call, +While the sun falls in the west, +The dew falls and the stars fall._ + + + + +BY A CHILD'S BED + + +She breathed deep, + And stepped from out life's stream +Upon the shore of sleep; +And parted from the earthly noise, +Leaving her world of toys, +To dwell a little in a dell of dream. + +Then brooding on the love I hold so free, + My fond possessions come to be +Clouded with grief; +These fairy kisses, +This archness innocent, +Sting me with sorrow and disturbed content: +I think of what my portion might have been; +A dearth of blisses, +A famine of delights, +If I had never had what now I value most; +Till all I have seems something I have lost; +A desert underneath the garden shows, +And in a mound of cinders roots the rose. + +Here then I linger by the little bed, + Till all my spirit's sphere, +Grows one half brightness and the other dead, +One half all joy, the other vague alarms; +And, holding each the other half in fee, +Floats like the growing moon +That bears implicitly +Her lessening pearl of shadow +Clasped in the crescent silver of her arms. + + + + +ELIZABETH SPEAKS + +(Aetat Six) + + +Now every night we light the grate +And I sit up till _really_ late; +My Father sits upon the right, +My Mother on the left, and I +Between them on an ancient chair, +That once belonged to my Great-Gran, +Before my Father was a man. +We sit without another light; +I really, truly never tire +Watching that space, as black as night, +That hangs behind the fire; +For there sometimes, you know, +The dearest, queerest little sparks, +Without a sound creep to and fro; +Sometimes they form in rings +Or lines that look like many things, +Like skipping ropes, or hoops, or swings: +Before you know what you're about, +They all go out! + +My Father says that they are gnomes, +Beyond the grate they have their homes, +In a tall, black, and windy town, +Behind a door we cannot see. +Often when it's time for bed +The children run away instead, +Out through the door to see our fire, +Then their angry parents come +With every candle in the town, +The beadle with his lantern too, +And search and rummage up and down, +To catch the children as they play, +Between the rows of new-mown hay, +And bring them home; +(They must be, O, so very small, +How do they capture them at all? +But then they must be very _dear_); +When they can find no more +They blow a horn we cannot hear, +And march with the beadle at their head, +Right through the little open door, +Then close it tight and go to bed. + +My Mother says that may be so; +(They both agree they're _gnomes_, you know). +She says, she thinks that every night, +The gnomes have had a fearful fight; +Their valiant General has been slain, +And all the soldiers leave the camp +To dig his grave upon the plain; +They drag the General on a gun; +Every bandsman has a lamp +And there's a torch for every one, +They dig his grave with bayonets +And wrap him grandly in his flag, +Then they gather in a ring, +The band plays very soft and low, +And all the soldiers sing. +(Of course we cannot hear, you know,) +Then some one calls "The enemy comes!" +They muffle up their pipes and drums; +Every soldier in a fright +Puts out his light. +Then hand in hand, and very still, +They clamber up the dark, dark hill +And hold their breath tight--tight. + +(I'd like to know which tale is right.) + +O! there is something I forgot! +Sometimes one little spark burns on +Long after the rest have gone. + +My Father says that lamp is left +By a little crooked, crotchety man, +Who cannot find his wayward son; +When the horn begins to blow, +He has to drop his light and run. +Of course he limps so slow +He squeezes through the very last, +When he is gone the naughty scamp +Jumps up and puff! out goes the lamp. + +My Mother says that is the light, +Borne by the very bravest knight; +He is so very, very brave, +He would not leave his General's grave, +And when the Enemy General tries +To make him tell where his General lies, +He answers boldly, "I--will--not!" +Then they shoot him on the spot, +And give a horrid, dreadful shout, +And then of course his light goes out. + +I sit and think when they are through, +Which tale I like best of the two. +Sometimes I like the _Father_ one; +It is such fun! +But then I love the _Mother_ one, +That dear brave soldier and the rest:-- + _Now which one do you like the best?_ + + + + +A LEGEND OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY + + +At Bethlehem upon the hill, + The day was done, the night was nigh, +The dusk was deep and had its will, +The stars were very small and still, + Like unblown tapers, faint and high. + +The noises had begun to fall, + And quiet stole upon the place, +The howl of dogs along the wall, +Voices that from the houstops call + And answer, and the grace + +Of some low breath of even-song + Grew faint apace: between the rocks +In misty pastures, and along +The dim hillside with crook and thong + The lonely shepherds watched their flocks. + +The Inn-master within the Inn + Called loudly out after this sort, +"Draw no more water, cease the din, +Pile the loose fodder, and begin + To turn the mules out of the court. + +The time has come to shut the gate, + Make way," he cried, and then began +To sweep and set the litter straight, +And pile the saddle-bags and freight + Of some belated caravan. + +The drivers whirled their beasts about, + And beat them on with shoutings great; +The nosebags slipped, the feed flew out, +The water-buckets reeled, the rout + Went jostling onward to the gate. + +Came one unto the master then, + Hasting to find him through the gloom, +"Give us a place to rest;" and when +He spake, the master cried again, + "There is no room--there is no room." + +"But I have come from Nazareth, + Full three days' toil to Bethlehem"-- +"What matters that," the master saith, +"For here is hardly room for breath; + The guests curse me for crowding them." + +"Hold, Sir! leave me not so, I pray"-- + He plucked him sudden by the sleeve, +"My wife is with me and doth say, +Her hour hath come, I beg you, stay, + And make some plan for her relief." + +"Two hours ago you might have had + The chamber wherein stands the loom; +But then to drive me wholly mad, +Came this great merchant from Baghdad, + And thrust himself into the room. + +"There is no other shelf to call + A bed--But just beyond the gate, +You may find shelter in a stall, +If there be shelter left at all, + You may be even now too late." + +Beyond the gate within the night, + A figure rested on the ground, +About her all the rout took flight, +The dizzy noise, the flashing light, + The mules were tramping all around. + +Leaning in mute expectancy, + Beneath a stunted sycamore, +She added darkness utterly, +To the dim light, the shrouded tree, + By her hands held her face before. + +And yet to mock her eye's desire, + The cavern into which she stared, +Was lit with disks and lines of fire; +When triple darkness did conspire, + The secret founts of light were bared. + +And all the wheeling fire was rife + With haunting fears, her broken breath +Grew short with this prophetic strife; +What was for one the dawn of life, + Would be for one the dawn of death. + +Meantime the stranger with a lamp, + Which lit the darkness, small and wan, +Searched where the mules did tramp and stamp, +Amid the litter and the damp, + For some small place to rest upon. + +And there against the furthest wall, + Where the black shade was dense and deep, +He found a mean and meager stall, +But there when the weak light did fall, + He found a little lad asleep. + +He lifted up his childish head, + And smiled serenely at the light, +"And have you found him, then," he said, +"My brother who I thought was dead, + I lost him in the crowd last night. + +"His name is Ezra, and he is + So tall and strong that when I try, +Standing on tiptoe for a kiss +I could not reach, except for this, + He lifts me up so easily. + +"I had two little doves to take + Up to the booths"--he held his breath, +"Peace, child! and for your mother's sake, +Yield me this place--nay, nay! awake! + My weary wife is sick to death." + +"I will," the little lad replied + "I promised never to forget +My mother, years ago she died, +I will lie out on the hillside, + And I may find dear Ezra yet." + +And now she drooped her weary head, + Within that comfortless manger, +It might have been a palace bed, +With canopy of gold instead, + So little did she know or care. + + _Gentle Jesus, slumber mild, + Lullaby, lullaby; + Succored by a little child, + Lull, lullaby._ + + _You of children are the king, + Lullaby, lullaby; + Sovereign to all ministering, + Lull, lullaby._ + + _Grace you bring them from above, + Lullaby, lullaby; + They give promise, lisping love, + Lull, lullaby._ + +And out upon the darkened hill, + With all the quiet-pastured sheep, +Charmed by the falling of a rill, +Where in the pool it cadenced still, + The little lad was fallen asleep. + +All his young dreams were robed with power. + And glad were all his vision folk; +He wandered on from hour to hour, +With Ezra, happy as a flower + That blooms safe-shadowed by the oak. + +But once before his dreams were told, + He thought he saw within the deep +Vault of the sky a rose unfold, +Made all of fire and lovely gold, + Whose petals seemed to glow and leap, + +As if each dewy, crystal cell + Were a great angel live with light, +And trembling to the coronal, +Merging in sheen of pearl and shell, + With his great comrade, equal, bright, + +Until the petals flashed and sprang, + And folded to the central heart: +Music there was that showered and rang, +As if each angel harped and sang, + Controlled by some celestial art. + +The child saw splendor without name, + And turned and smiled, and all the noise +Of strings and singing sank; it came +Faint and dream-altered, yet the same, + Soft-tempered to his mother's voice. + + _Slumber, slumber, gentle child, + Lullaby, lullaby; + Sweet as henna, dear and mild, + Lull, lullaby._ + + _You the first of all the race, + Lullaby, lullaby; + Gave your master early grace, + Lull, lullaby._ + + _Gave a shelter for his head, + Lullaby, lullaby; + Took the chilly earth instead, + Lull, lullaby._ + + _Now take comfort infant earth, + Lullaby, lullaby; + Jesus Christ is come to birth, + Lull, lullaby._ + + _For his principality, + Lullaby, lullaby; + Children cluster at his knee, + Lull, lullaby._ + + _Hail the heaven-happy age, + Lullaby, lullaby; + Love begins his pilgrimage, + Lull, lullaby._ + + + + +WILLOW-PIPES + + +So in the shadow by the nimble flood +He made her whistles of the willow wood, +Flutes of one note with mellow slender tone; +(A robin piping in the dusk alone). +Lively the pleasure was the wand to bruise, +And notch the light rod for its lyric use, +Until the stem gave up its tender sheath, +And showed the white and glistening wood beneath. +And when the ground was covered with light chips, +Grey leaves and green, and twigs and tender slips, +They placed the well-made whistles in a row +And left them for the careless wind to blow. + + + + +ANGEL + + +Come to me when grief is over, + When the tired eyes, +Seek thy cloudy wings to cover + Close their burning skies. + +Come to me when tears have dwindled + Into drops of dew, +When the sighs like sobs re-kindled + Are but deep and few. + +Hold me like a crooning mother, + Heal me of the smart; +All mine anguish let me smother + In thy brooding heart. + + + + +CHRISTMAS FOLK-SONG + + +Those who die on Christmas Day +(I heard the triumphant Seraph say) +Will be remembered, for they died +Upon the Holy Christmastide; +When they attain to Paradise, +The Angels with the tranquil Eyes +Will ask if Jesus rules on Earth +The Anniversary of His Birth; +This Question do they ask alway +Of those who die on Christmas Day. + +Those who are born on Christmas Day +(I heard the triumphant Seraph say) +Will bring again the Peace on Earth +That came with gentle Christ His Birth; +They may be lowly Folk and poor +Living about the Manger Door, +They may be Kings of Mighty Line, +Their Lives alike will be benign; +To them belongeth Peace alway, +Those who are born on Christmas Day. + + + + +FROM BEYOND + + +Here there is balm for every tender heart + Wounded by life; +Rest for each one who bore a valiant part + Crushed in the strife. + +I suffered there and held a losing fight + Even to the grave; +And now I know that it was very right + To suffer and be brave. + + + + +THE LEAF + + +This silver-edged geranium leaf +Is one sign of a bitter grief +Whose symbols are a myriad more; +They cluster round a carven stone +Where she who sleeps is never alone +For two hearts at the core, + +Bound with her heart make one of three, +A trinity in unity, +One sentient heart that grieves; +And myriad dark-leaved memories keep +Vigil above the triune sleep,-- +Edged all with silver are the leaves. + + + + +A MYSTERY PLAY + + +CHARACTERS + +The Father. The Child. Death. Angels. + Two Travellers. + + * * * * * + +_The even settles still and deep, +In the cold sky the last gold burns, +Across the colour snow flakes creep. +Each one from grey to glory turns +Then flutters into nothingness; +The frost down falls with mighty stress +Through the swift cloud that parts on high; +The great stars shrivel into less +In the hard depth of the iron sky._ + + * * * * * + +_The Child:_ + +What is that light, dear father, + That light in the dark, dark sky? + + +_The Father:_ + +Those are the lights of the city + And the villages thereby. + + +_The Child:_ + +There must be fire in the city + To throw that yellow glare; +And fire in the little villages + On all the hearthstones there. + + +_The Father, musing:_ + +Yea, flames are on the hearthstones; + The ovens are full of bread, +But here the coals are dying + And the flames are dead. + + +_The Child:_ + +What is the cold, dear father? + It stings like an angry bee. +Wherever it stings my hand turns white, + See! + + +_The Father:_ + +The cold is a beast, my dear one, + With his paws he tears at the thatch, +His breath is a curse and a warning, + You can see it creep on the latch. + + +_The Child:_ + +If 'tis a wolf, dear father, + That lies with his paw on the floor, +Let us heat the spade in the embers + And drive him away from the door. + + +_Angels:_ + +God is the power of growth, +In the snail and the tree, +God is the power of growth +In the heart of the man. + + +_The Child:_ + +Did you not hear the singing, + Voices overhead? +Mother's voice and Ruth's voice, + Voices of the dead. + + +_The Father, musing:_ + +Our Ruth died in the springtime, + With the spade I turned the sod, +We buried her by the brier rose, + Her life is hid with God. + + +_The Child:_ + +All summer long in the garden + No roses came to the tree. +Father, was it for sorrow, + Sorrow for thee and me? + + +_The Father:_ + +Roses grew in the garden, + I saw them at morning and even, +Shadows of earthly roses + They bloomed for fingers in heaven. + + * * * * * + +_The air is very clear and still, +The moonlight falls from half the sphere; +The shadow from the silver hill +Fills half the vale, and half is clear +As the moon's self with cloudless snow; +By the dead stream the alders throw +Their shadows, shot with tingling spars; +On the sheer height the elm trees glow: +Their tops are tangled with the stars._ + + * * * * * + +_The Child:_ + +Father, the coals are dying, + See! I have heated the spade, +Let me throw the door wide open, + I will not be afraid. + + +_The Father:_ + +Let me kiss you once on the forehead, + And once on your darling eyes; +We may see them both at the dawning, + In the dales of Paradise. + + +_The Child:_ + +And if I only see them, + I will tell them how you smiled; +For the wolf, you know, is angry, + And I am a little child. + + +_Death:_ + +Undaunted spirits, +I give thee peace, +For a world of dread-- +Calm. +For desperate toil-- +Rest. +Thou who didst say, +When the waters of poverty +Waxed deep, deep, +What we bear is best; +Just ones, +I give thee sleep. + + +_First Traveller:_ + +Keep up your spirits, I know +There's a cabin under the hill, +The fellow will make a roaring fire; +We'll heat our hands and drink our fill +And go warm to our heart's desire! + + +_Second Traveller:_ + +The door is open,--Heigho! +This pair will claim neither crown nor groat, +The man has gripped his garden spade +As if he would dig his grave in the snow; +The boy has the face of a saint, I trow; +His brow says, "I was not afraid!" + + +_First Traveller:_ + +Ah well, these things must be, you know! +Gather your sables around your throat; +Give us that story about the monk, +His niece, and the wandering conjurer, +Just to keep our blood astir. + + +_The Angels:_ + +The heart of God, +The worlds and man, +Are fashioned and moulded, +In a subtle plan; +Passion outsurges, +Sweeps far but converges: +Nothing is lost, +Sod or stone, +But comes to its own; +Bear well thy joy, +'Tis mixed with alloy, +Bear well thy grief, +'Tis a rich full sheaf: +Gather the souls that have passed in the night, +Theirs is the peace and the light. + + * * * * * + +_The moon is gone, the dawning brings +A deeper dark with silver blent, +Above the wells where, myriad, springs +Light from the crimson orient; +The elms are born, the shadows creep, +Tremble and melt away--one sweep +The great soft color floods and flows, +Where under snow the roses sleep; +The morn has turned the snow to rose._ + + + + +LINES IN MEMORY OF EDMUND MORRIS + + +Dear Morris--here is your letter-- +Can my answer reach you now? +Fate has left me your debtor, +You will remember how; +For I went away to Nantucket, +And you to the Isle of Orleans, +And when I was dawdling and dreaming +Over the ways and means +Of answering, the power was denied me, +Fate frowned and took her stand; +I have your unanswered letter +Here in my hand. +This--in your famous scribble, +It was ever a cryptic fist, +Cuneiform or Chaldaic +Meanings held in a mist. + +Dear Morris, (now I'm inditing +And poring over your script) +I gather from the writing, +The coin that you had flipt, +Turned tails; and so you compel me +To meet you at Touchwood Hills: +Or, mayhap, you are trying to tell me +The sum of a painter's ills: +Is that Phimister Proctor +Or something about a doctor? +Well, nobody knows, but Eddie, +Whatever it is I'm ready. + +For our friendship was always fortunate +In its greetings and adieux, +Nothing flat or importunate, +Nothing of the misuse +That comes of the constant grinding +Of one mind on another. +So memory has nothing to smother, +But only a few things captured +On the wing, as it were, and enraptured. +Yes, Morris, I am inditing-- +Answering at last it seems, +How can you read the writing +In the vacancy of dreams? + +I would have you look over my shoulder +Ere the long, dark year is colder, +And mark that as memory grows older, +The brighter it pulses and gleams. +And if I should try to render +The tissues of fugitive splendour +That fled down the wind of living, +Will they read it some day in the future, +And be conscious of an awareness +In our old lives, and the bareness +Of theirs, with the newest passions +In the last fad of the fashions? + + * * * * * + +How often have we risen without daylight +When the day star was hidden in mist, +When the dragon-fly was heavy with dew and sleep, +And viewed the miracle pre-eminent, matchless, +The prelusive light that quickens the morning. +O crystal dawn, how shall we distill your virginal freshness +When you steal upon a land that man has not sullied with his + intrusion, +When the aboriginal shy dwellers in the broad solitudes +Are asleep in their innumerable dens and night haunts +Amid the dry ferns, in the tender nests +Pressed into shape by the breasts of the Mother birds? +How shall we simulate the thrill of announcement +When lake after lake lingering in the starlight +Turn their faces towards you, +And are caressed with the salutation of colour? + +How shall we transmit in tendril-like images, +The tenuous tremor in the tissues of ether, +Before the round of colour buds like the dome of a shrine, +The preconscious moment when love has fluttered in the bosom, +Before it begins to ache? + +How often have we seen the even +Melt into the liquidity of twilight, +With passages of Titian splendour, +Pellucid preludes, exquisitely tender, +Where vanish and revive, thro' veils of the ashes of roses, +The crystal forms the breathless sky discloses. + +The new moon a slender thing, +In a snood of virgin light, +She seemed all shy on venturing +Into the vast night. + +Her own land and folk were afar, +She must have gone astray, +But the gods had given a silver star, +To be with her on the way. + + * * * * * + +I can feel the wind on the prairie +And see the bunch-grass wave, +And the sunlights ripple and vary +The hill with Crowfoot's grave, +Where he "pitched off" for the last time +In sight of the Blackfoot Crossing, +Where in the sun for a pastime +You marked the site of his tepee +With a circle of stones. Old Napiw +Gave you credit for that day. +And well I recall the weirdness +Of that evening at Qu'Appelle, +In the wigwam with old Sakimay, +The keen, acrid smell, +As the kinnikinick was burning; +The planets outside were turning, +And the little splints of poplar +Flared with a thin, gold flame. +He showed us his painted robe +Where in primitive pigments +He had drawn his feats and his forays, +And told us the legend +Of the man without a name, +The hated Blackfoot, +How he lured the warriors, +The young men, to the foray +And they never returned. +Only their ghosts +Goaded by the Blackfoot +Mounted on stallions: +In the night time +He drove the stallions +Reeking into the camp; +The women gasped and whispered, +The children cowered and crept, +And the old men shuddered +Where they slept. +When Sakimay looked forth +He saw the Blackfoot, +And the ghosts of the warriors, +And the black stallions +Covered by the night wind +As by a mantle. + + * * * * * + +I remember well a day, +When the sunlight had free play, +When you worked in happy stress, +While grave Ne-Pah-Pee-Ness +Sat for his portrait there, +In his beaded coat and his bare +Head, with his mottled fan +Of hawk's feathers, A Man! +Ah Morris, those were the times +When you sang your inconsequent rhymes +Sprung from a careless fountain: + +"_He met her on the mountain, +He gave her a horn to blow, +And the very last words he said to her +Were, 'Go 'long, Eliza, go.'_" + +Foolish,--but life was all, +And under the skilful fingers +Contours came at your call-- +Art grows and time lingers;-- +But now the song has a change +Into something wistful and strange. +And one asks with a touch of ruth +What became of the youth +And where did Eliza go? +He met her on the mountain, +He gave her a horn to blow, +The horn was a silver whorl +With a mouthpiece of pure pearl, +And the mountain was all one glow, +With gulfs of blue and summits of rosy snow. +The cadence she blew on the silver horn +Was the meaning of life in one phrase caught, +And as soon as the magic notes were born, +She repeated them once in an afterthought. +They heard in the crystal passes, +The cadence, calling, calling, +And faint in the deep crevasses, +The echoes falling, falling. +They stood apart and wondered; +Her lips with a wound were aquiver, +His heart with a sword was sundered, +For life was changed forever +When he gave her the horn to blow: +But a shadow arose from the valley, +Desolate, slow and tender, +It hid the herdsmen's chalet, +Where it hung in the emerald meadow, +(Was death driving the shadow?) +It quenched the tranquil splendour +Of the colour of life on the glow-peaks, +Till at the end of the even, +The last shell-tint on the snow-peaks +Had passed away from the heaven. +And yet, when it passed, victorious, +The stars came out on the mountains, +And the torrents gusty and glorious, +Clamoured in a thousand fountains, +And even far down in the valley, +A light re-discovered the chalet. +The scene that was veiled had a meaning, +So deep that none might know; +Was it here in the morn on the mountain, +That he gave her the horn to blow? + + * * * * * + +Tears are the crushed essence of this world, +The wine of life, and he who treads the press +Is lofty with imperious disregard +Of the burst grapes, the red tears and the murk. +But nay! that is a thought of the old poets, +Who sullied life with the passional bitterness +Of their world-weary hearts. We of the sunrise, +Joined in the breast of God, feel deep the power +That urges all things onward, not to an end, +But in an endless flow, mounting and mounting, +Claiming not overmuch for human life, +Sharing with our brothers of nerve and leaf +The urgence of the one creative breath,-- +All in the dim twilight--say of morning, +Where the florescence of the light and dew +Haloes and hallows with a crown adorning +The brows of life with love; herein the clue, +The love of life--yea, and the peerless love +Of things not seen, that leads the least of things +To cherish the green sprout, the hardening seed; +Here leans all nature with vast Mother-love, +Above the cradled future with a smile. +Why are there tears for failure, or sighs for weakness, +While life's rhythm beats on? Where is the rule +To measure the distance we have circled and clomb? +Catch up the sands of the sea and count and count +The failures hidden in our sum of conquest. +Persistence is the master of this life; +The master of these little lives of ours; +To the end--effort--even beyond the end. + + * * * * * + +Here, Morris, on the plains that we have loved, +Think of the death of Akoose, fleet of foot, +Who, in his prime, a herd of antelope +From sunrise, without rest, a hundred miles +Drove through rank prairie, loping like a wolf, +Tired them and slew them, ere the sun went down. +Akoose, in his old age, blind from the smoke +Of tepees and the sharp snow light, alone +With his great grandchildren, withered and spent, +Crept in the warm sun along a rope +Stretched for his guidance. Once when sharp autumn +Made membranes of thin ice upon the sloughs, +He caught a pony on a quick return +Of prowess and, all his instincts cleared and quickened, +He mounted, sensed the north and bore away +To the Last Mountain Lake where in his youth +He shot the sand-hill-cranes with his flint arrows. +And for these hours in all the varied pomp +Of pagan fancy and free dreams of foray +And crude adventure, he ranged on entranced, +Until the sun blazed level with the prairie, +Then paused, faltered and slid from off his pony. +In a little bluff of poplars, hid in the bracken, +He lay down; the populace of leaves +In the lithe poplars whispered together and trembled, +Fluttered before a sunset of gold smoke, +With interspaces, green as sea water, +And calm as the deep water of the sea. + +There Akoose lay, silent amid the bracken, +Gathered at last with the Algonquin Chieftains. +Then the tenebrous sunset was blown out, +And all the smoky gold turned into cloud wrack. +Akoose slept forever amid the poplars, +Swathed by the wind from the far-off Red Deer +Where dinosaurs sleep, clamped in their rocky tombs. +Who shall count the time that lies between +The sleep of Akoose and the dinosaurs? +Innumerable time, that yet is like the breath +Of the long wind that creeps upon the prairie +And dies away with the shadows at sundown. + + * * * * * + +What we may think, who brood upon the theme, +Is, when the old world, tired of spinning, has fallen +Asleep, and all the forms, that carried the fire +Of life, are cold upon her marble heart-- +Like ashes on the altar--just as she stops, +That something will escape of soul or essence,-- +The sum of life, to kindle otherwhere: +Just as the fruit of a high sunny garden, +Grown mellow with autumnal sun and rain, +Shrivelled with ripeness, splits to the rich heart, +And looses a gold kernel to the mould, +So the old world, hanging long in the sun, +And deep enriched with effort and with love, +Shall, in the motions of maturity, +Wither and part, and the kernel of it all +Escape, a lovely wraith of spirit, to latitudes +Where the appearance, throated like a bird, +Winged with fire and bodied all with passion, +Shall flame with presage, not of tears, but joy. + + +THE END + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lundy's Lane and Other Poems, by +Duncan Campbell Scott + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LUNDY'S LANE AND OTHER POEMS *** + +***** This file should be named 22717.txt or 22717.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/2/7/1/22717/ + +Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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