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Title: Hesperus

Author: Charles Sangster

Release date: March 13, 2008 [eBook #24819]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24819

Credits: Produced by Al Haines

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HESPERUS ***

Produced by Al Haines

HESPERUS,

AND

Other Poems and Lyrics

BY CHARLES SANGSTER,

AUTHOR OF "THE ST. LAWRENCE AND THE SAGUENAY, AND OTHER POEMS"

Montreal:

JOHN LOVELL, ST. NICHOLAS STREET.

Kingston:

JOHN CREIGHTON, KING STREET.

1860.

Entered, according to the Act of the Provincial Parliament,

in the year one thousand eight hundred and sixty, by

CHARLES SANGSTER, in the office ef the Registrar of the

Province of Canada.

THESE

Poems and Lyrics

ARE

DEDICATED

TO

My Niece,

CARRIE MILLER,

OF

SANDWICH, C. W.

{v}

CONTENTS.

PAGE.

Dedicatory Poem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Hesperus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Crowned . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Mariline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

The Happy Harvesters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Falls of the Chaudière, Ottawa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

A Royal Welcome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Malcolm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

The Comet, October 1858 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Autumn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Colin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Margery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Eva . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

The Poet's Recompense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

The Wine of Song . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

The Plains of Abraham . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Death of Wolfe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Brock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Song for Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Song.—I'd be a Fairy King . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Song.—Love while you may . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

{vi}

The Snows, Upper Ottawa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

The Rapid. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

Lost and Found . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

Again . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

Glimpses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

My Prayer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

Her Star . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

The Mystery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

Love and Truth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

The Wren . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

Grandpere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

England's Hope and England's Heir . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

Rose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

The Dreamer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

Night and Morning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

Within thine eyes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

Gertrude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

Flowers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

The Unattainable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

Yearnings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

Ingratitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

True Love . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

An Evening Thought . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

A Thought for Spring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

The Swallows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

Song.—Clara and I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130

The April Snow Storm, 1858 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132

Good Night . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134

Hopeless . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

Into the Silent Land . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

{vii}

SONNETS:—

Proem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

Sonnet I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

III . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164

IV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

V . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166

VI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

VII . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168

VIII . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

IX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170

X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

XI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

XII . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

XIII . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

XIV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

XV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176

XVI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

XVII . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

XVIII . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

XIX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180

XX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

XXI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

XXII . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

Au Revoir . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184

{9}

POEMS.

DEDICATORY POEM.

Dear Carrie, were we truly wise,

And could discern with finer eyes,

And half-inspired sense,

The ways of Providence:

Could we but know the hidden things

That brood beneath the Future's wings,

Hermetically sealed,

But soon to be revealed:

Would we, more blest than we are now,

In due submission learn to bow,—

Receiving on our knees

The Omnipotent decrees?

That which is just, we have. And we

Who lead this round of mystery,

This dance of strange unrest,

What are we at the best?—

Unless we learn to mount and climb;

Writing upon the page of time,

In words of joy or pain,

That we've not lived in vain.

{10}

We all are Ministers of Good;

And where our mission's understood,

How many hearts we must

Raise, trembling, from the dust.

Oh, strong young soul, and thinking brain!

Walk wisely through the fair domain

Where burn the sacred fires

Of Music's sweet desires!

Cherish thy Gift; and let it be

A Jacob's ladder unto thee,

Down which the Angels come,

To bring thee dreams of Home.

What were we if the pulse of Song

Had never beat, nor found a tongue

To make the Poet known

In lands beyond his own?

Take what is said for what is meant.

We sometimes touch the firmament

Of starry Thought—no more;

Beyond, we may not soar.

I speak not of myself, but stand

In silence till the Master Hand

Each fluttering thought sets free.

God holds the golden key.

Kingston, C. W., May 1st, 1860.

{11}

HESPERUS:

A LEGEND OF THE STARS.

PRELUDE.

The Stars are heaven's ministers;

Right royally they teach

God's glory and omnipotence,

In wondrous lowly speech.

All eloquent with music as

The tremblings of a lyre,

To him that hath an ear to hear

They speak in words of fire.

Not to learned sagas only

Their whisperings come down;

The monarch is not glorified

Because he wears a crown.

The humblest soldier in the camp

Can win the smile of Mars,

And 'tis the lowliest spirits hold

Communion with the stars.

Thoughts too refined for utterance,

Ethereal as the air,

Crowd through the brain's dim labyrinths,

And leave their impress there;

{12}

As far along the gleaming void

Man's tender glances roll,

Wonder usurps the throne of speech,

But vivifies the soul.

Oh, heaven-cradled mysteries,

What sacred paths ye've trod—

Bright, jewelled scintillations from

The chariot-wheels of God!

When in the spirit He rode forth,

With vast creative aim,

These were His footprints left behind,

To magnify His name!

———

We gazed on the Evening Star,

Mary and I,

As it shone

On its throne

Afar,

In the blue sky;

Shone like a ransomed soul

In the depths of that quiet heaven;

Like a pearly tear,

Trembling with fear

On the pallid cheek of Even.

And I thought of the myriad souls

Gazing with human eyes

On the light of that star,

Shining afar,

In the quiet evening skies;

{13}

Some with winged hope,

Clearing the cope

Of heaven as swift as light,

Others, with souls

Blind as the moles,

Sinking in rayless night.

Dreams such as dreamers dream

Flitted before our eyes;

Beautiful visions!—

Angelo's, Titian's,

Had never more gorgeous dyes:

We soared with the angels

Through vistas of glory,

We heard the evangels

Relate the glad story

Of the beautiful star,

Shining afar

In the quiet evening skies.

And we gazed and dreamed,

Till our spirits seemed

Absorbed in the stellar world;

Sorrow was swallowed up,

Drained was the bitter cup

Of earth to the very lees;

And we sailed over seas

Of white vapour that whirled

Through the skies afar,

Angels our charioteers,

Threading the endless spheres,

{14}

And to the chorus of angels

Rehearsed the evangels

The Birth of the Evening Star.

———

I.

Far back in the infant ages,

Before the eras stamped their autographs

Upon the stony records of the earth;

Before the burning incense of the sun

Rolled up the interlucent space,

Brightening the blank abyss;

Ere the Recording Angel's tears

Were shed for man's transgressions:

A Seraph, with a face of light,

And hair like heaven's golden atmosphere,

Blue eyes serene in their beatitude,

Godlike in their tranquillity,

Features as perfect as God's dearest work,

And stature worthy of her race,

Lived high exalted in the sacred sphere

That floated in a sea of harmony

Translucent as pure crystal, or the light

That flowed, unceasing, from this higher world

Unto the spheres beneath it. Far below

The extremest regions underneath the Earth

The first spheres rose, of vari-coloured light,

In calm rotation through aërial deep,

Like seas of jasper, blue, and coralline,

Crystal and violet; layers of worlds—

The robes of ages that had passed away,

{15}

Left as memorials of their sojournings.

For nothing passes wholly. All is changed.

The Years but slumber in their sepulchres,

And speak prophetic meanings in their sleep.

FIRST ANGEL.

Oh, how our souls are gladdened,

When we think of that brave old age,

When God's light came down

From heaven, to crown

Each act of the virgin page!

Oh, how our souls are saddened,

At the deeds which were done since then,

By the angel race

In the holy place,

And on earth by the sons of men!

Lo, as the years are fleeting,

With their burden of toil and pain,

We know that the page

Of that primal age

Will be opened up once again.

II.

Progressing still, the bright-faced Seraph rose

From Goodness to Perfection, till she stood

The fairest and the best of all that waked

The tuneful echoes of that lofty world,

Where Lucifer, then the stateliest of the throng

Of Angels, walked majestical, arrayed

{16}

In robes of brightness worthy of his place.

And all the intermediate spheres were homes

Of the existences

Of spiritual life.

Love, the divine arcanum, was the bond

That linked them to each other—heart to heart,

And angel world to world, and soul to soul.

Thus the first ages passed,

Cycles of perfect bliss,

God the acknowledged sovereign of all.

Sphere spake with sphere, and love conversed with love,

From the far centre to sublimest height,

And down the deep, unfathomable space,

To the remotest homes of angel-life,

A viewless chain of being circling all,

And linking every spirit to its God.

ANGEL CHORUS.

Spirits that never falter,

Before God's altar

Rehearse their paeans of unceasing praise;

Their theme the boundless love

By which God rules above,

Mysteriously engrafted

On grace divine, and wafted

Into every soul of man that disobeys.

Not till the wondrous being

Of the All-Seeing

Is manifested to finite man,

Can ye understand the love

{17}

By which God rules above,

Evermore extending,

In circles never-ending,

To every atom in the universal plan.

SECOND ANGEL.

Oh, the love beyond computing

Of the high and holy place!

The unseen bond

Circling beyond

The limits of time and space.

Through earth and her world of beauty

The heavenly links extend,

Man feels its presence,

Imbibes its essence,

But cannot yet comprehend.

THIRD ANGEL.

But the days are fast approaching,

When the Father of Love will send

His interpreter

From the highest sphere,

That man fully may comprehend.

III.

Oh, truest Love, because the truest life!

Oh, blest existence, to exist with Love!

Oh, Love, without which all things else must die

The death that knows no waking unto life!

Oh, Jealousy that saps the heart of Love,

{18}

And robs it of its tenderness divine;

And Pride, that tramples with its iron hoof

Upon the flower of love, whose fragrant soul

Exhales itself in sweetness as it dies!

A lofty spirit surfeited with Bliss!

A Prince of Angels cancelling all love,

All due allegiance to his rightful Lord;

Doing dishonour to his high estate;

Turning the truth and wisdom which were his

For ages of supreme felicity,

To thirst for power, and hatred of his God,

Who raised him to such vast preëminence!

SECOND ANGEL CHORUS.

Woe, woe to the ransomed spirit,

Once freed from the stain of sin,

Whose pride increases

Till all love ceases

To nourish it from within!

Its doom is the darkened regions

Where the rebel angel legions

Live their long night of sorrow;

Where no expectant morrow,

No mercy-tempered ray

From the altar of to-day,

Comes down through the gloom to borrow

One drop from their cup of sorrow,

Or lighten their cheerless way.

{19}

FIRST ANGEL.

But blest be the gentle spirit

Whose love is ever increased

From its own pure soul,

The illumined goal

Where Love holds perpetual feast!

IV.

Ingrate Angel, he,

To purchase Hell, and at so vast a price!

'Tis the old story of celestial strife—

Rebellion in the palace-halls of God—

False angels joining the insurgent ranks,

Who suffered dire defeats, and fell at last

From bliss supreme to darkness and despair.

But they, the faithful dwellers in the spheres,

Who kept their souls inviolate, to whom

Heaven's love and truth were truly great rewards:

For these the stars were sown throughout all space,

As fit memorials of their faithfulness.

The wretched lost were banished to the depths

Beneath the lowest spheres. Earth barred the space

Between them and the Faithful. Then the hills

Rose bald and rugged o'er the wild abyss;

The waters found their places; and the sun,

The bright-haired warder of the golden morn,

Parting the curtains of reposing night,

Rung his first challenge to the dismal shades,

That shrunk back, awed, into Cimmerean gloom;

And the young moon glode through the startled void

With quiet beauty and majestic mien.

{20}

SECOND ANGEL.

Slowly rose the daedal Earth,

Through the purple-hued abysm

Glowing like a gorgeous prism,

Heaven exulting o'er its birth,

Still the mighty wonder came,

Through the jasper-coloured sphere,

Ether-winged, and crystal-clear,

Trembling to the loud acclaim,

In a haze of golden rain,

Up the heavens rolled the sun,

Danae-like the earth was won,

Else his love and light were vain.

So the heart and soul of man

Own the light and love of heaven,

Nothing yet in vain was given,

Nature's is a perfect plan.

V.

The glowing Seraph with the brow of light

Was first among the Faithful. When the war

Between heaven's rival armies fiercely waged,

She bore the Will Divine from rank to rank,

The chosen courier of Deity.

Her presence cheered the combatants for Truth,

And Victory stood up where'er she moved.

And now, in gleaming robe of woven pearl,

Emblazoned with devices of the stars,

And legends of their glory yet to come,

{21}

The type of Beauty Intellectual,

The representative of Love and Truth,

She moves first in the innumerable throng

Of angels congregating to behold

The crowning wonder of creative power.

THIRD ANGEL CHORUS,

Oh, joy, that no mortal can fathom,

To rejoice in the smile of God!

To be first in the light

Of His Holy sight,

And freed from His chastening rod.

Faithful, indeed, that soul, to be

The messenger of Deity!

FIRST ANGEL.

This, this is the chosen spirit,

Whose love is ever increased

From its own pare soul,

The illumined goal

Where Love holds perpetual feast.

VI.

With noiseless speed the angel charioteers

In dazzling splendour all triumphant rode;

Through seas of ether painfully serene,

That flashed a golden, phosphorescent spray,

As luminous as the sun's intensest beams,

Athwart the wide, interminable space.

Legion on legion of the sons of God;

Vast phalanxes of graceful cherubim;

{22}

Innumerable multitudes and ranks

Of all the hosts and hierarchs of heaven,

Moved by one universal impulse, urged

Their steeds of swiftness up the arch of light,

From sphere to sphere increasing as they came,

Till world on world was emptied of its race.

Upward, with unimaginable speed,

The myriads, congregating zenith-ward,

Reached the far confines of the utmost sphere,

The home of Truth, the dwelling-place of Love,

Striking celestial symphonies divine

From the resounding sea of melody,

That heaved in swells of soft, mellifluous sound,

To the blest crowds at whose triumphal tread

Its soul of sweetness waked in thrills sublime,

The sun stood poised upon the western verge;

The moon paused, waiting for the march of earth,

That stayed to watch the advent of the stars;

And ocean hushed its very deepest deeps

In grateful expectation.

SECOND ANGEL.

Still through the viewless regions

Of the habitable air,

Through the ether ocean,

In unceasing motion,

Pass the multitudinous legions

Of angels everywhere.

Bearing each new-born spirit

Through the interlucent void

{23}

To its starry dwelling,

Angel anthems telling

Every earthly deed of merit

To each flashing asteroid.

THIRD ANGEL.

Through the realms sidereal,

Clothed with the immaterial,

Far as the fields elysian

In starry bloom extend,

The stretch of angel vision

Can see and comprehend.

VII.

Innumerable as the ocean sands

The angel concourse in due order stood,

In meek anticipation waiting for

The new-created orbs,

Still hidden in the deep

And unseen laboratory, where

Not even angel eyes could penetrate:

A star for each of that angelic host,

Memorials of their faithfulness and love.

The Evening Star, God's bright eternal gift

To the pure Seraph with the brow of light,

And named for her, mild Hesperus,

Came twinkling down the unencumbered blue,

On viewless wings of sweet melodious sound,

Beauty and grace presiding at its birth.

Celestial plaudits sweeping through the skies

Waked resonant paeans, till the concave thrilled

{24}

Through its illimitable bounds.

With a sudden burst

Of light, that lit the universal space

As with a flame of crystal,

Rousing the Soul of Joy

That slumbered in the patient sea,

From every point of heaven the hurrying cars

Conveyed the constellations to their thrones—

The throbbing planets, and the burning suns,

Erratic comets, and the various grades

And magnitudes of palpitating stars.

From the far arctic and antarctic zones,

Through all the vast, surrounding infinite,

A wilderness of intermingling orbs,

The gleaming wonders, pulsing earthward, came;

Each to its destined place,

Each in itself a world,

With all its coining myriad life,

Drawing us nearer the Omnipotent,

With hearts of wonder, and with souls of praise:

Astrea, Pallas, strange Aldebaran,

The Pleiads, Arcturus, the ruddy Mars,

Pale Saturn, Ceres and Orion—

All as they circle still

Through the enraptured void.

For each young angel born to us from earth,

A new-made star is launched among its peers.

FULL ANGEL CHORUS.

Dreamer in the realms aërial,

Searcher for the true and good,

{25}

Hoper for the high, ethereal

Limit of Beatitude,

Lift thy heart to heaven, for there

Is embalmed thy spirit prayer:

Not in words is shrined thy prayer,

But thy Thought awaits thee there.

God loves the silent worshipper.

The grandest hymn

That nature chants—the litany

Of the rejoicing stars—is silent praise.

Their nightly anthems stir

The souls of lofty seraphim

In the remotest heaven. The melody

Descends in throbbings of celestial light

Into the heart of man, whose upward gaze,

And meditative aspect, tell

Of the heart's incense passing up the night.

Above the crystalline height

The theme of thoughtful praise ascends.

Not from the wildest swell

Of the vexed ocean soars the fullest psalm;

But in the evening calm,

And in the solemn midnight, silence blends

With silence, and to the ear

Attuned to harmony divine

Begets a strain

Whose trance-like stillness wakes delicious pain.

The silent tear

Holds keener anguish in its orb of brine,

Deeper and truer grief

Than the loud wail that brings relief,

{26}

As thunder clears the atmosphere.

But the deep, tearless Sorrow,—how profound!

Unspoken to the ear

Of sense, 'tis yet as eloquent a sound

As that which wakes the lyre

Of the rejoicing Day, when

Morn on the mountains lights his urn of fire.

The flowers of the glen

Rejoice in silence; huge pines stand apart

Upon the lofty hills, and sigh

Their woes to every breeze that passeth by;

The willow tells its mournful tale

So tenderly, that e'en the passing gale

Bears not a murmur on its wings

Of what the spirit sings

That breathes its trembling thoughts through all the

drooping strings.

He loves God most who worships most

In the obedient heart.

The thunder's noisome boast,

What is it to the violet lightning thought?

So with the burning passion of the stars—

Creation's diamond sands,

Strewn along the pearly strands,

And far-extending corridors

Of heaven's blooming shores;

No scintil of their jewelled flame

But wafts the exquisite essence

Of prayer to the Eternal Presence,

Of praise to the Eternal Name.

The silent prayer unbars

{27}

The gates of Paradise, while the too-intimate,

Self-righteous' boast, strikes rudely at the gate

Of heaven, unknowing why it does not open to

Their summons, as they see pale Silence passing through.

VIII.

In grateful admiration, till the Dawn

Withdrew the gleaming curtains of the night,

We watched the whirling systems, until each

Could recognize their own peculiar star;

When, with the swift celerity

Of Fancy-footed Thought,

The light-caparisoned, aërial steeds,

Shod with rare fleetness,

Revisited the farthest of the spheres

Ere the earth's sun had kissed the mountain tops,

Or shook the sea-pearls from his locks of gold.

———

Still on the Evening Star

Gazed we with steadfast eyes,

As it shone

On its throne

Afar,

In the blue skies.

No longer the charioteers

Dashed through the gleaming spheres;

No more the evangels

Rehearsed the glad story;

But, in passing, the angels

Left footprints of glory:

{28}

For up the starry void

Bright-flashing asteroid,

Pale moon and starry choir,

Aided by Fancy's fire,

Rung from the glittering lyre

Changes of song and hymn,

Worthy of Seraphim.

Night's shepherdess sat, queenlike, on her throne,

Watching her starry flocks from zone to zone,

While we, like mortals turned to breathing stone,

Intently pondered on the Known Unknown.

{29}

CROWNED.

Her thoughts are sweet glimpses of heaven,

Her life is that heaven brought down;

Oh, never to mortal was given

So rare and bejewelled a crown!

I'll wear it as saints wear the glory

That radiantly clasps them above—

Oh, dower most fair!

Oh, diadem rare!

Bright crown of her maidenly love.

My heart is a fane of devotion,

My feelings are converts at prayer,

And every thrill of emotion

Makes dearer the crown I would wear.

My soul in its fulness of rapture

Begins its millennial reign,

Life glows like a sun,

Love's zenith is won,

And Joy is sole monarch again.

My noonday of life is as morning,

God's light streams approvingly down;

Uncovered, I wait her adorning,

She comes with the beautiful crown!

I'll wear it as saints wear the glory

That radiantly clasps them above—

Oh, dower most fair!

Oh, diadem rare!

Bright crown of her maidenly love.

{30}

MARILINE.

At the wheel plied Mariline,

Beauteous and self-serene,

Never dreaming of that mien

Fit for lady or for queen.

Never sang she, but her words,

Music-laden, swept the chords

Of the heart, that eagerly

Stored the subtle melody,

Like the honey in the bee;

Never spake, but showed that she

Held the golden master-key

That unlocked all sympathy

Pent in souls where Feeling glows,

Like the perfume in the rose,

Like her own innate repose,

Like the whiteness in the snows.

Richly thoughted Mariline!

Nature's heiress!—nature's queen!

II.

By her side, with liberal look,

Paused a student o'er a book,

Wielder of a shepherd's crook,

Reveller by grove and brook:

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Hunter-up of musty tomes,

Worshipper of deathless poems:

Lover of the true and good,

Hater of sin's evil brood,

Votary of solitude,

Man, of mind-like amplitude.

With exalted eye serene

Gazed he on fair Mariline.

Swifter whirled the busy wheel,

Piled the thread upon the reel—

Saw she not his spirit kneel,

Praying for her after-weal?

Like the wife of Collatine,

Busily spun Mariline.

III.

Hour by hour, and day by day,

Sang the maid her roundelay;

Hour by hour, and day by day,

Spun her threads of white and gray.

While the shepherd-student held

Commune with the great of eld:

Pondered on their wondrous words,

While he watched his scattered herds,

While he stemmed the surging fords.

And he knew the lore of birds,

{32}

Learned the secrets of the rills,

Conversed with the answering hills.

Like her threads of white and gray,

Passed their mingled Eves away,

One unceasing roundelay—

Winter came, it still was May!

IV.

When the spring smiled, opening up

Pink-lipped flower and acorn cup;

When the summer waked the rose

In the scented briar boughs;

When the earth, with painless throes,

Bore her golden autumn rows—

Field on field of grain, that pressed,

Childlike, to her fruitful breast—

When hale winter wrapped his form

In the mantle of the storm,

Tamed the bird, and chilled the worm,

Stopped the pulse that thrilled the germ;

As the seasons went and came,

One in heart, and hope, and aim,

Cheered they each the other on,

Where was labor to be done,

At day-break or set of sun,

Like two thoughts that merge in one.

{33}

Dignified, and soul-serene,

Busily spun Mariline.

V.

Brightly broke the summer morn,

Like a lark from out the corn,—

Broke like joy just newly born

From the depths of woe forlorn,—

Broke with grateful songs of birds,

Lowings of well-pastured herds;

Hailed by childhood's happy looks,

Cheered by anthems of the brooks—

Chants beyond the lore of books—

Cawing crows, instead of rooks.

Glowed the heavens—rose the sun,

Mariline was up, for one.

VI.

Like a chatterer tongue-tied,

Lo, the wheel is placed aside!—

Not from indolence or pride—

Mariline must be a Bride!

Fairest maid of maids terrene!

Bride of Brides, dear Mariline!

VII.

Up the meditative air

Passed the smoke-wreaths, white and fair,

Like the spirit of the prayer

Mariline now offered there:

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Passed behind the cottage eaves,

Curling through the maple leaves:

Through the pines and old elm trees,

Belies of past centuries,

Hardy oaks, that never breeze

Humbled to their gnarly knees:

Forest lords, beneath whose sheen

Flowers bloomed for Mariline.

Round the cottage, fresh and green,

Climbed the vine, the scarlet bean,

Morning-glories peeped between,

Looking out for Mariline.

Odours never felt before

Tranced the locust at the door,

Vieing with the mignonette

Bound the garden parapet,

Whose rare fragrances were met

By rich perfumes, rarer yet,

Stealing from the garden walks,

Sentineled with hollyhocks.

VIII.

What a heaven the cottage seemed!

Love's own temple, where Faith dreamed

Of the coming years that beamed

On them, as pale stars have gleamed

{35}

Through unnavigated seas,

To which the prophetic breeze

Whispered of a future day,

When swift fleets would urge their way,

Through the waters cold and gray,

Like the dolphins at their play.

There the future Bride, and he,

Prince of love's knight-errantry,

Whose good shepherd arms must hold

This pet yeanling of the fold,

Gift of God so long foretold,

Gift beyond the price of gold.

There the parents, aged and hale,

Passing down life's autumn vale,

With a joy as rare and true

As their daughter's eye of blue,

With such hopes as reach up to

Heaven's gate, when, passing through,

Peris, bound for higher skies,

Win the Celestial Paradise.

IX.

Thoughtfully stood Mariline,

Whitely veiled, and soul-serene;

Love's fair world for her demesne,

Never looked she more a queen—

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With her maidens by her side,

Smiling on the coming bride.

Her pet lamb, with comic mirth,

Licked her hand and scampered forth;

The fine sheep-dog, on the hearth,

Kindly eyed her for her worth.

X.

Up the air, across the moor,

As they left the cottage door,

Chimed the merry village-hells,

Music-wrapt the neighbouring fells,

Stirred the heart's awakened cells,

Like fine strains from fairy dells.

Past the orchard, down the lane,

By fresh wavy fields of grain,

By the brook, that told its love

To the pasture, glen, and grove—

Sacred haunts, that well could prove

Vows enregistered above.

By the restless mill, where stood,

Bowing in his amplest mood,

The old miller, hat in hand,

Rich in goodness, rich in land,

On whose features, grave and bland,

Glowed a blessing for the band.

{37}

Through the village, where, behind

Many a half-uplifted blind,

Eyes, that might have lit the skies

Of Mahomet's Paradise,

Flashed behind the curtains' dyes,

With a cheerful, half-surprise.

Through the village, underneath,

Many a blooming flower-wreath,

Garlanding the arches green

Beared in honour of the queen

Of this day of days serene,

Day of days to Mariline.

To the church, whose cheering bells

Told the tale in music-swells—

Told it to the country wide,

With an earnest kind of pride—

Something not to be denied—

"Mariline must be a Bride!"

XI.

Up the aisle with solemn pace,

Meeting God there, face to face.

Never Bride more chaste or fair

Stood before His altar there,

Her ripe heart aflame with prayer,

Blessing Him for all His care:

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Every earthly promise given,

Registered with joy in heaven.

From the galleries looked down,

Village belle and country clown,

Men with honest labour brown,

Far removed from mart or town:

Smiling with a zealous pride

On the shepherd and his bride—

Playmates of their early days;

For their walks in wisdom's ways,

Ever crowned with honoured bays

Of esteem and ardent praise.

XII.

Well done, servant of the Lord!

Grave expounder of His Word,

Who in distant Galilee

Graced the marriage feast, that He,

With all due solemnity,

Might commission such as thee

To do likewise, and unite

Souls like these in marriage plight.

With what manly, gentle pride,

The glad Shepherd clasps his Bride!

Love like theirs, so true and tried,

Ever true love must abide!

{39}

XIII.

Ye whose souls are strong and firm,

In whom love's electric germ

Has been fanned into a flame

At the mention of a name;

Ye whose souls are still the same

As when first the Victor came,

Stinging every nerve to life,

In the beatific strife,

Till the man's divinest part

Ruled triumphant in the heart,

And, with shrinking, sudden start,

The bleak old world stood apart,

Periling the wild Ideal

By the presence of the Real:

Ye, and ye alone, can know

How these twain souls burn and glow,

Can interpret every throe

Of the full heart's overflow,

That imparts that light serene

To the brow of Mariline.

{40}

THE HAPPY HARVESTERS.

A CANTATA.

I.

Autumn, like an old poet in a haze

Of golden visions, dreams away his days,

So Hafiz-like that one may almost hear

The singer's thoughts imbue the atmosphere;

Sweet as the dreamings of the nightingales

Ere yet their songs have waked the eastern vales,

Or stirred the airy echoes of the wood

That haunt the forest's social solitude.

His thoughts are pastorals; his days are rife

With the calm wisdom of that inner life

That makes the poet heir to worlds unknown,

All space his empire, and the sun his throne.

As the bee stores the sweetness of the flowers,

So into autumn's variegated hours

Is hived the Hybla richness of the year;

Choice souls imbibing the ambrosial cheer,

As autumn, seated on the highest hills,

Gleans honied secrets from the passing rills;

While from below, the harvest canzonas

Link vale to mountain with a chain of praise.

Foremost among the honoured sons of toil

Are they who overcome the stubborn soil;

Brave Cincinnatus in his country home

Was even greater than when lord of Rome.

Down sinks the sun behind the lofty pines

That skirt the mountain, like the straggling lines

{41}

Of Ceres' army looking from the height

On the dim lowlands deepening into night;

Soft-featured twilight, peering through the maze,

Sees the first starbeam pierce the purple haze;

Through all the vales the vespers of the birds

Cheer the young shepherds homeward with their herds;

And the stout axles of the heavy wain

Creak 'neath the fulness of the ripened grain,

As the swarth builders of the precious load,

Returning homewards, sing their Autumn Ode.

AUTUMN ODE.

God of the Harvest! Thou, whose sun

Has ripened all the golden grain,

We bless Thee for Thy bounteous store,

The cup of Plenty running o'er,

The sunshine and the rain.

The year laughs out for very joy,

Its silver treble echoing

Like a sweet anthem through the woods,

Till mellowed by the solitudes

It folds its glossy wing.

But our united voices blend

From day to day unweariedly;

Sure as the sun rolls up the morn,

Or twilight from the eve is born,

Our song ascends to Thee.

{42}

Where'er the various-tinted woods,

In all their autumn splendour dressed,

Impart their gold and purple dyes

To distant hills and farthest skies

Along the crimson west:

Across the smooth, extended plain,

By rushing stream and broad lagoon,

On shady height and sunny dale,

Wherever scuds the balmy gale,

Or gleams the autumn moon:

From inland seas of yellow grain,

Where cheerful Labour, heaven-blest,

With willing hands and keen-edged scythe,

And accents musically blythe,

Reveals its lordly crest:

From clover-fields and meadows wide,

Where moves the richly-laden wain

To barns well-stored with new-made hay,

Or where the flail at early day

Rolls out the ripened grain:

From meads and pastures on the hills,

And in the mountain valleys deep,

Alive with beeves and sweet-breathed kine

Of famous Ayr or Devon's line,

And shepherd-guarded sheep:

{43}

The spirits of the golden year,

From crystal caves and grottoes dim,

From forest depths and mossy sward,

Myriad-tongued, with one accord

Peal forth their harvest hymn.

II.

Their daily labour in the happy fields

A two-fold crop of grain and pleasure yields,

While round their hearths, before their evening fires,

Whore comfort reigns, whence weariness retires,

The level tracts, denuded of their grain,

In calm dispute are bravely shorn again,

Till some rough reaper, on a tide of song,

Like a bold pirate, captivates the throng:

A SONG FOR THE FLAIL.

A song, a song for the good old Flail,

And the brawny arms that wield it,

Hearty and hale, in our yeoman mail,

Like intrepid knights we'll shield it.

We are old nature's peers,

Right royal cavaliers!

Knights of the Plough! for no Golden Fleece we sail,

We're Princes in our own right—our sceptre is the Flail.

A song, a song for the golden grain,

As it wooes the flail's embraces,

In wavy sheaves like a golden main,

With its bright spray in our faces.

{44}

Mirth hastens at our call,

Jovial hearts have we all!

Knights of the Plough! for no Golden Fleece we sail,

We're Princes in our own right—our sceptre is the Flail.

A song, a song for the good old Flail,

That our fathers used before us;

A song for the Flail, and the faces hale

Of the queenly dames that bore us!

We are old nature's peers,

Right royal cavaliers!

Knights of the Plough! for no Golden Fleece we sail,

We're Princes in our own right—our sceptre is the Flail.

III.

Fair was the maid, and lovely as the morn

From starry Night and rosy Twilight born,

Within whose mind a rivulet of song

Rehearsed the strains that from her lips ere long

Welled free and sparkling, as the vocal woods

Repeat the day-spring's sweetest interludes.

Her gentle eyes' serenest depths of blue

Shrined love and truth, and all their retinue;

The health and beauty of her youthful face

Made it the Harem of each maiden grace;

And such perfection blended with her air,

She seemed some stately Goddess moving there:

Beholding her, you thought she might have been

The long-lost, flower-loving Proserpine:

{45}

AN AUTUMN CHANGE.

"Oh, dreamy autumn days!

I seek your faded ways,

As one who calmly strays

Through visions of the past;

I walk the golden hours,

And where I gathered flowers

The stricken leaves in showers

Are hurled upon the blast."

Thus mused the lonely maid,

As through the autumn glade,

With pensive heart, she strayed,

Regretting Love's delay;

In vain the traitor flies!

To pleading lips and eyes,

Sweet looks, and tender sighs,

He falls an easy prey.

"Oh, dreamy autumn days!

I tread your bridal ways,

As one who homeward strays,

Through realms divinely fair;

I walk Love's radiant hours,

Fragrant with passion flowers,

And blessings fall like dowers

Down the elysian air."

Thus mused the maiden now,

With sunny heart and brow,

For Love had turned his prow

{46}

Towards the Golden Isles,

Where from Pierean springs

The soul of Music sings

Its sweet imaginings,

Through all the Land of Smiles.

IV.

Up the wide chimney rolls the social fire,

Warming the hearts of matron, youth, and sire;

Painting such grotesque shadows on the wall,

The stripling looms a giant stout and tall,

While they whose statures reach the common height

Seem spectres mocking the hilarious night.

From hand to hand the ripened fruit went round,

And rural sports a pleased acceptance found;

The youthful fiddler on his three-legged stool,

Fancied himself at least an Ole Bull;

Some easy bumpkin, seated on the floor,

Hunted the slipper till his ribs were sore;

Some chose the graceful waltz or lively reel,

While deeper heads the chess battalions wheel

Till some old veteran, compelled to yield,

More brave than skilful, vanquished, quits the field.

As a flushed harper, when the doubtful fight

Favors the prowess of some stately knight,

In stirring numbers of triumphal song

Upholds the spirits of the victor throng,

A sturdy ploughboy, wedded to the soil,

Thus sung the praises of the partner of his toil:

{47}

THE SOLDIERS OF THE PLOUGH.

No maiden dream, nor fancy theme,

Brown Labour's muse would sing;

Her stately mien and russet sheen

Demand a stronger wing,

Long ages since, the sage, the prince,

The man of lordly brow,

All honour gave that army brave,

The Soldiers of the Plough.

Kind heaven speed the Plough!

And bless the hands that guide it;

God gives the seed—

The bread we need,

Man's labour must provide it.

In every land, the toiling hand

Is blest as it deserves;

Not so the race who, in disgrace,

From honest labour swerves.

From fairest bowers bring rarest flowers,

To deck the swarthy brow

Of those whose toil improves the soil,

The Soldiers of the Plough.

Kind heaven speed the Plough!

And bless the hands that guide it;

God gives the seed—

The bread we need,

Man's labour must provide it.

{48}

Blest is his lot, in hall or cot,

Who lives as nature wills,

Who pours his corn from Ceres' horn,

And quaffs his native rills!

No breeze that sweeps trade's stormy deeps,

Can touch his golden prow;

Their foes are few, their lives are true,

The Soldiers of the Plough.

Kind heaven speed the Plough!

And bless the hands that guide it;

God gives the seed—

The bread we need,

Man's labour must provide it.

V.

Fast sped the rushing chariot of the Hours.

Without, the Harvest Moon, through fleecy bowers

Of hazy cloudlets, swept her graceful way,

Proud as an empress on her marriage-day;

The admiring planets lit her stately march

With smiles that gleamed along the silent arch,

And all the starry midnight blazed with light,

As if 'twere earth and heaven's nuptial-night;

The cock crowed, certain that the day had broke,

The aged house-dog suddenly awoke,

And bayed so loud a challenge to the moon,

From the old orchard fled the thievish 'coon;

Within, the lightest hearts that ever beat

Still found their harmless pleasures pure and sweet;

The fire still burned on the capacious hearth,

In sympathy with the redundant mirth;

{49}

Old graybeards felt the glow of youth revive,

Old matrons smiled upon the human hive,

Where life's rare nectar, fit for gods to sip,

In forfeit kisses passed from lip to lip.

Be hushed rude Mirth! as merry as the May

Is she who comes to sing her roundelay:

CLAIRE.

Whither now, blushing Claire?

Maid of the sylph-like air,

Blooming and debonair,

Whither so early?

Chasing the merry morn,

Down through the golden corn?

List'ning the hunter's horn

Ring through the barley?

"Flowerets fresh and fair,"

Answered the blushing Claire,

"Fit for my bridal hair,

Bloom 'mongst the barley;

Hark! 'tis the hunter's horn,

Waking the sylvan morn,

And through the yellow corn

Comes my brave Charlie."

Through the dew-dripping grain

Pressed the heart-stricken swain,

Crushed with a weight of pain,

{50}

Drooped like the barley;

Ah! timid shepherd boy!

Man's love should ne'er be coy,

Sweet is Claire's maiden joy,

Kissing her Charlie!

VI.

A pleasant soul as ever trilled a song

Was hers who warbled "Claire." All the day long

Her voice was ringing like a bridal bell;

Gladness and joy leaped up at every swell;

And love was deeper, warmer, for the tone

That clasped the heart like an enchanted zone.

A youth was there more comely than the rest,

One who could turn a furrow with the best,

Compete for manly strength and portly air,

Or wield a scythe with any reaper there.

The spirit of her voice had moved above

The waters of his soul, and waked his song to Love:

BALLAD.

"Come tell me, merry Brooklet, of a gentle Maid I seek,

Thou'lt know her by the freshness of the rose upon her cheek;

Her eyes are chaste and tender, and so serenely bright,

You can read her heart's pure secrets by their warm religious light."

{51}

"The Maid has not come hither," said the Brooklet in reply;

"I've listened for her footfall ere the stars were in the sky;

The Fountain has been singing of a Maid, with eyes so bright

You may read the cherished secrets of her bosom by their light."

"Pray tell me, merry Brooklet, what saith her thoughts of one

Who wronged her loving nature ere the setting of the sun?

What say they of yon autumn moon that smiles so mournfully

On the slowly-dying season, and the blasted moorland tree?"

"She sitteth by the Fountain," the Brook replied again,

"Her heart as pure as heaven, and her thoughts without a stain;

'Oh, fickle moon, and changeful man!' she saith, 'a year ago

All the paths were true-love-lighted where I'm groping now in woe.'

"She sitteth by the Fountain, the gentle mists arise,

And kiss away the tear-pearls that tremble in her eyes,

The Fountain singeth to me that the Maiden in her dream

Shrinks as the vapours claim her as the Oread of the stream."

{52}

Off sped the merry Streamlet adown the sloping vale;

The Shepherd seeks the Fountain, where sits the Maiden pale;

And to the wandering Brooklet, through many a lonely wild,

The burden of the Fountain was, that Love was reconciled.

VII.

But soon the Morn, on many a distant height,

Fingers the raven locks of lingering Night;

The last dark shadows that precede the day

Have stripped the splendour from the Milky Way;

And Nature seems disturbed by fitful dreams,

As one who shudders when the owlet screams;

The painful burden of the Whippoorwill,

Like a vague Sorrow, floats from hill to hill;

Along the vales the doleful accents run,

Where the white vapours dread the burning sun;

While human voices stir the haunted air,

One sings "the Plough," another warbles "Claire:"

The Happy Harvesters, a lightsome throng,

Dispersing homewards, prove the excellence of Song.

{53}

THE FALLS OF THE CHAUDIÈRE, OTTAWA.

I have laid my cheek to Nature's, placed my puny hand in hers,

Felt a kindred spirit warming all the life-blood of my face,

Moved amid the very foremost of her truest worshippers,

Studying each curve of beauty, marking every minute grace;

Loved not less the mountain cedar than the flowers at its feet,

Looking skyward from the valley, open-lipped as if in prayer,

Felt a pleasure in the brooklet singing of its wild retreat,

But I knelt before the splendour of the thunderous Chaudière.

All my manhood waked within me, every nerve had tenfold force,

And my soul stood up rejoicing, looking on with cheerful eyes,

Watching the resistless waters speeding on their downward course,

Titan strength and queenly beauty diademed with rainbow dyes.

Eye and ear, with spirit quickened, mingled with the lovely strife,

Saw the living Genius shrined within her sanctuary fair,

{54}

Heard her voice of sweetness singing, peered into her hidden life,

And discerned the tuneful secret of the jubilant Chaudière:

"Within my pearl-roofed shell,

Whose floor is woven with the iris bright,

Genius and Queen of the Chaudière I dwell,

As in a world of immaterial light.

My throne, an ancient rock,

Marked by the foot of ages long-departed,

My joy, the cataract's stupendous shock,

Whose roll is music to the grateful-hearted.

I've seen the eras glide

With muffled tread to their eternal dreams,

While I have lived in vale and mountain side,

With leaping torrents and sweet purling streams.

The Red-Man's active life;

His love, pride, passions, courage, and great deeds;

His perfect freedom, and his thirst for strife;

His swift revenge, at which the memory bleeds:

The sanguinary years,

When sullen Terror, like a raging Fate,

Swept down the stately tribes like slaughtered deers,

And war and hatred joined to decimate

The remnants of the race,

And spread decay through centuries of pain—

No more I mark their sure, avenging pace,

And forests wave where war-whoops shook the plain.

{55}

Their deeds I envied not.

The royal tyrant on his purple throne,

I, in secluded grove or shady grot,

Had purer joys than he had ever known,

God made the ancient hills,

The valleys and the solemn wildernesses,

The merry-hearted and melodious rills,

And strung with diamond dews the pine-trees' tresses;

But man's hand built the palace,

And he that reigns therein is simply man;

Man turns God's gifts to poison in the chalice

That brimmed with nectar in the primal plan.

Here I abide alone—

The wild Chaudière's eternal jubilee

Has such sweet divination in its tone,

And utters nature's truest prophecy

In thunderings of zeal!

I've seen the Atheist in terror start,

Awed to contrition by the strong appeal

That waked conviction in his doubting heart:

'Teachers speak throughout all nature,

From the womb of Silence born,

Heed ye not their words, O Scoffer?

Flinging back thy scorn with scorn!

To the desert spring that leapeth,

Pulsing, from the parched sod,

Points the famished trav'ler, saying—

'Brothers, here, indeed, is God!'

{56}

From the patriarchal fountains,

Sending forth their tribes of rills,

From the cedar-shadowed lakelets

In the hearts of distant hills,

Whispers softer than the moonbeams

Wisdom's gentle heart have awed,

Till its lips approved the cadence—

'Surely here, indeed, is God!'

Lo! o'er all, the Torrent Prophet,

An inspired Demosthenes,

To the Doubter's soul appealing,

Louder than the preacher-seas:

Dreamer! wouldst have nature spurn thee

For a dumb, insensate clod?

Dare to doubt! and these shall teach thee

Of a truth there lives a God!'

By day and night, for hours,

I watch the cataract's impulsive leap,

Refreshed and gladdened by the cheering showers

Wrung from the passion of the seething deep.

Pleased when the buried waves

Emerge again, like incorporeal hosts

Rising, white-sheeted, from their gloomy graves,

As if the depths had yielded up their ghosts.

And when the midnight storm

Enfolds the welkin in its robe of clouds,

Through the dim vapours of the cauldron swarm

The sheeted spectres in their whitest shrouds,

{57}

By the lightning's flash betrayed.

These gather from the insubstantial vapour

The lunar rainbows, which by them are made—

Woven with moonbeams by some starry taper,

To decorate the halls

Of my fair palace, whence I'm pained to see

Thy human brethren watch the waterfalls—

Not with such rev'rence as I've found in thee:

Too many with an eye

To speculation and the worldling's dreams;

Others, who seek from nature no reply,

Nor read the oral language of the streams.

But of the few who loved

The beautiful with grateful heart and soul,

Who looked on nature fondly, and were moved

By one sweet glance, as by the mighty whole:

Of these, the thoughtful few,

Thou wert the first to seek the inner temple,

And stand before the Priestess. Thou wert true

To nature and thyself. Be thy example

The harbinger of times

When the Chaudière's imposing majesty

Will awe the spirits of the heartless mimes

To worship God in truth, with nature's constancy."

{58}

Still I heard the mellow sweetness of her voice at intervals,

Mingling with the fall of waters, rising with the snowy spray,

Ringing through the sportive current like the joy of waterfalls,

Sending up their hearty vespers at the calmy close of day.

Loath to leave the scene of beauty, lover-like I stayed, and stayed,

Folding to my eager bosom memories beyond compare;

Deeper, stronger, more enduring than my dreams of wood and glade,

Were the eloquent appeals of the magnificent Chaudière.

E'en the solid bridge is trembling, whence I look my last farewell,

Dizzy with the roar and trampling of the mighty herd of waves,

Speeding past the rocky Island, steadfast as a sentinel,

Towards the loveliest bay that ever mirrored the Algonquin Braves.

Soul of Beauty! Genius! Spirit! Priestess of the lovely strife!

In my heart thy words are shrined, as in a sanctuary fair;

Echoes of thy voice of sweetness, rousing all my better life,

Ever haunt my wildest visions of the jubilant Chaudière.

{59}

A ROYAL WELCOME.

By England's side we stand,

We grasp her royal hand,

And pay her rightful homage through her Son;

Thank God for England's care!

Thank God for Britain's heir!

Our hearts go forth to meet him—we are one.

A loyal Province pours

Her thousands to her shores,

From iron-girt Superior to the sea;

We feel our youthful blood

Surge through us like a flood,

There's not a slave amongst us—we are free.

For none but Freemen know

The truly loyal throe

That gives heroic impulse to the Man—

The passion and the fire,

The chivalrous desire:

Our Fathers all were heroes—in the van.

And we, their ardent sons,

Through whom, triumphant, runs

The old intrepid attribute serene,

Would leave our chosen land,

Our homes, our forests grand,

To strike for England's honour and her Queen.

{60}

No soulless welcome we

Dare give to such as thee:

Be thou a bright example to the world;

Great in thy well-earned fame,

Beloved in heart and name,

Wherever Britain's banner is unfurled.

Through all our leafy glades,

Through all our green arcades,

The living torrents, sweeping in, evince

That from their manly hearts

The Yeoman chorus starts:

'Honour to England's Heir!—long live the Prince!'

Oh, England! in this hour

We own thy sov'reign pow'r;

To thee and thine our best affections cling,

And when thy crown is laid

On Royal Albert's head,

With heart and soul we'll shout—GOD SAVE THE KING!

{61}

MALCOLM.

Boy! this world has ever been

A bright, glad world to me;

Through each dark and checkered scene

God's sun shone lovingly.

But Content I've never known;

Hoping, trusting that the years,

With their April smiles and tears,

Would yet bring me one like thee

That I could call my own.

With thy soft and heavenly eyes

In deep and pensive calm,

I seem looking at the skies,

And wonder where I am!

Something more than princely blood

Courses in thy tranquil face:

When she lent thee such a grace,

Nature lit life's earnest flame

In her most queenly mood.

Such a sweet intelligence

Is stamped on every line,

Banqueting our craving sense

With minist'rings divine.

If thy Boyhood be so great,

What will be the coming Man,

Could we overleap the span?

Are there treasures in the mine,

To pay us, if we wait?

{62}

Doth the voice of Music live

In that majestic brain,

Waiting for the Hand to give

Expression to the strain?

Are there wells of Truth—pure, deep,

Where the patient diver, Thought,

Finds the pearl that has been sought

Many a weary age in vain,

Entrusted to thy keep.

Doth the fire of Genius burn

Within that ample brow?

Or some patient spirit yearn

For things that are not now?

Hidden in the over-soul

Of the Future, to be born

When the world has ceased its scorn,

When the sceptic's heart will bow

To the divine control.

Patiently we'll watch and hope,

And wait, alternately;

Trusting that, when time shall ope

The casket's mystery,

We will be made rich indeed

With the wonders it contains;

Rich beyond all previous gains;

Richer for thy thought and thee,

Beyond our greatest meed.

{63}

THE COMET—OCTOBER, 1858.

Erratic Soul of some great Purpose, doomed

To track the wild illimitable space,

Till sure propitiation has been made

For the divine commission unperformed!

What was thy crime? Ahasuerus' curse

Were not more stern on earth than thine in Heaven!

Art thou the Spirit of some Angel World,

For grave rebellion banished from thy peers,

Compelled to watch the calm, immortal stars,

Circling in rapture the celestial void,

While the avenger follows in thy train

To spur thee on to wretchedness eterne?

Or one of nature's wildest fantasies,

From which she flies in terror so profound,

And with such whirl of torment in her breast,

That mighty earthquakes yearn where'er she treads;

While War makes red its terrible right hand,

And Famine stalks abroad all lean and wan?

To us thou art as exquisitely fair

As the ideal visions of the seer,

Or gentlest fancy that e'er floated down

Imagination's bright, unruffled stream,

Wedding the thought that was too deep for words

To the low breathings of inspirèd song.

{64}

When the stars sang together o'er the birth

Of the poor Babe at Bethlehem, that lay

In the coarse manger at the crowded Inn,

Didst thou, perhaps a bright exalted star,

Refuse to swell the grand, harmonious lay,

Jealous as Herod of the birth divine?

Or when the crown of thorns on Calvary

Pierced the Redeemer's brow, didst thou disdain

To weep, when all the planetary worlds

Were blinded by the fulness of their tears?

E'en to the flaming sun, that hid his face

At the loud cry, "Lama Sabachthani!"

No rest! No rest! the very damned have that

In the dark councils of remotest Hell,

Where the dread scheme was perfected that sealed

Thy disobedience and accruing doom.

Like Adam's sons, hast thou, too, forfeited

The blest repose that never pillowed Sin?

No! none can tell thy fate, thou wandering Sphinx!

Pale Science, searching by the midnight lamp

Through the vexed mazes of the human brain,

Still fails to read the secret of its soul

As the superb enigma flashes by,

A loosed Prometheus burning with disdain.

{65}

AUTUMN.

If seasons, like the human race, had souls,

Then two artistic spirits live within

The Chameleon mind of Autumn—these,

The Poet's mentor and the Painter's guide.

The myriad-thoughted phases of the mind

Are truly represented by the hues

That thrill the forests with prophetic fire.

And what could painter's skill compared to these?

What palette ever held the flaming tints

That on these leafy hieroglyphs foretell

How set the ebbing currents of the year?

What poet's page was ever like to this,

Or told the lesson of life's waning days

More forcibly, with more of natural truth,

Than yon red maples, or these poplars, white

As the pale shroud that wraps some human corse?

And then, again, the spirit of a King,

Clothed with that majesty most monarchs lack,

Might fit old Autumn for his royal rule:

For here is kingly ermine, cloth of gold,

And purple robes well worthy to be worn

By the best monarch that e'er donned a crown.

Proclaim him Royal Autumn! Poet King!

The Laureate of the Seasons, whose rare songs

Are such as lyrist never hoped to fling

On the fine ear of an admiring world.

Autumn, the Poet, Painter, and true King!

His gorgeous Ideality speaks forth

{66}

From the rare colors of the changing leaves;

And the ripe blood that swells his purple veins

Is as the glowing of a sacred fire.

He walks with Shelley's spirit on the cliffs

Of the Ethereal Caucasus, and o'er

The summits of the Euganean hills;

And meets the soul of Wordsworth, in profound

And philosophic meditation, rapt

In some great dream of love towards

The human race. The cheery Spring may come,

And touch the dreaming flowers into life,

Summer expand her leafy sea of green,

And wake the joyful wilderness to song,

As a fair hand strikes music from a lyre:

But Autumn, from its daybreak to its close,

Setting in florid beauty, like the sun,

Robed with rare brightness and ethereal flame,

Holds all the year's ripe fruitage in its hands,

And dies with songs of praise upon its lips.

And then, the Indian Summer, bland as June:

Some Tuscarora King, Algonquin Seer,

Or Huron Chief, returned to smoke the Pipe

Of Peace upon the ancient hunting grounds;

The mighty shade in spirit walking forth

To feel the beauty of his native woods,

Flashing in Autumn vestures, or to mark

The scanty remnants of the scattered tribes

Wending towards their graves. Few Braves are left;

Few mighty Hunters; fewer stately Chiefs,

Like great Tecumseth fit to take the field,

And lead the tribes to certain victory,

{67}

Choosing annihilation to defeat:

But having run thy gauntlet of their days,

This Autumn remnant of some unknown race,

Nearing the Winter of their sad decay,

Fall like dry leaves into the lap of Time;

Their old trunks sapless, their tough branches bare,

And Fate's shrill war-whoop thund'ring at their heels.

{68}

COLIN.

Who'll dive for the dead men now,

Since Colin is gone?

Who'll feel for the anguished brow,

Since Colin is gone?

True Feeling is not confined

To the learned or lordly mind;

Nor can it be bought and sold

In exchange for an Alp of gold;

For Nature, that never lies,

Flings back with indignant scorn

The counterfeit deed, still-born,

In the face of the seeming wise,

In the Janus face of the huckster race

Who barter her truths for lies.

Who'll wrestle with dangers dire,

Since Colin is gone?

Who'll fearlessly brave the maniac wave,

Thoughtless of self, human life to save,

Unmoved by the storm-fiend's ire?

Who, Shadrach-like, will walk through fire,

Since Colin is gone?

Or hang his life on so frail a breath

That there's but a step 'twixt life and death?

For Courage is not the heritage

Of the nobly born; and many a sage

Has climbed to the temple of fame,

And written his deathless name

In letters of golden flame,

Who, on glancing down

{69}

From his high renown,

Saw his unlettered sire

Still by the old log fire,

Saw the unpolished dame—

And the dunghill from which he came.

Ah, ye who judge the dead

By the outward lives they led,

And not by the hidden worth

Which none but God can see;

Ye who would spurn the earth

That covers such as he;

Would ye but bare your hearts,

Cease to play borrowed parts,

And come down from your self-built throne:

How few from their house of glass,

As the gibbering secrets pass,

Would dare to fling, whether serf or king,

The first accusing stone!

Peace, peace to his harmless dust!

Since Colin is gone;

We can but hope and trust;

Man judgeth, but God is just;

Poor Colin is gone!

Had he faults? His heart was true,

And warm as the summer's sun.

Had he failings? Ay, but few;

'Twas an honest race he run.

Let him rest in the poor man's grave,

Ye who grant him no higher goal;

There may be a curse on the hands that gave,

But not on his simple soul!

{70}

MARGERY.

"Truth lights our minds as sunrise lights the world.

The heart that shuts out truth, excludes the light

That wakes the love of beauty in the soul;

And being foe to these, despises God,

The sole Dispenser of the gracious bliss

That brings us nearer the celestial gate.

They who might feed on rose-leaves of the True,

And grow in loveliness of heart and soul,

Catch at Deception's airy gossamers,

As children clutch at stars. To some, the world

Is a bleak desert, parched with blinding sand,

With here and there a mirage, fair to view,

But insubstantial as the visions born

Of Folly and Despair. Could we but know

How nigh we are to the true light of heaven;

In what a world of love we live and breathe;

On what a tide of truth our souls are borne!

Yet we're but bubbles in the whirl of life,

Mere flecks upon its ever-restless sea,

Meteors in its ever-changing sky.

Eternity alone is worth the thought

That we expend upon the passing hour,

Chasing the gaudy butterflies that lure

Our footsteps from the path that leads us home.

We will not see the beacon on the rock;

The prompter is unheeded; and the spark

Of the true spirit quenched in utter night,

As we rush headlong, wrecked on Error's shoals.

Some hearts will never open; all their wards

{71}

Have grown so rusty, that the golden key

Of Love Divine must fail to move the bolt

That Self has drawn to keep God's angels out."

So spake the merry Margery, the while

Her fingers lengthened out a filigree,

That seemed to me so many golden threads

Of thought between her fingers and her brain,

Bestrung with priceless pearls; her lightsome mood,

Worn as occasion might necessitate,

Replaced to-night by sober-sided Sense,

That made her beauty like an eve in June,

Just as the moon is risen. I, to mark

My approbation of her present mood,

Rehearsed a rambling lyric of my own,

That seemed prophetic of her thoughts to-night:

Within my mind there ever lives

A yearning for the True,

The Beautiful and Good. God gives

These, as He gives the dew

That falls upon the flowers at night,

The grass, the thirsty trees,

Because 'tis needful; and the light

That suns my mind from these—

Truth—Beauty—Goodness, doth but fill

A void within my soul;

And I fall prone before the Will

Of Him who gave the whole—

{72}

The wondrous life—the power to think,

And love, and act, and speak.

Standing, half-poised, upon the brink

Of being—strong, yet weak—

Strong in vast hopes, but weak in deeds,

I lift my heart and pray,

That where the tangled skein of creeds

Excludes the light of day

From human minds, God's purposes

May be made plain, that all

May walk in truth's and wisdom's ways,

And lay aside the thrall

Of enmity, whose clouds have kept

Their souls as dark as night;

That they whose love and hope have slept,

May come into the light,

And live as men, with minds to grasp

Within the sphere of thought

The boundless universe, and clasp

The good the wise have sought,

As if it were a long-lost dove,

Or a stray soul returned

To worship in the fane of love,

That it so long had spurned.

Where'er I gaze, my eyes behold

Nought but the beautiful.

The world is grand as it is old;

The only fitting school

{73}

For man, where he may learn to live,

And live to learn that what

He needs heaven will in mercy give.

Whatever be his lot,

He shapes it for himself; his mind

Is his own heaven or hell:

Just as he peoples it, he'll find

Himself compelled to dwell

With good or evil. Good abounds

In this delightful sphere;

But man will walk his daily rounds,

And evermore give ear

To the false promptings that waylay

His steps at every turn;

Flinging the true and good away

For joys that he should spurn,

As being all unworthy of

His greatness as a man.

Why, man!—why tremble at the scoff

Of fools and bigots? Scan

The mental firmament, and see

How men in every age,

Who strove for immortality—

Whose errand was to wage

Not War, but Peace—men of pure minds,

Who sought and found the truth,

And treasured it, as one who finds

The secret of lost Youth

{74}

Restored and made immortal—see

How they were scorned, because

Their Sphinx-lives spake of mystery

To those to whom the laws

Of nature are as claspèd books!—

Poets, who ruled the world

Of Thought; in whose prophetic looks

And minds there lay impearled,

But hidden from the vulgar sight,

Such universal truths,

That many, blinded by the light—

Gray-haired, green-gosling youths,

With whips of satire, looks of scorn,

And finger of disdain,

Have crushed these harbingers of morn,

But could not kill the strain

That was a part of nature's mind,

And therefore can not die.

That which men spurned, angels have shrined

Among God's truths on high.

And so 't will ever be, till man

Knows more of Goodness, Truth,

And Beauty—more of nature's plan,

And Love that brings back youth

To hearts that have grown frail and old

By groping in the dark

With blinded eyes; their idol, Gold,

And Gain, their Pleasure-bark!

{75}

"'Tis well that nature hath her ministers,"

She said, her voice and looks so passing sweet;

"Great-hearts that let in love, and keep it there,

Like the true flame within the diamond's heart,

Informing, blessing, chastening their lives.

Man has but one great love—his love for God;

All other loves are lesser and more less

As they recede from Him, as are the streams

The farthest from the fountain. God is Love.

Who loves God most, loves most his fellow-men;

Sees the Creator in the creature's form

Where others see but man—and he, so frail

The very devils are akin to him!

There is no light that is not born of love;

No truth where love is not its guiding star;

Faith without love is noonday without sun,

For love begetteth works both good and true,

And these give faith its immortality."

We parted at the outer door. The stars

Seemed never half so bright or numberless

As they appeared to-night. Margery's laugh

Tripped after me in merry cadences,

Like the quick steps of fairies in the air

United to the chorus of their hearts

Breathed into silvery music. Happy soul!

Nature's epitome in all her moods.

{76}

EVA.

"God bless the darling Eva!" was my prayer.

A pure, unconscious depth of earnestness

Was in her eyes, so indescribable

You might as well the color of the air

Seek to daguerreotype, or to impress

A stain upon the river, whose first swell

Would swirl it to the deep. A calm, sweet soul,

Where Love's celestial saints and ministers

Did hold the earthly under such control

Virtue sprung up like daisies from the sod.

Oh, for one hour's sweet excellence like hers!

One hour of sinlessness, that never more

Can visit me this side the Silent Shore,

To stand, like her, serene, unblushing before God!

{77}

THE POET'S RECOMPENSE.

His heart's a burning censer, filled with spice

From fairer vales than those of Araby,

Breathing such prayers to heaven, that the nice

Discriminating ear of Deity

Can cull sweet praises from the rare perfume.

Man cannot know what starry lights illume

The soaring spirit of his brother man!

He judges harshly with his mind's eyes closed;

His loftiest understanding cannot scan

The heights where Poet-souls have oft reposed;

He cannot feel the chastened influence

Divine, that lights the Ideal atmosphere,

And never to his uninspirèd sense

Rolls the majestic hymn that inspirates the Seer.

{78}

THE WINE OF SONG.

Within Fancy's Halls I sit, and quaff

Rich draughts of the Wine of Song,

And I drink, and drink,

To the very brink

Of delirium wild and strong,

Till I lose all sense of the outer world,

And see not the human throng.

The lyral chords of each rising thought

Are swept by a hand unseen;

And I glide, and glide,

With my music bride,

Where few spiritless souls have been;

And I soar afar on wings of sound,

With my fair AEolian Queen.

Deep, deeper still, from the springs of Thought

I quaff, till the fount is dry;

And I climb, and climb,

To a height sublime,

Up the stars of some lyric sky,

Where I seem to rise upon airs that melt

Into song as they pass by.

Millennial rounds of bliss I live,

Withdrawn from my cumbrous clay,

As I sweep, and sweep,

Through infinite deep

On deep of that starry spray;

Myself a sound on its world-wide round,

A tone on its spheral way.

{79}

And wheresoe'er through the wondrous space

My soul wings its noiseless flight,

On their astral rounds

Float divinest sounds,

Unseen, save by spirit-sight,

Obeying some wise, eternal law,

As fixed as the law of light.

But, oh, when my cup of dainty bliss

Is drained of the Wine of Song,

How I fall, and fall,

At the sober call

Of the body, that waiteth long

To hurry me back to its cares terrene,

And earth's spiritless human throng.

{80}

THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM.

I stood upon the Plain,

That had trembled when the slain,

Hurled their proud, defiant curses at the battle-heated foe,

When the steed dashed right and left,

Through the bloody gaps he cleft,

When the bridle-rein was broken, and the rider was laid low.

What busy feet had trod

Upon the very sod

Where I marshalled the battalions of my fancy to my aid!

And I saw the combat dire,

Heard the quick, incessant fire,

And the cannons' echoes startling the reverberating glade.

I saw them, one and all,

The banners of the Gaul

In the thickest of the contest, round the resolute Montcalm;

The well-attended Wolfe,

Emerging from the gulf

Of the battle's fiery furnace, like the swelling of a psalm.

{81}

I heard the chorus dire,

That jarred along the lyre

On which the hymn of battle rung, like surgings of the wave

When the storm, at blackest night,

Wakes the ocean in affright,

As it shouts its mighty pibroch o'er some shipwrecked vessel's grave.

I saw the broad claymore

Flash from its scabbard, o'er

The ranks that quailed and shuddered at the close and fierce attack;

When Victory gave the word,

Then Scotland drew the sword,

And with arm that never faltered drove the brave defenders back.

I saw two great chiefs die,

Their last breaths like the sigh

Of the zephyr-sprite that wantons on the rosy lips of morn;

No envy-poisoned darts,

No rancour, in their hearts,

To unfit them for their triumph over death's impending scorn.

And as I thought and gazed,

My soul, exultant, praised

The Power to whom each mighty act and victory are due,

{82}

For the saint-like Peace that smiled

Like a heaven-gifted child,

And for the air of quietude that steeped the distant view.

The sun looked down with pride,

And scattered far and wide

His beams of whitest glory till they flooded all the Plain;

The hills their veils withdrew,

Of white, and purplish blue,

And reposed all green and smiling 'neath the shower of golden rain.

Oh, rare, divinest life

Of Peace, compared with Strife!

Yours is the truest splendour, and the most enduring fame;

All the glory ever reaped

Where the fiends of battle leaped,

Is harsh discord to the music of your undertoned acclaim.

{83}

DEATH OF WOLFE.

"They run! they run!"—"Who run?" Not they

Who faced that decimating fire

As coolly as if human ire

Were rooted from their hearts;

They run, while he who led the way

So bravely on that glorious day,

Burns for one word with keen desire

Ere waning life departs!

"They run! they run!"—"Who run?" he cried,

As swiftly to his pallid brow,

Like crimson sunlight upon snow,

The anxious blood returned;

"The French! the French!" a voice replied,

When quickly paled life's ebbing tide,

And though his words were weak and low

His eye with valour burned.

"Thank God! I die in peace," he said;

And calmly yielding up his breath,

There trod the shadowy realms of death

A good man and a brave;

Through all the regions of the dead,

Behold his spirit, spectre-led,

Crowned with the amaranthine wreath

That blooms not for the slave.

{84}

BROCK.

OCTOBER 13TH, 1859.*

One voice, one people, one in heart

And soul, and feeling, and desire!

Re-light the smouldering martial fire,

Sound the mute trumpet, strike the lyre,

The hero deed can not expire,

The dead still play their part.

Raise high the monumental stone!

A nation's fealty is theirs,

And we are the rejoicing heirs,

The honored sons of sires whose cares

We take upon us unawares,

As freely as our own.

We boast not of the victory,

But render homage, deep and just,

To his—to their—immortal dust,

Who proved so worthy of their trust

No lofty pile nor sculptured bust

Can herald their degree.

No tongue need blazon forth their fame—

The cheers that stir the sacred hill

Are but mere promptings of the will

That conquered then, that conquers still;

And generations yet shall thrill

At Brock's remembered name.

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Some souls are the Hesperides

Heaven sends to guard the golden age,

Illuming the historic page

With records of their pilgrimage;

True Martyr, Hero, Poet, Sage;

And he was one of these.

Each in his lofty sphere sublime

Sits crowned above the common throng,

Wrestling with some Pythonic wrong,

In prayer, in thunder, thought, or song;

Briarcus-limbed, they sweep along,

The Typhons of the time.

* The day of the inauguration of the new Monument on Queenston Heights.

{86}

SONG FOR CANADA.

Sons of the race whose sires

Aroused the martial flame

That filled with smiles

The triune Isles,

Through all their heights of fame!

With hearts as brave as theirs,

With hopes as strong and high,

We'll ne'er disgrace

The honoured race

Whose deeds can never die.,

Let but the rash intruder dare

To touch our darling strand,

The martial fires

That thrilled our sires

Would flame throughout the land.

Our lakes are deep and wide,

Our fields and forests broad;

With cheerful air

We'll speed the share,

And break the fruitful sod;

Till blest with rural peace,

Proud of our rustic toil,

On hill and plain

True kings we'll reign,

The victors of the soil.

But let the rash intruder dare

{87}

To touch our darling strand,

The martial fires

That thrilled our sires

Would light him from the land.

Health smiles with rosy face

Amid our sunny dales,

And torrents strong

Fling hymn and song

Through all the mossy vales;

Our sons are living men,

Our daughters fond and fair;

A thousand isles

Where Plenty smiles,

Make glad the brow of Care.

But let the rash intruder dare

To touch our darling strand,

The martial fires

That thrilled our sires

Would flame throughout the land.

And if in future years

One wretch should turn and fly,

Let weeping Fame

Blot out his name

From Freedom's hallowed sky;

Or should our sons e'er prove

A coward, traitor race,—

Just heaven! frown

In thunder down,

T' avenge the foul disgrace!

{88}

But let the rash intruder dare

To touch our darling strand,

The martial fires

That thrilled our sires

Would light him from the land.

{89}

SONG—I'D BE A FAIRY KING.

Oh, I'd be a Fairy King,

With my vassals brave and bold;

We'd hunt all day,

Through the wildwood gay,

In our guise of green and gold;

And we'd lead such a merry, merry life,

That the silly, toiling bee,

Would have no sweet

In its dull retreat,

So rich as our frolic glee.

I'd be a Fairy King,

With my vassals brave and bold;

We'd hunt all day,

Through the wildwood gay,

In our guise of green and gold.

At night, when the moon spake down,

With her bland and pensive tone,

The fairest Queen

That ever was seen

Would sit on my pearly throne;

And we'd lead such a merry, merry life,

That the stars would laugh in show'rs

Of silver light,

All the summer night,

To the airs of the passing Hours.

I'd be a Fairy King,

With my vassals brave and bold;

We'd hunt all day

Through the wildwood gay,

In our guise of green and gold.

{90}

We'd talk with the dainty flow'rs,

And we'd chase the laughing brooks;

My merry men,

Through grove and glen,

Would search for the mossy nooks;

And we'd be such a merry, merry band,

Such a lively-hearted throng,

That life would seem

But a silvery dream

In the flowery Land of Song.

I'd be a Fairy King,

With my vassals brave and bold;

We'd hunt all day,

Through the wildwood gay,

In our guise of green and gold.

{91}

SONG—LOVE WHILE YOU MAY.

Day by day, with startling fleetness,

Life speeds away;

Love, alone, can glean its sweetness,

Love while you may.

While the soul is strong and fearless,

While the eye is bright and tearless,

Ere the heart is chilled and cheerless—

Love while you may.

Life may pass, but love, undying,

Dreads no decay;

Even from the grave replying,

"Love while you may."

Love's the fruit, as life's the flower;

Love is heaven's rarest dower;

Love gives love its quick'ning power—

Love while you may.

{92}

THE SNOWS.

UPPER OTTAWA.

Over the snows,

Buoyantly goes

The lumberers' bark canoe;

Lightly they sweep,

Wilder each leap,

Bending the white caps through.

Away! away!

With the speed of a startled deer,

While the steersman true,

And his laughing crew,

Sing of their wild career:

"Mariners glide

Far o'er the tide,

In ships that are staunch and strong;

Safely as they,

Speed we away,

Waking the woods with song."

Away! away!

With the flight of a startled deer,

While the laughing crew

Of the swift canoe

Sing of the raftsmen's cheer:

"Through forest and brake,

O'er rapid and lake,

We're sport for the sun and rain;

Free as the child

Of the Arab wild,

Hardened to toil and pain.

{93}

Away! away!

With the speed of a startled deer,

While our buoyant flight,

And the rapid's might,

Heighten our swift career."

Over the snows

Buoyantly goes

The lumberers' bark canoe;

Lightly they sweep,

Wilder each leap,

Tearing the white caps through.

Away! away!

With the speed of a startled deer;

There's a fearless crew

In each light canoe,

To sing of the raftsmen's cheer.

{94}

THE RAPID.

ST. LAWRENCE.

All peacefully gliding,

The waters dividing,

The indolent bátteau moved slowly along,

The rowers, light-hearted,

From sorrow long parted,

Beguiled the dull moments with laughter and song:

"Hurrah for the Rapid! that merrily, merrily

Gambols and leaps on its tortuous way;

Soon we will enter it, cheerily, cheerily,

Pleased with its freshness, and wet with its spray."

More swiftly careering,

The wild Rapid nearing,

They dash down the stream like a terrified steed;

The surges delight them,

No terrors affright them,

Their voices keep pace with their quickening speed:

"Hurrah for the Rapid! that merrily, merrily

Shivers its arrows against us in play;

Now we have entered it, cheerily, cheerily,

Our spirits as light as its feathery spray."

Fast downward they're dashing,

Each fearless eye flashing,

Though danger awaits them on every side;

Yon rock—see it frowning!

They strike—they are drowning!

But downward they speed with the merciless tide;

{95}

No voice cheers the Rapid, that angrily, angrily

Shivers their bark in its maddening play;

Gaily they entered it—heedlessly recklessly,

Mingling their lives with its treacherous spray!

{96}

LOST AND FOUND.

In the mildest, greenest grove

Blest by sprite or fairy,

Where the melting echoes rove,

Voices sweet and airy;

Where the streams

Drink the beams

Of the Sun,

As they run

Riverward

Through the sward,

A shepherd went astray—

E'en gods have lost their way.

Every bird had sought its nest,

And each flower-spirit

Dreamed of that delicious rest

Mortals ne'er inherit;

Through the trees

Swept the breeze,

Bringing airs

Unawares

Through the grove,

Until love

Came down upon his heart,

Refusing to depart.

Hungrily he quaffed the strain,

Sweeter still, and clearer,

Drenched with music's mellow rain,

Nearer—nearer—dearer!

{97}

Chains of sound

Gently bound

The lost Youth,

Till, in sooth,

He stood there

A prisoner,

Raised between earth and heaven

By love's divinest leaven.

Was there ever such a face?

Was it not a vision?

Had he climbed the starry space,

To the fields Elysian?

Through the glade

The milk-maid

With her pail,

To the vale

Passed along,

Breathing song

Through all his ravished sense,

To gladden his suspense.

"Love is swift as hawk or hind,

Chamois-like in fleetness,

None are lost that love can find,"

Sang the maid, with sweetness.

"True, in sooth,"

Thought the Youth,

"Strong, as swift,

Love can lift

{98}

Mountain weights

To the gates

Of the celestial skies,

Where all else fades and dies."

Lightly flew the sunny days,

Joy and gladness sending;

Life becomes a song of praise

When true hearts are blending.

Guileless truth

Won the Youth,

Kept him there,

A prisoner;

While dear Love

From above

Poured down enduring dreams,

In calm supernal gleams.

{99}

YOUNG AGAIN.

Young again! Young again!

Beating heart! I deemed that sorrow,

With its torture-rack of pain,

Had eclipsed each bright to-morrow;

And that Love could never rise

Into life's cerulean skies,

Singing the divine refrain—

"Young again! Young again!"

Young again! Young again!

Passion dies as we grow older;

Love that in repose has lain,

Takes a higher flight, and bolder:

Fresh from rest and dewy sleep,

Like the skylark's matin sweep,

Singing the divine refrain—

"Young again! Young again!"

Young again! Young again!

Book of Youth, thy sunny pages

Here and there a tear may stain,

But 'tis Love that makes us sages.

Love, Hope, Youth—blest trinity!

Wanting these, and what were we?

Who would chant the sweet refrain—

"Young again! Young again!"

{100}

GLIMPSES.

Sounds of rural life and labour!

Not the notes of pipe and tabour,

Not the clash of helm and sabre

Bright'ning up the field of glory,

Can compare with thy ovations,

That make glad the hearts of nations;

E'en the poet's fond creations

Pale before thy simple story.

In the years beyond our present,

King was little more than peasant,

Labour was the shining crescent,

Toil, the poor man's crown of glory;

Have we passed from worse to better

Since we wove the silken fetter,

Changed the plough for book and letter.

Truest life for tinsel story?

Up the ladder of the ages

Clomb the patriarchal sages,

Solving nature's secret pages,

Kings of thought's supremest glory;

Eagle-winged, and sight far reaching—

Are we wiser for their teaching?—

Wrangling creeds for gentle preaching!

Falsest life for truest story!

Man is overfraught with culture,

Virtue early finds sepulture,

While our vices sate the vulture

{101}

We misname a bird of glory;

Life is blindly artificial,

Rarely pass we its initial,

All our aims are prejudicial

To its earnest, simple story.

Hail, primeval life and labour!

Martial notes of pipe and tabour,

Gleam of spears and clash of sabre,

Hero march from fields of glory,

All the thundering ovations

Surging from the hearts of nations,

Poet dreams and speculations,

Pale before thy simple story!

{102}

MY PRAYER.

O God! forgive the erring thought,

The erring word and deed,

And in thy mercy hear the Christ

Who comes to intercede.

My sins, like mountain-weights of lead,

Weigh heavy on my soul;

I'm bruised and broken in this strife,

But Thou canst make me whole.

Allay this fever of unrest,

That fights against the Will;

And in Thy still small voice do Thou

But whisper, "Peace, be still!"

Until within this heart of mine

Thy lasting peace come down,

Will all the waves of Passion roll,

Each good resolve to drown.

We walk in blindness and dark night

Through half our earthly way;

Our clouds of weaknesses obscure

The glory of the day.

We cannot lead the lives we would,

But grope in dumb amaze,

Leaving the straight and flowery paths

To tread the crooked ways.

{103}

We are as pilgrims toiling on

Through all the weary hours;

And our poor hands are torn with thorns,

Plucking life's tempting flowers.

We worship at a thousand shrines,

And build upon the sands,

Passing the one great Temple, and

The Rock on which it stands.

O, fading dream of human life!

What can this change portend?

I long for higher walks, and true

Progression without end.

Here I know nothing, and my search

Can find no secret out;

I cannot think a single thought

That is not mixed with doubt.

Relying on the higher source,

The influence divine,

I can but hope that light may dawn

Within this soul of mine.

I ask not wisdom, such as that

To which the world is prone,

Nor knowledge ask, unless it come

Direct from God alone.

Send down then, God! in mercy send

Thy Love and Truth to me,

That I may henceforth walk in light

That comes direct from Thee.

{104}

HER STAR.

When the heavens throb and vibrate

All along their silver veins,

To the mellow storm of music

Sweeping o'er the starry trains,

Heard by few, as erst by shepherds

On the far Chaldean plains:

Not the blazing, torch-like planets,

Not the Pleiads wild and free,

Not Arcturus, Mars, Uranus,

Bring the brightest dreams to me;

But I gaze in rapt devotion

On the central star of three.

Central star of three that tingle

In the balmy southern sky;

One above, and one below it,

Dreamily they pale and die,

As two lesser minds might dwindle,

When some great soul, passing by,

Stops, and reads their cherished secrets,

With a calm and godlike air,

Luring all their radiance from them

Leaving a dim twilight there,

Something vague, and half unreal,

Like the Alpha of despair.

{105}

Gazing thus, and holding converse

With the silence of my heart,

I would speak with famed Orion,

I would question it apart,

Wrest her love's strange secret from it,

If there's strength in human art.

And there come to me sweet whispers,

Half in answer, half in thought:—

"Be but strong, impassioned mortal!

Love will come to thee unsought;

Love is the divine Irene,—

It is given, and not bought.

[Transcriber's note: In the original book,

the e's in the "Irene" in the above verse

were e-macrons, Unicode U+0113.]

Strong of heart. Be wise, be steadfast,

Learn, endeavour, and endure;

Blest with strength and light, in wisdom

Make the higher purpose sure;

Never can her heart receive thee

Till thine own is rendered pure.

I but shone in truth above her;

Psyche-like, she yearned to me,

And her soul, an Aphrodite,

Rose above the ether sea.

Love. Love should and will inherit

The divine Euphrosyne."

When at night, the gleaming heavens

Throb through all their starry veins,

Oft I ponder on Orion,

And I hear celestial strains

Passing through my soul, and flooding

All its green immortal plains.

{106}

Then I pray for strength Promethean,

Pray for power to endure;

Then I say, O soul, be steadfast!

Make the lofty purpose sure;

And that love may be all-worthy,

God of heaven, make me pure!

{107}

THE MYSTERY.

My mind is like a troubled sea

O'er which the winds forever sweep;

Within its depths, eternally,

My being's pulses throb and leap;

There germs of contemplation sleep,

Like stars beyond the Milky Way,—

Like pearls within the gloomy deep,

That never saw the light of day.

Oh, wondrous mind, how little known!

Whence comes the thought that through my brain

Floats weirdlike as the pleasing tone

That quickens a belovèd strain?

It may have graced some sweet refrain

A thousand years ago, or more;

Some Norman Prince, some valiant Dane,

May have imbibed it with their lore.

It may have strengthened Plato's soul,

Its clarion echoes ringing through

His brain, the heaven-reaching goal

Whence wisdom had its starry view;

It may have cheered the gifted few

Whose minds were mints of royal song,

Who toiled where Shakespeare soared, and drew

Down blessings from the grateful throng.

And on for ages yet to come,

Through minds by heavenly impulse fired,

That thought may strike some scorner dumb,

In all its regal guise attired;

{108}

Divinely blest, though uninspired,

Some soul may change its swift career,

Bearing the great truth, long-desired,

In triumph to the highest sphere.

Unbounded universe of Thought!

Illimitable realms of mind!

Regions of Fancy, wonder-fraught!

Imagination unconfined!

Temples of mystery! behind

Whose veils the God-appointed plan

In perfect wisdom is enshrined,

Beyond the pigmy reach of man:

I cannot—dare not—seek to know

What finite vision, to the end,

Through years of strictest search below,

Must ever fail to comprehend!

God! whose intents so far transcend

Our poor discernment, let me see

Some portion of the truths that tend

By slow gradations up to Thee:

That in the less imperfect years,

When human frailty shall have died,

When the vexed riddle of the spheres,

Interpreted and glorified,

Shall be as nothing to the tide

Of light in which Thy hidden ways

Will be revealed: I may abide

Thy meanest instrument of praise,

And from the broad calm ocean of Thy truth

And wisdom drinking, find eternal youth.

{109}

LOVE AND TRUTH.

Young Love sat in a rosy bower,

Towards the close of a summer day;

At the evening's dusky hour,

Truth bent her blessed steps that way;

Over her face

Beaming a grace

Never bestowed on child of clay.

Truth looked on with an ardent joy,

Wondering Love could grow so tired;

Hovering o'er him she kissed the boy,

When, with a sudden impulse fired,

Exquisite pains

Burning his veins,

Wildly he woke, as one inspired.

Eagerly Truth embraced the god,

Filling his soul with a sense divine;

Rightly he knew the paths she trod,

Springing from heaven's royal line;

Far had he strayed

From his guardian maid,

Perilling all for his rash design.

Still as they went, the tricksy youth

Wandered afar from the maiden fair;

Many a plot he laid, in sooth,

Wherein the maid could have no share

Sowing his seeds,

Bringing forth weeds,

Seldom a rose, and many a tare.

{110}

Save when the maiden was by his side,

Love was erratic, and rarely true;

When she smiled on the graceful bride,

Over the old world rose the new,

Into life's skies

Blending her dyes,

Fairer than those of the rainbow's hue.

Sunny-eyed maidens, whom Love decoys,

Mark well the arts of the wayward youth!

Sorrows he bringeth, disguised as joys,

Rose-hued delights with cores of ruth;

Learn to believe

Love will deceive,

Save when he comes with his guardian, Truth.

{111}

THE WREN.

Early each spring the little wren

Came scolding to his nest of moss;

We knew him by his peevish cry,

He always sung so very cross.

His quiet little mate would lay

Her eggs in peace, and think all day.

He was a sturdy little wren;

And when he came in spring, we knew,

Or seemed to know, the flowers would grow

To please him, where they always grew,

Among the rushes, cheerfully;

But not a rush so straight as he!

All summer long that little wren

Would chatter like a saucy thing;

And in the bush attack the thrush

That on the hawthorn perched to sing.

Like many noisy little men,

Lived, bragged, and fought that little wren.

There was a thoughtful maid, and I,

We used to play along the shore,

Searching for shells, and culling flowers,

As at the threshold of life's door,

Through which we had to pass, we stood,

Twin types of childish hardihood.

{112}

Year after year we gathered flowers,

And grew apace, as children do;

And each returning spring we marked

The little wrens, they never grew;

One over-quiet and sedate,

The other, a bird-reprobate.

But now the marsh is overflowed,

The rushes rot beneath the sand;

No spring brings back the little wrens,

No children loiter hand in hand;

The maiden rose-bud, pure and good,

Grown to the flower of womanhood.

{113}

GRANDPERE.

Old Grandpere gat in the corner,

With his grandchild on his knee,

Looking up at his wrinkled visage,

For his winters were ninety-three.

Fair Eleanor's locks were flaxen,

The old man's once were gray,

But now, they were white as the snow-drift

That lay on the bleak highway.

Her summers rolled on as golden

As waves over sunny seas;

But Grandpere could perceive no summers,

The winters alone were his.

He folded his arms around her,

Like Winter embracing Spring;

And the angels looked down from heaven,

And smiled on their slumbering.

But soon the angelic faces

Were filled with seraphic light,

As they gazed on a beauteous spirit

Passing up through the frosty night:

Till it stood serene before them,

A youth most divinely fair;

And they saw that the new-born angel

Was the spirit of old Grandpere.

{114}

ENGLAND'S HOPE AND ENGLAND'S HEIR.

England's Hope and England's Heir!

Head and crown of Britain's glory,

Be thy future half so fair

As her past is famed in story,

Then wilt thou be great, indeed,

Daring, where there's cause to dare;

Greatest in the hour of need,

England's Hope and England's Heir.

By her past, in acts supreme,

By her present grand endeavour,

By her future, which the gleam

Of our fond hopes brings us ever:

We can trust that thou wilt be

Worthy of a fame so rare,

Worthy of thy destiny,

England's Hope and England's Heir.

Be thy spirit fraught with hers,

Queen, whom we revere and honour;

Be thine acts love's messengers,

Brightly flashing back upon her;

Be what most her trust would deem,

Help the answer to her prayer,

Realize her holiest dream,

England's Hope and England's Heir.

Welcome, Prince! the land is wide,

Wider still the love we cherish;

Love that thou shalt find, when tried,

Is not born to droop and perish;

{115}

Welcome to our heart of hearts;

You will find no falsehood there,

But the zeal that truth imparts,

England's Hope and England's Heir.

Welcome to our woodland deeps,

To our inland lakes, and rivers,

Where the rapid roars and sweeps,

Where the brightest sunlight quivers.

Loyal souls can never fail;

Serfdom crouches in its lair;

But our British hearts are hale,

England's Hope and England's Heir.

{116}

ROSE.

When the evening broods quiescent

Over mountain, vale and lea,

And the moon uplifts her crescent

Far above the peaceful sea,

Little Rose, the fisher's daughter,

Passes in her cedar skiff

O'er the dreamy waste of water,

To the signal on the cliff.

Have a care, my merry maiden!

Young Adonis though he be,

Many hearts are secret-laden

That have trusted such as he.

Has he worth, and is he truthful?

Thoughtless maiden rarely knows;

But, "He's handsome, brave and youthful,"

Says the heart of little Rose.

Hark! the horn—its shrill vibrations

Tremble through the maiden's breast,

As the sweet reverberations

Dwindle to their whispered rest;

Sweeter far the honied sentence

Sealing up her mind's repose;

Love as yet needs no repentance

In the heart of little Rose.

Heaven shield thee, trusting mortal!

Love has heaved its firstborn sigh;

But from the pellucid portal

Of her calm, indignant eye,

{117}

Darts that make the strong man tremble

Pierce his bosom ere he goes;

Rank and station may dissemble,

There is truth in little Rose.

Take my hand, my fisher maiden,

There's a grasp for thee and thine;

Constancy is love's bright Aiden,

Self-denial is divine.

Take my hand upon this pláteau,

Let me share thy mortal throes;

Come, dear Love! we'll build our cháteau

In the heart of little Rose.

{118}

THE DREAMER.

Spirit of Song! whose whispers

Delight my pensive brain,

When will the perfect harmony

Ring through my feeble strain?

When will the rills of melody

Be widened to a stream!

When will the bright and gladsome Day

Succeed this morning dream?

"Mortal," the spirit whispered,

"If thou wouldst truly win

The race thou art pursuing,

Heed well the voice within:

And it shall gently teach thee

To read thy heart, and know

No human strain is perfect,

However sweet it flow.

And if thou readest truly,

As surely shalt thou find

That truths, like rills, though diverse,

Are choicest in their kind.

The souls of Poet-Dreamers

Touch heaven on their way;

With the light of Song to guide them

It should be always Day."

{119}

NIGHT AND MORNING.

The winds are piping loud to-night,

And the waves roll strong and high;

God pity the watchful mariner

Who toils 'neath yonder sky!

I saw the vessel speed away,

With a free, majestic sweep,

At evening as the sun went down

To his palace in the deep.

An aged crone sat on the beach,

And, pointing to the ship,

"She'll never return again," she said,

With a scorn upon her lip.

———

The morning rose tempestuous,

The winds blew to the shore,

There were corpses on the sands that morn,

But the ship came nevermore!

{120}

WITHIN THINE EYES.

Within thine eyes two spirits dwell,

The sweetest and the purest

That ever wove Love's mystic spell,

Or plied his arts the surest:

No smile of morn,

Though heaven-born,

Nor sunshine earthward straying,

E'er charmed the sight

With half the light

That round thy lips is playing.

The stars may shine, the moon may smile,

The earth in beauty languish,

Life's sorrows these can but beguile,

But thou canst heal its anguish.

Thy voice, like rills

Of silver, trills

Such sounds of liquid sweetness,

Each accent rolls

Along our souls,

In lyrical completeness.

If Friendship lend thee such a grace,

That men nor gods may slight it,

How blest the one who views thy face

When Love comes down to light it!

And, oh, if he

Who holds in fee

Thy beauty, truth, and reason,

A traitor prove

To thee and Love,

We'll spurn him for his treason.

{121}

GERTRUDE.

Underneath the maple-tree

Gertrude worked her filigree,

All the summer long;

To sweet airs her voice was wed,

As she plied her golden thread;

Echo stealing through the grove

Filched away the words of love,

And the birds, from tree to tree,

Bore the witching melody

Through avenues of Song.

Underneath the maple-trees

Zephyrs chant her melodies,

All the summer long;

Words and airs no longer wed,

Death has snapped the vocal thread

Echo sleeping in the grove

Dreams of liquid airs of love,

And the birds among the trees

Fill with sweetest symphonies

Whole avenues of Song.

{122}

FLOWERS.

Thank God I love the Flowers!

Mute voices of the Spring,

That gladden all her bowers

With their varied blossoming;

They weave a charm around them

On each summer dale and bough,

For a Fairy train has bound them

In wreaths upon her brow.

Far up along the mountain,

And in the valleys green,

In the field, and by the fountain,

The smiling ones are seen;

Some looking up to heaven,

With eyes of deepest blue;

Some stooping down at even

To quaff the sparkling dew.

And from them all there speaketh

A language sweet and pure,

Fitted for him who seeketh

A God's nomenclature.

As tidal pulses thrill the seas,

And moments build the hours,

Heaven breathes her unvoiced mysteries

In sermons from the Flowers.

{123}

THE UNATTAINABLE.

I yearn for the Unattainable;

For a glimpse of a brighter day,

When hatred and strife,

With their legions rife,

Shall forever have passed away;

When pain shall cease,

And the dawn of peace

Come down from heaven above,

And man can meet his fellow-man

In the spirit of Christian Love.

I yearn for the Unattainable;

For a Voice that may long be still,

To compel the mind,

As heaven designed,

To work the Eternal Will;

When the brute that sleeps

In the heart's still deeps

Will be changed to Pity's dove,

And man can meet his fellow-man

In the spirit of Perfect Love.

{124}

YEARNINGS.

I long for diviner regions,—

The spirit would reach its goal;

Though, this world hath surpassing beauty,

It warreth against the soul.

There's a cloud in the eastern heaven;

Beyond it, a cold gray sky;

But I know that the sun's rare radiance

Will brighten it by and by.

In the fane of my soul is glowing

The joy of a hope to come,

That will touch with its Memnon finger

The lips that are cold and dumb:

Till illumed by the smile of heaven,

And blest with a purer life,

Will the gloom that o'ershades my spirit

Depart like a vanquished strife.

{125}

INGRATITUDE.

Full on the wave the moonlight weeps,

To quiet its weary breast;

Cruelly cold the mad wave leaps,

With the moonshine on its crest;

Or with scowl, or growl, to the shore it creeps,

And sinks to its selfish rest.

Full on yon man-brute smiles the wife,

To gladden his turbid breast;

Savagely stern he seeks the life

Where he erewhile sought for zest;

With a curse, or worse, he ends the strife,

And sinks to his drunken rest.

Sea! has the moon no charms for thee

That can touch thy cruel breast?

Man! cannot woman's charity

Give ease to thy soul oppressed?

Thou shalt flee, O sea! the moon's witchery,

Till man has his final rest!

{126}

TRUE LOVE.

Her love is like the hardy flower

That blooms amid the Alpine snows;

Deep-rooted in an icy bower,

No blast can chill its sweet repose;

But fresh as is the tropic rose,

Drenched in mellowest sunny beams,

It has as sweet delicious dreams

As any flower that grows.

And though an avalanche came down

And robbed it of the light of day,

That which withstood the tempest's frown

In grief would never pine away.

Hope might withhold her feeblest ray,

Within her bosom's snowy tomb

Love still would wear its everbloom,

The gayest of the gay.

{127}

AN EVENING THOUGHT.

Bird of the fanciful plumage,

That foldest thy wings in the west,

Imbuing the shimmering ocean

With the hues of thy delicate breast,

Passing away into Dreamland,

To visions of heavenly rest!

Spirit! when thou art permitted

To bask in the sunset of life;

Serene in thine eventide splendour,

Thy countenance victory rife;

Leaving the world where thou'st triumphed

Alike o'er its greatness and strife:

Thine be the destiny, spirit,

To set like the sun in the west;

Folding thy wings of rare plumage,

Conscious of infinite rest,

Heralded on to thy haven,

The Fortunate Isles of the Blest.

{128}

A THOUGHT FOR SPRING.

I am happier for the Spring;

For my heart is like a bird

That has many songs to sing,

But whose voice is never heard

Till the happy year is caroling

To the daisies on the sward.

I'd be happier for the Spring,

Though my heart had grown so old

Like a crone 'twould sit and sing

Its shrill runes of wintry cold;

For I'd know the year was caroling

To the daisies on the wold.

{129}

THE SWALLOWS.

I asked the first stray swallow of the spring,

"Where hast thou been through all the winter drear?

Beneath what distant skies did'st fold thy wing,

Since thou wast with us here,

When Autumn's withered leaves foretold the passing year?"

And it replied, "Whither has Fancy led

The plumy thoughts that circle through thy brain?

Like birds about some mountain's lofty head,

Singing a sweet refrain:

There, without bound, I've been, and must return again."

{130}

SONG.—CLARA AND I.

We have a joke whenever we meet,

Clara and I;

Prattle and laughter, and kisses sweet,

Clara and I.

Were I but twenty, and not two score,

Clara and I would laugh still more,

With plenty of hopeful years in store

For Clara and I, Clara and I;

With plenty of hopeful years in store

For Clara and I.

We will be true as Damascus steel,

Clara and I;

Sealing our truth with a honied seal,

Clara and I.

Eyes so loving, and lips of rose,

Cheeks where the dainty ripe peach grows,

And mouth where the sly god smiles jocose

At Clara and I, Clara and I;

And mouth where the sly god smiles jocose

At Clara and I.

We have a kiss whenever we part,

Clara and I;

Grasping of hand, and flutter of heart,

Clara and I.

Were she but twenty, and not sixteen,

Over my love she'd reign the queen,

{131}

And no fair rival should come between

My Clara and I, Clara and I;

And no fair rival should come between

My Clara and I.

{132}

THE APRIL SNOW-STORM—1858.

Spread lightly, virgin shower,

Your winding-sheet of snow;

Winter has lost his power,

But mock not at his woe.

Fall not so cold and bleak,

Nor blow the breath of scorn;

Gently. Thy sire is weak;

And thou, his latest-born.

Frail type of life thou art:

At first, pure as the snow

We come—abide—depart;

What more, th' Immortals know.

Fall gently, virgin shower,

Though wild the west wind raves;

Watch through this midnight hour

Above the new-made graves!

———

Spread gently, virgin shower,

Your winding sheet of snow;

My heart has lost its power,

But mock not at its woe.

Fall not so cold and bleak,

Treat not her corse with scorn;

Gently. My heart is weak;

She, too, was April-born.

{133}

Fall gently, virgin shower;

The heart once strong and brave

Hath lost its wonted power;

'Tis buried in her grave.

{134}

GOOD NIGHT.

We never say, "Good Night;"

For our eager lips are fleeter

Than the tongue, and a kiss is sweeter

Than parting words,

That out like swords;

So we always kiss Good Night.

We never say "Good Night."

Words are precious, love, why lose 'em?

Fold them up in your maiden bosom;

There let them rest,

Like love unconfessed,

While we kiss a sweet Good Night.

There comes a last Good Night.

Human life—not love—is fleeting;

Heaven send many a birth-day greeting;

Dim years roll on

To life's gray-haired dawn,

Ere we kiss our last Good Night.

———

We've kissed our last Good Night!

Love's warm tendrils torn and bleeding,

Vain all human interceding!

Oh, life! how dark!

Its one vital spark

Was quenched with our last GOOD NIGHT!

{135}

HOPELESS.

I think through the long, long evenings,

Such thoughts of intensest pain,

And I hope and watch for her coming,

But I hope and watch in vain,

My life is a long, long journey

Over a barren moor,

With nought but my own dark shadow

Hastening on before.

I'm weary of all this watching,

Aweary of life and thought;

For there's little hope in the distance,

And for peace—I know it not!

Oh, why must we think and shudder,

And shudder and think again?

When life's but a dance of shadows

Haunting a barren plain!

{139}

INTO THE SILENT LAND.

I.

"Oh for a pen of light, a tongue of fire,

That every word might burn in living flame

Upon the age's brow, and leave one name

Engraven on the future! One desire

Fills every nook and cranny of my heart;

One hope—one sorrow—one belovèd aim!

She whose pure life was of my life a part,

As light is of the day, could she inspire

My unmelodious muse, or tune the lyre

To diapasons worthy of the theme,

How would her joy put on its robes of light,

And nestle in my bosom once again,

As when life, like an Oriental dream,

Fanned by Arabian airs, glode down the stream

To music whose remembrance is a pain.

The foot of time might trample on my strain,

But could not quench its essence. There was might,

And majesty, and greatness in the love

She blest me with—a blessing without stain,

And that was earthly; since her spirit-sight

Looked through the veil, and learned love's true delight,

Which sainted ministrants alone can prove

Who taste the waters of eternal love:

I pause to think how wonderful has grown

The love that was to me so wondrous here!

Chained as I am to this terrestrial sphere,

Groping my way through darkness, and alone,

{140}

Like a blind eaglet soaring towards the sun,

How would her full experience lift and cheer

The heart that never feels its duty done,

And with a girdle of pure light enzone

My flowery world of thought, and make it all her own."

Thus mused the Minstrel, for his heart was sad.

Death had bereaved him of his bride, while youth,

And looming years of future trust and truth,

Knit them together, till their souls were clad

With joy ineffable. Love's great High Priest

Sacrificed in their hearts to Him that doeth

All things well; and such rare, perpetual feast

Of love and truth no mortals ever had,

To keep their memories green, their lives serene and glad,

He sat again within the quiet room,

Where Death had snapped one golden thread of life,

And the pale hand of Sickness, sorrow-rife,

Robbed the plump cheek of childhood of its bloom;

Where she, another Philomena, moved

Like a fond Charity—the coming wife

Ordained to crown his being: And he loved.

The future rose before him, joy and gloom;

For where the sunlight shone, there waved the sable plume.

And yet he failed not, for the coming pain;

The coming bliss would counterbalance all.

The sight prophetic that perceived the pall,

Looked far beyond for the celestial gain.

{141}

They do not truly love who cannot yield

The mortal up at the Immortal's call,

Or fail to triumph for the soul that's sealed.

His mind was strung to one harmonious strain:

To give when God should ask, and not resign in vain.

Love was to him life's chiefest victory;

He knew no greater, and he sought no less.

Like a green isle surrounded by the sea

That gives it health and vigour, so was he

The centre of love's sphere of perfectness;

He breathed its heavenly atmosphere; the key

That opened every chamber in love's court

Was in his hand; love's mystery was his sport,

He knelt within love's fane and worshipped there—

But not alone, for one was by his side

Whose love refined his being, filled the air

Of life's irradiated sky with light,

As the sun floods the heavens with a tide

Of renovating freshness, as the night

Is mellowed by the ample moon.

And hoping for the recompense

That would be theirs in life's approaching noon,

They built on hope's high eminence

Their airy palaces, whose magnificence

Surpassed the dreams that fancy drew,

So fair the promised land that lay within their view.

And here they lived; just within reach of heaven.

They could put forth their hands and touch the skies

That brooded o'er the walls of chrysolite,

The airy minarets, and golden domes

{142}

Of their new home, by Love, the Maker, given,

Steeped in his brightest dyes.

All nature opened up her ponderous tomes,

Whereby they had new knowledge and new sight,

Learned greater truths, and saw the paths of light,

Mosaic-paven, which to Duty led.

And there were secrets written overhead,

In burning hieroglyphs of thought,

From which they gleaned such lessons as are taught

Only to those whom heaven, in graciousness,

Lifts in her arms with a divine caress.

Earth, like a joyous maiden whose pure soul

Is filled with sudden ecstacy, became

A fruitful Eden; and the golden bowl

That held their elixir of life was filled

To overflowing with the rarest draught

Ever by gods or men in rapture quaffed;

Till from the altar of their hearts love's flame

Passed through the veins of the world, and thrilled

The soul of the rejoicing universe,

Which became theirs, and like true neophytes

They drained the sweet nepenthe, and love's rites

Wiped from their hearts all trace of the primeval curse.

The happy months rolled on; each wedded day

A bridal; and each calm and holy eve

Strewed with rare blessings all the sunny way

Through which they passed, with so divine a joy

That in his brain would meditation weave

Love's roses into garlands of sweet song,

To deck the brow of his devoted wife.

{143}

In this their El Dorado, no alloy

Mixed with the coinage of their wedded life;

The workmen in the mint an honest throng.

No wonder, then, that with go fine a bliss

Informing every fibre of his brain,

His thoughts begat impressions such as this;

Linking their lives together with a chain

Of melody as rare as some divine refrain:

Like dew to the thirsty flower,

Like sweets to the hungry bee,

Is love's divinest dower,

Its tenderness and power,

To thee, dear Wife! to thee.

Like light to the darkened spirit,

Like oil to the turbid sea,

Like truthful words to merit,

Are the blessings I inherit

With thee, dear Wife! with thee.

Afar in the distant ages,

Soul-ransomed, and spirit-free,

I'll read all being's pages,

Unread by mortal sages,

With thee, dear Wife! with thee.

None but the happy heart could carol thus;

A feather stolen from Devotion's wing,

To keep as a memento of the time

When earth met heaven, in life's duteous

And prayerful journey towards the shadowy clime;

{144}

Ere they descended from their height sublime,

Where at Love's well-filled table, banqueting,

They sat, and watched the first glad year,

Earthlike, revolving round the sun

Of their true life. Within that sphere

Was the new Eden. One by one

The precious moments dropped like golden sands,

And formed the solid hours. No perilous strands

Delayed life's blissful current, as it sped

Through flowery realms with blue skies overhead,

To songs and laughter musically sweet,

As if all sorrow had forever fled;

And idylls, sung with cheerful tone,

Haunted the calm, enchanted zone

That hemmed them in,

Where, like a stately queen,

Sate Peace, beatified, serene,

The guardian, heaven-sent, of this their fair demesne:

———

LOVE'S ANNIVERSARY.

Like a bold, adventurous swain,

Just a year ago to-day,

I launched my bark on a radiant main,

And Hymen led the way:

"Breakers ahead!" he cried,

As he sought to overwhelm

My daring craft in the shrieking tide,

But Love, like a pilot bold and tried,

Sat, watchful, at the helm.

{145}

And we passed the treacherous shoals,

Where many a hope lay dead,

And splendid wrecks were piled, like the ghouls

Of joys forever fled.

Once safely over these,

We sped by a fairy realm,

Across the bluest and calmest seas

That were ever kissed by a truant breeze,

With Love still at the helm.

We sailed by sweet, odorous isles,

Where the flowers and trees were one;

Through lakes that vied with the golden smiles

Of heaven's unclouded sun:

Still speeds our merry bark,

Threading life's peaceful realm,

And 'tis ever morn with our marriage-lark,

For the Pilot-Love of our safety-ark

Stands, watchful, at the helm.

II.

A beautiful land is the Land of Dreams,

Green hills and valleys, and deep lagoons,

Swift-rushing torrents and gentle streams,

Glassing a myriad silver moons;

Mirror-like lakelets with lovely isles,

And verdurous headlands looking down

On the Neread shapes, whose smiles

Were worth the price of a peaceful crown.

{146}

We clutch at the silvery bars

Flung from the motionless stars,

And climb far into space,

Defying the race

Who ride in aërial cars.

We take up the harp of the mind,

And finger its delicate strings;

The notes, soft and light

As a moonbeam's flight,

Departing on viewless wings.

Afar in some fanciful bower,

Some region of exquisite calm,

Where the starlight falls in a gleaming shower,

We sink to repose

On our couch of rose,

Inhaling no mortal balm.

The worlds are no longer unknown,

We pass through the uttermost sky,

Our eyelids are kissed

By a gentle mist,

And we feel the tone

Of a calmer zone,

As if heaven were wondrous nigh.

A fanciful land is the Land of Dreams,

Where earth and heaven are clasping hands;

No heaven—no earth,

But one wide, new birth,

Where Beauty and Goodness, and human worth,

Make earth of heaven and heaven of earth;

And angels are walking on golden strands.

{147}

And the pearly gates of the universe

Of mind and fancy, opening

To the touch of the dainty finger-tips

Of elegant Peris with rose-bud lips,

Delicate, weird-like sounds are born

From the amber depths of odorous morn,

And spirits of beauty and light rehearse

Such strains as the young immortals sing,

When the souls of the blest

Are borne to their rest,

On luminous pinions of light serene

To the fragrant bowers of evergreen;

O'er the rosy plains, where the dying hours

Are changed by a spell to celestial flowers,

Where the skies have a hue no name can express,

For the tone of their passionate loveliness

Surpasseth all human imagining.

Such was their beautiful Dream of Life;

Each stern reality softened down;

Earth seemed to have ended her age of Strife,

And Harmony reigned, her olive crown

Besting on the Parian brow

Of the fair victor, like the gleam

Of the silvery moon on waves that flow

Thoughtfully down the summer stream.

Such was their earnest Dream of Life!

Was it some angel, with jealous eye,

Seeing such love beneath the sky

As never yet in world or star,

Or spheral height, that reached so far

'Twas never beheld by mortal sight,

{148}

Or elsewhere, save in highest heaven,

Was duly earned, or truly given,

That leagued with the usurper, Death,

To quench the light that shone so bright

That in all the earth there was not a breath

So foul as to change their day to night?

Alone! alone! Oh, word of fearful tone!

Well might the moon withhold her light,

The stars withdraw from human sight,

When Love was overthrown.

The Minstrel's heart how changed!

Love's principalities,

O'er which he reigned supreme,

Usurped by earth's realities;

The realm through which he ranged

Become a vanished dream!

And yet he sung, as sings

The dying swan that droops its wings

And drifts along the stream:

———

THE LIGHT IN THE WINDOW PANE.

A joy from my soul's departed,

A bliss from my heart is flown,

As weary, weary-hearted,

I wander alone—alone!

The night wind sadly sigheth

A withering, wild refrain,

And my heart within me dieth

For the light in the window pane.

{149}

The stars overhead are shining,

As brightly as e'er they shone,

As heartless—sad—repining,

I wander alone—alone!

A sudden flash comes streaming,

And flickers adown the lane,

But no more for me is gleaming

The light in the window pane.

The voices that pass are cheerful,

Men laugh as the night winds moan;

They cannot tell how fearful

'Tis to wander alone—alone!

For them, with each night's returning,

Life singeth its tenderest strain,

Where the beacon of love is burning—

The light in the window pane.

Oh, sorrow beyond all sorrows

To which human life is prone:

Without thee, through all the morrows,

To wander alone—alone!

Oh, dark, deserted dwelling!

Where Hope like a lamb was slain,

No voice from thy lone walls welling,

No light in thy window pane.

But memory, sainted angel!

Rolls back the sepulchral stone,

And sings like a sweet evangel:

"No—never, never alone!

{150}

True grief has its royal palace,

Each loss is a greater gain;

And Sorrow ne'er filled a chalice

That Joy did not wait to drain!

———

"Man must be perfected

By suffering," he said;

"And Death is but the stepping-stone, whereby

We mount towards the gate

Of heaven, soon or late.

Death is the penalty of life; we die,

Because we live; and life

Is but a constant strife

With the immortal Impulse that within

Our bodies seeks control—

The time-abiding Soul,

That wrestles with us—yet we fain would win.

And what? the victory

Would make us slaves; and we,

Who in our blindness struggle for the prize

Of this illusive state

Called Life, do but frustrate

The higher law—refusing to be wise."

Rightly he knew, indeed,

Earth's brightest paths but lead

To the true wisdom of that perfect state,

Where Knowledge, heaven-born,

And Love's eternal morn,

Awaiteth those who would be truly great.

{151}

With what abiding trust

He rose from out the dust,

As Death's swift chariot passed him by the way;

No visionary dream

Was his—no trifling theme—

The Soul's great Mystery before him lay:

———

THE SOUL.

All my mind has sat in state,

Pond'ring on the deathless Soul:

What must be the Perfect Whole,

When the atom is so great!

God! I fall in spirit down,

Low as Persian to the sun;

All my senses, one by one,

In the stream of Thought must drown.

On the tide of mystery,

Like a waif, I'm seaward borne,

Ever looking for the morn

That will yet interpret Thee,

Opening my blinded eyes,

That have strove to look within,

'Whelmed in clouds of doubt and sin,

Sinking where I dared to rise:

Could I trace one Spirit's flight,

Track it to its final goal,

Know that 'Spirit' meant 'the Soul,'

I must perish in the light.

{152}

All in vain I search, and cry:

"What, O Soul, and whence art thou?"

Lower than the earth I bow,

Stricken with the grave reply:

"Wouldst thou ope what God has sealed—

Sealed in mercy here below?

What is best for man to know,

Shall most surely be revealed!"

Deep on deep of mystery!

Ask the sage, he knows no more

Of the soul's unspoken lore

Than the child upon his knee!

Cannot tell me whence the thought

That is passing through my mind!

Where the mystic soul is shrined,

Wherewith all my life is fraught?

Knows not how the brain conceives

Images almost divine;

Cannot work my mental mine,

Cannot bind my golden sheaves.

Is he wiser, then, than I,

Seeing he can read the stars?

I have rode in fancy's oars

Leagues beyond his farthest sky!

Some old Rabbi, dreaming o'er

The sweet legends of his race,

Ask him for some certain trace

Of the far, eternal shore.

{153}

No. The Talmud page is dark,

Though it burn with quenchless fire,

And the insight must pierce higher,

That would find the vital spark.

O, my Soul! be firm and wait,

Hoping with the zealous few,

Till the Shekinah of the True

Lead thee through the Golden Gate.

SONNETS,

WRITTEN IN THE ORILLIA WOODS.

August, 1859.

DEDICATED

TO

My friends

AT

"ROCKRIDGE," ORILLIA, C. W.

{159}

SONNETS.

PROEM.

Alice, I need not tell you that the Art

That copies Nature, even at its best,

Is but the echo of a splendid tone,

Or like the answer of a little child

To the deep question of some frosted sage.

For Nature in her grand magnificence,

Compared to Art, must ever raise her head

Beyond the cognizance of human minds:

This is the spirit merely; that, the soul.

We watch her passing, like some gentle dream,

And catch sweet glimpses of her perfect face;

We see the flashing of her gorgeous robes,

And, if her mantle ever falls at all,

How few Elishas wear it sacredly,

As if it were a valued gift from heaven.

God has created; we but re-create,

According to the temper of our minds;

According to the grace He has bequeathed;

According to the uses we have made

Of His good-pleasure given unto us.

And so I love my art; chiefly, because

Through it I rev'rence Nature, and improve

The tone and tenor of the mind He gave.

God sends a Gift; we crown it with high Art,

{160}

And make it worthy the bestower, when

The talent is not hidden in the dust

Of pampered negligence and venial sin,

But put to studious use, that it may work

The end and aim for which it was bestowed.

All Good is God's; all Love and Truth are His;

We are His workers; and we dare not plead

But that He gave us largely of all these,

Demanding a discreet return, that when

The page of life is written to its close

It may receive the seal and autograph

Of His good pleasure—the right royal sign

And signet of approval, to the end

That we were worthy of the gift divine,

And through it praised the Great Artificer.

In my long rambles through Orillian woods;

Out on the ever-changing Couchiching;

By the rough margin of the Lake St. John;

Down the steep Severn, where the artist sun,

In dainty dalliance with the blushing stream,

Transcribes each tree, branch, leaf, and rock and flower,

Perfect in shape and colour, clear, distinct,

With all the panoramic change of sky—

Even as Youth's bright river, toying with

The fairy craft where Inexperience dreams,

And subtle Fancy builds its airy halls,

In blest imagination pictures most

Of bright or lovely that adorn life's banks,

With the blue vault of heaven over all;

On that serene and wizard afternoon,

As hunters chase the wild and timid deer

{161}

We chased the quiet of Medonte's shades

Through the green windings of the forest road,

Past Nature's venerable rank and file

Of primal woods—her Old Guard, sylvan-plumed—

The far-off Huron, like a silver thread,

The clue to some enchanted labyrinth,

Dimly perceived beyond the stretch of woods,

Th' approaches tinted by a purple haze,

And softened into beauty like the dream

Of some rapt seer's Apocalyptic mood;

And when at Rockridge we sat looking out

Upon the softened shadows of the night,

And the wild glory of the throbbing stars;

Where'er we bent our Eden-tinted way:

My brain was a weird wilderness of Thought:

My heart, love's sea of passion tossed and torn,

Calmed by the presence of the loving souls

By whom I was surrounded. All the while

They deemed me passing tame, and wondered when

My dreamy castle would come toppling down.

I was but driving back the aching past,

And mirroring the future. And these leaves

Of meditation are but perfumes from

The censer of my feelings; honied drops

Wrung from the busy hives of heart and brain;

Mere etchings of the artist; grains of sand

From the calm shores of that unsounded deep

Of speculation, where all thought is lost

Amid the realms of Nature and of God.

{162}

I.

My soul goes out to meet her, and my heart

Flings wide the portals of its love, and yearns

To have her enter its serene retreat.

A poor stray lamb, not wand'ring from the fold,

But all unstudied in the worldling's art,

Turning life's mintage into seeming gold,

Wherewith to purchase love and love's returns;

Unknowing that love's waters, though so sweet,

Lead to some bitter Marah. So my soul

Goes out to meet her, and it clasps her home,

And seeks to bear her upward to the goal

At which the righteous enter. From the dome

Of starriest Night two blest Immortals come,

To bear us spheral-ward to God's own mercy-seat.

{163}

II.

'Tis summer still, yet now and then a leaf

Falls from some stately tree. True type of life!

How emblamatic of the pangs that grief

Wrings from our blighted hopes, that one by one

Drop from us in our wrestle with the strife

And natural passions of our stately youth.

And thus we fall beneath life's summer sun.

Each step conducts us through an opening door

Into new halls of being, hand in hand

With grave Experience, until we command

The open, wide-spread autumn fields, and store

The full ripe grain of Wisdom and of Truth.

As on life's tott'ring precipice we stand,

Our sins like withered leaves are blown about the land.

{164}

III.

Oh, holy sabbath morn! thrice blessed day

Of solemn rest, true peace, and earnest prayer.

How many hearts that never knelt to pray

Are glad to breathe thy soul-sustaining air.

I sit within the quiet woods, and hear

The village church-bell's soft inviting sound,

And to the confines of the loftiest sphere

Imagination wings its airy round;

A myriad spirits have assembled there,

Whose prayers on earth a sweet acceptance found.

I go to worship in Thy House, O God!

With her, thy young creation bright and fair;

Help us to do Thy will, and not despair,

Though both our hearts should bend beneath Thy chastening rod.

{165}

IV.

The birds are singing merrily, and here

A squirrel claims the lordship of the woods,

And scolds me for intruding. At my feet

The tireless ants all silently proclaim

The dignity of labour. In my ear

The bee hums drowsily; from sweet to sweet

Careering, like a lover weak in aim.

I hear faint music in the solitudes;

A dreamlike melody that whispers peace

Imbues the calmy forest, and sweet rills

Of pensive feeling murmur through my brain,

Like ripplings of pure water down the hills

That slumber in the moonlight. Cease, oh, cease!

Some day my weary heart will coin these into pain.

{166}

V.

Blest Spirit of Calm that dwellest in these woods!

Thou art a part of that serene repose

That ofttimes lingers in the solitudes

Of my lone heart, when the tumultuous throes

Of some vast Grief have borne me to the earth.

For I have fought with Sorrow face to face;

Have tasted of the cup that brings to some

A frantic madness and delirious mirth,

But prayed and trusted for the light to come,

To break the gloom and darkness of the place.

Through the dim aisles the sunlight penetrates,

And nature's self rejoices; heaven's light

Comes down into my heart, and in its might

My soul stands up and knocks at God's own temple-gates.

{167}

VI.

Through every sense a sweet balm permeates,

As music strikes new tones from every nerve.

The soul of Feeling enters at the gates

Of Intellect, and Fancy comes to serve

With fitting homage the propitious guest.

Nature, erewhile so lonely and oppressed,

Stands like a stately Presence, and looks down

As from a throne of power. I have grown

Full twenty summers backwards, and my youth

Is surging in upon me till my hopes

Are as fresh-tinted as the checkered leaves

That the sun shines through. All the future opes

Its endless corridors, where time unweaves

The threads of Error from the golden warp of Truth.

{168}

VIII.

Our life is like a forest, where the sun

Glints down upon us through the throbbing leaves;

The full light rarely finds us. One by one,

Deep rooted in our souls, there springeth up

Dark groves of human passion, rich in gloom,

At first no bigger than an acorn-cup.

Hope threads the tangled labyrinth, but grieves

Till all our sins have rotted in their tomb,

And made the rich loam of each yearning heart

To bring forth fruits and flowers to new life.

We feel the dew from heaven, and there start

From some deep fountain little rills whose strife

Is drowned in music. Thus in light and shade

We live, and move, and die, through all this earthly glade.

{169}

VIII.

Above where I am sitting, o'er these stones,

The ocean waves once heaved their mighty forms;

And vengeful tempests and appalling storms

Wrung from the stricken sea portentous moans,

That rent stupendous icebergs, whose huge heights

Crashed down in fragments through the startled nights.

Change, change, eternal change in all but God!

Mysterious nature! thrice mysterious state

Of body, soul, and spirit! Man is awed,

But triumphs in his littleness. A mote,

He specks the eye of the age and turns to dust,

And is the sport of centuries. We note

More surely nature's ever-changing fate;

Her fossil records tell how she performs her trust.

{170}

IX.

Another day of rest, and I sit here

Among the trees, green mounds, and leaves as sere

As my own blasted hopes. There was a time

When Love and perfect Happiness did chime

Like two sweet sounds upon this blessed day;

But one has flown forever, far away

From this poor Earth's unsatisfied desires

To love eternal, and the sacred fires

With which the other lighted up my mind

Have faded out and left no trace behind,

But dust and bitter ashes. Like a bark

Becalmed, I anchor through the midnight dark,

Still hoping for another dawn of Love.

Bring back my olive branch of Happiness, O dove!

{171}

X.

Poor snail, that toilest at my weary feet,

Thou, too, must have thy burden! Life is sweet

If we would make it so. How vast a load

To carry all its days along the road

Of its serene existence! Christian-like,

It toils with patience, seeking sweet repose

Within itself when wearied with the throes

Of its life-struggle. The low sounds that strike

Upon the ear in wafts of melody,

Are cruel mockeries, O snail, of thee.

The cricket's chirp, the grasshopper's shrill tone,

The locust's jarring cry, all mock thy lone

And dumb-like presence. May this heart of mine,

When tried, put on a resignation such as thine.

{172}

XI.

Oh, that I were the spirit of these wilds!

I'd make the zephyrs dance for my delight,

And lead a life as happy as a child's.

Echo should tremble with unfeigned affright,

And mock its own weird answers. I would kiss

Eliza's cheek, and touch her lips with dew

Stol'n from the scented rose. And Carrie's laugh

Should be a portion of the silver rills'

Sweet music, breathed mellifluously through

The hearts of generations. She should quaff

The nectar of inspired song, and thrills

Of sweet remembrances of her should strew

The woodland air, as sand-grains strew the shore;

And these two hearts should be my joy for evermore.

{173}

XII.

The moon shone down on fair Eliza's face,

And made it beautiful. No fitter place

Could she have chosen for her gracious smile;

For as she sat there in the languid light,

Methought I'd found a soul as free from guile

As ever came from God. Oh, favored Night!

Oh, mild, impassioned moon and starry spheres!

To gaze upon her through the silent years

Without rebuke. But I have looked within,

And found the truest beauty; have laid bare

A spiritual excellence as rare

As ever mortal being hoped to win.

Heart, mind, and soul, I analysed them all,

And saw where heaven kept divinest carnival.

{174}

XIII.

I've almost grown a portion of this place,

I seem familiar with each mossy stone;

Even the nimble chipmunk passes on,

And looks, but never scolds me. Birds have flown

And almost touched my hand; and I can trace

The wild bees to their hives. I've never known

So sweet a pause from labour. But the tone

Of a past sorrow, like a mournful rill

Threading the heart of some melodious hill,

Or the complainings of the whippoorwill,

Passes through every thought, and hope, and aim.

It has its uses; for it cools the flame

Of ardent love that burns my being up—

Love, life's celestial pearl, diffused through all its cup.

{175}

XIV.

There is no sadness here. Oh, that my heart

Were calm and peaceful as these dreamy groves!

That all my hopes and passions, and deep loves,

Could sit in such an atmosphere of peace,

Where no unholy impulses would start

Responsive to the throes that never cease

To keep my spirit in such wild unrest.

'Tis only in the struggling human breast

That the true sorrow lives. Our fruitful joys

Have stony kernels hidden in their core.

Life in a myriad phases passeth here,

And death as various—an equal poise;

Yet all is but a solemn change—no more;

And not a sound save joy pervades the atmosphere.

{176}

XV.

Last night I heard the plaintive whippoorwill,

And straightway Sorrow shot his swiftest dart.

I know not why, but it has chilled my heart

Like some dread thing of evil. All night long

My nerves were shaken, and my pulse stood still,

And waited for a terror yet to come

To strike harsh discords through my life's sweet song.

Sleep came—an incubus that filled the sum

Of wretchedness with dreams so wild and chill

The sweat oozed from me like great drops of gall;

An evil spirit kept my mind in thrall,

And rolled my body up like a poor scroll

On which is written curses that the soul

Shrinks back from when it sees some hellish carnival.

{177}

XVI.

My footsteps press where, centuries ago,

The Red Men fought and conquered; lost and won.

Whole tribes and races, gone like last year's snow,

Have found the Eternal Hunting-Grounds, and run

The fiery gauntlet of their active days,

Till few are left to tell the mournful tale:

And these inspire us with such wild amaze

They seem like spectres passing down a vale

Steeped in uncertain moonlight, on their way

Towards some bourn where darkness blinds the day,

And night is wrapped in mystery profound.

We cannot lift the mantle of the past:

We seem to wander over hallowed ground:

We scan the trail of Thought, but all is overcast.

{178}

XVII.

THERE WAS A TIME—and that is all we know!

No record lives of their ensanguined deeds:

The past seems palsied with some giant blow,

And grows the more obscure on what it feeds.

A rotted fragment of a human leaf;

A few stray skulls; a heap of human bones!

These are the records—the traditions brief—

'Twere easier far to read the speechless stones.

The fierce Ojibwas, with tornado force,

Striking white terror to the hearts of braves!

The mighty Hurons, rolling on their course,

Compact and steady as the ocean waves!

The stately Chippewas, a warrior host!

Who were they?—Whence?—And why? no human tongue can boast!

{179}

XVIII.

I do not wonder that the Druids built

Their sacred altars in the sacred groves.

Fit place to worship God. The native guilt

Of our poor weak humanity behoves

That we should set aside no little part

Of the devotion of the yearning heart

To rest and peace, as typical of that

Sweet tranquil rest to which the good aspire.

Calm thoughts are as the purifying fire

That burns the useless dross from life's mixed gold,

And lights the torch of mind. While grasping at

The shadow for the substance, youth grows old,

And groves of palm spring up in every heart—

Temples to God, wherein we pray and sit apart.

{180}

XIX.

How my heart yearns towards my friends at home!

Poor suffering souls, whose lives are like the trees,

Bent, crushed, and broken in the storm of life!

A whirlwind of existence seems to roam

Through some poor hearts continually. These

Have neither rest nor pause; one day is rife

With tempest, and another dashed with gloom;

And the few rays of light that might illume

Their thorny path are drenched with tearful rain.

Yet these pure souls live not their lives in vain;

For they become as spiritual guides

And lights to others; rising with the tides

Of their full being into higher spheres,

Brighter and brighter still through all the coming years.

{181}

XX.

I sat within the temple of her heart,

And watched the living Soul as it passed through,

Arrayed in pearly vestments, white and pure.

The calm, immortal Presence made me start.

It searched through all the chambers of her mind

With one mild glance of love, and smiled to view

The fastnesses of feeling, strong—secure,

And safe from all surprise. It sits enshrined

And offers incense in her heart, as on

An altar sacred unto God. The dawn

Of an imperishable love passed through

The lattice of my senses, and I, too,

Did offer incense in that solemn place—

A woman's heart made pure and sanctified by Grace.

{182}

XXI.

Intense young soul, that takest hearts by storm,

And chills them into sorrow with a look!

Some minds are open as a well-read book;

But here the leaves are still uncut—unscanned,

The volume clasped and sealed, and all the warm

And passionate exuberance of love

Held in submission to these threadbare flaws

And creeds of weaknesses, poor human laws.

Stand up erect—nay kneel—for from above

God's light is streaming on thee. Fashion's daws

May fawn and natter like a cringing pack

Of servile hounds beneath the keeper's hand,

But these are not thy peers; they drive thee back:

Urge on the car of Thought, and take a higher stand!

{183}

XXII.

Dark, dismal day—the first of many such!

The wind is sighing through the plaintive trees,

In fitful gusts of a half-frenzied woe;

Affrighted clouds the hand might almost touch,

Their black wings bend so mournfully and low,

Sweep through the skies like night-winds o'er the seas.

There is no chirp of bird through all the grove,

Save that of the young fledgeling rudely flung

From its warm nest; and like the clouds above

My soul is dark, and restless as the breeze

That leaps and dances over Couchiching.

Soon will the last duett be sweetly sung;

But through the years to come our hearts will ring

With memories, as dear as time and love can bring.

{184}

AU REVOIR.

That morn our hearts were like artesian wells,

Both deep and calm, and brimming with pure love.

And in each one, like to an April day,

Truth smiled and wept, while Courage wound his horn,

Dispatching echoes that are whispering still

Through all the vacant chambers of our souls;

While Sorrow sat with drooped and aimless wing,

Within the solitary fane of thought.

We wished some warlike Joshua were there

To make the sun stand still, or to put back

The dial to the brighter side of time.

A cloud hung over Couchiching; a cloud

Eclipsed the merry sunshine of our hearts.

We needed no philosopher to teach

That laughter is not always born of joy.

"All's for the best," the fair Eliza said;

And we derived new courage from her lips,

That spake the maxim of her trusting heart.

We even smiled, at some portentous sign

That signified—well, if it turn out true,

Then, I'll believe it. Heaven works in signs

More parting words, more lingering farewells,

Pressure of hands, and thrilling touch of lips,

A waving of white handkerchiefs, and Love

Grew prayerful, and knelt down, and wept

His scattered rosary of human hearts.

{185}

Soon looking back, we saw where Ramah lay;

Cold, wan, and cheerless as the race it holds.

And as we neared the Lake the sun came forth,

As tardily as if the sluggard day

Had slept more soundly for the piping storm,

That, veering round, had flung its challenge out

In sullen menace to the western sky,

Now black with clouds. A flash, a muffled roll

Of elemental passion, broke the spell,

And down on Simcoe fell the sudden rain,

Veiling the gloomy landscape from our sight.

Throughout the changeful day, alternate cloud

And sunshine left their traces on our hearts,

Until the evening reared its dreamy piles

Of cloud-built cháteaux steeped in gorgeous tints,

That from celestial censers are outpoured

When the grand miracle of sunset draws

Our souls, all yearning with a joy divine,

To share the fleeting glory, ere it goes

To glean new splendors for the ruby morn.

'Tis ever thus with true impassioned love;

Love's sun, like that of day, may set, and set,

It hath as bright a rising in the morn.

True love has no gray hairs; his golden looks

Can never whiten with the snows of time.

Sorrow lies drear on many a youthful heart,

Like snow upon the evergreens; but love

Can gather sweetest honey by the way,

E'en from the carcass of some prostrate grief.

We have been spoiled with blessings. Though the world

{186}

Holds nothing dearer than the hope that's fled,

God ever opens up new founts of bliss—

Spiritual Bethsaidas where the soul

Can wash the earth-stains from its fevered loins.

We carve our sorrows on the face of joy,

Reversing the true image; we are weak

Where strength is needed most, and most is given.

Thus musing, as they chatted in the train,

The whistle broke my reverie, as one

Might be awakened from a truthful dream.

The city gas-lights flashed into our eyes;

And we, half-shrinking from the glare and din,

Thought but of two more partings on the morn,

When Love should be enfettered, hand and foot,

For the long aeon of a human year.

THE END.

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Table of Contents

HESPERUS,

AUTHOR OF "THE ST. LAWRENCE AND THE SAGUENAY, AND OTHER POEMS"

THESE

PAGE.

DEDICATORY POEM.

PRELUDE.

FIRST ANGEL.

II.

ANGEL CHORUS.

SECOND ANGEL.

THIRD ANGEL.

III.

SECOND ANGEL CHORUS.

IV.

V.

THIRD ANGEL CHORUS,

FIRST ANGEL.

VI.

SECOND ANGEL.

THIRD ANGEL.

VII.

FULL ANGEL CHORUS.

VIII.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

X.

XI.

XII.

AUTUMN ODE.

II.

A SONG FOR THE FLAIL.

III.

IV.

V.

CLAIRE.

VI.

BALLAD.

VII.

II.

SONNETS,

DEDICATED

THE END.

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE