Chapter I: Will Not Tell

I will not tell thee why the land
With so much glory glows;
There is but one in all the world
My sacred secret knows.

O, she is fairer than the flowers
Of rosy June or May,
When every bird is singing near
And every blossom gay!

I asked her eyes to let their beams
Make life supremely grand:
Their answer like a flood of light
Flushed all the flowery land.

The sunbeams gleamed among the grass,
Warm-waving in the breeze,
A new life gladdened every bloom,
More vivid grew the trees.

I shall not tell thee why the land
With so much glory glows;
There is but one in all the world
My sacred secret knows.

ATKINSON'S MILL

This river of azure with many a weed in
Comes far from the past as those famous of old;
Its dawns are the same as made blossoms in Eden,
And still it remembers their crimson and gold.
As vivid this valley with forests around it,
And low, waving evergreens shading the hill,
But color has gone from the cottage that crowned it--
The alders have faded by Atkinson's mill.

This stream is the same with its tinting of azure,
Yet the old bridge is moved from its mooring of stone;
Departed are those who once made it a pleasure
To sail here, or skate when the summer had gone.
This pathway through cedar is trampled no longer
By feet that went daily to school 'gainst their will;
The fragrance of hope in the springtime is stronger
And sweeter than summer by Atkinson's mill.

No more will the big wheel revolve with a clatter,
No more the bolts turn with a turbulent clank,
Nor down the dim flume rush the wonderful water
To burst forth in foam by the green-colored bank.
The blue flag has gone from the shore that we cherish,
The song of the gray bird in autumn is still,
Yet memory kindles the blossoms that perish
Like hope that was happy by Atkinson's mill.

THEODORE HARDING RAND

THE DRAGONFLY

I

Winged wonder of motion
In splendor of sheen,
Cruising the shining blue
Waters all day,
Smit with hunger of heart
And seized of a quest
Which nor beauty of flower
Nor promise of rest
Has charm to appease
Or slacken or stay,--
What is it you seek,
Unopen, unseen?

II

Are you blind to the sight
Of the heavens of blue,
Or the wind-fretted clouds
On their white, airy wings,
Or the emerald grass
That velvets the lawn,
Or glory of meadows
Aflame like the dawn?
Are you deaf to the note
In the woodland that rings
With the song of the whitethroat,
As crystal as dew?

III

Winged wonder of motion
In splendor of sheen,
Stay, stay a brief moment
Thy hither and thither
Quick-beating wings,
Thy flashes of flight;
And tell me thy heart,
Is it sad, is it light,
Is it pulsing with fears
Which scorch it and wither,
Or joys that up-well
In a girdle of green?

IV

"O breather of words
And poet of life,
I tremble with joy,
I flutter with fear!
Ages it seemeth,
Yet only to-day
Into this world of
Gold sunbeams at play,
I came from the deeps.
O crystalline sphere!
O beauteous light!
O glory of life!

V

"On the watery floor
Of this sibilant lake,
I lived in the twilight dim.
'There's a world of Day,'
Some pled, 'a world
Of ether and wings athrob
Close over our head.'
'It's a dream, it's a whim,
A whisper of reeds,' they said,--
And anon the waters would sob.
And ever the going
Went on to the dead
Without the glint of a ray,
And the watchers watched
In their vanishing wake.

VI

"The passing
Passed for aye,
And the waiting
Waited in vain!
Some power seemed to enfold
The tremulous waters around,
Yet never in heat
Nor in shrivelling cold,
Nor darkness deep or gray,--
Came token of sound or touch,--
A clear unquestioned 'Yea!'
And the scoffers scoffed,
In swelling refrain,
'Let us eat and drink,
For to-morrow we die.'

VII

"But, O, in a trance of bliss,
With gauzy wings I awoke!
An ecstasy bore me away
O'er field and meadow and plain.
I thought not of recent pain,
But revelled, as splendors broke
From sun and cloud and air,
In the eye of golden Day.

VIII

"I'm yearning to break
To my fellows below
The secret of ages hoar;
In the quick-flashing light
I dart up and down,
Forth and back, everywhere,
But the waters are sealed
Like a pavement of glass,--
Sealed that I may not pass.
O for waters of air!
Or the wing of an eagle's might
To cleave a pathway below!"

IX

And the Dragonfly in splendor
Cruises ever o'er the lake,
Holding in his heart a secret
Which in vain he seeks to break.

BEAUTY

I

"Had I two loaves of bread--ay, ay!
One would I sell and hyacinths buy
To feed my soul."--"Or let me die!"

Beauty, dew-sweet, of heavenly birth,
Thy flower is writ of grief, not mirth,
Thy rainbow's footed on the earth.

Rainbows and Hyacinths! O seers,
Your voices call across the years:
"The bread of Beauty's wet with tears!"

II

The living words from Beauty's mien,
Than blade by swordsman swung more keen,
Spirit and soul divide between:

"Pure as the sapphire-blue from blame,
Humble as glad, of holiest aim--
Love's sevenfold beam a flashing flame!"

III

It yearns me sore, so near, so far!
My heart moans like the harbor-bar,
For coming of the morning star.

Buy Hyacinths--a goodly share!
Ascend, O soul, Love's iris-stair,
The bridegroom waiteth for thee there!

LOVE

The blooming flowers, the galaxies of space,
Lie pictured in a sheeny drop of even;
And globed in one round word, on lips of grace,
Shine out the best of earth and all of heaven.

THE HEPATICA

Hail, first of the spring,
Pearly sky-tinted thing
Touched with pencil of Him
Who rollest the year!
Lo, thy aureole rim
No painter may limn--
Vision thou hast, and no fear!

Fair child of the light,
What fixes thy sight?
Wide-open thy roll
From the seal of the clod,
And thy heaven-writ scroll
Glows, beautiful soul,
With the shining of God!

Thou look'st into heaven
As surely as Stephen,
So steadfast thy will is!
And from earth's inglenook
Seest Christ of the lilies
And daffadowndillies,
And catchest His look.

And a portion is mine,
Rapt gazer divine,
From thy countenance given--
Angel bliss in thy face!
I've looked into heaven
As surely as Stephen,
From out of my place!

"I AM"

I am, and therefore these,
Existence is by me,--
Flux of pendulous seas,
The stable, free.

I am in blush of the rose,
The shimmer of dawn;
Am girdle Orion knows,
The fount undrawn.

I am earth's potency,
The chemic ray's, the rain's,
The reciprocity
That loads the wains.

I am, or the heavens fall!
I dwell in my woven tent,
Am immanent in all,--
Suprámanent!

I am the Life in life,
Impact and verve of thought,
The reason's lens and knife,
The ethic "ought."

I am of being the stress,
I am the brooding Dove,
I am the blessing in "bless,"
The Love in love.

I am the living thrill
And fire of poet and seer,
The breath of man's goodwill,
The Father near;

Am end of the way men grope,
Core of the ceaseless strife,
I am man's bread of hope,
Water of life.

I am the root of faith,
Substance of vision, too,
The spirit shadowed in wraith,
Urim in dew.

I am the soul's white Sun,
Love's slain, enthronëd Lamb,
I am the Holy One,
I am I AM.

THE VEILED PRESENCE

An ashen gray touched faint my night-dark room,
I flung my window wide to the whispering lawn--
Great God! I saw the mighty globe from gloom
Roll with its sleeping millions to the dawn.

No tremor spoke its motion swift and vast,
In hush it swept the awful curve adown,
The shadow that its rushing speed did cast
Concealed the Father's hand, the Kingly crown.

Into the deeps an age has passed since then,
Yet evermore for me, more humble grown,
The vision of His awesome presence veiled
Burns in the flying spheres, still all unknown,
In nature's mist-immantled seas unsailed,
And in the deeper shadowed hearts of men.

THE GHOST FLOWER

Like Israel's seer I come from out the earth
Confronting with the question air and sky,
_Why dost thou bring me up?_ White ghost am I
Of that which was God's beauty at its birth.
In eld the sun kist me to ruby red,
I held my chalice up to heaven's full view,
The wistful stars dropt down their golden dew,
And skyey balms exhaled about my bed.
Alas, I loved the darkness, not the light!
The deadly shadows, not the bending blue,
Spoke to my trancëd heart, made false seem true,
And drowned my spirit in the deeps of night.
O Painter of the flowers, O God most sweet,
_Dost say my spirit for the light is meet_?

GLORY-ROSES

"Only a penny, Sir!"--
A child held to my view
A bunch of "glory-roses," red
As blood, and wet with dew.

(O earnest little face,
With living light in eye,
Your roses are too fair for earth,
And you seem of the sky!)

"My beauties, Sir!" he said,
"Only a penny, too!"--
His face shone in their ruddy glow
A Rafael cherub true.

"Yestreen their hoods were close
About their faces tight,
But ere the sun was up, I saw
That God had come last night.

O, Sir, to see them then!
The bush was all aflame!--
O yes, they're glory-roses, Sir,
That is their holy name.

Only a penny, sir!"--
Heaven seemed across the way!
I took the red, red beauties home--
Roses to me for aye!

For aye, that radiant voice
As if from heaven it came--
"O yes, they're glory-roses, Sir,
That is their holy name!"

THE CARVEN SHORES

How bold the Imagination and how strong
That makes so rich with carven-work these shores!
More gorgeous they than Oriental throng--
What altar-pomps, and rough with beaten ores!

These great events, once fluid as a song,
Now gates uplift, e'en His authentic doors!
(His stay no tent is for-a-night along
The murmuring floods and boisterous battle-roars.)

The wedge of frost, and beetle wave, sand blast,
With stroke of pencil-sun, and wash of rain,
Outline unsearchable and shadow vast!
And evermore, as moons grow or decline,
The whirl and speed of tidal lathe and plane
Shaping chaotic mass to forms divine!

WALTER A. RATCLIFFE

WANTED

Wanted, a stalwart man!
The man who, when he knows the Right,
The same pursues against all Might;
The man who dares to stand alone
For Conscience' sake when Hope is gone;
Who dares to leave a beaten path,
And live within the light he hath,
Nor shrinks to strike a deadly blow
At Error found in friend or foe:
This is the stalwart man.

Wanted, an honest man!
A man may live within the laws,
Or 'scape their grasp through flimsy flaws,
But he who scorns an action mean,
Is honest where he is not seen,
Nor dares advance at others' cost,
Counts all ill-gotten wealth as lost,
Ne'er grudges each his fullest due,
Whose word as is his oath is true:
This is the honest man.

Wanted, a noble man!
Not one who from a favored place
Claims kindred with a worn-out race;
Whose empty titles, ancient name,
Are all his wealth, are all his fame;
But one whose usefulness men see,
Though humble may his station be;
For such will bless on every hand
His friend, his home, his native land:
This is the noble man.

Wanted, the broader man!
Untrammelled by a narrow creed
That loves to make its doubters bleed;
The man who learns from nature's plan
That man should love his fellowman;
The man whose soul, so deep and true,
Embraces all as brothers too;
The man whom none may buy with pelf,
The man delivered from himself:
Such is the needed man.

JOHN READE

RIZPAH

It is growing dark.
At such a sunset I have been with Saul--
But saw it not. I only saw his eyes
And the wild beauty of his roaming locks,
And--oh! there never was a man like Saul!
Strong arm, and gentle heart and tender ways
To win a woman's very soul, were his.
When he would take my hand and look on me,
And whisper "Rizpah"--ah! those days are gone!
Why should I weep? was I not loved by Saul?
And Saul was king of all the Land of God.

"God save the king!" But, hush! what noise was that?
Oh heaven! to think a mother's eyes should look
On such a sight! Away! vile carrion-beast!
Those are the sons of Saul,--poor Rizpah's sons.
O my dead darlings! O my only joy!
O sweet twin treasure of my lonely life,
Since that most mournful day upon Gilboa,
Torn from me thus!
I have no tears to shed.
O God! my heart is broken! Let me die!

* * * * *

Gilboa! David wrote a song on it,
And had it put in _Jasher_--"Weep for Saul."
Armoni used to sing it to his harp.
Poor blackened lips!...
I wonder if they dream,
My pretty children....
Come, Mephibosheth,
Here is your father; say "God save the king!"
The Gibeonites! Ah! that was long ago.
Why should they die for what they never did?
No; David never would consent to that?

* * * * *

Whose son is he, this youth? Dost know him, Abner?
Ha, ha! they shout again "God save the king!"

* * * * *

Was I asleep? I came not here to sleep.
O poor old eyes, sorrow has made you weak.
My sons! No, nought has touched them. O, how cold!
Cold, cold! O stars of God, have pity on me,
Poor lonely woman! O my sons, Saul's sons!
Kind stars, watch with me; let no evil beast
Rend that dear flesh. O God of Israel,
Pardon my sins! My heart is broken!

PICTURES OF MEMORY

I

Here is the old church. Now I see it all--
The hills, the sea, the bridge, the waterfall.
The dear old sleepy town is still abed
Although the eastern clouds are tinged with red.
And everything is as this graveyard still,
Except the soldiers at their morning drill,
And in the Pool a fishing boat or two
Belated, homeward pulled with weary oar,
And the dim curlews on the distant shore,
And the lark soaring through the ether blue.
But now the lazy smoke curls through the air--
I will go down and see who tenant there,
And meet old friends. "First, wanderer, look around
And see what friends of thine are underground!"

II

The mountains gather round thee as of yore,
O holy lake, across whose tranquil breast
Was borne the saint who to the farthest west
Brought the sweet knowledge that transcends all lore.
There on the islet at the chapel door
The penitents are kneeling, while along
There flows the mystic tide of sacred song
To where I stand upon the rugged shore.
But now there is a silence weird and dread--
And utter loneliness is in my heart.
I came to seek the living but the dead--
This is _their_ welcome. Slowly I depart,
Nor read the name beneath a single cross--
He still is rich who doth not know his loss.

III

There is the school-house; there the lake, the lawn;
And there, just fronting it, the barrack square;
But of all those I knew not one is there--
Even the old gate-keeper--he is gone.
Ah, me! ah, me! when last I stood upon
This grassy mound, with what proud hopes elate
I was to wrestle with the strength of fate
And conquer! Now--I live and that is all.
Oh! happier those whose lot it was to fall
In noble conflict with their country's foes
Far on the shores of Taurie Chersonese!
Nay, all are blest who answer duty's call.
But--do I dream or wake? What ghosts are these?
Hush, throbbing heart! _these_ are the sons of _those_.

IV

Oh! what could wake to life that first sweet flame
That warmed my heart when by the little bay
On blissful summer evenings I lay
Beneath our thorn-bush, waiting till she came
Who was to me far more than wealth or fame,
But yet for whom I wished all fair things mine,
To make her, if she could be, more divine
By outer splendor and a noble name.
Now I may wait in vain from early morn
Till sunset for the music of her feet.
And yet how little change has come upon
This fairy scene her beauty made so sweet!
It weareth still the glory of her smile.
Ah! if she were but here a little while.

IN MY HEART

In my heart are many chambers through which I wander free;
Some are furnished, some are empty, some are sombre, some are
light;
Some are open to all comers, and of some I keep the key,
And I enter in the stillness of the night.

But there's one I never enter,--it is closed to even me!
Only once its door was opened, and it shut forevermore;
And though sounds of many voices gather round it, like a sea,
It is silent, ever silent as the shore.

In that chamber long ago my love's casket was concealed,
And the jewel that it sheltered I knew only one could win;
And my soul foreboded sorrow, should that jewel be revealed,
And I almost hoped that none might enter in.

Yet day and night I lingered by that fatal chamber door,
Till--she came at last, my darling one, of all the earth my own;
And she entered--and she vanished with my jewel, which she wore;
And the door was closed--and I was left alone.

She gave me back no jewel, but the spirit of her eyes
Shone with tenderness a moment, as she closed that chamber door,
And the memory of that moment is all I have to prize--
But that, at least, is mine forevermore.

Was she conscious, when she took it, that the jewel was my love?
Did she think it but a bauble she might wear or toss aside?
I know not, I accuse not, but I hope that it may prove
A blessing, though she spurn it in her pride.

TO LOUIS FRECHETTE[A]

O gifted son of our dear land and thine,
We joy with thee on this thy joyous day,
And in thy laurel crown would fain entwine
A modest wreath of our own simple bay!
Shamrock and thistle and sweet roses gay,
Both red and white, with parted lips that smile,
Like some bright maiden of their native isle--
These, with the later maple, take, we pray,
To mingle with thy laurelled lily, long
Pride of the brave and theme of poet's song.
They err who deem us aliens. Are not we
Bretons and Normans, too? North, south and west
Gave us, like you, of blood and speech their best,
Here, re-united, one great race to be.

[A] On the occasion of his poems being crowned by the French Academy.

KINGS OF MEN

As hills seem Alps, when veiled in misty shroud,
Some men seem kings, through mists of ignorance;
Must we have darkness, then, and cloud on cloud,
To give our hills and pigmy kings a chance?
Must we conspire to curse the humbling light,
Lest some one, at whose feet our fathers bowed,
Should suddenly appear, full length, in sight,
Scaring to laughter the adoring crowd?
Oh, no! God send us light!--Who loses then?
The king of slaves, and not the king of men.
True kings are kings for ever, crowned of God,
The King of Kings,--we need not fear for them.
'Tis only the usurper's diadem
That shakes at touch of light, revealing fraud.

DOMINION DAY

Canada, Canada, land of the maple,
Queen of the forest and river and lake,
Open thy soul to the voice of thy people,
Close not thy heart to the music they make.
Bells, chime out merrily,
Trumpets, call cheerily,
Silence is vocal, and sleep is awake!

Canada, Canada, land of the beaver,
Labor and skill have their triumph to-day;
Oh! may the joy of it flow like a river,
Wider and deeper as time flies away.
Bells, chime out merrily,
Trumpets, call cheerily,
Science and industry laugh and are gay.

Canada, Canada, land of the snow-bird,
Emblem of constancy change cannot kill,
Faith, that no strange cup has ever unsobered,
Drinketh, to-day, from love's chalice her fill.
Bells, chime out merrily,
Trumpets, call cheerily,
Loyalty singeth and treason is still!

Canada, Canada, land of the bravest,
Sons of the war-path, and sons of the sea,
Land of no slave-lash, to-day thou enslavest
Millions of hearts with affection for thee.
Bells, chime out merrily,
Trumpets, call cheerily,
Let the sky ring with the shout of the free.

Canada, Canada, land of the fairest,
Daughters of snow that is kissed by the sun,
Binding the charms of all lands that are rarest,
Like the bright cestus of Venus in one!
Bells, chime out merrily,
Trumpets, call cheerily,
A new reign of beauty on earth is begun!

ROBERT REID

POESIE

Whence comes the charm that broods along thy shore,
O sunny land of song? What potent thrall,
Reckless of ocean's rise, or flow, or fall,
Holds us about thy marge for evermore?
Here, where the long wave breaks in measured time,
And fills our being with its rhythmic moan,
From far inland the glories of thy zone
Burst on our view, and beckon us to climb.

Shades of the mighty dead! whose snowy towers
Stud the deep gorges and the wooded braes,
Is there no nook for cots so small as ours?
No tree whereof we yet might gather bays?
But to be with thee, and to hear the wave
Roll music round the land, is all we crave.

A SONG OF CANADA

Sing me a song of the great Dominion!
Soul-felt words for a patriot's ear!
Ring out boldly the well-turned measure,
Voicing your notes that the world may hear;
Here is no starveling--Heaven-forsaken--
Shrinking aside where the Nations throng;
Proud as the proudest moves she among them--
Worthy is she of a noble song!

Sing me the might of her giant mountains,
Baring their brows in the dazzling blue;
Changeless alone, where all else changes,
Emblems of all that is grand and true:
Free as the eagles around them soaring;
Fair as they rose from their Maker's hand;
Shout, till the snow-caps catch the chorus--
The white-topp'd peaks of our mountain land!

Sing me the calm of her tranquil forests,
Silence eternal, and peace profound,
Into whose great heart's deep recesses
Breaks no tempest, and comes no sound;
Face to face with the death-like stillness,
Here, if at all, man's soul might quail:
Nay! 'tis the love of that great peace leads us
Thither, where solace will never fail!

Sing me the pride of her stately rivers,
Cleaving their way to the far-off sea;
Glory of strength in their deep-mouth'd music--
Glory of mirth in their tameless glee.
Hark! 'tis the roar of the tumbling rapids;
Deep unto deep through the dead night calls;
Truly, I hear but the voice of Freedom
Shouting her name from her fortress walls!

Sing me the joy of her fertile prairies,
League upon league of the golden grain:
Comfort, housed in the smiling homestead--
Plenty, throned on the lumbering wain.
Land of Contentment! May no strife vex you,
Never war's flag on your plains unfurl'd;
Only the blessings of mankind reach you--
Finding the food for a hungry world!

Sing me the charm of her blazing camp-fires;
Sing me the quiet of her happy homes,
Whether afar 'neath the forest arches,
Or in the shade of the city's domes;
Sing me her life, her loves, her labors;
All of a mother a son would hear;
For when a lov'd one's praise is sounding,
Sweet are the strains to the lover's ear.

Sing me the worth of each Canadian--
Roamer in wilderness, toiler in town--
Search earth over you'll find none stauncher,
Whether his hands be white or brown;
Come of a right good stock to start with,
Best of the world's blood in each vein;
Lords of ourselves, and slaves to no one,
For us or from us, you'll find we're--MEN!

Sing me the song, then; sing it bravely;
Put your soul in the words you sing;
Sing me the praise of this glorious country--
Clear on the ear let the deep notes ring.
Here is no starveling--Heaven-forsaken--
Crouching apart where the Nations throng;
Proud as the proudest moves she among them--
Well is she worthy a noble song!

CHARLES GEORGE DOUGLAS ROBERTS

A NOCTURNE OF CONSECRATION

I talked about you, Dear, the other night,
Having myself alone with my delight.
Alone with dreams and memories of you,
All the divine-houred summer stillness through
I talked of life, of love the always new,
Of tears, and joy,--yet only talked of you.

To the sweet air
That breathed upon my face
The spirit of lilies in a leafy place,
Your breath's caress, the lingering of your hair,
I said--"In all your wandering through the dusk,
Your waitings on the marriages of flowers
Through the long, intimate hours
When soul and sense, desire and love confer,
You must have known the best that God has made.
What do you know of Her?"

Said the sweet air--
"Since I have touched her lips,
Bringing the consecration of her kiss,
Half passion and half prayer,
And all for you,
My various lore has suffered an eclipse.
I have forgot all else of sweet I know."

To the wise earth,
Kind, and companionable, and dewy cool,
Fair beyond words to tell, as you are fair,
And cunning past compare
To leash all heaven in a windless pool,
I said--"The mysteries of death and birth
Are in your care.
You love, and sleep; you drain life to the lees;
And wonderful things you know.
Angels have visited you, and at your knees
Learned what I learn forever at her eyes,
The pain that still enhances Paradise.
You in your breast felt her first pulses stir;
And you have thrilled to the light touch of her feet,
Blindingly sweet.
Now make me wise with some new word of Her."

Said the wise earth--
"She is not all my child.
But the wild spirit that rules her heart-beats wild
Is of diviner birth,
And kin to the unknown light beyond my ken.
All I can give to Her have I not given?
Strength to be glad, to suffer, and to know;
The sorcery that subdues the souls of men;
The beauty that is as the shadow of heaven;
The hunger of love
And unspeakable joy thereof.
And these are dear to Her because of you.
You need no word of mine to make you wise
Who worship at her eyes
And find there life and love forever new!"

To the white stars,
Eternal and all-seeing,
In their wide home beyond the wells of being,
I said--"There is a little cloud that mars
The mystical perfection of her kiss.
Mine, mine, She is,
As far as lip to lip, and heart to heart,
And spirit to spirit when lips and hands must part,
Can make her mine. But there is more than this,--
More, more of Her to know.
For still her soul escapes me unaware,
To dwell in secret where I may not go.
Take, and uplift me. Make me wholly Hers."

Said the white stars, the heavenly ministers,--
"This life is brief, but it is only one.
Before to-morrow's sun
For one or both of you it may be done.
This love of yours is only just begun.
Will all the ecstasy that may be won
Before this life its little course has run
At all suffice
The love that agonizes in your eyes?
Therefore be wise.
Content you with the wonder of love that lies
Between her lips and underneath her eyes.
If more you should surprise,
What would be left to hope from Paradise?
In other worlds expect another joy
Of Her, which blundering fate shall not annoy,
Nor time nor change destroy."

So, Dear, I talked the long, divine night through,
And felt you in the chrismal balms of dew.
The thing then learned
Has ever since within my bosom burned--
One life is not enough for love of you.

A NOCTURNE OF SPIRITUAL LOVE

Sleep, sleep, imperious heart! Sleep, fair and undefiled!
Sleep, and be free!
Come in your dreams at last, comrade and queen and child,--
At last to me.

Come, for the honeysuckle calls you out of the night.
Come, for the air
Calls with a tyrannous remembrance of delight,
Passion and prayer.

Sleep, sovereign heart! And now--for dream and memory
Endure no door,--
My spirit undenied goes where my feet, to thee,
Have gone before.

A moonbeam or a breath, above thine eyes I bow,
Silent, unseen,
But not, ah not unknown! Thy spirit knows me now
Where I have been.

Surely my long desire upon thy soul hath power.
Surely for this
Thy sleep shall breathe thee forth, soul of the lily flower,
Under my kiss.

Sleep, body wonderful! Wake, spirit wise and wild,
White and divine!
Here is our heaven of dreams, O dear and undefiled,
All thine, all mine.

AN ODE FOR THE CANADIAN CONFEDERACY

Awake, my country, the hour is great with change!
Under this gloom which yet obscures the land,
From ice-blue strait and stem Laurentian range
To where giant peaks our western bounds command,
A deep voice stirs, vibrating in men's ears
As if their own hearts throbbed that thunder forth,
A sound wherein who hearkens wisely hears
The voice of the desire of this strong North,--
This North whose heart of fire
Yet knows not its desire
Clearly, but dreams, and murmurs in the dream.
The hour of dreams is done. Lo, on the hills the gleam!

Awake, my country, the hour of dreams is done!
Doubt not, nor dread the greatness of thy fate.
Tho' faint souls fear the keen confronting sun,
And fain would bid the morn of splendor wait;
Tho' dreamers, rapt in starry visions, cry
"Lo, yon thy future, yon thy faith, thy fame!"
And stretch vain hands to stars, thy fame is nigh,
Here in Canadian hearth, and home, and name;--
This name which yet shall grow
Till all the nations know
Us for a patriot people, heart and hand
Loyal to our native earth, our own Canadian land!

O strong hearts, guarding the birthright of our glory,
Worth your best blood this heritage that ye guard!
These mighty streams resplendent with our story,
These iron coasts by rage of seas unjarred,--
What fields of peace these bulwarks will secure!
What vales of plenty those calm floods supply!
Shall not our love this rough, sweet land make sure,
Her bounds preserve inviolate, though we die?
O strong hearts of the North,
Let flame your loyalty forth,
And put the craven and base to an open shame,
Till earth shall know the Child of Nations by her name!

CANADIAN STREAMS

O rivers rolling to the sea
From lands that bear the maple tree,
How swell your voices with the strain
Of loyalty and liberty!

A holy music, heard in vain
By coward heart and sordid brain,
To whom this strenuous being seems
Naught but a greedy race for gain.

O unsung streams--not splendid themes
Ye lack to fire your patriot dreams!
Annals of glory gild your waves,
Hope freights your tides, Canadian streams!

St Lawrence, whose wide water laves
The shores that ne'er have nourished slaves!
Swift Richelieu of lilied fame!
Niagara of glorious graves!

Thy rapids, Ottawa, proclaim
Where Daulac and his heroes came!
Thy tides, St John, declare La Tour,
And, later, many a loyal name!

Thou inland stream, whose vales, secure
From storm, Tecumseh's death made poor!
And thou, small water, red with war,
'Twixt Beaubassin and Beauséjour!

Dread Saguenay, where eagles soar,
What voice shall from the bastioned shore
The tale of Roberval reveal,
Or his mysterious fate deplore?

Annapolis, do thy floods yet feel
Faint memories of Champlain's keel,
Thy pulses yet the deed repeat
Of Poutrincourt and d'Iberville?

And thou far tide, whose plains now beat
With march of myriad westering feet,
Saskatchewan, whose virgin sod
So late Canadian blood made sweet?

Your bulwark hills, your valleys broad,
Streams where de Salaberry trod,
Where Wolfe achieved, where Brock was slain,--
Their voices are the voice of God!

O sacred waters! not in vain,
Across Canadian height and plain,
Ye sound us in triumphant tone
The summons of your high refrain.

THE SILVER THAW

There came a day of showers
Upon the shrinking snow;
The south wind sighed of flowers,
The softening skies hung low.
Midwinter for a space
Foreshadowing April's face,
The white world caught the fancy,
And would not let it go.

In reawakened courses
The brooks rejoiced the land;
We dreamed the Spring's shy forces
Were gathering close at hand.
The dripping buds were stirred,
As if the sap had heard
The long-desired persuasion
Of April's soft command.

But antic Time had cheated
With hope's elusive gleam;
The phantom Spring, defeated,
Fled down the ways of dream.
And in the night the reign
Of winter came again,
With frost upon the forest
And stillness on the stream.

When morn in rose and crocus
Came up the bitter sky,
Celestial beams awoke us
To wondering ecstasy.
The wizard Winter's spell
Had wrought so passing well,
That earth was bathed in glory,
As if God's smile were nigh.

The silver'd saplings, bending,
Flashed in a rain of gems;
The statelier trees, attending,
Blazed in their diadems.
White fire and amethyst
All common things had kissed,
And chrysolites and sapphires
Adorned the bramble-stems.

In crystalline confusion
All beauty came to birth;
It was a kind illusion
To comfort waiting earth--
To bid the buds forget
The Spring so distant yet,
And hearts no more remember
The iron season's dearth.

EPITAPH FOR A SAILOR BURIED ASHORE

He who but yesterday would roam
Careless as clouds, and currents range,
In homeless wandering most at home,
Inhabiter of change;

Who wooed the West to win the East,
And named the stars of North and South,
And felt the zest of Freedom's feast
Familiar in his mouth;

Who found a faith in stranger-speech,
And fellowship in foreign hands,
And had within his eager reach
The relish of all lands--

How circumscribed a plot of earth
Keeps now his restless footsteps still,
Whose wish was wide as ocean's girth,
Whose will the water's will!

THE TRAIN AMONG THE HILLS

Vast, unrevealed, in silence and the night
Brooding, the ancient hills commune with sleep.
Inviolate the solemn valleys keep
Their contemplation. Soon from height to height
Steals a red finger of mysterious light,
And lion-footed through the forests creep
Strange mutterings; till suddenly, with sweep
And shattering thunder of resistless flight
And crash of routed echoes, roars to view,
Down the long mountain gorge, the Night Express,
Freighted with fears and tears and happiness....
The dread form passes; silence falls anew.
And lo! I have beheld the thronged, blind world
To goals unseen from God's hand onward hurled.

A SONG OF GROWTH

In the heart of a man
Is a thought upfurled,
Reached its full span
It shakes the world,
And to one high thought
Is a whole race wrought.

Not with vain noise
The great work grows,
Nor with foolish voice,
But in repose,--
Not in the rush
But in the hush.

From the cogent lash
Of the cloud-herd wind
The low clouds dash,
Blown headlong, blind;
But beyond, the great blue
Looks moveless through.

O'er the loud world sweep
The scourge and the rod;
But in deep beyond deep
Is the stillness of God;--
At the Fountains of Life
No cry, no strife.

SLEEPY MAN

When the Sleepy Man comes with dust in his eyes
(Oh, weary, my Dearie, so weary!)
He shuts up the earth, and he opens the skies.
(So hush-a-by, weary, my Dearie!)

He smiles through his fingers, and shuts up the sun;
(Oh, weary, my Dearie, so weary!)
The stars that he loves he lets out one by one.
(So hush-a-by, weary, my Dearie!)

He comes from the castles of Drowsy-boy Town;
(Oh, weary, my Dearie, so weary!)
At the touch of his hand the tired eyelids fall down.
(So hush-a-by, weary, my Dearie!)

He comes with a murmur of dreams in his wings
(Oh, weary, my Dearie, so weary!)
And whispers of mermaids and wonderful things.
(So hush-a-by, weary, my Dearie!)

When the top is a burden, the bugle a bane,
(Oh, weary, my Dearie, so weary!)
When one would be faring down Dream-a-way Lane,
(So hush-a-by, weary, my Dearie!)

When one would be wending in Lullaby Wherry
(Oh, weary, my Dearie, so weary!)
To Sleepy Man's Castle by Comforting Ferry.
(So hush-a-by, weary, my Dearie!)

NIGHT IN A DOWN-TOWN STREET

Not in the eyed, expectant gloom,
Where soaring peaks repose
And incommunicable space
Companions with the snows;

Not in the glimmering dusk that crawls
Upon the clouded sea,
Where bourneless wave on bourneless wave
Complains continually;

Not in the palpable dark of woods
Where groping hands clutch fear,
Does Night her deeps of solitude
Reveal unveiled as here.

The street is a grim cañon carved
In the eternal stone,
That knows no more the rushing stream
It anciently has known.

The emptying tide of life has drained
The iron channel dry,
Strange winds from the forgotten day
Draw down, and dream, and sigh.

The narrow heaven, the desolate moon
Made wan with endless years,
Seem less immeasurably remote
Than laughter, love, or tears.

THE FALLING LEAVES

Lightly He blows, and at His breath they fall,
The perishing kindreds of the leaves; they drift,
Spent flames of scarlet, gold aërial,
Across the hollow year, noiseless and swift.
Lightly he blows, and countless as the falling
Of snow by night upon a solemn sea,
The ages circle down beyond recalling,
To strew the hollows of Eternity.
He sees them drifting through the spaces dim,
And leaves and ages are as one to Him.

AN EPITAPH FOR A HUSBANDMAN

He who would start and rise
Before the crowing cocks--
No more he lifts his eyes,
Whoever knocks.

He who before the stars
Would call the cattle home,--
They wait about the bars
For him to come.

Him at whose hearty calls
The farmstead woke again,
The horses in their stalls
Expect in vain.

Busy, and blithe, and bold,
He labored for the morrow,--
The plough his hands would hold
Rusts in the furrow.

His fields he had to leave,
His orchards cool and dim;
The clods he used to cleave
Now cover him.

But the green, growing things
Lean kindly to his sleep,--
White roots and wandering strings,
Closer they creep.

Because he loved them long
And with them bore his part,
Tenderly now they throng
About his heart.

ORIGINS

Out of the dreams that heap
The hollow hand of sleep,--
Out of the dark sublime,
The echoing deeps of time,--
From the averted Face
Beyond the bournes of space,
Into the sudden sun
We journey, one by one.
Out of the hidden shade
Wherein desire is made,--
Out of the pregnant stir
Where death and life confer,--
The dark and mystic heat
Where soul and matter meet,--
The enigmatic Will,--
We start! and then are still.

Inexorably decreed
By the ancestral deed,
The puppets of our sires,
We work out blind desires,
And for our sons ordain
The blessing or the bane.
In ignorance we stand
With fate on either hand,
And question stars and earth
Of life, and death, and birth.
With wonder in our eyes
We scan the kindred skies,
While through the common grass
Our atoms mix and pass.
We feel the sap go free
When spring comes to the tree;
And in our blood is stirred
What warms the brooding bird.
The vital fire we breathe
That bud and blade bequeathe,
And strength of native clay
In our full veins hath sway.

But in the urge intense
And fellowship of sense,
Suddenly comes a word
In other ages heard.
On a great wind our souls
Are borne to unknown goals,
And past the bournes of space
To the unaverted Face.

THE WRESTLER

When God sends out His company to travel
through the stars,
There is every kind of wonder in the show;
There is every kind of animal behind its prison bars;
With riders in a many-colored row.
The master showman, Time, has a strange trick of rhyme,
And the clown's most ribald jest is a tear;
But the best drawing card is the Wrestler huge and hard,
Who can fill the tent at any time of year.

His eye is on the crowd, and he beckons with his hand,
With authoritative finger, and they come.
The rules of the game they do not understand,
But they go as in a dream, and are dumb.
They would fain say him nay, and they look the other way,
Till at last to the ropes they cling;
But he throws them one by one till the show for them is done,
In the blood-red dust of the ring.

There's none to shun his challenge--they must meet him soon or
late,
And he knows a cunning trick for all heels.
The king's haughty crown drops in jeers from his pate
As the hold closes on him, and he reels.
The burly and the proud, the braggarts of the crowd,
Every one of them he topples down in thunder.
His grip grows mild for the dotard and the child,
But alike they must all go under.

Oh, many a mighty foeman would try a fall with him--
Persepolis and Babylon and Rome,
Assyria and Sardis, they see their fame grow dim,
As he tumbles in the dust every dome.
At length will come an hour when the stars shall feel his power,
And he shall have his will upon the sun.
Ere we know what he's about, the stars will be put out,
And the wonder of the show will be undone.

RECESSIONAL

Now along the solemn heights
Fade the Autumn's altar-lights;
Down the great earth's glimmering chancel
Glide the days and nights.

Little kindred of the grass,
Like a shadow in a glass
Falls the dark and falls the stillness;
We must rise and pass.

We must rise and follow, wending
Where the nights and days have ending,--
Pass in order pale and slow
Unto sleep extending.

Little brothers of the clod,
Soul of fire and seed of sod,
We must fare into the silence
At the knees of God.

Little comrades of the sky
Wing to wing we wander by,
Going, going, going, going,
Softly as a sigh.

Hark, the moving shapes confer,
Globe of dew and gossamer,
Fading and ephemeral spirits
In the dusk astir.

Moth and blossom, blade and bee,
Worlds must go as well as we,
In the long procession joining
Mount, and star, and sea.

Toward the shadowy brink we climb
Where the round year rolls sublime,
Rolls, and drops, and falls forever
In the vast of time;

Like a plummet plunging deep
Past the utmost reach of sleep,
Till remembrance has no longer
Care to laugh or weep.

ASCRIPTION

O Thou who hast beneath Thy hand
The dark foundations of the land,--
The motion of whose ordered thought
An instant universe hath wrought;

Who hast within Thine equal hand
The rolling sun, the ripening seed,
The azure of the speedwell's eye,
The vast solemnities of sky,--

Who hear'st no less the feeble note
Of one small bird's awakening throat
Than that unnamed, tremendous chord
Arcturus sounds before his Lord,--

More sweet to Thee than all acclaim
Of storm and ocean, stars and flame,
In favor more before Thy face
Than pageantry of time and space,

The worship and the service be
Of him Thou madest most like Thee,--
Who in his nostrils hath Thy breath,
Whose spirit is the lord of death!

THEODORE ROBERTS

THE SPEARS OF KAN-MAR

Eyes that we look into--so,
Hands that we kiss ere we go,
Keep us,--remember us, hold us a night and a day;
For the white road stretches ahead,
And our spears have a vision of red,
And our horses champ with their bits, and rear at the way.

The tussocks of grass in the glare
Are brown as a dream-maiden's hair,
And over them, white in the sun, the spears of Kan-Mar;
The curbs, and the froth at the lips--
The bridle chains snapping like whips,
And our plumes tossed red, and scenting the heels of war.

The eyes that twinkle and burn--
The wrists like elk-thongs that turn
With the balancing, pausing, slender, murderous spear;
The swords that lead us along,
The thrust, the shriek and the song--
Sights not fit for their eyes, nor sounds for their ears to hear.

The city gates in the sun,
The glory of brave deeds done,
The clatter of horning hoofs and the song of old Kan-Mar,
The roar of the narrow street
Filled with clanging of feet--
The white hands over the balconies, and the kiss on the burning
scar!

COLD

"Cold," cried the wind on the hill,
"Cold," sang the tree;
Your eyes were blue-grey and still
And cold as the sea.

Cold lay the snow on the land;
Cold stood the pine;
But neither as cold as your hand
Lying in mine.

Ah, Love, has the fire died so soon--
Just smoldered and gone;
A kiss by the light of the moon,
A parting by dawn.

THE MEN OF MY HEART'S DESIRE

Where are the men of my heart's desire?
Of the British blood and the loyal names?
Some are North, at the home hearth-fire,
Where the hemlock glooms and the maple flames,
And some are tramping the old world round
For the pot of gold they have never found.

Oh, leal are the men of my heart's desire--
Their fathers were leal in the days gone by--
And their blood is blithe with the subtle fire
The purple breeds, and their hearts are high,--
Poor, and gallant, and dear to me,
With a strong hand each, and a pedigree.

Good men are bred in the East and the West,
And ripe, true gentles in Boston town,
But the men of my blood to my blood seem best--
Who still hold the honor of Mitre and Crown.
Though empty their cellars and worn their attire,
These are the men of my heart's desire.

So, gentles, these stumbling rhymes I send
To our spruce-clad hills, for a word of cheer,--
Where there's ever a welcome and ever a friend,
And the brown coat covers the cavalier.
Take them, I pray you, for what they are worth,
For I swear by my soul you're the salt of the earth.

THE CHASE

Down the long lanes of Arcadie
My lady canters merrily;
The grain is bleaching in the sun,
The russet hickories confer,
And mounted on old Cheveron
With laughing call I follow her.

The maples stand in flaming red,
The sturdy brakes are sere and dead;
But still my lady canters on
Through field and wood and busy town,
And mounted on old Cheveron
I try to ride her down.

Through the long lanes of Arcadie
The crickets skip and chirp to me;
My lady's just 'round yonder bend,
Methinks I hear her call to me--
Methinks our chase is at an end
Through these long lanes of Arcadie!

Nay, still she canters down the lane
With floating skirt and loosened rein.
We've traveled all this summer land,
And still we mount and gallop on;
Sometimes she turns and waves her hand,
A challenge to old Cheveron.

Through all this land of Arcadie
She leads old Cheveron and me,
And how her good mount stands it so
Is really more than I can see;
The valleys now are white with snow,
Yet still we ride through Arcadie.

Old Cheveron has cast his shoes!
The Chase is up, my Lady Muse!

WILLIAM CARMAN ROBERTS

HISTORY

Her gold hair fallen about her face
Made light within that shadowy place,
But on her garments lay the dust
Of many a vanished race.

Her deep eyes, gazing straight ahead,
Saw years and days and hours long dead,
While strange gems glimmered at her feet,
Yellow, and green, and red.

And ever from the shadows came
Voices to pierce her heart like flame.
The great bats fanned her with their wings,
The voices called her name.

But yet her look turned not aside
From the black deep where dreams abide,
Where worlds and pageantries lay dead
Beneath that viewless tide.

Her elbow on her knee was set,
Her strong hand propt her chin, and yet
No man might name that look she wore,
Nor any man forget.

AN EASTER MEMORY

The chime of bells across the waking year
Peals out "The White Christ risen from the dead"--
The gospel that the April winds have spread,
The mystery the golden-wing makes clear.

The tender sky smiles over it; the air
Is kind with love to comfort all the earth.
The brown parks have forgotten winter's dearth
Since daffodils and sunlight made them fair.

But still the gray church from the crowded street
Allures me with the spell of broken dreams.
O heart, my heart, to you and me it seems
That God has left His glory incomplete.

Can we not see her, as a year ago,
Beyond that sunlight flaked in colored fire--
The upturned face, the eyes of still desire,
The dusk-gold hair that now the angels know?

What means this tender April sky to her,
With bells that chime against the winds of spring?
Does memory move her when the blue birds sing,
Or does she feel the old sweet pulses stir?

The organ lays its voice across our strife.
What is it that the sobbing notes would say?
For you and me, my heart, another day!
For her--the Resurrection and the Life!

MY COMRADE CANOE

True comrade, we have tasted life together;
With the wild joy at heart have slipped the tether
To follow, follow, to strange wildernesses,
The frank enticement of the wind and weather.

Joy of the quivering pole, the thrilling sinew,
When mad black rapids shook the soul within you.
As climbing toward the lakes of inland silence
I laughed to see the fanged rocks strain to win you.

Joy of the moonlight on the quiet reaches,
Where loitering we caught the word that teaches
The poise of Godhead to the questing spirit,
The urge of springtime to the budding beeches.

When through the dusk the serried clouds were massing,
Where some lost lake among the hills was glassing
The stormy fire above the western spruces,
The looming moose would wonder at our passing.

Then, when the outland voices ceased to hold us,
When winds would tell no more what once they told us,
We dreamed how far away a little village
Lay waiting with its welcome to infold us.

GEORGE JOHN ROMANES