Chapter I: Watch the Ships

I watch the ships by town and lea
With sails full set glide out to sea,
Till by the distant light-house rock
The breakers beat with roar and shock
And foam fierce flying o'er their decks,
While deep below lie ocean's wrecks;
What careth she?

I stand beside the beaten quay
And look while laden ships from sea
Come proudly home upon the tide
lake conquering kings at eventide,
Or from fierce fights with wintry gales
Steal shoreward now with tattered sails;
O cruel sea!

I pass once more the old gray pier
Where men have waited many a year
For ships that ne'er again shall glide
By town and lea on favoring tide,--
Strong ships that struggled till the gales
Of winter hid their shrouds and sails
In ocean drear.

Soft sailing spirits, how they glide
Forth on life's fitful sea untried
To breast the waves and bear the shocks
Beyond the guarded light-house rocks,
To strive and struggle many a year;
Strong souls, indeed, if they can bear
Life's wind and tide.

I watch beside life's beaten quay
The tides bring back all joyously
To anchor by the sheltered shore
Some freighted full with golden store
From rich spice-fields and perfumed sands
Of soft, luxuriant tropic lands;
O kindly sea!

But some have met with wintry gales,
And come at last with shattered sails
To anchor by the old gray pier;
While loving ones in hope and fear
Wait on for some that never more
Shall anchor by a peaceful shore;
O sad, sad sea!

JAMES DAVID EDGAR

THIS CANADA OF OURS

Let other tongues in older lands
Loud vaunt their claims to glory,
And chaunt in triumph of the past,
Content to live in story.
Tho' boasting no baronial halls,
Nor ivy-crested towers,
What past can match thy glorious youth,
Fair Canada of ours?
Fair Canada,
Dear Canada,
This Canada of ours!

We love those far-off ocean Isles
Where Britain's monarch reigns;
We'll ne'er forget the good old blood
That courses through our veins;
Proud Scotia's fame, old Erin's name,
And haughty Albion's powers,
Reflect their matchless lustre on
This Canada of ours.
Fair Canada,
Dear Canada,
This Canada of ours!

May our Dominion flourish then,
A goodly land and free,
Where Celt and Saxon, hand in hand,
Hold sway from sea to sea;
Strong arms shall guard our cherished homes
When darkest danger lowers,
And with our life-blood we'll defend
This Canada of ours.
Fair Canada,
Dear Canada,
This Canada of ours!

CONSTANCE FAIRBANKS

THE JUNCTION

Here, at the change of ways, the steel steed halts,
The train stands still, and weary travellers gaze
On what appears to be a wilderness
Of barren rocks, grim, desolate, and stern.
"What place is this," they ask, "so bleak and bald?
Here surely are the bones of Earth laid bare;
The gaunt frame of this time-worn world!" Such words,
Contempt infused, are heard from jeering lips,
But the drear wayside maketh no reply.
Yet look! the train moves on; the funnel snorts,
And rocks fling echoes on the trembling air;
From the new point of sight the scoffer sees
Deep pools of water bosomed in the waste--
Calm ponds reflecting Heaven's own lovely blue,
With gray rocks, verdure-touched, around their brinks.

HALIFAX

Facing the ocean, guardian of our land,
Thy frowning forts and ramparts front the foam
Whose waves still ceaseless chafe the rocky strand,
While salt winds waft sea-odors o'er our home.

All the round year the tramp of armed men,
Crisp bugle call, the guns at noon and night,
And martial music, tell us o'er again
That Britain guards us with a jealous might.

THOSE FAR-OFF FIELDS

Those far-off fields, how fair they seem,
As soft through mists of years they gleam!
We never now around us see
Such meads as those of olden be;
We never find a lake or stream
One half so lovely as we deem
Those which we only view in dream,
Watering the fields of memory--
Those far-off fields!

And we were happy then! The theme
Of our existence, love supreme:
And looking back on Fate's decree--
On all that happened you and me--
We sigh--for dear our souls esteem
Those far-off fields!

JOSEPH KEARNEY FORAN

THE AURORA BOREALIS

As the twilight's gray was swallowed
In the depths of night that followed,
And the hand of darkness hollowed
Furrows deep along the land,
Distant bells in sheepfold tinkled,
Million stars in azure twinkled,
Over mountain-peaks that stand
Like giants swarth and grand.

In the north behold a flushing;
Then a deep and crimson blushing;
Followed by an airy rushing
Of the purple waves that rise!
As when armëd host advances,
See, a silver banner dances,
And a thousand golden lances
Shimmer in the Boreal skies!
The vision slowly dies!

Now, in bright prismatic splendor,
Comes a picture still more tender,
As a curtain white and slender
Falls across the space afar;
Where its lacy folds are ending,
With the black of distance blending,
Are its miles of fringe descending,
Hanging from a golden bar--
Pinned to heaven by a star!

Like a monster roused from sleeping,
First to westward slowly creeping,
Then, in headlong fury, sweeping,
Rushed a mammoth cloud of black;
Rolling upward, plunging, lashing,
Through the fairy curtain dashing,
With a thousand beauties flashing
O'er its phosphorescent back--
Endless streamers in its track!

Visions of Arabian story;
Crimson fields of battle gory;
In kaleidoscopic glory,
Shifting, fading, restless tents;
Fairy armies wild in motion;
Jewelled shrines of strange devotion;
And a greenish, tideless ocean,
Bound by ice-clad mounts and dents,
Saw we through the curtain's rents!

Transformations still beholding,
Up the veil is swiftly folding--
And fantastic shapes are moulding
On the background of the sky;
Dimmer armies are parading,--
Fainter wreaths the light is braiding,
While the splendors all are fading
Into one deep purple dye,
Disappearing from the eye!

WILLIAM HENRY FULLER

A SONG OF THE SEA

I'll sing you a Song of the Sea!
With the waves sparkling bright,
And the breeze blowing light,
And our dear native land on the lee,
How glad is the Song of the Sea!
With friends looking out from the quay,
Their kerchiefs and hands waving free,
And bright smiles and welcome for thee,
How glad! how glad!
How glad is the Song of the Sea!

I'll sing you a Song of the Sea!
When the skies lour dark
O'er the plague-stricken bark
As she drifts on the desolate sea,
How sad is the Song of the Sea!
When overhead hangs the dun cloud,
Like a pall o'er the dead sailor's shroud
As he sinks in the vast wandering sea,
How sad! how sad!
How sad is the Song of the Sea!

I'll sing you a Song of the Sea!
When the fierce lightnings flash,
And the stormy waves dash,
And the rocky shore looms on the lee,
How dread is the Song of the Sea!
When the hearts of the bravest will quail
As they shrink from the furious gale
And the wrath of the menacing sea,
How dread! how dread!
How dread is the Song of the Sea!

ALEXANDER RAE GARVIE

_From_ "PHANTASY"

Fancy many forms assumes!
'Tis a bee among the blooms,
In the noon of June, that sips
Honey from the heart and lips
Of Anacreon's glorious rose.
Now how warily it goes
Past grim dragons to the trees
Growing in Hesperides!
And anon with Jason hears
Sirens' luring song, and steers
Straightway from the fatal shore,
While each rower strains his oar.
'Tis a bat at twilight still,
Flitting round a lonesome mill;
'Tis a falcon fleet that flies
Into depths of opal skies;
Oft it is a sullen owl--
Pallas' learnëd pensive fowl,
Hooting hoarsely 'mong the trees;
And again, o'er troubled seas
As a petrel bold it wings
Tirelessly. Sometimes it sings
Lark-like in the heavens' scope
When dew gleams on grassy slope.
Roaming meadows, daisy-decked,
'Tis a child afoot, unchecked,
Gladness in her azure eyes,
As she sees with mute surprise
Brooding birds in hedges' heart,
Building nests with simple art.
And at dawning, near a mere,
Girdled by the bulrush spear,
Fancy as a heron stalks
Heedful of the hated hawks.
Fancy is a butterfly
Born to live brief life and die.
'Tis a pink-lipped shell afloat,
Fit for tiny fairy's boat;
Fair in fiction, false in fact,
Shunned by men who are exact,
Loved by poet whom it guides
When on Pegasus he rides;
Lover's joy when maid is true,
Lover's woe when, stricken through
With sharp dart, his trust is slain!
Bright and dark and bright again,
Phantom! none thy face may paint,
Since--now sinner, and then saint--
Thou dost peer from cowl or crown,
Now with smile, anon with frown.
Sweet Sprite! thou alone canst trace
Airy pictures of thy face;
Thou who limnest Rosamond,
Guinevere, and Juliet fond.
Fancy, Fancy, come and charm,
Grasped by clutch of graven gold,
Jove's fetters, her to have and hold!
This swift Ariel serves us well,
Lets us in the glamour's spell,
Drink beside Bacchante fair,
Toy with Pyrrha's braided hair,
Hear Apollo's matchless lute
And the twy-formed Faun's soft flute;
Shows us Aphrodite rise
From foamy seas to sunny skies,
Leads us down the track of Time,
Bears us into every clime;
Often paces kirkyard green
Mourning in her garb and mien,
Mingles with the dancing crowd,
Broiders banners, weaves a shroud,
Keeps a fast or festival--
Lean Lent here, there--Carnival
Starves or surfeits, Fancy free,
Sojourning in Italy.
As an Arab, lo! how calm
Under frondage of the palm;
Like a Norseman, winter-bound,
(Lest he be in dulness drowned);
Over ice on skate-blades whirs
Past the shaggy, sombre firs.--
Ha, my Fancy! art thou mad,
Or with Folly's mantle clad?

PIERCE STEVENS HAMILTON

_From_ "THE HEROINE OF ST JOHN"

I

'Tis dawn; but not such morning-tide
As we had guessed the eve before:
Armed ships within our harbor ride,
And armëd men are on the shore.

But these are not the ships, or men,
That sailed with Sieur La Tour away:
Ah, no, their vengeful chief we ken,--
Accurst D'Aulnay de Charnisé!

Now quick the drum is beat to arms;
We run the flag of France on high;
The battle fierce each bosom warms,
And adds a light to every eye.

And forth our lady chieftain came,
All fearless from her chaste alcove;
But first she snatched from duty's claim
One moment for a mother's love;--

One moment pressed her darling child,
And kissed its slumbers with a tear;
One moment more from warfare wild--
She breathed a brief impassioned prayer;

Then to the ramparts hied in haste,
To personate her absent lord,--
A baldrick o'er her swelling breast,
And by her side a pendant sword.

With glowing cheek, and eye that gleamed,
And voice forbidding all alarm,
Yet graceful, beautiful, she seemed
A warrior in an angel form....

II

Now dark D'Aulnay a parley seeks;
Demands surrender of the fort!
But, ha! soon back his herald takes
An answer fearless, prompt, and short:--

"Madame will hold this fort St John,
As she has held it once before,
Despite of every robber loon,
For France and for her lord, La Tour."...

Three days D'Aulnay's beleaguering force
Assailed our fort with might and main;
To every wile he had recourse,--
To fail again and yet again....

No craven cry our lady heard,
Though small our band and sorely pressed;
One soul our every action spurred,--
Her lion's heart in woman's breast!...

III

'Twas Easter morn.--A sudden cry!--
Our every heart a moment quailed:--
"The guard!--quick--ho!--the enemy
Our ditch and parapet have scaled!"...

Too true: a rampart's coin they'd won,
With skulking treachery for their guide;
De Charnisé himself led on,
With Ponce--the traitor!--by his side.

With one wild shout of "Vive La Tour!"
We dash upon their bristling van;
Where waves our lady's sword before,
Herself unscathed by fiend or man.

Our headlong charge the foe appalled;
They shrank; they staggered--turned for flight;
D'Aulnay a parley loudly called
And waved the craven signal white.

He vaunted his o'erwhelming force;
Our stout defence, he said, was well;--
Our longer strife would end in worse;
He offered terms most honorable.

Our lady viewed, with pitying eye,
Her band toil-worn, diminishëd;
With heaving breast and deep-drawn sigh,
She slowly, sadly bowed her head.

IV

Our keys surrendered, arms laid down,
We--penned and prisoned helplessly;--
Then dark and vengeful was the frown
Of stern D'Aulnay de Charnisé.

That demon in a human form,
Dark-souled, incarnate treachery,--
Now swore, with loud upbraiding storm,
The prisoned garrison should die....

No sound, no utterance, passed her lips,
The while that awful deed was done;
As if her soul were 'neath eclipse--
Her beauteous form transformed to stone.

Then, with one long, loud piercing shriek,
That form upon the earth she cast.
No more can D'Aulnay vengeance wreak:
The heroine's heart has burst at last!...

S. FRANCES HARRISON

VILLANELLE

Sprung from a sword-sheath fit for Mars,
Straight and sharp, of a gay glad green,
My jonquil lifts its yellow stars.

Barter, would I, for the dross of the Czars,
These golden flowers and buds fifteen,
Sprung from a sword-sheath fit for Mars?

Barter, would you, these scimitars,
Among which lit by their light so keen
My jonquil lifts its yellow stars?

No, for the breast may burst its bars,
The heart its shell, at sight of sheen
Sprung from a sword-sheath fit for Mars:

Miles away from the mad earth's jars,
Beneath a leafy and shining screen,
My jonquil lifts its yellow stars.

And I--self-scathed with mortal scars,
I weep, when I see, in its radiant mien,
Sprung from a sword-sheath fit for Mars
My jonquil lift its yellow stars.

CHÂTEAU PAPINEAU

The red-til'd towers of the old Château,
Perched on the cliff above our bark,
Burn in the western evening glow.

The fiery spirit of Papineau
Consumes them still with its fever spark,
The red-til'd towers of the old Château!

Drift by and mark how bright they show,
And how the mullion'd windows--mark!
Burn in the western evening glow!

Drift down, or up, where'er you go,
They flame from out the distant park,
The red-til'd towers of the old Château.

So was it once with friend, with foe;
Far off they saw the patriot's ark
Burn in the western evening glow.

Think of him now! One thought bestow,
As, blazing against the pine trees dark,
The red-til'd towers of the old Château
Burn in the western evening glow!

SEPTEMBER

I

Birds that were gray in the green are black in the yellow.
Here where the green remains rocks one little fellow.

Quaker in gray, do you know that the green is going?
More than that--do you know that the yellow is showing?

II

Singer of songs, do you know that your Youth is flying?
That Age will soon at the lock of your life be prying?

Lover of life, do you know that the brown is going?
More than that--do you know that the gray is showing?

NOVEMBER

These are the days that try us; these the hours
That find, or leave us, cowards--doubters of Heaven,
Sceptics of self, and riddled through with vain
Blind questionings as to Deity. Mute, we scan
The sky, the barren, wan, the drab, dull sky,
And mark it utterly blank. Whereas, a fool,
The flippant fungoid growth of modern mode,
Uncapped, unbelled, unshorn, but still a fool,
Fate at his fingers' ends, and Cause in tow,
Or, wiser, say, the Yorick of his age,
The Touchstone of his period, would forecast
Better than us, the film and foam of rose
That yet may float upon the eastern grays
At dawn to-morrow.
Still, and if we could,
We would not change our gloom for glibness, lose
Our wonder in our faith. We are not worse
Than those in whom the myth was strongest, those
In whom first awe lived longest, those who found
--Dear Pagans--gods in fountain, flood and flower.
Sometimes the old Hellenic base stirs, lives
Within us, and we thrill to branch and beam
When walking where the aureoled autumn sun
Looms golden through the chestnuts. But to-day--
When sodden leaves are merged in melting mire,
And garden-plots lie pilfered, and the vines
Are strings of tangled rigging reft of green,
Crude harps whereon the winter wind shall play
His bitter music--on a day like this,
We, harboring no Hellenic images, stand
In apathy mute before our window pane,
And muse upon the blankness. Then, O, then,
If ever, should we thank our God for those
Rare spirits who have testified in faith
Of such a world as this, and straight we pray
For such an eye as Wordsworth's, he who saw
System in anarchy, progress in ruin, peace
In devastation. Duty was his star--
May it be ours--this Star the Preacher missed.

THEODORE ARNOLD HAULTAIN

BEAUTY

Only in dreams she appears to me,
In dreams of the earth, and the sky, and the sea;
In the scent of the rose, the breath of the spring,
The cloud of the summer, glistening;
In the sound of an orient forest dim,
Scarce heard far off on ocean's rim
By wondering traveller who descries
Naught of all its mysteries;
In the wash of the wave, the sigh of the sea,
The laughter of leaves on the wind-tossed tree.

Her hair is the dusk of an autumn night,
Her brow the moonbeam's pallid light,
Her voice is the voice of the wind and the wave,
When the breeze blows low and the ripples lave
The feet of a wooded mountain hoar
Rising on southern storied shore.
The breath from between her hallowed lips
Is the breath exhaled from a rose that sips
The dew on a lucid April day,
Soft as the spring, as summer gay.
In the flush of the early morning mist,
Which the fervid sun has barely kissed,
Far down in the balmy-breathing dale,
I get a glimpse of her flimsy veil.
In the glow of the lurid sunset hue
I see the robe which her limbs shine through.
On the grass-blade wet I see the tears
Her eyes have shed for our hopes and fears.
Her eyes ... her eyes ... the infinite deeps
Of the holiest heavens where God He keeps
All that is beautiful, good, and true--
Her eyes are the infinite heaven's blue,
Gazing in sad serenity
On restless, frail humanity.
On softly-breathing evening still,
Alone, where the whispering wayward rill
To the love-sick leaves, which gently dip
Low down to kiss it, lip to lip,
Tells secrets strange of love and pain,
Which the leaves lisp back to it again,--
Ah! then I dream that my love comes nigh,
And think that I hear her softly sigh.

Or when, on a windy summer day,
(The golden sunshine-gleam on the bay)
To me, ensconced far out on the high
And rocky weed-strewn promontory,
Come multitudinous sights and sounds--
The rush of the boisterous wave which bounds
Far up the cliff, the sea-bird's call,
The flying spume, the cloudlets small
That dance through the ether hand in hand--
The joy suffused o'er the sea and the land,--
Then, too, I dream that my love is near,
And think that I catch her laughter clear.

Only in dreams she appears to me,
In dreams of the earth, and the sky, and the sea.

CHARLES HEAVYSEGE

MAGNANIMOUS AND MEAN

Open, my heart, thy ruddy valves;
It is thy master calls;
Let me go down, and curious trace
Thy labyrinthine halls.

Open, O heart, and let me view
The secrets of thy den;
Myself unto myself now show
With introspective ken.

Expose thyself, thou covered nest
Of passions, and be seen;
Stir up thy brood, that in unrest
Are ever piping keen.
Ah! what a motley multitude--
Magnanimous and mean!

NIGHT

'Tis solemn darkness; the sublime of shade;
Night, by no stars nor rising moon relieved;
The awful blank of nothingness arrayed,
O'er which my eyeballs roll in vain, deceived.
Upward, around, and downward I explore,
E'en to the frontiers of the ebon air,
But cannot, though I strive, discover more
Than what seems one huge cavern of despair.
Oh, Night, art thou so grim, when, black and bare
Of moonbeams, and no cloudlets to adorn,
Like a nude Ethiop 'twixt two houris fair,
Thou stand'st between the evening and the morn?
I took thee for an angel, but have wooed
A cacodæmon in mine ignorant mood.

THE COMING OF THE MORN

See how the Morn awakes. Along the sky
Proceeds she with her pale, increasing light,
And, from the depths of the dim canopy,
Drives out the shadows of departing night.
Lo, the clouds break, and gradually more wide
Morn openeth her bright, rejoicing gates;
And ever, as the orient valves divide,
A costlier aspect on their breadth awaits.

Lo, the clouds break, and in each opened schism
The coming Phœbus lays huge beams of gold,
And roseate fire and glories that the prism
Would vainly strive before us to unfold;
And, while I gaze, from out the bright abysm
A flaming disc is to the horizon rolled.

THE MYSTERY OF DOOM

'Twas on a day, and in high, radiant heaven,
An angel lay beside a lake reclined,
Against whose shores the rolling waves were driven,
And beat the measure to the dancing wind.
There, rapt, he meditated on that story
Of how Jehovah did of yore expel
Heaven's aborigines from grace and glory,--
Those mighty angels that did dare rebel.
And as he mused upon their dread abode
And endless penance, from his drooping hands
His harp sank down, and scattered all abroad
Its rosy garland on the golden sands;
His soul mute wondering that the All-wise Spirit
Should have allowed the doom of such demerit.

JOHN FREDERIC HERBIN

SIMON

I

Simon bent to his hissing saw,
Simon the chopper gnarled and tough,
All the years, till his hands were rough
As the clumsy shape of a bruin's paw,
Knotted and big with his labor long,
Yet sure in the work that made them strong.

Snarling with curse for his hairy throat,
Poverty feared his strong, rough grasp,
Sick with rage at the saw's bright hasp
That flashed with howl and cut with gloat.
The mother of death and a merciless fate,
She filled his life with the gloom of hate.

Yet his heart strives upward to his tongue
Incomplete in shreds of song
To help his heavy days along
Through life with mental clouds o'erhung.
Harsh as the saw the tunes depart,
Half-made and dull from the singer's heart.

II

Simon the sage worked night and day,
Simon the chopper wise and true;
Only his song to help him through,
And only his whistle to turn away
The endless gloom of a lowly place,
And the dreary tedium from his face.

His gleaming axe gives up to the light
Hearts of stubborn sticks and blocks--
A century maple or birch unlocks
Its fibres gathered through day and night;
And he marks it all with his ancient lore
As he reads the secret of bark and core.

In forest lore is Simon wise:
The beech that ripens on the hill,
The oak a century cannot kill,
Are well-read books before his eyes;
A forest beneath his axe has turned
In the fifty years his blade has burned.

He speaks and knows as a wise man knows,
Gathering together with dulling sense
The labor's grudging recompense,
Thoughtful and patient as wisdom grows.
He drifts away from the walks of men,
In a field where he alone has ken.

Simon is wise in days without tears,
Though arms never rest and work cannot sleep,--
Wise in the patience that never shall weep;
And toil looms yet in the coming years:
Ceaseless and hungry is human desire,
And Simon must feed the quenchless fire.

III

Simon the digger delves in the earth,
Preparing a pillow for weary head,
For tired limbs and heart a bed,--
Young, or gray, or dumb at birth,
He makes all ready with prelude dirge,
With careless foot on his own dark verge.

Like the book recording the village birth,
Fifty years he has kept the file
Of all defunct,--and who meanwhile
May soon desire a strip of earth
Are clearly writ--and the ancient book
Has stamped a gloom upon his look.

And he often grappled with death in the grave,
While Time stood by whetting his scythe.
Water may drip, and worms may writhe,
And the coffin will soon leave the chapel-nave:--
Who mourn the dead, as who soon forget,
Look into the grave, unburied yet.

First to come and last to go,
Simon waits on a fallen stone;
No tear, no fear, though he work alone
To make a grave where weeds may grow.
He fingers the sod with a tender care
As if part of the body resting there.

IV

Seasons have furrowed his features deep,
Bark-like and grim as the axe's food--
His days have grown slow with the growing wood--
Furrows that never smile or weep.
Axe and spade turn light away,
He labors in gloom at bright midday.

Seventy years of months and days
Weigh on his head and bend him down;
His brow with thought has become a frown.
Seldom a smile o'er his wrinkles plays,
For his labor makes him a gloomy lore;
Forgetting no face he has covered o'er.

V

Problems of living are hard to learn;
The duty is clear, reward but a hope;
Philosophy fails beyond life's dark scope.
The sage is the digger whose dawns return
That he drag the lingering minutes away--
There is no day but the present day.

What work is well when thrust to a close?
Wisdom foretells no hidden good;
Suffering follows the hardihood
Of plunging thus into future woes.
Living, alone, can quench distress;
The moment seized is the one to bless.

Poverty near, and death at his heels,
Simon is rich in the wealth of years;
Working for bread, without joy, without tears,
Till the changeless calm will gently steal
Across his face and will silence his song.
Where riches are equal his rest will be long.

THE DIVER

Like marble, nude, against the purple sky,
In ready poise, the diver scans the sea
Gemming the marsh's green placidity,
And mirroring the fearless form on high.
Behold the outward leap--he seems to fly!
His arms like arrow-blade just speeded free;
His body like the curving bolt, to be
Deep-driven till the piercing flight shall die.
Sharply the human arrow cleaves the tide,
Only a foaming swell to mark his flight;
While shoreward moves the silent ring on ring.
And now the sea is stirred and broken wide
Before the swimmer's passage swift and light,
And bears him as a courser bears a king.

ACROSS THE DYKES

The dykes half bare are lying in the bath
Of quivering sunlight on this Sunday morn,
And bobolinks aflock make sweet the worn
Old places, where two centuries of swath
Have fallen to earth before the mower's path.
Across the dykes the bell's low sound is borne
From green Grand Pré, abundant with the corn,
With milk and honey which it always hath.--
And now I hear the Angelus ring far;
See faith bow many a head that suffered wrong,
Near all these plains they wrested from the tide!
I see the vision of their final griefs that mar
The greenness of these meadows; in the song
Of birds I feel a tear that has not dried.

THE SONNET

How fair thou art the poets long have known;
And I have sought the beauty which is thine
Through many days and nights of cloud and shine,
Until one note of all sweet notes outblown
Has spelled my ear; for dearest things alone
Are found companionless; and the divine
And single inspiration shall entwine
The laurel till it fit the brow of one.
And thou art rare among the things most rare;
The beam consummate of the lights of day;
The fullest note struck from the living flood
Of melody; the gem that has most care
In the kind workman's hand, till he shall say,
"Thy beauty is the acme of all good."

ANNIE CAMPBELL HUESTIS

GENTLE-BREATH

Oh, Gentle-breath goes singing, goes singing through the grass,
And all the flowers know her and love to see her pass.
Oh, all the flowers know her, and well they know the song
That Gentle-breath goes singing, goes singing all day long.
O Gentle-breath! O Gentle-breath!
They do not know you sing of death.

Oh, Gentle-breath comes crooning a tender lullaby.
The merry day is over, the stars are in the sky--
The stars are in the sky, and the flowers droop their heads,
They cannot hear her passing, so airily she treads.
O Gentle-breath! O Gentle-breath!--
How mournfully she murmureth!

Oh, Gentle-breath comes crying--comes crying in the night
Among the sleeping flowers, with footsteps swift and light.
Her tears are on their faces--she sheds them for their sakes,
And there is in her singing a tender heart that breaks.
O Gentle-breath! O Gentle-breath!--
How tunefully she sings of death!

Oh, Gentle-breath goes wailing--goes shivering away,
And Icy-breath comes howling, and clouds are dull and gray.
Oh, Icy-breath comes howling--the pine trees sob o'erhead
For the leaves that all have fallen, the flowers that are dead.
O Gentle-breath! O Gentle-breath!
They did not know you sang of death.

O promise sweet!--I hear it!--the falling of the rain!
The leaves once more shall rustle, the flowers come again!
The flowers come again, with their faces fresh and sweet,
And all the grass shall tremble 'neath the touches of your feet.
For you will come, O Gentle-breath!
And sing again your song of death!

THE LITTLE WHITE SUN

The sky had a gray, gray face,
The touch of the mist was chill,
The earth was an eerie place,
For the wind moaned over the hill;
But the brown earth laughed, and the sky turned blue,
When the little white sun came peeping through.

The wet leaves saw it and smiled,
The glad birds gave it a song--
A cry from a heart, glee-wild,
And the echoes laugh it along:
And the wind and I went whistling, too,
When the little white sun came peeping through.

So welcome the chill of rain
And the world in its dreary guise--
To have it over again,
That moment of sweet surprise,
When the brown earth laughs, and the sky turns blue,
As the little white sun comes peeping through!

TWENTY-OLD AND SEVEN-WILD

O Twenty, running through the wood!
Where friendly leaves and grasses stir,
Where airs are sweet and trees are strong,
And hiding birds call out to her,
And every little timid thing
That creeps within the woods to sing
Seems just to have a voice for her.

O Twenty, running through the wood!
A woman grown, and yet a child!
Now in the sun, now in the shade--
The wild gone out to meet the wild.
And who can say life is not sweet
To eager eyes and fearless feet
To Twenty-old and Seven-wild.

She leaves the quiet road that winds
Its pretty way the whole wood through
And makes a pathway for herself,
As who at Twenty would not do?
Unseen and seen, the wind and she
Go through the bush and round the tree--
Go roving 'round and singing through.

Such pleasure just to lose herself!
O Seven-wild! O Twenty-old!
The shadows stealing from the night
Tread measures strange with gleams of gold.
And Mayflowers lift their faces pink:--
Now who could look at them and think
Of being young or being old?

O Twenty, running through the wood!
Its wildness has a power to still;
The voices low from rock and twig
The silences with music thrill,--
And suddenly _she_ silent grows,
And, searching out the path she knows,
Turns back--but carries home the thrill.

WILLIAM EDWARD HUNT

GOLDEN-ROD

Beshrew the coinëd gold!--and so take heed,
Nor palter with the dross to form a god--
Behold, the dandelion gilds the clod,
The buttercup adorns the dewy mead!
Doth it not bring contentment to thy greed?--
Then satiate thine avarice: the sod
Gleams with illimitable golden-rod,--
And of a surety thou art rich indeed!

The burnished banner of the summer's prime
Waves happy mortals to a golden feast
(The largess rare of yon high Eastern priest!)
Unstained by goaded greed, or shame, or crime.
Oh, glorious yellow golden-rod!--sublime
Free-offering to the greatest and the least.

THE SEA'S INFLUENCE

The brine is in our blood from days of yore,
And ever in our ears the tide's tune rings;
The wave runs through our legends and our lore,
And permeates a thousand diverse things;
The memory of our race's Island home
Is charged with salt-sea spray and ocean foam.

THE PASSING OF SUMMER

"Summer is dead!"--it was the wind that spake
In the bronze mantle of the sombre pine--
"The sumach bush unfurls a scarlet sign;
The sere rush signals it in stream and lake;
Soundeth a requiem in gilded brake,
Where mateless birds a lonely fate repine;
The sky is veiled in tears; each gray confine
Bespeaks the shrunken branch the leaves forsake.

"I laugh with ruddy Autumn in the morn;
I sound his praises in the golden light;
But when high noon has passed and raven night
Comes rushing down, I wail with those forlorn:
The dying leaves, the lone flowers, pale and torn,
The multitudes confronting death or flight."

RICHARD HUNTINGTON

SUNRISE ON THE TUSKET

I

Still, in the light of morning gray,
That ushered in the summer day,
The fair Acadien hamlet lay

Its fringing hem of forest round,
Its verdured slopes with orchards crowned,
Lie steeped in silence most profound.

No zephyr's wing the leaf hath stirred,
No sound to break the calm is heard,
Save crickets' chirp or trill of bird.

The frequent fireflies' fitful gleam,
The star of morning's lucent beam,
Shine mirrored in the glassy stream,

In whose clear depths are pictured seen
The drooping boughs and foliage green
Of graceful trees that o'er it lean.

II

Glows in the kindling East a blush,
Morn's old and immemorial flush!
Afar, the distant Tusket's rush

Is heard, in muffled murmur deep,
As, past green isle and headland steep,
Its eddying waters seaward sweep.

Morn's steps advance, and lo, the West
Hath donned a new and gorgeous vest
Of purple and of amethyst.

Look East once more!--a sea of gold
Along the far horizon rolled--
The rising orb of day behold!

It gilds with flame St Michael's spire,
Whose panes, agleam with living fire,
Blaze like some sacrificial pyre.

It lights, as with celestial glow,
The slender crosslets ranged below,
Man's last, sad resting-place to show....

III

In yonder modest glebe-house near,
Unconscious of my presence here,
Sleeps one to friendship's heart most dear.

Unwakened by the orient beam,
Perchance in some ecstatic dream
He roams by Tiber's classic stream,

Or sees St Peter's mighty dome
Soar grandly o'er the pomp of Rome--
His own loved Church's pride and home.

Blest be his visions, wheresoe'er
His dream-enfranchised fancy veer--
The faithful priest, the friend sincere!

LOUISBURG

And this is Louisburg! whose moss-grown ruin
Stretches before me--one deserted waste!
Scarce can the eye, its eager search pursuing,
The outlines of her strong defences trace--
Relentless by the miner's blast effaced.
Yet was she once the brightest gem of all
The gorgeous brilliants that with splendor graced
The diadem of old monarchial Gaul,--
She who defiance frowned, and Britain foe did call.

The Dunkirk of this land!--how fallen since then!
The eye but wanders o'er a waste of stone,
Remains of dwellings once the abodes of men,
But now forlorn, deserted, silent, lone;
And rank and mantling grass hath overgrown
Her streets, her sepulchres, her ruined walls.
The voice of bygone ages hath a tone
Which lingers yet amid these prostrate halls,
As reverent 'mid their maze my pensive footstep falls.

Lo, yon green rampart! towering once in pride,
And bristling, too, with bayonets, that long
The prowess of the immortal Wolfe defied.--
Not to the peaceful Muse doth it belong
To weave with sturdy martial words her song,
Else might I speak of glacis and of fosse,
Of massy culvert, and of battery strong,
And blasted battlements o'ergrown with moss,
Around whose ruined base the angry billows toss.--

Eastward there stood upon the frowning steep--
And of its wreck some fragments still remain--
Their beacon light, the Pharos of the deep!...

JAMES COBOURG HODGINS

ONCE MORE

Once more the robin flutes in glee,
On heat returning.
The living juices in the trees
Are shooting in the early leaves,--
The blossoms break,
And lusty nature wide awake
Her pleasant task sits learning.

The fleecy clouds scud o'er the blue,
In sudden glory.
The woods are full of whistling birds,
And nature, in strange mystic words,
Relates once more,
In the same strains as oft before,
The one old golden story:

That he who lives close to her heart,
Nor spurns her warning,
Shall all life's cunning secrets learn:
The trill of birds, the tress of fern,
The roar of seas,
The music of the wind-swept trees,
The glory of the morning;

Shall learn the noiseless laws of life,
The truths of beauty,
And find that Nature's meanest guise
Is full of wonder and surprise;
That everything
Doth to the surface ever bring
The blessedness of duty.

A GREEK REVERIE

This is the purple sea of ancient song.
These are the groves to which bacchantes lured.
In these grim rocks bad spirits are immured,
Pent in by Heaven in token of some wrong.
Sure that was Pan who flashed by through the pine,
Followed by boys with passionate eyes, and men
Bedecked with roses! Fainter down the glen
Tramps the mad rabble, caught with song divine.

Now once again the Lord of life and day
Smites into splendor all the dull waste waves:
Straight Ulysses, his face, sleep-swollen, laves,
Rouses his heroes, and with scant delay
Prows are turned homeward. Hark the measured beat!
Another weary day and vacant sky and heat!

JOSEPH HOWE

THE FLAG OF OLD ENGLAND

A CENTENARY SONG OF THE LANDING OF CORNWALLIS AT HALIFAX

All hail to the day when the Britons came over,
And planted their standard, with sea-foam still wet!
Around and above us their spirits will hover,
Rejoicing to mark how we honor it yet.
Beneath it the emblems they cherished are waving,
The Rose of Old England the roadside perfumes;
The Shamrock and Thistle the north winds are braving,
Securely the Mayflower[A] blushes and blooms.

_Hail to the day when the Britons came over,
And planted their standard, with sea-foam still wet,
Around and above us their spirits will hover,
Rejoicing to mark how we honor it yet.
We'll honor it yet, we'll honor it yet,
The flag of Old England! we'll honor it yet._

In the temples they founded, their faith is maintained,
Every foot of the soil they bequeathed is still ours,
The graves where they moulder, no foe has profaned,
But we wreathe them with verdure, and strew them with flowers!
The blood of no brother, in civil strife poured,
In this hour of rejoicing encumbers our souls!
The frontier's the field for the patriot's sword,
And cursed be the weapon that faction controls!

Then hail to the day! 'tis with memories crowded,
Delightful to trace 'midst the mists of the past,
Like the features of Beauty, bewitchingly shrouded,
They shine through the shadows Time o'er them has cast.
As travellers track to its source in the mountains
The stream which, far swelling, expands o'er the plains,
Our hearts on this day fondly turn to the fountains
Whence flow the warm currents that bound in our veins.

And proudly we trace them! No warrior flying
From city assaulted, and fanes overthrown,
With the last of his race on the battlements dying,
And weary with wandering, founded our own.
From the Queen of the Islands, then famous in story,
A century since, our brave forefathers came,
And our kindred yet fill the wide world with her glory,
Enlarging her empire, and spreading her name.

Every flash of her genius our pathway enlightens,
Every field she explores we are beckoned to tread,
Each laurel she gathers our future day brightens--
We joy with her living, and mourn for her dead.
Then hail to the day when the Britons came over,
And planted their standard, with sea-foam still wet!
Above and around us their spirits shall hover,
Rejoicing to mark how we honor it yet.

[A] The Trailing Arbutus, the emblem of Nova Scotia.

THE DESERTED NEST

Deserted nest, that on the leafless tree
Waves to and fro with every dreary blast,
With none to shelter, none to care for thee,
Thy day of pride and cheerfulness is past.

Thy tiny walls are falling to decay,
Thy cell is tenantless and tuneless now,
The winter winds have rent the leaves away,
And left thee hanging on the naked bough.

But yet, deserted nest, there is a spell,
E'en in thy loneliness, to touch the heart,
For holy things within thee once did dwell,
The type of joys departed now thou art.

With what assiduous care thy framers wrought,
With what delight they viewed the structure rise,
And how, as each some tiny rafter brought,
Pleasure and hope would sparkle in their eyes.

Ah! who shall tell, when all the work was done,
The rapturous pleasure that their labors crowned,
The blissful moments Nature for them won,
And bade them celebrate with joyous sound.

A father's pride, a mother's anxious care,
Her fluttered spirits, and his gentlest tone,
All, all that wedded hearts so fondly share,
To thee, deserted nest, were surely known.

Then though thy walls be rent, and cold thy cell,
And thoughtless crowds may hourly pass thee by,
Where love and truth and tenderness did dwell,
There's still attraction for the poet's eye.

CHARLES EDWIN JAKEWAY

AN UNFINISHED PROPHECY

I

The twilight land toyed with the night
When from the hills with footsteps light
An Indian maiden passed adown
A rugged path o'er boulders brown
Unto the soft gray river sand.
The sweet balsamic breezes fanned
Her bronze-brown cheeks and blue-black hair
With loving wings, and lilies fair
Held up their golden cups to stay
The progress of her paddle's play,
As o'er the quivering ripplets she,
With airy grace and gestures free,
Pulled from the beach a bark canoe,
And threaded reedy mazes through
Toward the river's open breast,
That reached away into the west
Till it caressed the after-glow
Of sunset in the distance low.

II

The river's rippling monotone--
The low-voiced chants of zephyrs lone,
That swung like censers through the halls
By leafage arched, with leafage walls--
The lazy hum of insect song--
All seemed to woo the shades along
The golden rim of eventide,
As back and forth her paddle plied
Through solemn symphonies of gloom
Into the night-enshrouded tomb
Of recent day. The throbbing stars
Rose one by one above the bars
Of dark abysmal to the sea
Of heaven, and the mystery
Of Nature's silence robed her round
With garments threaded by the sound
Of marsh-bird's wail, or pine-wood's moan.
At length she turned, and towards the zone
Of blackness, girding round the stream
As Lethe coils around a dream,
She swerved the course of the canoe,
And through the grasses, damp with dew,
That held their arms down from the bank
To fondle with the rushes rank,
Propelled its prow against the sand,
And silently sprang to the land.

III

She pulled aside a maple screen
That curtained off a weird ravine,
And stepped toward a smouldering flame,
O'er which crouched low an ancient dame
Whose wrinkled face, as leather dry,
Seemed dead, except that either eye
Shone with a fierce, malignant glare,
Like that which lights the wild-cat's lair
When danger pries into its keep.
"Mother, I'm glad you're not asleep,"
The maiden said in awesome way.
"I've dared the dark which follows day,
And paddled up through shade and gloom,
And grim, fantastic shapes that loom
Like giant goblins round the road
That leads to your retired abode."
"You're welcome, child, but never dread
That you'll disturb my sleeping bed,"
The dame's harsh voice made answer soon,
"I do not sleep till night-tide's noon
Has gone to meet the dawning day.
All night my tireless fancies play
Unceasing gambols with the gnomes
That chase each other 'neath the domes
That roof the wild deer's headlong path
When flying from the hunter's wrath.
Why came you here? Do troubles chase
You from your pillowed resting-place?
Has love bestowed a heart on you,
And come you here to prove it true?"
"No heart has love bestowed on me,
But mine has gone, and I to thee
Come in the anguish of my grief
To seek for solace or relief.
'Tis said that you can lift the screen
That veils the destinies unseen....
Until this summer I was free
And happy as the warbling birds;
My thoughts ran on in merry words,
As runnels ripple o'er the rocks,
Or careless as my own dark locks,
Which flung their mane to capture gleams
That glanced from sun-bedizened streams.
I watched the braves return one day
From a victorious foray,
And noted, towering o'er the rest,
A chieftain from the outbound west
With eyes of fire and haughty frown.
I met him ere the sun went down
And saw his frown turn to a smile,
And in his eyes the fire the while
Was fanned to fascination sweet.
The Eagle Eye a lover meet
Would be--" "Hist, child, footsteps approach!
Hide till we see who doth encroach
Within the bounds of my domain.
To yonder bush, and there remain
Until I call you forth again."

IV

The ancient crone revived the blaze
Until its red, uncertain rays
Crept down the hillside dun, and died
Upon the river's misty tide.
Then by the lurid flickering gleams,
That seemed dissolving out of dreams
Among the leafy arcades far,
She caught the glitter of a star
That silver-like shot from its nest
Upon a young brave's stalwart breast,
As up the forest path he came,
Attracted by the pinewood flame.
"Why comest thou?" her voice rang keen
Through shrouded glade and dim ravine.
"I come to pray you'll weave a spell
Whereby the future to foretell.
A chieftain I, in battle skilled,
Full many a foeman I have killed;
I've scalped the locks from many a brow,
And never shirked a task till now.
Through ghostly fogs, o'er leaping brooks,
'Mid slumbering snakes in dusky nooks,
O'er sullen lairs and reedy shades,
O'er quivering brakes and venomed glades,
O'er gusty hills, sun-flushed and high,
That shook their locks against the sky,
O'er shady stretches long and lone,
O'er rocky ledge, through caverned stone,
Past morning's prime, past twilight gray,
I've tracked my foemen on their way
With heart relentless, and with hand
Ready to hurl the deadly brand
With naught of mercy nor of fear.
And yet to-night I'm standing here,
Afraid to face a maiden's eyes,
Afraid to reach to grasp the prize
My heart desires all else above,
Her precious treasury of love.
I've tried to break the bonds that roll
Their magic coils around my soul,
By daring danger on the lake
When storm-clouds o'er its bosom break--
By roaming over flood and fell--
By trying every potent spell
The old magician 'neath the hill
Could summon to assist my will--
By chasing gravelights over graves,
And rambling where the were-wolf raves
Out threats of torture and of rack
To hapless ones that cross its track.
I've run death's gauntlet, day by day,
Where hungry wild-cats screech for prey,
But everywhere the haunting face
Of Budding Rose in matchless grace
Swims 'fore my eyes. Pray, mother, tell,
Will she return my love? Dispel
My doubts at once and seal my fate!"
"Sit down behind that bush and wait,"
The dame replied, "until I call
The wood-sprites up within my thrall."

V

She lit a smoking pine-knot red,
And swayed it thrice around her head,
Then hurled it hissing in the marsh,
The while her voice on air-wings harsh
Passed through the thronging shadows dense,
Unto love's hearing strained and tense.
"I hear the voices of the trees
In answer to the asking breeze,
And this is what the voices say:
'True love will always have its way!'
Come forth, my children, to the light;
The answer to the breeze is right."
The maiden came with drooping head,
The brave with grave and measured tread,
And joined their hands above the blaze.
"For you, fond lovers, length of days
I prophesy, and happy times.
Your lives shall run like merry rhymes
Through many years of full content,
And when at last your course is spent,
Your children shall revere your name,
Your children's children--" Flashed a flame,
A lightning blast, athwart their eyes,
And death assailed them in the guise
Of Iroquois, the Hurons' dread--
And seeress, lovers, all were dead!

E. PAULINE JOHNSON

(TEKAHIOŃWAKE)

THE SONG MY PADDLE SINGS

West wind, blow from your prairie nest!
Blow from the mountains, blow from the west.
The sail is idle, the sailor too;
O! wind of the west, we wait for you.
Blow, blow!
I have wooed you so,
But never a favor you bestow.
You rock your cradle the hills between,
But scorn to notice my white lateen.

I stow the sail, unship the mast:
I wooed you long, but my wooing's past;
My paddle will lull you into rest.
O! drowsy wind of the drowsy west,
Sleep, sleep,
By your mountain steep,
Or down where the prairie grasses sweep!
Now fold in slumber your laggard wings,
For soft is the song my paddle sings.

August is laughing across the sky,
Laughing while paddle, canoe and I,
Drift, drift,
Where the hills uplift
On either side of the current swift.

The river rolls in its rocky bed;
My paddle is plying its way ahead;
Dip, dip,
While the waters flip
In foam as over their breast we slip.

And oh, the river runs swifter now;
The eddies circle about my bow.
Swirl, swirl!
How the ripples curl
In many a dangerous pool awhirl!

And forward far the rapids roar,
Fretting their margin for evermore.
Dash, dash,
With a mighty crash,
They seethe, and boil, and bound, and splash.

Be strong, O paddle! be brave, canoe!
The reckless waves you must plunge into.
Reel, reel,
On your trembling keel,
But never a fear my craft will feel.

We've raced the rapid, we're far ahead!
The river slips through its silent bed.
Sway, sway,
As the bubbles spray
And fall in tinkling tunes away.

And up on the hills against the sky,
A fir tree rocking its lullaby,
Swings, swings,
Its emerald wings,
Swelling the song that my paddle sings.

AT HUSKING TIME

At husking time the tassel fades
To brown above the yellow blades,
Whose rustling sheath enswathes the corn
That bursts its chrysalis in scorn
Longer to lie in prison shades.

Among the merry lads and maids
The creaking ox-cart slowly wades
'Twixt stalks and stubble, sacked and torn
At husking time.

The prying pilot crow persuades
The flock to join in thieving raids;
The sly raccoon with craft inborn
His portion steals; from plenty's horn
His pouch the saucy chipmunk lades
At husking time.

SHADOW RIVER

A stream of tender gladness,
Of filmy sun, and opal-tinted skies;
Of warm midsummer air that lightly lies
In mystic rings,
Where softly swings
The music of a thousand wings
That almost tone to sadness.

Midway 'twixt earth and heaven,
A bubble in the pearly air, I seem
To float upon the sapphire floor, a dream
Of clouds of snow,
Above, below,
Drift with my drifting, dim and slow,
As twilight drifts to even.

The little fern-leaf, bending
Upon the brink, its green reflection greets,
And kisses soft the shadow that it meets
With touch so fine,
The border line
The keenest vision can't define;
So perfect is the blending.

The far fir trees that cover
The brownish hills with needles green and gold,
The arching elms o'erhead, vinegrown and old,
Repictured are
Beneath me far,
Where not a ripple moves to mar
Shades underneath, or over.

Mine is the undertone;
The beauty, strength, and power of the land
Will never stir or bend at my command;
But all the shade
Is marred or made,
If I but dip my paddle blade;
And it is mine alone.

O! pathless world of seeming!
O! pathless life of mine whose deep ideal
Is more my own than ever was the real.
For others Fame
And Love's red flame,
And yellow gold: I only claim
The shadows and the dreaming.

BRIER

Because, dear Christ, your tender, wounded arm
Bends back the brier that edges life's long way,
That no hurt comes to heart, to soul no harm,
I do not feel the thorns so much to-day.

Because I never knew your care to tire,
Your hand to weary guiding me aright,
Because you walk before and crush the brier,
It does not pierce my feet so much to-night.

Because so often you have hearkened to
My selfish prayers, I ask but one thing now,
That these harsh hands of mine add not unto
The crown of thorns upon your bleeding brow.

PRAIRIE GREYHOUNDS

C. P. R. WESTBOUND--No. 1

I swing to the sunset land,
The world of prairie, the world of plain,
The world of promise, and hope, and gain,
The world of gold, and the world of grain,
And the world of the willing hand.

I carry the brave and bold,
The one who works for the nation's bread,
The one whose past is a thing that's dead,
The one who battles and beats ahead,
And the one who goes for gold.

I swing to the land to be:
I am the power that laid its floors,
I am the guide to its western stores,
I am the key to its golden doors,
That open alone to me.