Chapter IV

Not from pole unto pole Is man's hunger of soul, But eternity's set As a deathless fret In the heart of man As it beats the earth-span,-- Beating not from the sod, But an ongoing of God! And it listens for Him Over Time's flying rim, And it sips, or it stings, A life from all things-- From the flower and the weed And the faint-voiced reed.

A DREAM.

I dreamed the Lord of Life was dead.
Tremulous awe fell on the earth,
Virtue had gone from out all things,
The sun and rain were nothing worth.

Rude power seized the painted woods
And hurled their glory down the steep,
The landscape wrapt in cerements
And left in death's eternal sleep.

Nor bloom nor odor met the sense,
Nor wind-chant of the foliaged tree,
Nor grove of singing birds, nor psalm
Borne from the ever-voiceful sea.

Color had fled the air and sky,
A stony stillness held the earth,
Virtue had gone from out all things,
Man's ebbing life was nothing worth.

And as I wept within my dream
And knew my pulse of being slowed,
I sudden was aware of change--
A flush on pallid nature showed!

Lo, heralds of the arriving year!
The bugled flock beclangs the blue,
The hyla pipes by willowed run,
The flashing swallow skims the dew.

Up from the rampike's ghastly arms
The gold-shaft high-hole's challenge floats,
While greening hill and valley laugh
And shore breaks out in pæan notes.

And in my dream I leapt for joy--
"'Twas but an awful dream," I said,
"The Lord of Life, for evermore
He lives--'twas once for all He bled!"

And waked from sleep by beating heart,
I heard the first red robin sing,
And knew that once again had come
Fresh from the life of God the spring.

NATURE.

The large, far intent
Of the Kingly One
Is only begun
In rearing the tent;
To nurture a soul
Is the shining goal.

Keen science speaketh
A word clear and fair
"The carbon in air
The young oak seeketh
In the greening years,
Lo, a giant appears!

"Shelter and warmth, see!
Here final cause
Of nature's wise laws;
And the breath of the tree
Is life unto man
And lengthens his span.'

But the Chemist who moves
The atoms in dance,
His all-seeing glance
By His working proves,--
From far-off to nigher,
Feeds life that is higher.

From blade to full ear,
From acorn to beam,
Unfoldings of dream,
Linkëd series of cheer,
Evolvings of grace,
Shadows bright of His face!

Sweet procession and slow,
Every step of the way
More precious each day,
Till the starlit airs blow,
Wake emotion that sleeps,
Stir the fount of the deeps.

O heaven's own fact
Eternal, that beauty,
As the sword on duty,
Hangs silent on act
Of nature forever,--
Soul and body together!

Nature, series divine
Of act and of word
From God's mouth seen or heard!
As thou bring'st bread and wine
I hear thy deep tone,
"O not these alone!"

All-divine unity!
Writes the heaven-touched mind
Responsive, once blind:
All-divine harmony!
Emotion's attest
In the glow of my breast.

"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 GLAD GOLDEN YEAR.

The glad golden year
Wheels slow in its coming.
Wild labor commotions
And murmurings for bread
While besotted with beer
Is the day's up-summing,--
Insurgent emotions
To beauty stone-dead!

What help, do you say,
For these sons of men?
In God's image they're made--
Cleanse their eyes to His light,
Tune their ears to His lay,
Give His bread once again
Whose price the Christ paid,--
Heaven's bread is their right!

Earth's means of achieving
(Herds, field-food, and river,
Rain-cisterns in sky,
And sunshine elysian)
Forever are weaving,
And fain would deliver,
Web of God's beauty nigh--
Sense-ravishing vision!

Sow bread in the field:
Warm rain will transfigure
The humble grey furrow
With a million pearl suns
On the lanceolate shield
Of emerald and ligure,
And the moon o'er each burrow
Of the low-buried ones
Turn silver the spear-tips
In the dusk, with her lips;
And when breezy morn's told,
All ripples in gold.

With envious repining Or solace of delight-- As emotion is pure Or turbid with ill-- Man views the outshining From the heavenly height, Feels the sweet picture's lure, Hears the bird-copse athrill, Makes him lord, or does not, Of the park, house, or cot.

Who holds the sure key
To this largesse of treasure
Is a king among men,
Though a workman in blue,--
Of a strain yet to be
Who with God taketh pleasure
In the young earth again,
And feeleth it new.
Slow speeds the glad year
Told by poet and seer,
Yet I catch the far hum--
It will come, it will come!

TETRAPLA.

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.

SACRIFICE.

Green-haloed cup of the gods, cool from the deeps,
Fountain of life, whence comes thy wave that blesses?
"The burdened cloud attempts the mountain steeps,
To perish 'mid the rugged wildernesses."

LIBERTY.

Thou rugged Gaian of man's free behests,
Belted and helmed 'neath God's red thunder-flails;
World climes upon thy many-cloven crests,
And ordered kingdoms in thy fertile vales!

BEAUTY.

The grace of strength the shaggy hills attest,
And cresting billows in their power serene;
Beauty was suckled at no weakling's breast,
She sits the manëd lion like a queen.

FAIRY GLEN.

Hid in the virgin wilderness,
The fretted Conway's Fairy Glen
This summer day reveals its charms
For painter's brush or poet's pen.

The air is flecked with night and day,
The ground is tiger-dusk and -gold,
The rocks and trees, empearled in haze,
A soft and far enchantment hold.

The place is peopled with shy winds
Whose fitful plumes waft dewy balm
From all the wildwood, and let fall
An incommunicable calm.

Through cleft rocks green with spray-wet moss,
Deep in the sweet wood's golden glooms,
The amber waters pulsing go,
With foam like creamy lily blooms.

Shuttles of shadow and of light
In-gleam and -gloom the watery woof
As rolls the endless stream away
Beneath the wind-swayed leafy roof.

(So life's swift shuttles dart and play,
As ceaseless speeds its flashing loom;
Our day is woven of sun and cloud,
A figured web of gold and gloom.)

God's arbor, this enchanted Glen!
The air is sentient with His name;
Put off thy shoes from off thy feet,
The trees are bursting into flame!

IN CITY STREETS.

The city's ways were crowded thick,--
I bent my steps athrough its mass
Of men and women, stone and brick,
Its whirring wheels and piping brass.

And all day long, with hurrying feet,
I trod the surging marts of trade;
Yet in the rush and roar of street
A calm within my breast was made.

For visions came of fair things wrought
By beauty's witching hand and grace
Upon my spirit when I caught
Life's spring-time image of her face:--

Blue violets in mossy bed,
Flashing with jewels on their breast;
The sky-stained eggs of robin red
Laid in her lined adobe nest;

The shy lone brook, crept soft upon
Lest I should fright its brattling play;
The woods ahark for something gone,
Or whispering of elf and fay;

The silver lake with lilies in bloom,
Their cups half-full of heaven's gold,--
The circling shore all prankt with plume
Of ferns, whose fronds the waters told;

And up the hill the whitethroat's song--
A crystal bell that shakes the dew!
While floats in dream the cloud along,
And veils the palpitating blue;

The musical and dream-like rain
Falling on roof o'er fragrant hay;
The blood-red spear, unflushed of pain,
Of sunbeam thrust 'tween battens grey;

And in a trice, the sculptured shore
Where halcyon tides with wonder-wings
Redden their plumes in toil to soar
To where Evangeline's memory clings,--

Such sights and sounds swift came and went,--
Glad sunshafts of an April day!
And to impetuous traffic lent
The restful sweetness of the may.

Imprisoned close in city marts,
O childhood, so divinely fair,
For thee, deep in my heart of hearts,
Sweet pity beats her wings all bare!

BAY OF FUNDY.

I.

Deep Bay, broad-breasted and brave!
Oft rocked in thy swaying arms
Beneath the hidden sun,
As foam-bell tost on thy wave
I drift again 'mid thy charms
To sphinx-like Blomidon.

Why are thy glories untold?
Thy cliffs of purple and red
And crystal-veinëd rocks,
Thy hasting waters deep-rolled
'Neath skies whose colors are spread
With art that all art mocks;

Thy faltering ranks of white mist
Flanking vast floods and vast ebbs--
A mimicry of war,--
Oriflammes of dew-sprent list,
Banners of gossamer webs,
Soft blown as lights of Thor!

II.

The smooth shining flats all bare
To the heavens' nakedest ken,
Mirror the hills, like lakes.
The drowsy lull of the air
Will stir anew to life when
The tidal note awakes.

From lang'rous south seas that creep,
These odors dank issue forth,
Odors of sun-steeped brine--
It comes! a breeze from a deep,
Full-fed from seas of the North,
A waft of Vikings' wine!

Now beats the pulse of the flood,
The throbbings deep of a heart
Felt all around the world;
Now smites its rhythm with a thud,--
With ictus sure of its art
That mountains huge has hurled.

The unsouled rivers and creeks
Have being, have life to the full,
Into their mouths rebreathed,
As heaves the broad breast that seeks
T' embosom each leaning hull,
Bare on red banks tide-seethed.

The iron gride of the flow
Powders the rocks in its path,
And bears the dust afar
To build their urns, where may grow
Sweet grasses and "primrose rathe,"--
Fair Grand Pré, Tantramar!

III.

Builder, unbuilder of shores,
Thresher of cliffs vapor-stoled,
God's masterworkman strong!
Yet on thy bosom the oars
Of sailor lads ply and fold
To sweet refrains of song.

And glad in thy twinkling smiles,
Awing, like sea-gulls, the ships
Are breasting stout the breeze,--
Ah me, thy treacherous wiles!
Witching fog-wraiths draping rips!
Currents of iron seas!

IV.

O Fundy, deep-breathing sea,
Regal in power and rimmed
In hollow of His hand,
Captive to beauty, yet free,
Sleep now, thy Basin is brimmed
In fair Acadian land!

Haloed with pearl-raying rings
The moon, at her utmost poised,
Looks on her silver shield;
And the tide wakens and swings--
Ebbs with a clangor far noised
And wheeling wings afield.

AT THE LOOK-OFF.

(PARTRIDGE ISLAND.)

I.

What more can world-worn spirit ask Than here in nature's arms to bask And see the plangent tide at task?

The zest is swift as lusty youth, (Touched with an undertone of ruth,) Invincible as ageless truth,--

The wonder of all wondrous things! How coy the birds! they lift their wings; The wary ship to her anchor swings.

II.

Sun, moon and stars of ancient prime, And of to-day, in confluence chime The universal One sublime;

Pouring these floods of deep surcease,-- In universal pain, release; In universal travail, peace.

The strong right arm is here laid bare In strife, by which He doth declare Another shall not with Him share.

Forces of universal law Which hither these vast waters draw Send through my soul His tides of awe;

While universal radiance charms And beckons to His winsome arms To soothe my timid soul's alarms.

Of joy, of grief He does not rob,-- The light with intermittent throb Falls on the waters glad--a-sob.

III.

Here He and I are conscious each Of each--a Deep, a waiting beach! A shell, a Sea that doth beseech!

How all unswift my eyes to see The universal God in Thee, Who walked the waves of Galilee!

Give, freely give--Thou dost not dole! Pour chrismal balm upon my soul! Anoint me from Thy golden bowl!

IV.

In travail, pain, grief, joy, the wave Slumbers nor sleeps the earth to save-- This word the blissful God He gave,

Ere yesterday in Palestine Love's flagon poured the ruddy wine, Life of the universal Vine.