Chapter II

Its daring colours bravely flinging forth The ensign of the Nation of the North.

HARE-BELL

Elfin bell in azure dress, Chiming all day long, Ringing through the wilderness Dulcet notes of song. Daintiest of forest flowers Weaving like a spell-- Music through the Autumn hours, Little Elfin bell.

THE GIANT OAK

And then the sound of marching armies 'woke Amid the branches of the soldier oak, And tempests ceased their warring cry, and dumb The lashing storms that muttered, overcome, Choked by the heralding of battle smoke, When these gnarled branches beat their martial drum.

ASPENS

A sweet high treble threads its silvery song, Voice of the restless aspen, fine and thin It trills its pure soprano, light and long-- Like the vibretto of a mandolin.

FINALE

The cedar trees have sung their vesper hymn, And now the music sleeps-- Its benediction falling where the dim Dusk of the forest creeps. Mute grows the great concerto--and the light Of day is darkening, Good-night, Good-night. But through the night time I shall hear within The murmur of these trees, The calling of your distant violin Sobbing across the seas, And waking wind, and star-reflected light Shall voice my answering. Good-night, Good-night.

THE TRAIL TO LILLOOET

Sob of fall, and song of forest, come you here on haunting quest, Calling through the seas and silence, from God's country of the west. Where the mountain pass is narrow, and the torrent white and strong, Down its rocky-throated canyon, sings its golden-throated song.

You are singing there together through the God-begotten nights, And the leaning stars are listening above the distant heights That lift like points of opal in the crescent coronet About whose golden setting sweeps the trail to Lillooet.

Trail that winds and trail that wanders, like a cobweb hanging high, Just a hazy thread outlining mid-way of the stream and sky, Where the Fraser River canyon yawns its pathway to the sea, But half the world has shouldered up between its song and me.

Here, the placid English August, and the sea-encircled miles, There--God's copper-coloured sunshine beating through the lonely aisles Where the waterfalls and forest voice for ever their duet, And call across the canyon on the trail to Lillooet.

CANADA

(ACROSTIC)

Crown of her, young Vancouver; crest of her, old Quebec; Atlantic and far Pacific sweeping her, keel to deck. North of her, ice and arctics; southward a rival's stealth; Aloft, her Empire's pennant; below, her nation's wealth. Daughter of men and markets, bearing within her hold, Appraised at highest value, cargoes of grain and gold.

THE LIFTING OF THE MIST

All the long day the vapours played
At blindfold in the city streets,
Their elfin fingers caught and stayed
The sunbeams, as they wound their sheets
Into a filmy barricade
'Twixt earth and where the sunlight beats.

A vagrant band of mischiefs these,
With wings of grey and cobweb gown;
They live along the edge of seas,
And creeping out on foot of down,
They chase and frolic, frisk and tease
At blind-man's buff with all the town.

And when at eventide the sun Breaks with a glory through their grey, The vapour-fairies, one by one, Outspread their wings and float away In clouds of colouring, that run Wine-like along the rim of day.

Athwart the beauty and the breast
Of purpling airs they twirl and twist,
Then float away to some far rest,
Leaving the skies all colour-kiss't--
A glorious and a golden West
That greets the Lifting of the Mist.

THE HOMING BEE

You are belted with gold, little brother of mine,
Yellow gold, like the sun
That spills in the west, as a chalice of wine
When feasting is done.

You are gossamer-winged, little brother of mine,
Tissue winged, like the mist
That broods where the marshes melt into a line
Of vapour sun-kissed.

You are laden with sweets, little brother of mine,
Flower sweets, like the touch
Of hands we have longed for, of arms that entwine,
Of lips that love much.

You are better than I, little brother of mine,
Than I, human-souled,
For you bring from the blossoms and red summer shine,
For others, your gold.

THE LOST LAGOON

It is dusk on the Lost Lagoon, And we two dreaming the dusk away, Beneath the drift of a twilight grey, Beneath the drowse of an ending day, And the curve of a golden moon.

It is dark in the Lost Lagoon, And gone are the depths of haunting blue, The grouping gulls, and the old canoe, The singing firs, and the dusk and--you, And gone is the golden moon.

O! lure of the Lost Lagoon,-- I dream to-night that my paddle blurs The purple shade where the seaweed stirs, I hear the call of the singing firs In the hush of the golden moon.

THE TRAIN DOGS

Out of the night and the north; Savage of breed and of bone, Shaggy and swift comes the yelping band, Freighters of fur from the voiceless land That sleeps in the Arctic zone.

Laden with skins from the north, Beaver and bear and raccoon, Marten and mink from the polar belts, Otter and ermine and sable pelts-- The spoils of the hunter's moon.

Out of the night and the north, Sinewy, fearless and fleet, Urging the pack through the pathless snow, The Indian driver, calling low, Follows with moccasined feet.

Ships of the night and the north, Freighters on prairies and plains, Carrying cargoes from field and flood They scent the trail through their wild red blood, The wolfish blood in their veins.

THE KING'S CONSORT

I

Love, was it yesternoon, or years agone,
You took in yours my hands,
And placed me close beside you on the throne
Of Oriental lands?

The truant hour came back at dawn to-day,
Across the hemispheres,
And bade my sleeping soul retrace its way
These many hundred years.

And all my wild young life returned, and ceased
The years that lie between,
When you were King of Egypt, and The East,
And I was Egypt's queen.