Chapter VII

But soon the Morn, on many a distant height,
Fingers the raven locks of lingering Night;
The last dark shadows that precede the day
Have stripped the splendour from the Milky Way;
And Nature seems disturbed by fitful dreams,
As one who shudders when the owlet screams;
The painful burden of the Whippoorwill,
Like a vague Sorrow, floats from hill to hill;
Along the vales the doleful accents run,
Where the white vapours dread the burning sun;
While human voices stir the haunted air,
One sings "the Plough," another warbles "Claire:"
The Happy Harvesters, a lightsome throng,
Dispersing homewards, prove the excellence of Song.

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THE FALLS OF THE CHAUDIÈRE, OTTAWA.

I have laid my cheek to Nature's, placed my puny hand in hers,
Felt a kindred spirit warming all the life-blood of my face,
Moved amid the very foremost of her truest worshippers,
Studying each curve of beauty, marking every minute grace;
Loved not less the mountain cedar than the flowers at its feet,
Looking skyward from the valley, open-lipped as if in prayer,
Felt a pleasure in the brooklet singing of its wild retreat,
But I knelt before the splendour of the thunderous Chaudière.

All my manhood waked within me, every nerve had tenfold force,
And my soul stood up rejoicing, looking on with cheerful eyes,
Watching the resistless waters speeding on their downward course,
Titan strength and queenly beauty diademed with rainbow dyes.
Eye and ear, with spirit quickened, mingled with the lovely strife,
Saw the living Genius shrined within her sanctuary fair,

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Heard her voice of sweetness singing, peered into her hidden life,
And discerned the tuneful secret of the jubilant Chaudière:

"Within my pearl-roofed shell,
Whose floor is woven with the iris bright,
Genius and Queen of the Chaudière I dwell,
As in a world of immaterial light.

My throne, an ancient rock,
Marked by the foot of ages long-departed,
My joy, the cataract's stupendous shock,
Whose roll is music to the grateful-hearted.

I've seen the eras glide
With muffled tread to their eternal dreams,
While I have lived in vale and mountain side,
With leaping torrents and sweet purling streams.

The Red-Man's active life;
His love, pride, passions, courage, and great deeds;
His perfect freedom, and his thirst for strife;
His swift revenge, at which the memory bleeds:

The sanguinary years,
When sullen Terror, like a raging Fate,
Swept down the stately tribes like slaughtered deers,
And war and hatred joined to decimate

The remnants of the race,
And spread decay through centuries of pain--
No more I mark their sure, avenging pace,
And forests wave where war-whoops shook the plain.

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Their deeds I envied not.
The royal tyrant on his purple throne,
I, in secluded grove or shady grot,
Had purer joys than he had ever known,

God made the ancient hills,
The valleys and the solemn wildernesses,
The merry-hearted and melodious rills,
And strung with diamond dews the pine-trees' tresses;

But man's hand built the palace,
And he that reigns therein is simply man;
Man turns God's gifts to poison in the chalice
That brimmed with nectar in the primal plan.

Here I abide alone--
The wild Chaudière's eternal jubilee
Has such sweet divination in its tone,
And utters nature's truest prophecy

In thunderings of zeal!
I've seen the Atheist in terror start,
Awed to contrition by the strong appeal
That waked conviction in his doubting heart:

'Teachers speak throughout all nature,
From the womb of Silence born,
Heed ye not their words, O Scoffer?
Flinging back thy scorn with scorn!
To the desert spring that leapeth,
Pulsing, from the parched sod,
Points the famished trav'ler, saying--
'Brothers, here, indeed, is God!'

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From the patriarchal fountains,
Sending forth their tribes of rills,
From the cedar-shadowed lakelets
In the hearts of distant hills,
Whispers softer than the moonbeams
Wisdom's gentle heart have awed,
Till its lips approved the cadence--
'Surely here, indeed, is God!'

Lo! o'er all, the Torrent Prophet,
An inspired Demosthenes,
To the Doubter's soul appealing,
Louder than the preacher-seas:
Dreamer! wouldst have nature spurn thee
For a dumb, insensate clod?
Dare to doubt! and these shall teach thee
Of a truth there lives a God!'

By day and night, for hours,
I watch the cataract's impulsive leap,
Refreshed and gladdened by the cheering showers
Wrung from the passion of the seething deep.

Pleased when the buried waves
Emerge again, like incorporeal hosts
Rising, white-sheeted, from their gloomy graves,
As if the depths had yielded up their ghosts.

And when the midnight storm
Enfolds the welkin in its robe of clouds,
Through the dim vapours of the cauldron swarm
The sheeted spectres in their whitest shrouds,

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By the lightning's flash betrayed.
These gather from the insubstantial vapour
The lunar rainbows, which by them are made--
Woven with moonbeams by some starry taper,

To decorate the halls
Of my fair palace, whence I'm pained to see
Thy human brethren watch the waterfalls--
Not with such rev'rence as I've found in thee:

Too many with an eye
To speculation and the worldling's dreams;
Others, who seek from nature no reply,
Nor read the oral language of the streams.

But of the few who loved
The beautiful with grateful heart and soul,
Who looked on nature fondly, and were moved
By one sweet glance, as by the mighty whole:

Of these, the thoughtful few,
Thou wert the first to seek the inner temple,
And stand before the Priestess. Thou wert true
To nature and thyself. Be thy example

The harbinger of times
When the Chaudière's imposing majesty
Will awe the spirits of the heartless mimes
To worship God in truth, with nature's constancy."

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Still I heard the mellow sweetness of her voice at intervals,
Mingling with the fall of waters, rising with the snowy spray,
Ringing through the sportive current like the joy of waterfalls,
Sending up their hearty vespers at the calmy close of day.
Loath to leave the scene of beauty, lover-like I stayed, and stayed,
Folding to my eager bosom memories beyond compare;
Deeper, stronger, more enduring than my dreams of wood and glade,
Were the eloquent appeals of the magnificent Chaudière.

E'en the solid bridge is trembling, whence I look my last farewell,
Dizzy with the roar and trampling of the mighty herd of waves,
Speeding past the rocky Island, steadfast as a sentinel,
Towards the loveliest bay that ever mirrored the Algonquin Braves.
Soul of Beauty! Genius! Spirit! Priestess of the lovely strife!
In my heart thy words are shrined, as in a sanctuary fair;
Echoes of thy voice of sweetness, rousing all my better life,
Ever haunt my wildest visions of the jubilant Chaudière.

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A ROYAL WELCOME.

By England's side we stand,
We grasp her royal hand,
And pay her rightful homage through her Son;
Thank God for England's care!
Thank God for Britain's heir!
Our hearts go forth to meet him--we are one.

A loyal Province pours
Her thousands to her shores,
From iron-girt Superior to the sea;
We feel our youthful blood
Surge through us like a flood,
There's not a slave amongst us--we are free.

For none but Freemen know
The truly loyal throe
That gives heroic impulse to the Man--
The passion and the fire,
The chivalrous desire:
Our Fathers all were heroes--in the van.

And we, their ardent sons,
Through whom, triumphant, runs
The old intrepid attribute serene,
Would leave our chosen land,
Our homes, our forests grand,
To strike for England's honour and her Queen.

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No soulless welcome we
Dare give to such as thee:
Be thou a bright example to the world;
Great in thy well-earned fame,
Beloved in heart and name,
Wherever Britain's banner is unfurled.

Through all our leafy glades,
Through all our green arcades,
The living torrents, sweeping in, evince
That from their manly hearts
The Yeoman chorus starts:
'Honour to England's Heir!--long live the Prince!'

Oh, England! in this hour
We own thy sov'reign pow'r;
To thee and thine our best affections cling,
And when thy crown is laid
On Royal Albert's head,
With heart and soul we'll shout--GOD SAVE THE KING!

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MALCOLM.

Boy! this world has ever been
A bright, glad world to me;
Through each dark and checkered scene
God's sun shone lovingly.
But Content I've never known;
Hoping, trusting that the years,
With their April smiles and tears,
Would yet bring me one like thee
That I could call my own.

With thy soft and heavenly eyes
In deep and pensive calm,
I seem looking at the skies,
And wonder where I am!
Something more than princely blood
Courses in thy tranquil face:
When she lent thee such a grace,
Nature lit life's earnest flame
In her most queenly mood.

Such a sweet intelligence
Is stamped on every line,
Banqueting our craving sense
With minist'rings divine.
If thy Boyhood be so great,
What will be the coming Man,
Could we overleap the span?
Are there treasures in the mine,
To pay us, if we wait?

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Doth the voice of Music live
In that majestic brain,
Waiting for the Hand to give
Expression to the strain?
Are there wells of Truth--pure, deep,
Where the patient diver, Thought,
Finds the pearl that has been sought
Many a weary age in vain,
Entrusted to thy keep.

Doth the fire of Genius burn
Within that ample brow?
Or some patient spirit yearn
For things that are not now?
Hidden in the over-soul
Of the Future, to be born
When the world has ceased its scorn,
When the sceptic's heart will bow
To the divine control.

Patiently we'll watch and hope,
And wait, alternately;
Trusting that, when time shall ope
The casket's mystery,
We will be made rich indeed
With the wonders it contains;
Rich beyond all previous gains;
Richer for thy thought and thee,
Beyond our greatest meed.

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THE COMET--OCTOBER, 1858.

Erratic Soul of some great Purpose, doomed
To track the wild illimitable space,
Till sure propitiation has been made
For the divine commission unperformed!
What was thy crime? Ahasuerus' curse
Were not more stern on earth than thine in Heaven!

Art thou the Spirit of some Angel World,
For grave rebellion banished from thy peers,
Compelled to watch the calm, immortal stars,
Circling in rapture the celestial void,
While the avenger follows in thy train
To spur thee on to wretchedness eterne?

Or one of nature's wildest fantasies,
From which she flies in terror so profound,
And with such whirl of torment in her breast,
That mighty earthquakes yearn where'er she treads;
While War makes red its terrible right hand,
And Famine stalks abroad all lean and wan?

To us thou art as exquisitely fair
As the ideal visions of the seer,
Or gentlest fancy that e'er floated down
Imagination's bright, unruffled stream,
Wedding the thought that was too deep for words
To the low breathings of inspirèd song.

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When the stars sang together o'er the birth
Of the poor Babe at Bethlehem, that lay
In the coarse manger at the crowded Inn,
Didst thou, perhaps a bright exalted star,
Refuse to swell the grand, harmonious lay,
Jealous as Herod of the birth divine?

Or when the crown of thorns on Calvary
Pierced the Redeemer's brow, didst thou disdain
To weep, when all the planetary worlds
Were blinded by the fulness of their tears?
E'en to the flaming sun, that hid his face
At the loud cry, "Lama Sabachthani!"

No rest! No rest! the very damned have that
In the dark councils of remotest Hell,
Where the dread scheme was perfected that sealed
Thy disobedience and accruing doom.
Like Adam's sons, hast thou, too, forfeited
The blest repose that never pillowed Sin?

No! none can tell thy fate, thou wandering Sphinx!
Pale Science, searching by the midnight lamp
Through the vexed mazes of the human brain,
Still fails to read the secret of its soul
As the superb enigma flashes by,
A loosed Prometheus burning with disdain.

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AUTUMN.

If seasons, like the human race, had souls,
Then two artistic spirits live within
The Chameleon mind of Autumn--these,
The Poet's mentor and the Painter's guide.
The myriad-thoughted phases of the mind
Are truly represented by the hues
That thrill the forests with prophetic fire.
And what could painter's skill compared to these?
What palette ever held the flaming tints
That on these leafy hieroglyphs foretell
How set the ebbing currents of the year?
What poet's page was ever like to this,
Or told the lesson of life's waning days
More forcibly, with more of natural truth,
Than yon red maples, or these poplars, white
As the pale shroud that wraps some human corse?
And then, again, the spirit of a King,
Clothed with that majesty most monarchs lack,
Might fit old Autumn for his royal rule:
For here is kingly ermine, cloth of gold,
And purple robes well worthy to be worn
By the best monarch that e'er donned a crown.

Proclaim him Royal Autumn! Poet King!
The Laureate of the Seasons, whose rare songs
Are such as lyrist never hoped to fling
On the fine ear of an admiring world.
Autumn, the Poet, Painter, and true King!
His gorgeous Ideality speaks forth

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From the rare colors of the changing leaves;
And the ripe blood that swells his purple veins
Is as the glowing of a sacred fire.
He walks with Shelley's spirit on the cliffs
Of the Ethereal Caucasus, and o'er
The summits of the Euganean hills;
And meets the soul of Wordsworth, in profound
And philosophic meditation, rapt
In some great dream of love towards
The human race. The cheery Spring may come,
And touch the dreaming flowers into life,
Summer expand her leafy sea of green,
And wake the joyful wilderness to song,
As a fair hand strikes music from a lyre:
But Autumn, from its daybreak to its close,
Setting in florid beauty, like the sun,
Robed with rare brightness and ethereal flame,
Holds all the year's ripe fruitage in its hands,
And dies with songs of praise upon its lips.

And then, the Indian Summer, bland as June:
Some Tuscarora King, Algonquin Seer,
Or Huron Chief, returned to smoke the Pipe
Of Peace upon the ancient hunting grounds;
The mighty shade in spirit walking forth
To feel the beauty of his native woods,
Flashing in Autumn vestures, or to mark
The scanty remnants of the scattered tribes
Wending towards their graves. Few Braves are left;
Few mighty Hunters; fewer stately Chiefs,
Like great Tecumseth fit to take the field,
And lead the tribes to certain victory,

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Choosing annihilation to defeat:
But having run thy gauntlet of their days,
This Autumn remnant of some unknown race,
Nearing the Winter of their sad decay,
Fall like dry leaves into the lap of Time;
Their old trunks sapless, their tough branches bare,
And Fate's shrill war-whoop thund'ring at their heels.

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COLIN.

Who'll dive for the dead men now,
Since Colin is gone?
Who'll feel for the anguished brow,
Since Colin is gone?
True Feeling is not confined
To the learned or lordly mind;
Nor can it be bought and sold
In exchange for an Alp of gold;
For Nature, that never lies,
Flings back with indignant scorn
The counterfeit deed, still-born,
In the face of the seeming wise,
In the Janus face of the huckster race
Who barter her truths for lies.

Who'll wrestle with dangers dire,
Since Colin is gone?
Who'll fearlessly brave the maniac wave,
Thoughtless of self, human life to save,
Unmoved by the storm-fiend's ire?
Who, Shadrach-like, will walk through fire,
Since Colin is gone?
Or hang his life on so frail a breath
That there's but a step 'twixt life and death?
For Courage is not the heritage
Of the nobly born; and many a sage
Has climbed to the temple of fame,
And written his deathless name
In letters of golden flame,
Who, on glancing down

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From his high renown,
Saw his unlettered sire
Still by the old log fire,
Saw the unpolished dame--
And the dunghill from which he came.

Ah, ye who judge the dead
By the outward lives they led,
And not by the hidden worth
Which none but God can see;
Ye who would spurn the earth
That covers such as he;
Would ye but bare your hearts,
Cease to play borrowed parts,
And come down from your self-built throne:
How few from their house of glass,
As the gibbering secrets pass,
Would dare to fling, whether serf or king,
The first accusing stone!

Peace, peace to his harmless dust!
Since Colin is gone;
We can but hope and trust;
Man judgeth, but God is just;
Poor Colin is gone!
Had he faults? His heart was true,
And warm as the summer's sun.
Had he failings? Ay, but few;
'Twas an honest race he run.
Let him rest in the poor man's grave,
Ye who grant him no higher goal;
There may be a curse on the hands that gave,
But not on his simple soul!

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MARGERY.

"Truth lights our minds as sunrise lights the world.
The heart that shuts out truth, excludes the light
That wakes the love of beauty in the soul;
And being foe to these, despises God,
The sole Dispenser of the gracious bliss
That brings us nearer the celestial gate.
They who might feed on rose-leaves of the True,
And grow in loveliness of heart and soul,
Catch at Deception's airy gossamers,
As children clutch at stars. To some, the world
Is a bleak desert, parched with blinding sand,
With here and there a mirage, fair to view,
But insubstantial as the visions born
Of Folly and Despair. Could we but know
How nigh we are to the true light of heaven;
In what a world of love we live and breathe;
On what a tide of truth our souls are borne!
Yet we're but bubbles in the whirl of life,
Mere flecks upon its ever-restless sea,
Meteors in its ever-changing sky.
Eternity alone is worth the thought
That we expend upon the passing hour,
Chasing the gaudy butterflies that lure
Our footsteps from the path that leads us home.
We will not see the beacon on the rock;
The prompter is unheeded; and the spark
Of the true spirit quenched in utter night,
As we rush headlong, wrecked on Error's shoals.
Some hearts will never open; all their wards

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Have grown so rusty, that the golden key
Of Love Divine must fail to move the bolt
That Self has drawn to keep God's angels out."

So spake the merry Margery, the while
Her fingers lengthened out a filigree,
That seemed to me so many golden threads
Of thought between her fingers and her brain,
Bestrung with priceless pearls; her lightsome mood,
Worn as occasion might necessitate,
Replaced to-night by sober-sided Sense,
That made her beauty like an eve in June,
Just as the moon is risen. I, to mark
My approbation of her present mood,
Rehearsed a rambling lyric of my own,
That seemed prophetic of her thoughts to-night:

Within my mind there ever lives
A yearning for the True,
The Beautiful and Good. God gives
These, as He gives the dew

That falls upon the flowers at night,
The grass, the thirsty trees,
Because 'tis needful; and the light
That suns my mind from these--

Truth--Beauty--Goodness, doth but fill
A void within my soul;
And I fall prone before the Will
Of Him who gave the whole--

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The wondrous life--the power to think,
And love, and act, and speak.
Standing, half-poised, upon the brink
Of being--strong, yet weak--

Strong in vast hopes, but weak in deeds,
I lift my heart and pray,
That where the tangled skein of creeds
Excludes the light of day

From human minds, God's purposes
May be made plain, that all
May walk in truth's and wisdom's ways,
And lay aside the thrall

Of enmity, whose clouds have kept
Their souls as dark as night;
That they whose love and hope have slept,
May come into the light,

And live as men, with minds to grasp
Within the sphere of thought
The boundless universe, and clasp
The good the wise have sought,

As if it were a long-lost dove,
Or a stray soul returned
To worship in the fane of love,
That it so long had spurned.

Where'er I gaze, my eyes behold
Nought but the beautiful.
The world is grand as it is old;
The only fitting school

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For man, where he may learn to live,
And live to learn that what
He needs heaven will in mercy give.
Whatever be his lot,

He shapes it for himself; his mind
Is his own heaven or hell:
Just as he peoples it, he'll find
Himself compelled to dwell

With good or evil. Good abounds
In this delightful sphere;
But man will walk his daily rounds,
And evermore give ear

To the false promptings that waylay
His steps at every turn;
Flinging the true and good away
For joys that he should spurn,

As being all unworthy of
His greatness as a man.
Why, man!--why tremble at the scoff
Of fools and bigots? Scan

The mental firmament, and see
How men in every age,
Who strove for immortality--
Whose errand was to wage

Not War, but Peace--men of pure minds,
Who sought and found the truth,
And treasured it, as one who finds
The secret of lost Youth

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Restored and made immortal--see
How they were scorned, because
Their Sphinx-lives spake of mystery
To those to whom the laws

Of nature are as claspèd books!--
Poets, who ruled the world
Of Thought; in whose prophetic looks
And minds there lay impearled,

But hidden from the vulgar sight,
Such universal truths,
That many, blinded by the light--
Gray-haired, green-gosling youths,

With whips of satire, looks of scorn,
And finger of disdain,
Have crushed these harbingers of morn,
But could not kill the strain

That was a part of nature's mind,
And therefore can not die.
That which men spurned, angels have shrined
Among God's truths on high.

And so 't will ever be, till man
Knows more of Goodness, Truth,
And Beauty--more of nature's plan,
And Love that brings back youth

To hearts that have grown frail and old
By groping in the dark
With blinded eyes; their idol, Gold,
And Gain, their Pleasure-bark!

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"'Tis well that nature hath her ministers,"
She said, her voice and looks so passing sweet;
"Great-hearts that let in love, and keep it there,
Like the true flame within the diamond's heart,
Informing, blessing, chastening their lives.
Man has but one great love--his love for God;
All other loves are lesser and more less
As they recede from Him, as are the streams
The farthest from the fountain. God is Love.
Who loves God most, loves most his fellow-men;
Sees the Creator in the creature's form
Where others see but man--and he, so frail
The very devils are akin to him!
There is no light that is not born of love;
No truth where love is not its guiding star;
Faith without love is noonday without sun,
For love begetteth works both good and true,
And these give faith its immortality."

We parted at the outer door. The stars
Seemed never half so bright or numberless
As they appeared to-night. Margery's laugh
Tripped after me in merry cadences,
Like the quick steps of fairies in the air
United to the chorus of their hearts
Breathed into silvery music. Happy soul!
Nature's epitome in all her moods.

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EVA.

"God bless the darling Eva!" was my prayer.
A pure, unconscious depth of earnestness
Was in her eyes, so indescribable
You might as well the color of the air
Seek to daguerreotype, or to impress
A stain upon the river, whose first swell
Would swirl it to the deep. A calm, sweet soul,
Where Love's celestial saints and ministers
Did hold the earthly under such control
Virtue sprung up like daisies from the sod.
Oh, for one hour's sweet excellence like hers!
One hour of sinlessness, that never more
Can visit me this side the Silent Shore,
To stand, like her, serene, unblushing before God!

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THE POET'S RECOMPENSE.

His heart's a burning censer, filled with spice
From fairer vales than those of Araby,
Breathing such prayers to heaven, that the nice
Discriminating ear of Deity
Can cull sweet praises from the rare perfume.
Man cannot know what starry lights illume
The soaring spirit of his brother man!
He judges harshly with his mind's eyes closed;
His loftiest understanding cannot scan
The heights where Poet-souls have oft reposed;
He cannot feel the chastened influence
Divine, that lights the Ideal atmosphere,
And never to his uninspirèd sense
Rolls the majestic hymn that inspirates the Seer.

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THE WINE OF SONG.

Within Fancy's Halls I sit, and quaff
Rich draughts of the Wine of Song,
And I drink, and drink,
To the very brink
Of delirium wild and strong,
Till I lose all sense of the outer world,
And see not the human throng.

The lyral chords of each rising thought
Are swept by a hand unseen;
And I glide, and glide,
With my music bride,
Where few spiritless souls have been;
And I soar afar on wings of sound,
With my fair AEolian Queen.

Deep, deeper still, from the springs of Thought
I quaff, till the fount is dry;
And I climb, and climb,
To a height sublime,
Up the stars of some lyric sky,
Where I seem to rise upon airs that melt
Into song as they pass by.

Millennial rounds of bliss I live,
Withdrawn from my cumbrous clay,
As I sweep, and sweep,
Through infinite deep
On deep of that starry spray;
Myself a sound on its world-wide round,
A tone on its spheral way.

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And wheresoe'er through the wondrous space
My soul wings its noiseless flight,
On their astral rounds
Float divinest sounds,
Unseen, save by spirit-sight,
Obeying some wise, eternal law,
As fixed as the law of light.

But, oh, when my cup of dainty bliss
Is drained of the Wine of Song,
How I fall, and fall,
At the sober call
Of the body, that waiteth long
To hurry me back to its cares terrene,
And earth's spiritless human throng.

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THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM.

I stood upon the Plain,
That had trembled when the slain,
Hurled their proud, defiant curses at the battle-heated foe,
When the steed dashed right and left,
Through the bloody gaps he cleft,
When the bridle-rein was broken, and the rider was laid low.

What busy feet had trod
Upon the very sod
Where I marshalled the battalions of my fancy to my aid!
And I saw the combat dire,
Heard the quick, incessant fire,
And the cannons' echoes startling the reverberating glade.

I saw them, one and all,
The banners of the Gaul
In the thickest of the contest, round the resolute Montcalm;
The well-attended Wolfe,
Emerging from the gulf
Of the battle's fiery furnace, like the swelling of a psalm.

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I heard the chorus dire,
That jarred along the lyre
On which the hymn of battle rung, like surgings of the wave
When the storm, at blackest night,
Wakes the ocean in affright,
As it shouts its mighty pibroch o'er some shipwrecked vessel's grave.

I saw the broad claymore
Flash from its scabbard, o'er
The ranks that quailed and shuddered at the close and fierce attack;
When Victory gave the word,
Then Scotland drew the sword,
And with arm that never faltered drove the brave defenders back.

I saw two great chiefs die,
Their last breaths like the sigh
Of the zephyr-sprite that wantons on the rosy lips of morn;
No envy-poisoned darts,
No rancour, in their hearts,
To unfit them for their triumph over death's impending scorn.

And as I thought and gazed,
My soul, exultant, praised
The Power to whom each mighty act and victory are due,

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For the saint-like Peace that smiled
Like a heaven-gifted child,
And for the air of quietude that steeped the distant view.

The sun looked down with pride,
And scattered far and wide
His beams of whitest glory till they flooded all the Plain;
The hills their veils withdrew,
Of white, and purplish blue,
And reposed all green and smiling 'neath the shower of golden rain.

Oh, rare, divinest life
Of Peace, compared with Strife!
Yours is the truest splendour, and the most enduring fame;
All the glory ever reaped
Where the fiends of battle leaped,
Is harsh discord to the music of your undertoned acclaim.

{83}

DEATH OF WOLFE.

"They run! they run!"--"Who run?" Not they
Who faced that decimating fire
As coolly as if human ire
Were rooted from their hearts;
_They_ run, while he who led the way
So bravely on that glorious day,
Burns for one word with keen desire
Ere waning life departs!

"They run! they run!"--"_Who_ run?" he cried,
As swiftly to his pallid brow,
Like crimson sunlight upon snow,
The anxious blood returned;
"The French! the French!" a voice replied,
When quickly paled life's ebbing tide,
And though his words were weak and low
His eye with valour burned.

"Thank God! I die in peace," he said;
And calmly yielding up his breath,
There trod the shadowy realms of death
A good man and a brave;
Through all the regions of the dead,
Behold his spirit, spectre-led,
Crowned with the amaranthine wreath
That blooms not for the slave.

{84}

BROCK.

OCTOBER 13TH, 1859.*

One voice, one people, one in heart
And soul, and feeling, and desire!
Re-light the smouldering martial fire,
Sound the mute trumpet, strike the lyre,
The hero deed can not expire,
The dead still play their part.

Raise high the monumental stone!
A nation's fealty is theirs,
And we are the rejoicing heirs,
The honored sons of sires whose cares
We take upon us unawares,
As freely as our own.

We boast not of the victory,
But render homage, deep and just,
To his--to their--immortal dust,
Who proved so worthy of their trust
No lofty pile nor sculptured bust
Can herald their degree.

No tongue need blazon forth their fame--
The cheers that stir the sacred hill
Are but mere promptings of the will
That conquered then, that conquers still;
And generations yet shall thrill
At Brock's remembered name.

{85}

Some souls are the Hesperides
Heaven sends to guard the golden age,
Illuming the historic page
With records of their pilgrimage;
True Martyr, Hero, Poet, Sage;
And he was one of these.

Each in his lofty sphere sublime
Sits crowned above the common throng,
Wrestling with some Pythonic wrong,
In prayer, in thunder, thought, or song;
Briarcus-limbed, they sweep along,
The Typhons of the time.

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

{86}

SONG FOR CANADA.

Sons of the race whose sires
Aroused the martial flame
That filled with smiles
The triune Isles,
Through all their heights of fame!
With hearts as brave as theirs,
With hopes as strong and high,
We'll ne'er disgrace
The honoured race
Whose deeds can never die.,
Let but the rash intruder dare
To touch our darling strand,
The martial fires
That thrilled our sires
Would flame throughout the land.

Our lakes are deep and wide,
Our fields and forests broad;
With cheerful air
We'll speed the share,
And break the fruitful sod;
Till blest with rural peace,
Proud of our rustic toil,
On hill and plain
True kings we'll reign,
The victors of the soil.
But let the rash intruder dare

{87}

To touch our darling strand,
The martial fires
That thrilled our sires
Would light him from the land.

Health smiles with rosy face
Amid our sunny dales,
And torrents strong
Fling hymn and song
Through all the mossy vales;
Our sons are living men,
Our daughters fond and fair;
A thousand isles
Where Plenty smiles,
Make glad the brow of Care.
But let the rash intruder dare
To touch our darling strand,
The martial fires
That thrilled our sires
Would flame throughout the land.

And if in future years
One wretch should turn and fly,
Let weeping Fame
Blot out his name
From Freedom's hallowed sky;
Or should our sons e'er prove
A coward, traitor race,--
Just heaven! frown
In thunder down,
T' avenge the foul disgrace!

{88}

But let the rash intruder dare
To touch our darling strand,
The martial fires
That thrilled our sires
Would light him from the land.

{89}

SONG--I'D BE A FAIRY KING.

Oh, I'd be a Fairy King,
With my vassals brave and bold;
We'd hunt all day,
Through the wildwood gay,
In our guise of green and gold;
And we'd lead such a merry, merry life,
That the silly, toiling bee,
Would have no sweet
In its dull retreat,
So rich as our frolic glee.
I'd be a Fairy King,
With my vassals brave and bold;
We'd hunt all day,
Through the wildwood gay,
In our guise of green and gold.

At night, when the moon spake down,
With her bland and pensive tone,
The fairest Queen
That ever was seen
Would sit on my pearly throne;
And we'd lead such a merry, merry life,
That the stars would laugh in show'rs
Of silver light,
All the summer night,
To the airs of the passing Hours.
I'd be a Fairy King,
With my vassals brave and bold;
We'd hunt all day
Through the wildwood gay,
In our guise of green and gold.

{90}

We'd talk with the dainty flow'rs,
And we'd chase the laughing brooks;
My merry men,
Through grove and glen,
Would search for the mossy nooks;
And we'd be such a merry, merry band,
Such a lively-hearted throng,
That life would seem
But a silvery dream
In the flowery Land of Song.
I'd be a Fairy King,
With my vassals brave and bold;
We'd hunt all day,
Through the wildwood gay,
In our guise of green and gold.

{91}

SONG--LOVE WHILE YOU MAY.

Day by day, with startling fleetness,
Life speeds away;
Love, alone, can glean its sweetness,
Love while you may.
While the soul is strong and fearless,
While the eye is bright and tearless,
Ere the heart is chilled and cheerless--
Love while you may.

Life may pass, but love, undying,
Dreads no decay;
Even from the grave replying,
"Love while you may."
Love's the fruit, as life's the flower;
Love is heaven's rarest dower;
Love gives love its quick'ning power--
Love while you may.

{92}

THE SNOWS.

UPPER OTTAWA.

Over the snows,
Buoyantly goes
The lumberers' bark canoe;
Lightly they sweep,
Wilder each leap,
Bending the white caps through.
Away! away!
With the speed of a startled deer,
While the steersman true,
And his laughing crew,
Sing of their wild career:

"Mariners glide
Far o'er the tide,
In ships that are staunch and strong;
Safely as they,
Speed we away,
Waking the woods with song."
Away! away!
With the flight of a startled deer,
While the laughing crew
Of the swift canoe
Sing of the raftsmen's cheer:

"Through forest and brake,
O'er rapid and lake,
We're sport for the sun and rain;
Free as the child
Of the Arab wild,
Hardened to toil and pain.

{93}

Away! away!
With the speed of a startled deer,
While our buoyant flight,
And the rapid's might,
Heighten our swift career."

Over the snows
Buoyantly goes
The lumberers' bark canoe;
Lightly they sweep,
Wilder each leap,
Tearing the white caps through.
Away! away!
With the speed of a startled deer;
There's a fearless crew
In each light canoe,
To sing of the raftsmen's cheer.

{94}

THE RAPID.

ST. LAWRENCE.

All peacefully gliding,
The waters dividing,
The indolent bátteau moved slowly along,
The rowers, light-hearted,
From sorrow long parted,
Beguiled the dull moments with laughter and song:
"Hurrah for the Rapid! that merrily, merrily
Gambols and leaps on its tortuous way;
Soon we will enter it, cheerily, cheerily,
Pleased with its freshness, and wet with its spray."

More swiftly careering,
The wild Rapid nearing,
They dash down the stream like a terrified steed;
The surges delight them,
No terrors affright them,
Their voices keep pace with their quickening speed:
"Hurrah for the Rapid! that merrily, merrily
Shivers its arrows against us in play;
Now we have entered it, cheerily, cheerily,
Our spirits as light as its feathery spray."

Fast downward they're dashing,
Each fearless eye flashing,
Though danger awaits them on every side;
Yon rock--see it frowning!
They strike--they are drowning!
But downward they speed with the merciless tide;

{95}

No voice cheers the Rapid, that angrily, angrily
Shivers their bark in its maddening play;
Gaily they entered it--heedlessly recklessly,
Mingling their lives with its treacherous spray!

{96}

LOST AND FOUND.

In the mildest, greenest grove
Blest by sprite or fairy,
Where the melting echoes rove,
Voices sweet and airy;
Where the streams
Drink the beams
Of the Sun,
As they run
Riverward
Through the sward,
A shepherd went astray--
E'en gods have lost their way.

Every bird had sought its nest,
And each flower-spirit
Dreamed of that delicious rest
Mortals ne'er inherit;
Through the trees
Swept the breeze,
Bringing airs
Unawares
Through the grove,
Until love
Came down upon his heart,
Refusing to depart.

Hungrily he quaffed the strain,
Sweeter still, and clearer,
Drenched with music's mellow rain,
Nearer--nearer--dearer!

{97}

Chains of sound
Gently bound
The lost Youth,
Till, in sooth,
He stood there
A prisoner,
Raised between earth and heaven
By love's divinest leaven.

Was there ever such a face?
Was it not a vision?
Had he climbed the starry space,
To the fields Elysian?
Through the glade
The milk-maid
With her pail,
To the vale
Passed along,
Breathing song
Through all his ravished sense,
To gladden his suspense.

"Love is swift as hawk or hind,
Chamois-like in fleetness,
None are lost that love can find,"
Sang the maid, with sweetness.
"True, in sooth,"
Thought the Youth,
"Strong, as swift,
Love can lift

{98}

Mountain weights
To the gates
Of the celestial skies,
Where all else fades and dies."

Lightly flew the sunny days,
Joy and gladness sending;
Life becomes a song of praise
When true hearts are blending.
Guileless truth
Won the Youth,
Kept him there,
A prisoner;
While dear Love
From above
Poured down enduring dreams,
In calm supernal gleams.

{99}

YOUNG AGAIN.

Young again! Young again!
Beating heart! I deemed that sorrow,
With its torture-rack of pain,
Had eclipsed each bright to-morrow;
And that Love could never rise
Into life's cerulean skies,
Singing the divine refrain--
"Young again! Young again!"

Young again! Young again!
Passion dies as we grow older;
Love that in repose has lain,
Takes a higher flight, and bolder:
Fresh from rest and dewy sleep,
Like the skylark's matin sweep,
Singing the divine refrain--
"Young again! Young again!"

Young again! Young again!
Book of Youth, thy sunny pages
Here and there a tear may stain,
But 'tis Love that makes us sages.
Love, Hope, Youth--blest trinity!
Wanting these, and what were we?
Who would chant the sweet refrain--
"Young again! Young again!"

{100}

GLIMPSES.

Sounds of rural life and labour!
Not the notes of pipe and tabour,
Not the clash of helm and sabre
Bright'ning up the field of glory,
Can compare with thy ovations,
That make glad the hearts of nations;
E'en the poet's fond creations
Pale before thy simple story.

In the years beyond our present,
King was little more than peasant,
Labour was the shining crescent,
Toil, the poor man's crown of glory;
Have we passed from worse to better
Since we wove the silken fetter,
Changed the plough for book and letter.
Truest life for tinsel story?

Up the ladder of the ages
Clomb the patriarchal sages,
Solving nature's secret pages,
Kings of thought's supremest glory;
Eagle-winged, and sight far reaching--
Are we wiser for their teaching?--
Wrangling creeds for gentle preaching!
Falsest life for truest story!

Man is overfraught with culture,
Virtue early finds sepulture,
While our vices sate the vulture

{101}

We misname a bird of glory;
Life is blindly artificial,
Rarely pass we its initial,
All our aims are prejudicial
To its earnest, simple story.

Hail, primeval life and labour!
Martial notes of pipe and tabour,
Gleam of spears and clash of sabre,
Hero march from fields of glory,
All the thundering ovations
Surging from the hearts of nations,
Poet dreams and speculations,
Pale before thy simple story!

{102}

MY PRAYER.

O God! forgive the erring thought,
The erring word and deed,
And in thy mercy hear the Christ
Who comes to intercede.

My sins, like mountain-weights of lead,
Weigh heavy on my soul;
I'm bruised and broken in this strife,
But Thou canst make me whole.

Allay this fever of unrest,
That fights against the Will;
And in Thy still small voice do Thou
But whisper, "Peace, be still!"

Until within this heart of mine
Thy lasting peace come down,
Will all the waves of Passion roll,
Each good resolve to drown.

We walk in blindness and dark night
Through half our earthly way;
Our clouds of weaknesses obscure
The glory of the day.

We cannot lead the lives we would,
But grope in dumb amaze,
Leaving the straight and flowery paths
To tread the crooked ways.

{103}

We are as pilgrims toiling on
Through all the weary hours;
And our poor hands are torn with thorns,
Plucking life's tempting flowers.

We worship at a thousand shrines,
And build upon the sands,
Passing the one great Temple, and
The Rock on which it stands.

O, fading dream of human life!
What can this change portend?
I long for higher walks, and true
Progression without end.

Here I know nothing, and my search
Can find no secret out;
I cannot think a single thought
That is not mixed with doubt.

Relying on the higher source,
The influence divine,
I can but hope that light may dawn
Within this soul of mine.

I ask not wisdom, such as that
To which the world is prone,
Nor knowledge ask, unless it come
Direct from God alone.

Send down then, God! in mercy send
Thy Love and Truth to me,
That I may henceforth walk in light
That comes direct from Thee.

{104}

HER STAR.

When the heavens throb and vibrate
All along their silver veins,
To the mellow storm of music
Sweeping o'er the starry trains,
Heard by few, as erst by shepherds
On the far Chaldean plains:

Not the blazing, torch-like planets,
Not the Pleiads wild and free,
Not Arcturus, Mars, Uranus,
Bring the brightest dreams to me;
But I gaze in rapt devotion
On the central star of three.

Central star of three that tingle
In the balmy southern sky;
One above, and one below it,
Dreamily they pale and die,
As two lesser minds might dwindle,
When some great soul, passing by,

Stops, and reads their cherished secrets,
With a calm and godlike air,
Luring all their radiance from them
Leaving a dim twilight there,
Something vague, and half unreal,
Like the Alpha of despair.

{105}

Gazing thus, and holding converse
With the silence of my heart,
I would speak with famed Orion,
I would question it apart,
Wrest her love's strange secret from it,
If there's strength in human art.

And there come to me sweet whispers,
Half in answer, half in thought:--
"Be but strong, impassioned mortal!
Love will come to thee unsought;
Love is the divine Irene,--
It is given, and not bought.

[Transcriber's note: In the original book,
the e's in the "Irene" in the above verse
were e-macrons, Unicode U+0113.]

Strong of heart. Be wise, be steadfast,
Learn, endeavour, and endure;
Blest with strength and light, in wisdom
Make the higher purpose sure;
Never can her heart receive thee
Till thine own is rendered pure.

I but shone in truth above her;
Psyche-like, she yearned to me,
And her soul, an Aphrodite,
Rose above the ether sea.
Love. Love should and will inherit
The divine Euphrosyne."

When at night, the gleaming heavens
Throb through all their starry veins,
Oft I ponder on Orion,
And I hear celestial strains
Passing through my soul, and flooding
All its green immortal plains.

{106}

Then I pray for strength Promethean,
Pray for power to endure;
Then I say, O soul, be steadfast!
Make the lofty purpose sure;
And that love may be all-worthy,
God of heaven, make me pure!

{107}

THE MYSTERY.

My mind is like a troubled sea
O'er which the winds forever sweep;
Within its depths, eternally,
My being's pulses throb and leap;
There germs of contemplation sleep,
Like stars beyond the Milky Way,--
Like pearls within the gloomy deep,
That never saw the light of day.

Oh, wondrous mind, how little known!
Whence comes the thought that through my brain
Floats weirdlike as the pleasing tone
That quickens a belovèd strain?
It may have graced some sweet refrain
A thousand years ago, or more;
Some Norman Prince, some valiant Dane,
May have imbibed it with their lore.

It may have strengthened Plato's soul,
Its clarion echoes ringing through
His brain, the heaven-reaching goal
Whence wisdom had its starry view;
It may have cheered the gifted few
Whose minds were mints of royal song,
Who toiled where Shakespeare soared, and drew
Down blessings from the grateful throng.

And on for ages yet to come,
Through minds by heavenly impulse fired,
That thought may strike some scorner dumb,
In all its regal guise attired;

{108}

Divinely blest, though uninspired,
Some soul may change its swift career,
Bearing the great truth, long-desired,
In triumph to the highest sphere.

Unbounded universe of Thought!
Illimitable realms of mind!
Regions of Fancy, wonder-fraught!
Imagination unconfined!
Temples of mystery! behind
Whose veils the God-appointed plan
In perfect wisdom is enshrined,
Beyond the pigmy reach of man:

I cannot--dare not--seek to know
What finite vision, to the end,
Through years of strictest search below,
Must ever fail to comprehend!
God! whose intents so far transcend
Our poor discernment, let me see
Some portion of the truths that tend
By slow gradations up to Thee:

That in the less imperfect years,
When human frailty shall have died,
When the vexed riddle of the spheres,
Interpreted and glorified,
Shall be as nothing to the tide
Of light in which Thy hidden ways
Will be revealed: I may abide
Thy meanest instrument of praise,
And from the broad calm ocean of Thy truth
And wisdom drinking, find eternal youth.

{109}

LOVE AND TRUTH.

Young Love sat in a rosy bower,
Towards the close of a summer day;
At the evening's dusky hour,
Truth bent her blessed steps that way;
Over her face
Beaming a grace
Never bestowed on child of clay.

Truth looked on with an ardent joy,
Wondering Love could grow so tired;
Hovering o'er him she kissed the boy,
When, with a sudden impulse fired,
Exquisite pains
Burning his veins,
Wildly he woke, as one inspired.

Eagerly Truth embraced the god,
Filling his soul with a sense divine;
Rightly he knew the paths she trod,
Springing from heaven's royal line;
Far had he strayed
From his guardian maid,
Perilling all for his rash design.

Still as they went, the tricksy youth
Wandered afar from the maiden fair;
Many a plot he laid, in sooth,
Wherein the maid could have no share
Sowing his seeds,
Bringing forth weeds,
Seldom a rose, and many a tare.

{110}

Save when the maiden was by his side,
Love was erratic, and rarely true;
When she smiled on the graceful bride,
Over the old world rose the new,
Into life's skies
Blending her dyes,
Fairer than those of the rainbow's hue.

Sunny-eyed maidens, whom Love decoys,
Mark well the arts of the wayward youth!
Sorrows he bringeth, disguised as joys,
Rose-hued delights with cores of ruth;
Learn to believe
Love will deceive,
Save when he comes with his guardian, Truth.

{111}

THE WREN.

Early each spring the little wren
Came scolding to his nest of moss;
We knew him by his peevish cry,
He always sung so very cross.
His quiet little mate would lay
Her eggs in peace, and think all day.

He was a sturdy little wren;
And when he came in spring, we knew,
Or seemed to know, the flowers would grow
To please him, where they always grew,
Among the rushes, cheerfully;
But not a rush so straight as he!

All summer long that little wren
Would chatter like a saucy thing;
And in the bush attack the thrush
That on the hawthorn perched to sing.
Like many noisy little men,
Lived, bragged, and fought that little wren.

There was a thoughtful maid, and I,
We used to play along the shore,
Searching for shells, and culling flowers,
As at the threshold of life's door,
Through which we had to pass, we stood,
Twin types of childish hardihood.

{112}

Year after year we gathered flowers,
And grew apace, as children do;
And each returning spring we marked
The little wrens, they never grew;
One over-quiet and sedate,
The other, a bird-reprobate.

But now the marsh is overflowed,
The rushes rot beneath the sand;
No spring brings back the little wrens,
No children loiter hand in hand;
The maiden rose-bud, pure and good,
Grown to the flower of womanhood.

{113}

GRANDPERE.

Old Grandpere gat in the corner,
With his grandchild on his knee,
Looking up at his wrinkled visage,
For his winters were ninety-three.

Fair Eleanor's locks were flaxen,
The old man's once were gray,
But now, they were white as the snow-drift
That lay on the bleak highway.

Her summers rolled on as golden
As waves over sunny seas;
But Grandpere could perceive no summers,
The winters alone were his.

He folded his arms around her,
Like Winter embracing Spring;
And the angels looked down from heaven,
And smiled on their slumbering.

But soon the angelic faces
Were filled with seraphic light,
As they gazed on a beauteous spirit
Passing up through the frosty night:

Till it stood serene before them,
A youth most divinely fair;
And they saw that the new-born angel
Was the spirit of old Grandpere.

{114}

ENGLAND'S HOPE AND ENGLAND'S HEIR.

England's Hope and England's Heir!
Head and crown of Britain's glory,
Be thy future half so fair
As her past is famed in story,
Then wilt thou be great, indeed,
Daring, where there's cause to dare;
Greatest in the hour of need,
England's Hope and England's Heir.

By her past, in acts supreme,
By her present grand endeavour,
By her future, which the gleam
Of our fond hopes brings us ever:
We can trust that thou wilt be
Worthy of a fame so rare,
Worthy of thy destiny,
England's Hope and England's Heir.

Be thy spirit fraught with hers,
Queen, whom we revere and honour;
Be thine acts love's messengers,
Brightly flashing back upon her;
Be what most her trust would deem,
Help the answer to her prayer,
Realize her holiest dream,
England's Hope and England's Heir.

Welcome, Prince! the land is wide,
Wider still the love we cherish;
Love that thou shalt find, when tried,
Is not born to droop and perish;

{115}

Welcome to our heart of hearts;
You will find no falsehood there,
But the zeal that truth imparts,
England's Hope and England's Heir.

Welcome to our woodland deeps,
To our inland lakes, and rivers,
Where the rapid roars and sweeps,
Where the brightest sunlight quivers.
Loyal souls can never fail;
Serfdom crouches in its lair;
But our British hearts are hale,
England's Hope and England's Heir.

{116}

ROSE.

When the evening broods quiescent
Over mountain, vale and lea,
And the moon uplifts her crescent
Far above the peaceful sea,
Little Rose, the fisher's daughter,
Passes in her cedar skiff
O'er the dreamy waste of water,
To the signal on the cliff.

Have a care, my merry maiden!
Young Adonis though he be,
Many hearts are secret-laden
That have trusted such as he.
Has he worth, and is he truthful?
Thoughtless maiden rarely knows;
But, "He's handsome, brave and youthful,"
Says the heart of little Rose.

Hark! the horn--its shrill vibrations
Tremble through the maiden's breast,
As the sweet reverberations
Dwindle to their whispered rest;
Sweeter far the honied sentence
Sealing up her mind's repose;
Love as yet needs no repentance
In the heart of little Rose.

Heaven shield thee, trusting mortal!
Love has heaved its firstborn sigh;
But from the pellucid portal
Of her calm, indignant eye,

{117}

Darts that make the strong man tremble
Pierce his bosom ere he goes;
Rank and station may dissemble,
There is truth in little Rose.

Take my hand, my fisher maiden,
There's a grasp for thee and thine;
Constancy is love's bright Aiden,
Self-denial is divine.
Take my hand upon this pláteau,
Let me share thy mortal throes;
Come, dear Love! we'll build our cháteau
In the heart of little Rose.

{118}

THE DREAMER.

Spirit of Song! whose whispers
Delight my pensive brain,
When will the perfect harmony
Ring through my feeble strain?

When will the rills of melody
Be widened to a stream!
When will the bright and gladsome Day
Succeed this morning dream?

"Mortal," the spirit whispered,
"If thou wouldst truly win
The race thou art pursuing,
Heed well the voice within:

And it shall gently teach thee
To read thy heart, and know
No human strain is perfect,
However sweet it flow.

And if thou readest truly,
As surely shalt thou find
That truths, like rills, though diverse,
Are choicest in their kind.

The souls of Poet-Dreamers
Touch heaven on their way;
With the light of Song to guide them
It should be always Day."

{119}

NIGHT AND MORNING.

The winds are piping loud to-night,
And the waves roll strong and high;
God pity the watchful mariner
Who toils 'neath yonder sky!

I saw the vessel speed away,
With a free, majestic sweep,
At evening as the sun went down
To his palace in the deep.

An aged crone sat on the beach,
And, pointing to the ship,
"She'll never return again," she said,
With a scorn upon her lip.

------

The morning rose tempestuous,
The winds blew to the shore,
There were corpses on the sands that morn,
But the ship came nevermore!

{120}

WITHIN THINE EYES.

Within thine eyes two spirits dwell,
The sweetest and the purest
That ever wove Love's mystic spell,
Or plied his arts the surest:
No smile of morn,
Though heaven-born,
Nor sunshine earthward straying,
E'er charmed the sight
With half the light
That round thy lips is playing.

The stars may shine, the moon may smile,
The earth in beauty languish,
Life's sorrows these can but beguile,
But thou canst heal its anguish.
Thy voice, like rills
Of silver, trills
Such sounds of liquid sweetness,
Each accent rolls
Along our souls,
In lyrical completeness.

If Friendship lend thee such a grace,
That men nor gods may slight it,
How blest the one who views thy face
When Love comes down to light it!
And, oh, if he
Who holds in fee
Thy beauty, truth, and reason,
A traitor prove
To thee and Love,
We'll spurn him for his treason.

{121}

GERTRUDE.

Underneath the maple-tree
Gertrude worked her filigree,
All the summer long;
To sweet airs her voice was wed,
As she plied her golden thread;
Echo stealing through the grove
Filched away the words of love,
And the birds, from tree to tree,
Bore the witching melody
Through avenues of Song.

Underneath the maple-trees
Zephyrs chant her melodies,
All the summer long;
Words and airs no longer wed,
Death has snapped the vocal thread
Echo sleeping in the grove
Dreams of liquid airs of love,
And the birds among the trees
Fill with sweetest symphonies
Whole avenues of Song.

{122}

FLOWERS.

Thank God I love the Flowers!
Mute voices of the Spring,
That gladden all her bowers
With their varied blossoming;
They weave a charm around them
On each summer dale and bough,
For a Fairy train has bound them
In wreaths upon her brow.

Far up along the mountain,
And in the valleys green,
In the field, and by the fountain,
The smiling ones are seen;
Some looking up to heaven,
With eyes of deepest blue;
Some stooping down at even
To quaff the sparkling dew.

And from them all there speaketh
A language sweet and pure,
Fitted for him who seeketh
A God's nomenclature.
As tidal pulses thrill the seas,
And moments build the hours,
Heaven breathes her unvoiced mysteries
In sermons from the Flowers.

{123}

THE UNATTAINABLE.

I yearn for the Unattainable;
For a glimpse of a brighter day,
When hatred and strife,
With their legions rife,
Shall forever have passed away;
When pain shall cease,
And the dawn of peace
Come down from heaven above,
And man can meet his fellow-man
In the spirit of Christian Love.

I yearn for the Unattainable;
For a Voice that may long be still,
To compel the mind,
As heaven designed,
To work the Eternal Will;
When the brute that sleeps
In the heart's still deeps
Will be changed to Pity's dove,
And man can meet his fellow-man
In the spirit of Perfect Love.

{124}

YEARNINGS.

I long for diviner regions,--
The spirit would reach its goal;
Though, this world hath surpassing beauty,
It warreth against the soul.

There's a cloud in the eastern heaven;
Beyond it, a cold gray sky;
But I know that the sun's rare radiance
Will brighten it by and by.

In the fane of my soul is glowing
The joy of a hope to come,
That will touch with its Memnon finger
The lips that are cold and dumb:

Till illumed by the smile of heaven,
And blest with a purer life,
Will the gloom that o'ershades my spirit
Depart like a vanquished strife.

{125}

INGRATITUDE.

Full on the wave the moonlight weeps,
To quiet its weary breast;
Cruelly cold the mad wave leaps,
With the moonshine on its crest;
Or with scowl, or growl, to the shore it creeps,
And sinks to its selfish rest.

Full on yon man-brute smiles the wife,
To gladden his turbid breast;
Savagely stern he seeks the life
Where he erewhile sought for zest;
With a curse, or worse, he ends the strife,
And sinks to his drunken rest.

Sea! has the moon no charms for thee
That can touch thy cruel breast?
Man! cannot woman's charity
Give ease to thy soul oppressed?
Thou shalt flee, O sea! the moon's witchery,
Till man has his final rest!

{126}

TRUE LOVE.

Her love is like the hardy flower
That blooms amid the Alpine snows;
Deep-rooted in an icy bower,
No blast can chill its sweet repose;
But fresh as is the tropic rose,
Drenched in mellowest sunny beams,
It has as sweet delicious dreams
As any flower that grows.

And though an avalanche came down
And robbed it of the light of day,
That which withstood the tempest's frown
In grief would never pine away.
Hope might withhold her feeblest ray,
Within her bosom's snowy tomb
Love still would wear its everbloom,
The gayest of the gay.

{127}

AN EVENING THOUGHT.

Bird of the fanciful plumage,
That foldest thy wings in the west,
Imbuing the shimmering ocean
With the hues of thy delicate breast,
Passing away into Dreamland,
To visions of heavenly rest!

Spirit! when thou art permitted
To bask in the sunset of life;
Serene in thine eventide splendour,
Thy countenance victory rife;
Leaving the world where thou'st triumphed
Alike o'er its greatness and strife:

Thine be the destiny, spirit,
To set like the sun in the west;
Folding thy wings of rare plumage,
Conscious of infinite rest,
Heralded on to thy haven,
The Fortunate Isles of the Blest.

{128}

A THOUGHT FOR SPRING.

I am happier for the Spring;
For my heart is like a bird
That has many songs to sing,
But whose voice is never heard
Till the happy year is caroling
To the daisies on the sward.

I'd be happier for the Spring,
Though my heart had grown so old
Like a crone 'twould sit and sing
Its shrill runes of wintry cold;
For I'd know the year was caroling
To the daisies on the wold.

{129}

THE SWALLOWS.

I asked the first stray swallow of the spring,
"Where hast thou been through all the winter drear?
Beneath what distant skies did'st fold thy wing,
Since thou wast with us here,
When Autumn's withered leaves foretold the passing year?"

And it replied, "Whither has Fancy led
The plumy thoughts that circle through thy brain?
Like birds about some mountain's lofty head,
Singing a sweet refrain:
There, without bound, I've been, and must return again."

{130}

SONG.--CLARA AND I.

We have a joke whenever we meet,
Clara and I;
Prattle and laughter, and kisses sweet,
Clara and I.
Were I but twenty, and not two score,
Clara and I would laugh still more,
With plenty of hopeful years in store
For Clara and I, Clara and I;
With plenty of hopeful years in store
For Clara and I.

We will be true as Damascus steel,
Clara and I;
Sealing our truth with a honied seal,
Clara and I.
Eyes so loving, and lips of rose,
Cheeks where the dainty ripe peach grows,
And mouth where the sly god smiles jocose
At Clara and I, Clara and I;
And mouth where the sly god smiles jocose
At Clara and I.

We have a kiss whenever we part,
Clara and I;
Grasping of hand, and flutter of heart,
Clara and I.
Were she but twenty, and not sixteen,
Over my love she'd reign the queen,

{131}

And no fair rival should come between
My Clara and I, Clara and I;
And no fair rival should come between
My Clara and I.

{132}

THE APRIL SNOW-STORM--1858.

Spread lightly, virgin shower,
Your winding-sheet of snow;
Winter has lost his power,
But mock not at his woe.

Fall not so cold and bleak,
Nor blow the breath of scorn;
Gently. Thy sire is weak;
And thou, his latest-born.

Frail type of life thou art:
At first, pure as the snow
We come--abide--depart;
What more, th' Immortals know.

Fall gently, virgin shower,
Though wild the west wind raves;
Watch through this midnight hour
Above the new-made graves!

------

Spread gently, virgin shower,
Your winding sheet of snow;
My heart has lost its power,
But mock not at its woe.

Fall not so cold and bleak,
Treat not her corse with scorn;
Gently. My heart is weak;
She, too, was April-born.

{133}

Fall gently, virgin shower;
The heart once strong and brave
Hath lost its wonted power;
'Tis buried in her grave.

{134}

GOOD NIGHT.

We never say, "Good Night;"
For our eager lips are fleeter
Than the tongue, and a kiss is sweeter
Than parting words,
That out like swords;
So we always kiss Good Night.

We never say "Good Night."
Words are precious, love, why lose 'em?
Fold them up in your maiden bosom;
There let them rest,
Like love unconfessed,
While we kiss a sweet Good Night.

There comes a last Good Night.
Human life--not love--is fleeting;
Heaven send many a birth-day greeting;
Dim years roll on
To life's gray-haired dawn,
Ere we kiss our last Good Night.

------

We've kissed our last Good Night!
Love's warm tendrils torn and bleeding,
Vain all human interceding!
Oh, life! how dark!
Its one vital spark
Was quenched with our last GOOD NIGHT!

{135}

HOPELESS.

I think through the long, long evenings,
Such thoughts of intensest pain,
And I hope and watch for her coming,
But I hope and watch in vain,
My life is a long, long journey
Over a barren moor,
With nought but my own dark shadow
Hastening on before.

I'm weary of all this watching,
Aweary of life and thought;
For there's little hope in the distance,
And for peace--I know it not!
Oh, why must we think and shudder,
And shudder and think again?
When life's but a dance of shadows
Haunting a barren plain!

{139}

INTO THE SILENT LAND.