Chapter IV

Here Homer came, and Milton came, tho' blind.
Omar's deep doubts still found them nigh and nigher,
And learned them fashioned to the heart's desire.
The supreme mind
Of Shakspere took their sovereignty, and smiled.
Those passionate Israelitish lips that poured
The Song of Songs attained them; and the wild
Child-heart of Shelley, here from strife restored,
Remembers not life's sword.

A SERENADE.

Love hath given the day for longing,
And for joy the night.
Dearest, to thy distant chamber
Wings my soul its flight.

Though unfathomed seas divide us,
And the lingering year,
'Tis the hour when absence parts not,--
Memory hath no tear.

O'er the charmed and silent river
Drifts my lonely boat;
From the haunted shores and islands
Tender murmurs float,

Tender breaths of glade and forest,
Breezes of perfume;--
Surely, surely thou canst hear me
In thy quiet room!

Unto shore, and sky, and silence,
Low I pour my song.
All the spell, the summer sweetness,--
These to thee belong.

Thou art love, the trance and rapture
Of the midnight clear!
Sweet, tho' world on world withhold thee,
I can clasp thee here.

OFF PELORUS.

Crimson swims the sunset over far Pelorus;
Burning crimson tops its frowning crest of pine.
Purple sleeps the shore and floats the wave before us,
Eachwhere from the oar-stroke eddying warm like wine.

Soundless foams the creamy violet wake behind us;
We but see the creaking of the labored oar;
We have stopped our ears,--mad were we not to blind us,
Lest our eyes behold our Ithaca no more.

See the purple splendor o'er the island streaming,
O'er the prostrate sails and equal-sided ship!
Windless hangs the vine, and warm the sands lie gleaming;
Droop the great grape-clusters melting for the lip.

Sweet the golden calm, the glowing light elysian.
Sweet were red-mouthed plenty mindless grown of pain.
Sweeter yet behold--a sore-bewildering vision!
Idly took we thought, and stopped our ears in vain.

Idly took we thought, for still our eyes betray us.
Lo, the white-limbed maids, with love-soft eyes aglow,
Gleaming bosoms bare, loosed hair, sweet hands to slay us,
Warm lips wild with song, and softer throats than snow!

See the King! he hearkens,--hears their song,--strains forward,--
As some mountain snake attends the shepherd's reed.
Now with urgent hand he bids us turn us shoreward,--
Bend the groaning oar now; give the King no heed!

Mark the luring music by his eyes' wild yearning,
Eager lips, and mighty straining at the cords!
Well we guess the song, the subtle words and burning,
Sung to him, the subtle king of burning words.

"Much-enduring Wanderer, wondrous-tongued, come nigher!
Sage of princes, bane of Ilion's lofty walls!
Whatsoe'er in all the populous earth befalls
We will teach thee, to thine uttermost desire."

So, we rise up twain, and make his bonds securer.
Seethes the startled sea now from the surging blade.
Leaps the dark ship forth, as we, with hearts grown surer,
Eyes averse, and war-worn faces made afraid,

O'er the waste warm reaches drive our prow, sea-cleaving,
Past the luring death, into the folding night.
Home shall hold us yet, and cease our wives from grieving,--
Safe from storm, and toil, and flame, and clanging fight.

A BALLADE OF CALYPSO.

The loud black flight of the storm diverges
Over a spot in the loud-mouthed main,
Where, crowned with summer and sun, emerges
An isle unbeaten of wind or rain.
And here, of its sweet queen grown full fain,--
By whose kisses the whole broad earth seems poor,--
Tarries the wave-worn prince, Troy's bane,
In the green Ogygian Isle secure.

To her voice our sweetest songs are dirges.
She gives him all things, counting it gain.
Ringed with the rocks and ancient surges,
How could Fate dissever these twain?
But him no loves nor delights retain;
New knowledge, new lands, new loves allure;
Forgotten the perils, and toils, and pain,
In the green Ogygian Isle secure.

So he spurns her kisses and gifts, and urges
His weak skiff over the wind-vext plain,
Till the gray of the sky in the gray sea merges,
And nights reel round, and waver, and wane.
He sits once more in his own domain.
No more the remote sea-walls immure.--
But ah, for the love he shall clasp not again
In the green Ogygian Isle secure!

L'ENVOI.
Princes, and ye whose delights remain,
To the one good gift of the gods hold sure,
Lest ye too mourn, in vain, in vain,
Your green Ogygian Isle secure!

RAIN.

Sharp drives the rain, sharp drives the endless rain.
The rain-winds wake and wander, lift and blow.
The slow smoke-wreaths of vapor to and fro
Wave, and unweave, and gather and build again.
Over the far gray reaches of the plain--
Gray miles on miles my passionate thought must go,--
I strain my sight, grown dim with gazing so,
Pressing my face against the streaming pane.

How the rain beats! Ah God, if love had power
To voice its utmost yearning, even tho'
Thro' time and bitter distance, not in vain,
Surely Her heart would hear me at this hour,
Look thro' the years, and see! But would She know
The white face pressed against the streaming pane?

MIST.

Its hand compassionate guards our restless sight
Against how many a harshness, many an ill!
Tender as sleep, its shadowy palms distil
Weird vapors that ensnare our eyes with light.
Rash eyes, kept ignorant in their own despite,
It lets not see the unsightliness they will,
But paints each scanty fairness fairer still,
And still deludes us to our own delight.

It fades, regathers, never quite dissolves.
And ah that life, ah that the heart and brain
Might keep their mist and glamour, not to know
So soon the disenchantment and the pain!
But one by one our dear illusions go,
Stript and cast forth as time's slow wheel revolves.

THE TANTRAMAR REVISITED.

Summers and summers have come, and gone with the flight of the swallow; Sunshine and thunder have been, storm, and winter, and frost, Many and many a sorrow has all but died from remembrance, Many a dream of joy fall'n in the shadow of pain. Hands of chance and change have marred, or moulded, or broken, Busy with spirit or flesh, all I most have adored; Even the bosom of Earth is strewn with heavier shadows,-- Only in these green hills, aslant to the sea, no change! Here where the road that has climbed from the inland valleys and woodlands, Dips from the hill-tops down, straight to the base of the hills,-- Here, from my vantage-ground, I can see the scattering houses, Stained with time, set warm in orchards, and meadows, and wheat, Dotting the broad bright slopes outspread to southward and eastward, Wind-swept all day long, blown by the south-east wind. Skirting the sunbright uplands stretches a riband of meadow, Shorn of the laboring grass, bulwarked well from the sea, Fenced on its seaward border with long clay dikes from the turbid Surge and flow of the tides vexing the Westmoreland shores. Yonder, toward the left, lie broad the Westmoreland marshes,-- Miles on miles they extend, level, and grassy, and dim, Clear from the long red sweep of flats to the sky in the distance, Save for the outlying heights, green-rampired Cumberland Point; Miles on miles outrolled, and the river-channels divide them,-- Miles on miles of green, barred by the hurtling gusts.

Miles on miles beyond the tawny bay is Minudie. There are the low blue hills; villages gleam at their feet. Nearer a white sail shines across the water, and nearer Still are the slim, gray masts of fishing boats dry on the flats. Ah, how well I remember those wide red flats, above tide-mark Pale with scurf of the salt, seamed and baked in the sun! Well I remember the piles of blocks and ropes, and the net-reels Wound with the beaded nets, dripping and dark from the sea! Now at this season the nets are unwound; they hang from the rafters Over the fresh-stowed hay in upland barns, and the wind Blows all day through the chinks, with the streaks of sunlight, and sways them Softly at will, or they lie heaped in the gloom of a loft.

Now at this season the reels are empty and idle; I see them Over the lines of the dikes, over the gossiping grass. Now at this season they swing in the long strong wind, thro' the lonesome Golden afternoon, shunned by the foraging gulls. Near about sunset the crane will journey homeward above them; Round them, under the moon, all the calm night long, Winnowing soft gray wings of marsh-owls wander and wander, Now to the broad, lit marsh, now to the dusk of the dike. Soon, thro' their dew-wet frames, in the live keen freshness of morning, Out of the teeth of the dawn blows back the awakening wind.

Then, as the blue day mounts, and the low-shot shafts of the sunlight Glance from the tide to the shore, gossamers jewelled with dew Sparkle and wave, where late sea-spoiling fathoms of drift-net Myriad-meshed, uploomed sombrely over the land.

Well I remember it all. The salt raw scent of the margin; While, with men at the windlass, groaned each reel, and the net, Surging in ponderous lengths, uprose and coiled in its station; Then each man to his home,--well I remember it all!

Yet, as I sit and watch, this present peace of the landscape,-- Stranded boats, these reels empty and idle, the hush, One gray hawk slow-wheeling above yon cluster of haystacks,-- More than the old-time stir this stillness welcomes me home.

Ah the old-time stir, how once it stung me with rapture,-- Old-time sweetness, the winds freighted with honey and salt! Yet will I stay my steps and not go down to the marsh-land,-- Muse and recall far off, rather remember than see,-- Lest on too close sight I miss the darling illusion, Spy at their task even here the hands of chance and change.

THE SLAVE WOMAN.

Shedding cool drops upon the sun-baked clay,
The dripping jar, brimful, she rests a space
On the well's dry white brink, and leans her face,
Heavy with tears and many a heartsick day,
Down to the water's lip, whence slips away
A rivulet thro' the hot, bright square apace,
And lo! her brow casts off each servile trace--
The wave's cool breath hath won her thoughts astray.

Ah desolate heart! Thy fate thou hast forgot
One moment; the dull pain hath left those eyes
Whose yearning pierces time, and space, and tears.
Thou seest what was once, but now is not,--
By Niger thy bright home, thy Paradise,
Unscathed of flame, and foe, and hostile spears.

THE MARVELLOUS WORK.

"Rise after rise bow the phantoms behind me"--Whitman

Not yet, for all their quest of it, have men Cast wholly by the ignoble dread of truth! Each of God's laws, if but so late discerned Their faiths upgrew unsuckled in it, fills Their hearts with angry fears, perchance lest God Be dwarfed behind his own decrees, or made Superfluous through his perfectness of deed! But large increase of knowledge in these days Is come about us, fraught with ill for them Whose creeds are cut too straight to hold new growth, Whose faiths are clamped against access of wisdom; Fraught with some sadness, too, for those just souls Who, clothed in rigid teachings found too scant, Are fain to piece the dear accustomed garb, Till here a liberal, there a literal fragment, Here new, there old, here bright, there dark, disclose Their vestiture a strange discordant motley. But O rare motley,--starred with thirst of truth, Patched with desire of wisdom, zoned about With passion for fresh knowledge, and the quest Of right! Such motley may be made at last, Through grave sincerity, a dawn-clear garment!

But, for the enfranchised spirit, this expanse Immeasurable of broad-horizoned view,-- What rapt, considerate awe it summons forth, What adoration of the Eternal Cause! His days unmeasured ages, His designs Unfold through age-long silences, through surge Of world upheaval, coming to their aim As swerveless in fit time as tho' His finger But yesterday ordained, and wrought to-day. How the Eternal's unconcern of time,-- Omnipotence that hath not dreamed of haste,-- Is graven in granite-moulding aeons' gloom; Is told in stony record of the roar Of long Silurian storms, and tempests huge Scourging the circuit of Devonian seas; Is whispered in the noiseless mists, the gray Soft drip of clouds about rank fern-forests, Through dateless terms that stored the layered coal; Is uttered hoarse in strange Triassic forms Of monstrous life; or stamped in ice-blue gleams Athwart the death-still years of glacial sleep!

Down the stupendous sequence, age on age, Thro' storm and peace, thro' shine and gloom, thro' warm And pregnant periods of teeming birth, And seething realms of thunderous overthrow,-- In the obscure and formless dawn of life, In gradual march from simple to complex, From lower to higher forms, and last to Man Through faint prophetic fashions,--stands declared The God of order and unchanging purpose. Creation, which He covers, Him contains, Even to the least up-groping atom. His The impulse and the quickening germ, whereby All things strive upward, reach toward greater good; Till craving brute, informed with soul, grows Man, And Man turns homeward, yearning back to God.

A SONG OF DEPENDENCE.

Love, what were fame,
And thou not in it,
That I should hold it worth
Much toil to win it?

What were success
Didst thou not share it?
As Spring can spare the snows
I well could spare it!

Love, what were love
But of thy giving
That it should much prevail
To sweeten living?

Nay, what were life,
Save thou inspire it,
That I should bid my soul
Greatly desire it?

ON THE CREEK.

Dear Heart, the noisy strife
And bitter carpings cease.
Here is the lap of life,
Here are the lips of peace.

Afar from stir of streets,
The city's dust and din,
What healing silence meets
And greets us gliding in!

Our light birch silent floats;
Soundless the paddle dips.
Yon sunbeam thick with motes
Athro' the leafage slips,

To light the iris wings
Of dragon-flies alit
On lily-leaves, and things
Of gauze that float and flit.

Above the water's brink
Hush'd winds make summer riot;
Our thirsty spirits drink
Deep, deep, the summer quiet.

We slip the world's gray husk,
Emerge, and spread new plumes;
In sunbeam-fretted dusk,
Thro' populous golden glooms,

Like thistledown we slide,
Two disembodied dreams,--
With spirits alert, wide-eyed,
Explore the perfume-streams.

For scents of various grass
Stream down the veering breeze;
Warm puffs of honey pass
From flowering linden-trees;

And fragrant gusts of gum,
From clammy balm-tree buds,
With fern-brake odors, come
From intricate solitudes.

The elm-tops are astir
With flirt of idle wings.
Hark to the grackles' chirr
Whene'er an elm-bough swings!

From off yon ash-limb sere
Out-thrust amid green branches,
Keen like an azure spear
A kingfisher down launches.

Far up the creek his calls
And lessening laugh retreat;
Again the silence falls,
And soft the green hours fleet.

They fleet with drowsy hum
Of insects on the wing;--
We sigh--the end must come!
We taste our pleasure's sting.

No more, then, need we try
The rapture to regain.
We feel our day slip by,
And cling to it in vain.

But, Dear, keep thou in mind
These moments swift and sweet!
Their memory thou shall find
Illume the common street;

And thro' the dust and din,
Smiling, thy heart shall hear
Quiet waters lapsing thin,
And locusts shrilling clear.

LOTOS.

Wherefore awake so long, Wide-eyed, laden with care? Not all battle is life, But a little respite and peace May fold us round as a fleece Soft-woven for all men's wear. Sleep, then, mindless of strife; Slumber, dreamless of wrong;-- Hearken my slumber-song, Falling asleep.

Drowsily all noon long The warm winds rustle the grass Hush'dly, lulling thy brain,-- Burthened with murmur of bees And numberless whispers, and ease. Dream-clouds gather and pass Of painless remembrance of pain. Havened from rumor of wrong, Dreams are thy slumber-song, Fallen asleep.

THE SOWER.

A brown sad-colored hillside, where the soil,
Fresh from the frequent harrow, deep and fine,
Lies bare; no break in the remote sky-line,
Save where a flock of pigeons streams aloft,
Startled from feed in some low-lying croft,
Or far-off spires with yellow of sunset shine;
And here the Sower, unwittingly divine,
Exerts the silent forethought of his toil.

Alone he treads the glebe, his measured stride
Dumb in the yielding soil; and tho' small joy
Dwell in his heavy face, as spreads the blind
Pale grain from his dispensing palm aside,
This plodding churl grows great in his employ;--
Godlike, he makes provision for mankind.

THE POTATO HARVEST.

A high bare field, brown from the plough, and borne
Aslant from sunset; amber wastes of sky
Washing the ridge, a clamor of crows that fly
In from the wide flats where the spent tides mourn
To yon their rocking roosts in pines wind-torn;
A line of gray snake-fence, that zigzags by
A pond, and cattle, from the homestead nigh
The long deep summonings of the supper horn.

Black, on the ridge, against that lonely flush,
A cart, and stoop-necked oxen; ranged beside,
Some barrels, and the day-worn harvest folk,
Here emptying their baskets, jar the hush
With hollow thunders; down the dusk hillside
Lumbers the wain; and day fades out like smoke.

AFLOAT.

Afloat!-- Ah Love, on the mirror of waters All the world seems with us afloat,-- All the wide, bright world of the night; But the mad world of men is remote, And the prating of tongues is afar. We have fled from the crowd in our flight, And beyond the gray rim of the waters All the turmoil has sunk from our sight. Turn your head, Love, a little, and note Low down in the south a pale star. The mists of the horizon-line drench it, The beams of the moon all but quench it, Yet it shines thro' this flood-tide of light. Love, under that star is the world Of the day, of our life, and our sorrow, Where defamers and envious are. Here, here is our peace, our delight,-- To our closest love-converse no bar. Yet, as even in the moonbeam's despite Still is seen the pale beam of the star, So the light of our rapture this hour Cannot quench the remembrance of morrow. Though the wings of all winds are upfurled And a limitless silence hath power, Still the envious strife we forget not; For the future is skilful to mar, And the past we have banished not quite.

But this hour--Ah Love, if it might With this splendor, this shining moon, set not! If only forever as now In this silence of silver adrift, In this reeling, slow, luminous sphere, This hollow great round of the night, We might drift with the tide-flow, and lift With the infinite pulse of the waters, See each but the other, and hear Our own language alone, I and thou, I here at the stern, at the prow The one woman, God's costliest gift! So only to see you, to hear you, To speak with you, Love, to be near you,-- I should reckon this life, well content.

But this dream is in vain, is in vain; I will dream you one other. Suppose This one hour some nepenthe were lent, So pain, nor remembrance of pain, Nor remembrance nor knowledge of care, Nor distrust, nor fear, nor despair,-- For these, and more also, God knows We have known and endured them, full share,-- Should have power to approach us! Suppose To us drifting and dreaming afloat On this shadowless shining of waters, This mirror of tide without stain, It were possible just for one hour To forebode, or remember, or fear, Nothing; of one thing aware And one only, that we two are here, And together, unhindered: then, Dear, This one hour were our life,--all the past But the ignorant sleep before birth, All the future a trance, that should last Till we turn us again to our earth!

And this dream, hadst thou courage to hear Me interpret, were dreamed not in vain. For this hour, O Love, was not meant, With its rapture of peace, to endure, Intense, calm, passionate, pure,-- My spirit with thy spirit blent As the odor of flower and flower, Of hyacinth blossom and rose. Heart, spirit, and body, and brain, Thou art utterly mine, as I thine; But the love of the flesh, tho' at first When I saw you and loved you it burst With the love of the spirit one flame, Neither greater nor less, but the same, Is yet finite, attains not the height Of the spirit enfranchised, and must With the body slip back into dust. Our soul-passion is deathless, divine.

So, we strike now the perfectest note That man's heart is attuned to, attain The white light of the zenith supreme, Pierce the seventh and innermost sphere; We are gods! Let us cast us adrift From the world of the flesh and its power! It is only a plunge, a quick roll Of our skiff--I will gather and fold You close, for the waters are cold,-- A few sobs, and we rise one soul, Undissevered for ever and ever.

RECKONING.

What matter that the sad gray city sleeps,
Sodden with dull dreams, ill at ease, and snow
Still falling chokes the swollen drains! I know
That even with sun and summer not less creeps
My spirit thro' gloom, nor ever gains the steeps
Where Peace sits, inaccessible, yearned for so.
Well have I learned that from my breast my woe
Starts,--that as my own hand hath sown, it reaps.

I have had my measure of achievement, won
Most I have striven for; and at last remains
This one thing certain only, that who gains
Success hath gained it at too sore a cost,
If in his triumph hour his heart have lost
Youth, and have found its sorrow of age begun.

IN NOTRE DAME.

When first did I perceive you, when take heed
Of what is now so deep in heart and brain
That tears shall not efface it, nor the greed
Of time or fate destroy, nor scorn, nor pain?

Long summers back I trembled to the vision
Of your keen beauty,--a delirious sense
That he you loved might hold in like derision
Or Hell or Heaven, or sin or innocence.

This in my heart of hearts, while outwardly
Nor speech nor guarded glance my dream betrayed;
Till one day, so past thought you maddened me,
My dream escaped my lips, glad and afraid.

Afraid, where no fear was. For lo, the gift
(Worlds could not purchase it) was mine, was mine!
And oh, my Sweet, how swift we went adrift
On wild sweet waters, warmer-hued than wine!

My very eyes are dizzy with delight
At your recalled caresses. Peace, my heart!
She whom you beat so wild for lies to-night
From you too many bitter leagues apart.

Be calm, and I will talk to you of her;
And you shall listen, passionately still;
And as the pauses in my verse recur,
Think, heart, all this does fealty to your will!

All this,--a lithe and perfect-moulded form,
Instinct with subtle gesture, soft, intense.
Head small and queenlike, dainty feet that warm
Even the dull world's ways into rapturous sense.

Clear, broad, white forehead, crowned low down with hair
Darker than night, more soft than sleep or tears.
Nose neither small nor great, but straight, and fair.
Like naught but smooth sea-shells her delicate ears.

But how to tell about her mouth and eyes!
Her strange, sweet, maddening eyes, her subtle mouth!
Mouth in whose closure all love's sweetness lives,--
Eyes with the warm gleam of the lustrous south!

Fathomless dusk by night, the day lets in
Glimmer of emerald,--thus those eyes of hers!
Above the firm sweep of the moulded chin
The lips, than whose least kiss Heaven's gifts were worse.

Her bosom,--ah that now my head were laid!
Warm in that resting-place! But, heart, be still!
I will refrain, and break my dreams, afraid
To stir the yearning I can not fulfil.

Love, in the northern night of Brittany
Hear you no voice divide the night like flame?
In these gray walls the inmost soul of me
Is swooning with the music of your name.

NOCTURNE.

Soothe, soothe
The day-fall, soothe,
Till wrinkling winds and seas are smooth,--
Till yon low band
Of charméd strand
Puff seaward dreams from the inner land,--
Till, lapped in mild half-lights, our dream-blown boat
Is felt to float, to fall, to float.

A sundown rose
Delays and glows
O'er yon spired peak's remoter snows.
Uprolling soon
A red-ripe moon
Lolls in the pines in drowsed half-swoon;
And thin moon-shades pace out to us, and shift
Our visions as we drift, and drift.

From night-wide blooms
In coppice glooms
Set outward voyaging spice perfumes.
The slow-pulsed seas,
The shadowed trees,--
The night-spell holds us one with these,
Till, Love, we scarce know life from sleep,--we seem
To smile a little, dream, and dream.

TIDES.

Through the still dusk how sighs the ebb-tide out,
Reluctant for the reed-beds! Down the sands
It washes. Hark! Beyond the wan gray strand's
Low limits how the winding channels grieve,
Aware the evasive waters soon will leave
Them void amid the waste of desolate lands,
Where shadowless to the sky the marsh expands,
And the noon-heats must scar them, and the drought.

Yet soon for them the solacing tide returns
To quench their thirst of longing. Ah, not so
Works the stern law oar tides of life obey!
Ebbing in the night-watches swift away,
Scarce known ere fled forever is the flow;
And in parched channel still the shrunk stream mourns.

CONSOLATION.

Dear Heart, between us can be no farewell.
We have so long to live, so much to endure,
What ills despair might work us who can tell,
Had we not help in that one trust secure!

Time cannot sever, nor space keep long apart,
Those whom Love's sleepless yearning would draw near.
Fate bends unto the indomitable heart
And firm-fixt will.--What room have we for fear!

DARK.

Now, for the night is hushed and blind with rain,
My soul desires communion, Dear, with thee.
But hour by hour my spirit gets not free,--
Hour by still hour my longing strives in vain.
The thick dark hems me, ev'n to the restless brain.
The wind's confusion vague encumbers me.
Ev'n passionate memory, grown too faint to see
Thy features, stirs not in her straitening chain.

And thou, dost thou too feel this strange divorce
Of will from power? The spell of night and wind,
Baffling desire and dream, dost thou too find?
Not distance parts us, Dear; but this dim force,
Intangible, holds us helpless, hushed with pain,
Dumb with the dark, blind with the gusts of rain!

THE FOOTPATH.

Path by Which her feet have gone,
Still you climb the windy hill,
Still the hillside fronts the dawn,
Fronts the clustering village still.

On the bare hill-summit waves
Still the lonely poplar-tree.
Where the blue lake-water raves,
Still the plover pipe and flee.

Still you climb from windy pier,
Where the white gull drops and screams,
Through the village grown so dear,
Till you reach my heaven of dreams.

Ah, the place we used to meet,
I and she,--where sharp you turn,
Shun the curious village street,
Lurk thro' hollows, hide in fern!

Then; the old house, ample-eaved,
Night-long quiet beneath the stars,--
How the maples, many-leaved,
Screened us at the orchard bars!

Path by which her feet have gone,
Still you climb the windy hill;
Still the hillside fronts the dawn,
Fronts the clustering village still;

But no longer she, my own,
Treads you, save as dreams allow.
And these eyes in dreams alone
Dare to look upon you now.

TOUT OU RIEN.

Love, if you love me, love with heart and soul!
I am not liberal as some lovers are,
Accepting small return, and scanty dole,
Gratefully glad to worship from afar.

Ah, love me passionately, or not at all!
For love that counts the cost I have small need.
My fingers would with laughing scorn let fall
That poor half-love so many lovers heed.

Then be mine wholly,--body, soul, and brain!
Your memory shall outlive kings. For Time
Forgets his cunning and assails in vain
Her whose name rings along the poet's rhyme.

SALT.

O breath of wind and sea,
Bitter and clear,
Now my faint soul springs free,
Blown clean from fear!

O hard sweet strife, O sting
Of buffeting salt!
Doubt and despair take wing,
Failure, and fault.

I dread not wrath or wrong,--
Smile, and am free;
Strong while the winds are strong,
The rocks, the sea.

Heart of my heart, tho' life
Front us with storm,
Love will outlast the strife,
More pure, more warm.

KHARTOUM.

Set in the fierce red desert for a sword,
Drawn and deep-driven implacably! The tide
Of scorching sand that chafes thy landward side
Storming thy palms; and past thy front outpoured
The Nile's vast dread and wonder! Late there roared
(While far off paused the long war, long defied)
Mad tumult thro' thy streets; and Gordon died,
Slaughtered amid the yelling rebel horde!

Yet, spite of shame and wrathful tears, Khartoum,
We owe thee certain thanks, for thou hast shown
How still the one a thousand crowds outweighs,--
Still one man's mood sways millions,--one man's doom
Smites nations;--and our burning spirits own
Not sordid these nor unheroic days!

LIBERTY.

[From the French of Louis Honore Fréchette]

A child, I set the thirsting of my mouth
To the gold chalices of loves that craze.
Surely, alas, I have found therein but drouth,
Surely has sorrow darkened o'er my days.
While worldlings chase each other madly round
Their giddy track of frivolous gayety,
Dreamer, my dream earth's utmost longings bound:
One love alone is mine, my love is Liberty.

I have sung them all;--youth's lightsomeness that fleets,
Pure friendship, my most fondly cherished dreams,
Wild blossoms and the winds that steal their sweets,
Wood odors, and the star that whitely gleams.
But our hearts change; the spirit dulls its edge
In the chill contact with reality;
These vanished like the foam-bells on the sedge:
I sing one burden now, my song is Liberty.

I drench my spirit in ecstasy, consoled,
And my gaze trembles toward the azure arc,
When in the wide world-records I behold
Flame like a meteor God's finger thro' the dark
But if, at times, bowed over the abyss
Wherein man crawls toward immortality,--
Beholding here how sore his suffering is,
I make my prayer with tears, it is for Liberty.

TO THE MEMORY OF SIDNEY LANIER.

Sullenly falls the rain,
Still hangs the dripping leaf,
And ah, the pain!--
The slow, dull ache of my grief,
That throbs--"In vain, in vain,--
You have garnered your sheaf!"

You have garnered your sheaf, with the tares
Therein, and unripe wheat,--
All that Death spares,
Who has come with too swift feet,
Not turning for any prayers
Nor all who entreat.

They entreated with tears. But I--
Ah me, all I can say
Is only a cry!
I had loved you many a day,
Yet never had fate drawn nigh
My way to your way.

My spirit made swift with love
Went forth to you in your place
Far off and above
Tho' we met not face to face,
My Elder Brother, yet love
Had pierced through space!

ON READING THE POEMS OF SIDNEY LANIER.

Poet and Flute-player, that flute of thine To me must ever seem thy perfect sign! Tho' strenuously with breath divine inspired, To thy strait law is due thy deathless line.

TO BLISS CARMAN,

WITH A COPY OF LANG'S "HELEN OF TROY."

This antique song, new sung in fashion new, From me, half silent fallen, with love to you, O singer of unvexed scenes and virgin themes In strait, quaint, ancient metres, thronged with dreams!

A BALLADE OF PHILOMELA.

From gab of jay and chatter of crake
The dusk wood covered me utterly.
And here the tongue of the thrush was awake.
Flame-floods out of the low bright sky
Lighted the gloom with gold-brown dye,
Before dark; and a manifold chorussing
Arose of thrushes remote and nigh,--
For the tongue of the singer needs must sing.

Midmost a close green covert of brake
A brown bird listening silently
Sat; and I thought--"She grieves for the sake
Of Itylus,--for the stains that lie
In her heritage of sad memory."
But the thrushes were hushed at evening.
Then I waited to hear the brown bird try,--
For the tongue of the singer needs must sing.

And I said--"The thought of the thrushes Will shake
With rapture remembered her heart; and her shy
Tongue of the dear times dead will take
To make her a living song, when sigh
The soft night winds disburthened by.
Hark now!"--for the upraised quivering wing,
The throat exultant, I could descry,--
And the tongue of the singer needs must sing!

L'ENVOI.
But the bird dropped dead with only a cry.
I found its tongue was withered, poor thing!
Then I no whit wondered, for well knew I
That the heart of the singer will break or sing.

A HERALD.

Ere the Spring comes near O'er the smoking hills, Stirring a million rills To laughter low and clear Till winds are hushed to hear,--

Ere the eaves at noon Thaw and drip, there flies A herald thro' the skies With promise of a boon-- Of birds and blossoms soon.

Subtle though it be, Yet sweetly sure that word; E'en such my heart hath heard (Over life's frosty lea) Of Immortality.

WINTER GERANIUMS.

O What avails the storm,
When o'er my sense this Magian flower enweaves
His charm of slumbrous summer, green and warm,
And laps me in his luxury of leaves!

O where the frost that chills,
Whilst these rich blooms burn red about my face,
Luring me out across the irised hills
Where Autumn broods o'er purple deeps of space!

A BREATHING TIME.

Here is a breathing time, and rest for a little season. Here have I drained deep draughts out of the springs of life. Here, as of old, while still unacquainted with toil and faintness, Stretched are my veins with strength, fearless my heart and at peace. I have come back from the crowd, the blinding strife and the tumult, Pain, and the shadow of pain, sorrow in silence endured; Fighting, at last I have fallen, and sought the breast of the Mother,-- Quite cast down I have crept close to the broad sweet earth. Lo, out of failure triumph! Renewed the wavering courage, Tense the unstrung nerves, steadfast the faltering knees Weary no more, nor faint, nor grieved at heart, nor despairing, Hushed in the earth's green lap, lulled to slumber and dreams!

BIRCH AND PADDLE.

TO BLISS CARMAN.

Friend, those delights of ours Under the sun and showers,--

Athrough the noonday blue Sliding our light canoe,

Or floating, hushed, at eve, When the dim pine-tops grieve!

What tonic days were they Where shy streams dart and play,--

Where rivers brown and strong As caribou bound along,

Break into angry parle Where wildcat rapids snarl,

Subside, and like a snake Wind to the quiet lake!

We've paddled furtively, Where giant boughs hide the sky,--

Have stolen, and held our breath, Thro' coverts still as death,--

Have left with wing unstirred The brooding phoebe-bird,

And hardly caused a care In the water-spider's lair.

For love of his clear pipe We've flushed the zigzag snipe,--

Have chased in wilful mood The wood-duck's flapping brood,--

Have spied the antlered moose Cropping the young green spruce,

And watched him till betrayed By the kingfisher's sharp tirade.

Quitting the bodeful shades We've run thro' sunnier glades,

And dropping craft and heed Have bid our paddles speed.

Where the mad rapids chafe We've shouted, steering safe,--

With sinew tense, nerve keen, Shot thro' the roar, and seen,

With spirit wild as theirs, The white waves leap-like hares.

And then, with souls grown clear In that sweet atmosphere,

With influences serene Our blood and brain washed clean,

We've idled down the breast Of broadening tides at rest,

And marked the winds, the birds, The bees, the far-off herds,

Into a drowsy tune Transmute the afternoon.

So, Friend, with ears and eyes Which shy divinities

Have opened with their kiss, We need no balm but this,--

A little space for dreams On care-unsullied streams,--

'Mid task and toil, a space To dream on Nature's face!

AN ODE FOR THE CANADIAN CONFEDERACY.

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

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

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

THE QUELLING OF THE MOOSE.

A MELICETE LEGEND.

When tent was pitched, and supper done, And forgotten were paddle, and rod, and gun, And the low, bright planets, one by one,

Lit in the pine-tops their lamps of gold To us by the fire, in our blankets rolled, This was the story Sacòbi told--

"In those days came the moose from the east, A monster out of the white north-east, And as leaves before him were man and beast.

"The dark rock-hills of Saguenay Are strong,--they were but straw in his way. He leapt the St. Lawrence as in play.

"His breath was a storm and a flame; his feet In the mountains thundered, fierce and fleet, Till men's hearts were as milk, and ceased to beat.

"But in those days dwelt Clote Scarp with men. It is long to wait till he comes again,-- But a Friend was near and could hear us, then!

"In his wigwam, built by the Oolastook, Where the ash-trees over the water look, A voice of trouble the stillness shook.

"He rose, and took his bow from the wall, And listened; he heard his people's call Pierce up from the villages one and all.

"From village to village he passed with cheer; And the people followed; but when drew near The stride of the moose, they fled in fear.

"Like smoke in a wind they fled at the last But he in a pass of the hills stood fast, And down at his feet his bow he cast.

"That terrible forehead, maned with flame, He smote with his open hand,--and tame As a dog the raging beast became.

"He smote with his open hand; and lo! As shrinks in the rains of spring the snow, So shrank the monster beneath that blow,

"Till scarce the bulk of a bull he stood. And Clote Scarp led him down to the wood, And gave him the tender shoots for food."

He ceased; and a voice said, "Understand How huge a peril will shrink like sand, When stayed by a prompt and steady hand!"

A SONG OF REGRET.

In the southward sky
The late swallows fly,
The low red willows
In the river quiver;
From the beeches nigh
Russet leaves sail by,
The tawny billows
In the chill wind shiver;
The beech-burrs burst,
And the nuts down-patter;
The red squirrels chatter
O'er the wealth disperst.

Yon carmine glare
Would the west outdare;--
'Tis the Fall attire
Of the maples flaming.
In the keen late air
Is an impulse rare,
A sting like fire,
A desire past naming.
But the crisp mists rise
And my heart falls a-sighing,--
Sighing, sighing
That the sweet time dies!

THE DEPARTING OF CLOTE SCARP.

It is so long ago; and men well nigh Forget what gladness was, and how the earth Gave corn in plenty, and the rivers fish, And the woods meat, before he went away. His going was on this wise.

All the works And words and ways of men and beasts became Evil, and all their thoughts continually Were but of evil. Then he made a feast. Upon the shore that is beside the sea That takes the setting sun, he ordered it, And called the beasts thereto. Only the men He called not, seeing them evil utterly. He fed the panther's crafty brood, and filled The lean wolf's hunger; from the hollow tree His honey stayed the bear's terrific jaws; And the brown rabbit couched at peace, within The circling shadow of the eagle's wings. And when the feast was done he told them all That now, because their ways were evil grown, On that same day he must depart from them, And they should look upon his face no more. Then all the beasts were very sorrowful.

It was near sunset, and the wind was still, And down the yellow shore a thin wave washed Slowly; and Clote Scarp launched his birch canoe, And spread his yellow sail, and moved from shore, Though no wind followed, streaming in the sail, Or roughening the clear waters after him. And all the beasts stood by the shore, and watched. Then to the west appeared a long red trail Over the wave; and Clote Scarp sailed and sang Till the canoe grew little like a bird, And black, and vanished in the shining trail. And when the beasts could see his form no more, They still could hear him, singing as he sailed, And still they listened, hanging down their heads In long row, where the thin wave washed and fled. But when the sound of singing died, and when They lifted up their voices in their grief, Lo! on the mouth of every beast a strange New tongue! Then rose they all and fled apart, Nor met again in council from that day.

A BREAK.

Oh, the scent of the hyacinth blossom!
The joy of that night,
But the grievous awaking!
The speed of my flight
Thro' the dawn redly breaking!
Gray lay the still sea;
Naked hillside and lea;
And gray with night frost
The wide garden I crossed!
But the hyacinth beds were a-bloom.
I stooped and plucked one--
In an instant 'twas done,--
And I heard, not far off, a gun boom!
In my bosom
I thrust the crushed blossom;
And turned, and looked back
Where She stood at her pane
Waving sadly farewell once again;
Then down the dim track
Fled amain,
With the flower in my bosom.
Oh, the scent of the hyacinth blossom!

TO A LADY,

AFTER HEARING HER READ KEATS' "NIGHTINGALE."

This supreme song of him who dreamed
All beauty, and whose heart foreknew
The anguish of vain longing, seemed
To breathe new mystery, breathed by you.

As if the rapture of the night,
Moon-tranced, and passion-still, were stirred
To some undreamed divine delight
By sudden singing of a bird!

RONDEAU.

TO LOUIS HONORE FRÉCHETTE.

Laurels for song! And nobler bays, In old Olympian golden days Of clamor thro' the clear-eyed morn, No bowed triumphant head hath borne, Victorious in all Hellas' gaze!

They watched his glowing axles graze
The goal, and rent the heavens with praise;--
Yet the supremer heads have worn
Laurels for song.

So thee, from no palaestra-plays
A conqueror, to the gods we raise,
Whose brows of all our singers born
The sacred fillets chief adorn,--
Who first of all our choir displays
Laurels for song.

A BIRTHDAY BALLADE.

All deserted to wind and to sun
You have left the dear, dusky canoe.
The amber cool currents still run,
But our paddle forgets to pursue.
Our river wears still the rare blue,
But its sparkle seems somehow less gay;
It confides me this greeting for you--
Many Happy Returns of the Day!

Where's the mirth that with morn was begun,
Nor dreaded the dark and the dew?
Some sweet thieves have made off with our fun!
Would our paddles were free to pursue!
Ah, could we but catch them anew,
Clip their wings, forbid them to stray,
Then more blithely we'd sing than we do--
Many Happy Returns of the Day!

Dear remembrances die, one by one,
So cunning Time's craft to undo!
But ours must be never undone.
Oft again must the paddle pursue,
Oft the treasured impression renew!
Then, return our Acadian way,
For our days of delight were too few--
Many Happy Returns of the Day!

L'ENVOI.
Now an easy enigma or two
This ballade is devised to convey.
Unto you, and us lonely ones too,
Many Happy Returns of the Day!

TO S---- M----.

The disciple of Master Herrick returneth thanks for the gift of a band of pansies for his hat.