AT MINAS BASIN
_AND OTHER POEMS_
[Illustration: _Reduced fac-simile of original of page 34._]
AT MINAS BASIN
And Other Poems
BY
THEODORE H. RAND
D.C.L.
TORONTO:
WILLIAM BRIGGS
WESLEY BUILDINGS.
MONTREAL: C. W. COATES. HALIFAX: S. F. HUESTIS.
1897
Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year one
thousand eight hundred and ninety-seven, by THEODORE H. RAND,
at the Department of Agriculture.
To E.
SHARER OF PERFECT SUMMER DAYS
AT PARTRIDGE ISLAND
BASIN OF MINAS
TORONTO, CANADA,
1897
(_POESY SPEAKS._)
A body of beauty is mine.
O poet, moulder of me,
Withhold not the breath divine,
The soul of truth that makes free.
Fair form in repose for a day
(The body of beauty of me)
With the pulse-beats of life all away,
Is well, for beauty and thee.
Yet give to me life all aglow,--
Not a demon of darkness to blight,
But a love-lit soul pure as snow,--
Beckon me an angel of light.
A body of beauty is mine.
O poet, moulder of me,
Inbreathe with breathings divine,
Or body alone let it be.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
_Poesy Speaks_ ix
At Minas Basin 15
The Rain Cloud 16
The Rose 17
A Willow at Grand Pré 18
The Bowing Dyke 19
Love's Immanence 20
Mystery 21
The Night-Fisher 22
A Deep-Sea Shell 23
A Red Sunrise 24
The Opal Fires are Gone 25
The Cumulus Cloud 26
Sea Fog 27
Partridge Island 28
Tennyson Rock 29
Of Beauty 30
The Undertow 31
Glooscap 32
Silas Tertius Rand 33
The Tireless Sea 34
The Veiled Presence 35
Resistless Fate 36
The Sea Undine 37
To Emeline 38
The Cirrus Cloud 39
Day and Night 40
Under the Beeches 41
The Nightingale 42
The Loon 43
Hepaticas 44
In the Mayflower Copse 45
June 46
An Inland Spruce 47
The Ghost Flower 48
Annapolis Basin 49
In Autumn's Dreamy Ear 50
Victor is He! 51
McMaster University 52
Conduct 53
International Arbitration 54
The House of God 55
Ben Nachmani 56
Renewal 57
The Christ 58
Revelation 58
Light at Eventide 59
Ben Shalom 59
Banishment 60
Now are the Bridals of the Leafy Wood 60
May's Fairy Tale 61
My Robin 67
Elissa 69
The Humming-Bird 71
The Hepatica 73
The White Rose.--(At ----'s Grave) 75
The War Hercules 77
In the Cool of the Day 79
Beauty 82
The Dragonfly 84
Deathless 90
A Dream 93
Nature 96
"I Am" 99
The Glad Golden Year 102
Tetrapla 105
Fairy Glen 107
In City Streets 109
Bay of Fundy 112
At the Look-off.--(Partridge Island) 116
The Stormy Petrel 120
Oblivion 122
Sea Music 126
Summer Fog 130
The Arethusa 132
Dian and Fundy.--(Designs for a Time-Piece) 134
The Old Fisher's Song 136
Nora Lee 144
To W 150
Marie Depure 157
"By the Love."--An Easter Idyll 161
_Notes_ 171
AT MINAS BASIN.
About the buried feet of Blomidon,
Red-breasted sphinx with crown of grey and green,
The tides of Minas swirl,--their veilëd queen
Fleet-oared from far by galleys of the sun.
The tidal breeze blows its divinest gale!
The blue air winks with life like beaded wine!--
Storied of Glooscap, of Evangeline--
Each to the setting sun this sea did sail.
Opulent day has poured its living gold
Till all the west is belt with crimson bars,
Now darkness lights its silver moon and stars,--
The festal beauty of the world new-old.
Facing the dawn, in vigil that ne'er sleeps,
The sphinx the secret of the Basin keeps.
THE RAIN CLOUD.
Swift changed to storm tones is the golden air,
And shut the heavens with the descending veil
Of cloud,--here warm and brown, there cold and pale,
White-veined with sudden fire and red with glare.
Now falls the twisted rain, like unbound hair,
Dusking the wooded hills and mountain trail,
Now, marshalled by the trumpets of the gale,
Sweeps wide with level lances to their blare.
O rain cloud, minister of cooling dew
To waiting harvests sheathed in mystery,
Bearer of blessed balms for fevered ills!
Thy rending veil breaks on the holiest blue,
All quick and palpitant as angels see,
And God's smile falls upon the breathing hills.
THE ROSE.
Five-petaled splendor set in hillside place,
Parent of queenly sisterhood that stir
To every garden wind, and swift confer
Attar to pour from out each precious vase!
Symbol of secrecy to Latin race,
Virtue and blood to York and Lancaster,
Thy tint _de Pompadour_ sweet arts transfer
To Sevres', and erst "rose noble" bore thy grace.
To me thou art the glow of secret heat
That burneth at the heart of day and night,
An odorous flush of beauty without blame,--
Love's oriel wherethrough my eyes discreet
May look far in beyond the outward sight
And, unconsumëd, see His fiery flame.
A WILLOW AT GRAND PRÉ.
The fitful rustle of thy sea-green leaves
Tells of the homeward tide, and free-blown air
Upturns thy gleaming leafage like a share,--
A silvery foam thy bosom, as it heaves!
O peasant tree, the regal Bay doth bare
Its throbbing breast to ebbs and floods--and grieves!
O slender fronds, pale as a moonbeam weaves,
Joy woke your strain that trembles to despair!
Willow of Normandy, say, do the birds
Of Motherland plain in thy sea-chant low,
Or voice of those who brought thee in the ships
To tidal vales of Acadie?--Vain words!
Grief unassuaged makes moan that Gaspereau
Bore on its flood the fleet with iron lips!
THE BOWING DYKE.
Sea-widowed lands more fair than Tantramar!
Winter's green providence in July's sun!
The clattering steel till all was over and done,
Flashed on thy breast from dawn to evening star.
Soon herds of sweet-breathed kine of sere Canard,
Whose eager hoofs the hasting morn outrun,
Sea of lush clover aftermath has won,
And golden-girdled bees anear and far.
Lo, as the harvest moon comes up the sky,
Her shield of argent mellowed to the rim,
The phantom of the buried tide doth flow;
And without noise of wave or sea-bird's cry
Fills all thy ancient channels to the brim,
Thy levels of a thousand years ago!
LOVE'S IMMANENCE.
I watch the cloud soft-poised in upper air
And feel a presence bodied in its folds,
The wind in dark and shine a voice aye holds,
The noontide forest listens to my prayer.
The trampling seas with rumbling chariots bear
Significant behests in heats and colds,
Urim fire throbs intense on barren wolds--
The crystal globëd dew-drops Love declare!
The silence of the wheeling heavens by night,
By day, is but the pealing anthem sweet
Beyond the pitch of my dull ears to hear,
While veiling shadows are the excess of light
That marks the goings of His power so near,
And hides Love's regal presence on His seat.
MYSTERY.
O veiled enchantress of my days and nights,
That in sweet wonder's realm of witchery
To fairer visions ever beckons me,
Thou'st left the valleys for the rugged heights!
A gladsome youth, the hill of thy delights
Winged my lithe spirit to speed after thee,
But now, come down, close-veilëd Mystery,
The garish sun but withers and affrights.
I feel thy charm, shy and elusive one,
As in the gleaming springtide of my life,
Whose zest was all thy unattained pursuit.
Still flit before me till the race is run,
And when with doubt the common day is rife,
Thy wonder-wand set thick with flower and fruit.
THE NIGHT-FISHER.
Grey liegeman of sundown and dawn, who chides
With a lone song the ocean-murmuring trees,
I haste with thee at dusk to stalk the seas
Where feed the finny flocks of shepherding tides.
O wild the pulses beat as round us glides
The tidal spirit, like a midnight breeze,
Burdened with moan of life-and-death decrees,--
The deep night's tide-line pacing with our strides!
More weird than winkings of the ruddy Mars
These flitting gleams and breaths of hell and heaven,
Searching the shadowy folds 'twixt peace and dread!--
Nor dreamed I such solemnities did leaven
Life's daily meal and league its dole of bread
With unseen forces vaster than the stars'.
A DEEP-SEA SHELL.
[GEORGE V. DEARBORN.]
Arrived from out abysmal deeps of brine,
A regal splendor glows within thy whorl,
Like pomp of rosy morn in shimmering pearl.
Surely "the hand that made thee is divine"!
Ah, why so richly dight for beauty's shrine?
No eye can feast on walls of gemmëd burl
Far down the overwhelming rush and swirl
Of awful wastes scarce plumbed of fathom-line!
Fit for the palace of high seneschal!
Inlaid with colors which the Tyrian King
Vain sought to rival on his royal scroll,
And echoing yet the ocean's trembling string:
Methinks the Master wrought this ivory hall
To please the love of beauty in His soul.
A RED SUNRISE.
The naked Bay its silver notes is telling
Sweeter than flute or harp or singing bird,
Beatings of rosy rhythm in winsome word
Of lilting song are softly shoreward welling:
Anear and far the ruddy waters swelling,
In laughter-peals around the fair earth heard,
Thrill swift the home-bound keels so long unstirred--
The kiss of day the weary wings compelling.
Beware the elfin bugles sounding clear
As glows morn's pallid ash to crimson flame
And makes a bloody dazzle of the waves!
Ere burn the embers in the west all blear,
The deep shall thunder its awful chant of fame
O'er noble hearts gone down to wandering graves.
THE OPAL FIRES ARE GONE.
The opal fires are gone, and but a stain
Of day yet lingers as the sudden night
With swift cloud blots the crouching hills from sight,
And the far sea moans deep in ominous pain.
Ah me, it is the swart-winged hurricane!
The furious tide in elemental fight
Is lashing fierce and hoar with giant might,--
The bleeding shores the tale shall tell the main!
Brave sailor, reeling in thy storm-drunk bark,
Blinded by sheeted rain blown tempest-wild,
And vexed with roaring darkness round about!
The heaven-sent vision fair of wife and child
Calm seated at love's hearth, with face ahark,
Makes thee divine amid the awful rout.
THE CUMULUS CLOUD.
Mountains of heaven, in stainless white ye shine,
Islanded in calm of pearl- and sapphire-blue!
The pillared heights are lifted into view
In spectral power reposeful as divine.
A timeless peace abides in every line
Soft moulded from the quarries of the dew,
Yet fateful fire the inmost heart throbs through,
And thunder slumbers in the brows benign.
Paling before the massive whiteness there,
The faltering moon comes up the waiting night;
The faithful stars, like folded lilies, sleep
Till Love's wide wonder of the lullëd air
Melts with its rose-tipt crests in azure deep,
And sets the skyey plains abloom with light.
SEA FOG.
Here danced an hour ago a sapphire sea;
Now, airy nothingness, wan spaces vast,
Pale draperies of the formless fog o'ercast,
And wreathëd waters grey with mystery!
The ship glides like a phantom silently,
As screams the white-winged gull before the mast;
Weird elemental shapes go flitting past,
Which loom as giant ghosts above the quay.
The vapor lifts! Again the sea gleams bright;
The heavens have hid within their chambers far
Cloud-stuff of gossamer, from which are spun
To-morrow's skyey pomps inwove with light,
The belted splendors for the rising sun,
And rosy curtains for the evening star.
PARTRIDGE ISLAND.
The title deeds of these rich shores are thine
By age,--thine, too, by succor and defence;
Ere they were kissed by winds, or waves beat thence,
Thy breast of beauty broke the beating brine.
All hail, fair Isle, first born! Thy jeweled shrine
Is worn by pilgrim feet; thy firgroves dense,
Peopled with Hamadryads, cheat the sense
With frolic fays and all the rosy Nine.
These younglings--Gilbert's Cliff, and Sharp, and Split,
Bold Silver Crag, the Islands Five, and Two,
And broad-browed Blomidon--the Basin's Ben,--
When comes the witchery of fog-wreathed view,
Each robed in richest hues, with curtsies fit,
Sails in and out the circle of thy ken.
TENNYSON ROCK.
Majestic, awesome and inspiring mock,
Sculptured by frost and sun and bitter brine!
Has nature sympathy with men divine,
To carve remembrance in colossal rock?
Circled by voices of the sea-god's flock,
Deep calm is his, aloofness of the pine,--
As when he waited his great Pilot's sign
Ere he embarked from out earth's sheltered loch.
O seer and Englishman, our answering hearts
Leapt at thy words of empire! Sure 'tis meet
In "that true North" thy form should front the sea,
Where Howe, McDonald, Tupper played their parts
At statecraft, gath'ring at Old England's feet
Our Pleiad State,--one flag, one destiny.
OF BEAUTY.
The convoluted wave, God's first sea-shell,
Upgathers now the deep's great harmonies;
From the far blue an Alp-like cloud doth well,
Baring its azured peaks to the heavenlies.
My spirit's outward bound, hath liberty!
Earnest as rising flame its young love burns
To catch the awesome gladness flowing free
O'er earth and sky as Beauty's face upturns.
O naught is great without thy effluence!
In curving billow's culminating sweep,
In mountain heights, the strength of grace is seen.
Essence divine, of God-like competence,--
Reposeful in the heart of things as sleep!
Robed in the purple, sceptred, throned a queen!
THE UNDERTOW.
[B. B. D.]
O'er all the shining levels of the beach
The tide outpours its hissing, foaming brine,
While with the primal surge the winds combine
To press the eager waves to utmost reach.
See yon brave billow, rising from the pleach
Of seething waters, with a might divine,
Its sinews wrought in beauty's flowing line,
Leap forward now to make the age-sought breach!
Lo, as the cresting plume is seen aloft,
The footing of its strength on sudden slips
And all is whelmed in thunderous recoils!
Ah, tragedy of lusty life! How oft
Some high emprise a soul divinely grips,
But as it crests fate's undertow despoils!
GLOOSCAP.
Dim name, yet grand, that ever winks serene
In the red fagot's light, and like a ghost
Hovers above these raucous tides, this coast,
Wreathing weird webs of arrowy salts and keen!
Under the black blue night's unrollëd screen
The loon is calling to the fiery host,
And yet no answer comes to keep thy boast,--
Far years their mellow thunders roll between.
Divinest of the red man's race and name,
Fulness of Hiawatha's dawning day,
Giver of laws, priest, prophet, all confest!
Thou'lt come again, appeased thy wrath and shame,
Thy speed in all thy limbs, up yonder Bay
In white canoe from out the naked west.
SILAS TERTIUS RAND.
Oft did thy spell enthrall me, spite the cost!
Thou brought'st a charmed and fadeless holiday--
Stories and songs and Indian epic lay--
Whene'er thy eager step the threshold crost.
Imagination all its plumes uptost
To follow where thy spirit led the way!--
(The sense that thou saw'st God when thou didst pray
I never through the dimming years have lost.)
Fair Minas' shores thy step did gladden, too!
Thou charm'dst great Glooscap from the unlettered past,
And told'st his story to the listener nigh'st;
Ay, lover of song, of learnëd lore and vast,
Thou lov'dst the Indian with a love so true,
In his sweet tongue thou gavest him the Christ.
THE TIRELESS SEA.
Age after age the tireless sea doth fling
Its serried waves against this frowning rock,
(Whose base has known a thousand years of shock,)
And shouts its purpose to its floor to bring.
High up and landward now the ravens wing,
On trees sure-rooted inland nests the hawk;
Instinct of doom! for here swift ships shall dock,
And give of east and west, and commerce sing.
Warriors of truth, unwearied host of God,
Who, like the deep, march to the signs of heaven,
"Thus saith the Lord" your cry, count not the years!
Grey superstition's crumbling front shall nod
Beneath the iteration of your steven,
And God's sweet love flood all the place of tears.
THE VEILED PRESENCE.
An ashen grey touched faint my night-dark room,
I flung my window wide to the whispering lawn--
Great God! I saw Thy mighty globe from gloom
Roll with its sleeping millions to the dawn.
No tremor spoke its motion swift and vast,
In hush it swept the awful curve adown,
The shadow that its rushing speed did cast
Concealed the Father's hand, the Kingly crown.
Into the deeps an age has passed since then,
Yet evermore for me, more humble grown,
The vision of His awesome presence veiled,
Burns in the flying spheres, still all unknown,
In nature's mist-immantled seas unsailed,
And in the deeper shadowed hearts of men.
RESISTLESS FATE.
Resistless fate and iron destiny
Are writ upon the tide--its branded mark.
It comes and goes heedless of wind or bark,
Nature's untamed and tameless energy.
So rolls the cycle of eternity,--
Days, months, and years--faint shadows on the arc
Within our human ken--rush from the dark
And speed return as God's own mystery.
I on this tide-beat shore, and clutching time,
Marvel of what account my selfhood's will,--
'Gainst timeless might time's impotence is laid!
And through my inmost soul, as at the prime,
A voice from out the awesome vast doth thrill:
"O man, thou art in God's own image made!"
THE SEA UNDINE.
Exquisite thing soft cradled by the tide,
Sprung not from lathe or wheel or human wit,
Wonder of whorls which touch the infinite,--
Shallop that waits a brave undine's white bride!
Within, the smooth and sheeny walls are dyed
With the pure pink of autumn dawns alit;
Without, with stories of the deep o'er-writ,--
How fairy slight the thunderous seas to ride!
The massy tides gride over reef and ledge,
And sudden waves from fell Euroclydon
Dash to swift death the sailor in the Bay;
But this, all lipt with pearl, and on the edge
Of doom--the fingers of a babe might slay--
Sleeps in the stressful surge at Blomidon.
TO EMELINE.
In white-spruce bower, with outlook on the sea,
Kingcups and daisies dancing down the slope,
And broad-winged ships, world-messengers of hope,
Furling their plumes or lifting them all free
To catch the skyey airs--here 'tis that we
Oft watch the fringes of the tide, where ope
The swinging doors through which all blind-fold grope
The muffled waves of shoreless mystery.
The touch of two vast worlds is on us now.
Our spirits hear the ebb and flow unseen
Of swift commingling tides of far and near,--
The low sweet murmur of the early vow,
Commerce of life's strange sea, on wing between,
And folding plumes arrived the heavenly pier.
THE CIRRUS CLOUD.
Thou hast the secret of the fiery dew,
Variety and number infinite
Are vestured in thy wavy flakes of white,--
Of distance and of space thou hast the clue.
Aloof from vapory clouds that fume and spue,
Lifting thyself victorious in fight
Into the far repose of zonëd light,
Thou strivest to attain nirvâna-blue.
Mottled, or plumed, or ribbed, or ripple-barred,
Encamped upon the unfenced fields of space,
Unsullied are thy tents cool-washed in air;
And when morn's bugle blows, or sky's new-starred,
Thy cohorts wait day's coming, parting face,
Like flocks of rosy angels drifting there.
DAY AND NIGHT.
And so the strife goes on from age to age,
In ceaseless round of victory and defeat:
Young Day comes forth, sun-clad, with shining feet,
In beauteous pomp, and throws his battle-gage.
Grim ancient Night, distraught and blind with rage,
Twanging her dreadful bow, flies in retreat,
Wrapt round with raven darkness as a sheet,
Till from the east she may the duel wage.
So Night, pursuing wounded Day, takes breath
To find his blood-stained mantle in the west,
And dusks it o'er with plumëd shafts of death.
Secure beneath the horizon's verge, in wrath
He wings a Parthian arrow back his path,
And dyes with crimson Ethiop's jeweled vest.
UNDER THE BEECHES.
The sibyl's speech breaks from these leafen lips,
Moved by soft airs from shadowy spaces blown:
"We rear these giant boles amid eclipse,
We workmen die, the work abides alone."
The day has met the night beneath the sky,
And the hot earth put off its robe of flame;
Sweet peace and rest come with the night-bird's cry,
Sweet rest and peace the herald stars proclaim.
'Tis very heaven to taste the wells of sleep,
The founts of supersensuous repose!--
The sibyl's rune still murmurs on the breeze,
The purple night falls thick about the trees,
And blessed stars, like lilies white and rose,
Burst into bloom on heaven's far azure deep.
THE NIGHTINGALE.
O seraph bird who on God's altar-stairs
Dost ring, in showers of silver peals, thy bells
Of song that ceaseless flows like dropping-wells,
And sprinkles all the dusk with holy prayers!
O welkin glad, shot through and through with song,
As upward springs the spirit tipt with flame!
'Tis not to Itys dead nor Dian's shame
These joy-pangs, with their hint of tears, belong.
The life which pulses in the bursting year
A thousand choirs hymn on the sunlit globe;
But, lest the living flame to ashes turn,
Thou, in the voiceless night, O priestly seer,
Interpreter of nature, tak'st thy robe,
And fill'st with vocal fire the sacred urn.
THE LOON.
'Neath northern skies thou hid'st thy punctual nest
By crystal waters in their lonely play,
Meeting the challenge with which instant day
And night thy chariness and courage test.
Half bird, half spirit!--O elusive quest
That thinks thy dappled mould but common clay!
Thou wak'st with demon laughter Ha Ha Bay,
Art soul of solitariness, unblest.
Flash of pure wildness on dusk Saguenay,
Awareness of wild nature's subtle breast,
Freight and athrill with weirdsome life, yet gay,
Thou cleav'st the deluge dense, a wingëd jest!--
That rallying mock and jeer's an impish mark--
The echo of thy flout of Noah's ark!
HEPATICAS.
A shining troop of cherubs just alit
From the low-bending skies,--child faces sweet,
Upturned and open to our human greet,--
Fresh from the gladsome fount of life emit!
Heralds of spring, forewinging, as ye flit,
The garland seasons with their sheaves of wheat,
And to all listening ears Christ's words repeat:
"Man shall not live by bread alone, 'tis writ"!
Evangelists fair of the new-made year,
This news from God, forgot, blow everywhere,
And fill the hollow sky, the haunting air;
Till from His loving mouth, as sphere to sphere,
Man knows the beautiful, the good, the true,
Divinest manna dipt in heavenly dew!
IN THE MAYFLOWER COPSE.
With gladsome note the robin debonair
Heralds bright May. Pale sky and earth-stained snow
Warm at the touch of south winds as they blow
Their wafts of life through winter's lingering air.
Hid, like some laughing child, shy Mayflower fair,
Beneath the leafy shield, with face aglow,
Thy pearly self the coy spring's first tableau,
Come to the day and yield thy fragrance rare!
Ah me! while thrushes pipe and plumy winds
Fan northward all their balmy fervors sweet,
And groves are misty with the reddening bud,
A gentle spirit from the past unbinds
The peace of Lethe, and with quickening beat
Stirs to divine unrest my fevered blood.
JUNE.
Now weave the winds to music of June's lyre
Their bowers of cloud whence odorous blooms are flung
Far down the dells and cedarn vales among,--
See, lowly plains, sky-touched, to heaven aspire!
Now flash the golden robin's plumes with fire,
The bobolink is bubbling o'er with song,
And leafy trees, Æolian harps new-strung,
Murmur far notes blown from some starry choir.
My heart thrills like the wilding sap to flowers,
And leaps as a swoln brook in summer rain
Past meadows green to the great sea untold.
O month divine, all fresh with falling showers,
Waft, waft from open heaven thy balm for pain,
Life and sweet Earth are young, God grows not old!
AN INLAND SPRUCE.
Peasant of northern forests, humble tree,
Kirtled and frocked in all-year homespun green,
And lacking not among thy kind the mien
Of such as bear the white sails gallantly!
Magician thou! Thy full-breathed symphony
Of spacious dream dissolves the walls between
Me now and nature's organ-voicëd queen,
The multitudinous ongoing sea!
The sheeny garb from thy tall shoulders hung,
Making thy spiry form like vase antique
For resinous balms of frankincense and myrrh,
And round the bearded skirts the drowsy purr
Of life, and murmurings of thy sea-harp strung,--
Touch thee to kinship fine with Celt and Greek.
THE GHOST FLOWER.
Like Israel's seer I come from out the earth
Confronting with the question air and sky,
_Why dost thou bring me up?_ White ghost am I
Of that which was God's beauty at its birth.
In eld the sun kissed me to ruby red,
I held my chalice up to heaven's full view,
The wistful stars dropt down their golden dew,
And skyey balms exhaled about my bed.
Alas, I loved the darkness, not the light!
The deadly shadows, not the bending blue,
Spoke to my trancëd heart, made false seem true,
And drowned my spirit in the deeps of night.
O Painter of the flowers, O God most sweet,
_Dost say my spirit for the light is meet?_
ANNAPOLIS BASIN.
The full-fed crystal streams from east and west
And south, thy rich-wrought cup filled to the brim,
Till where the northern star soft gilds the rim,
Thy waters, called, o'erbroke at love's behest.
O to have seen thy cataract's white breast,
Rifted with ruth through the lone centuries dim,
For toiling Fundy's wooing tide--for him
To blend thy sylvan calm with world unrest!
Far floods thy bridal brought, fair lake, brave sea!
And late, the wingëd ships--Champlain, De Monts,
With Poutrincourt, and sequent games of war.
Thy marge, now crowned with peaceful husbandry,
And set with England's rose where bloomed _fleur d'or_,
Still croons all day love's wedded tidal song.
IN AUTUMN'S DREAMY EAR.
In autumn's dreamy ear, as suns go by
Whose yellow beams are dulled with languorous motes,
The deep vibrations of the cosmic notes
Are as the voice of those that prophesy.
Her spirit kindles, and her filmy eye!
In haste the fluttering robe, whose glory floats
In pictured folds, her eager soul devotes--
Lo, she with her winged harper sweeps the sky!
Splendors of blossomed time, like poppies red,
Distil dull slumbers o'er the engagëd soul
And thrall with sensuous pomp its azured dower;
Till, roused by vibrant touch from the unseen Power,
The spirit keen, freed from the painted dead,
On wings mounts up to reach its living Goal.
VICTOR IS HE!
Victor is he whose tremulous soul the notes
Of starry spaces hears, their far appeal,
And cries "Amen!" and sets thereto the seal
With which winged aspiration life devotes!
That seal rays golden flame, and bright connotes
The transmutation through the spirit's zeal
Of earthly passions to the high anneal
That rings the harmony that heavenward floats.
While other triremes vain withstood the guile,
The lyric prow of Orpheus easeful past
In gladsome scorn's disdain the Sirens' Isle;
And proud Calliope o'er each black mast
Whispered her thrilling taunt in ears of pain:
"I taught my Thracian boy a heavenlier strain!"
McMASTER UNIVERSITY.
As some grey captain of a merchantship,
Whose prosperous voyage o'er the watery strife
Has large concern for all, knows that his wife
Waits his home-coming up the horizon's dip
With holier heart than crowds that throng the slip,
So He well knew, thou--flower-elect of life!
Chosen from out a clamor of voices rife--
Waitedst his voyage o'er with prayerful lip.
Fair Bride, forget him not through circling years!
But with a Christ-like love, deep as unfeigned
Surpassing that of commerce or of state,
With holy hands thy dower devote with tears
Of gratitude and loyal heart unstained;
Thy sacred vow perform with soul elate.
CONDUCT.
Nay, Arnold, not "three-fourths" but all "of life"!
The ethic spirit that makes conduct so,
Slays all mythologies and witchcrafts, lo,
False sciences as well, with ruthless knife,
Lest intercourse of human souls be rife
With demi-gods and unclean things below,
And work corruption at the founts that flow,
From hearts of fellowmen in loving strife.
That spirit more than science is the hope
Of man's uplifting, and doth knowledge make
Servant of individual, social worth.
Not truth for truth's own sake, as tense we cope
With life, but rather truth for love's own sake
Calls forth heaven's plaudit round the girdled earth.
INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION.
Boom, boom, ye mellow joy-bells, like the sea!
Peace, peace on earth, good-will! (and all hell gapes!)--
Yet immemorial sadness ever drapes
The upward way of far humanity:
All prone through dark and strait Gethsemane
Thou cam'st in blood, a cluster of trod grapes!--
O bruisëd race, whose wail so surgeful shapes
Melodious sorrow's awful threnody!
Late, late, love's Areopagus unfurled
Right-reason's sun-glad banner from the height,
While rage the Furies in their cave beneath!
Hush, hush, it is the daybreak of the world!
Man's warring sky is passing out of night,
And stark black demons flit with sword in sheath.
THE HOUSE OF GOD.
[G. A. G.]
No finished castle is the house of God.
The mind of Christ, supremest Architect,
Man's puny apprehension doth correct
From age to age, and turns afresh the sod.
The vast historic temple now is trod
'Neath loftier roof and heavenlier aspéct;
New light, new need, revealed, each ripe defect
Goes down beneath man's feet diviner shod.
Alas, humanity no more can grasp
Of thought of the divine Artificer,
Than holds of ocean crinkled shell on beach!
Yet His unfolding plan in vital clasp
Possess, O human soul, amid the stir
Of speeding worlds Love's flying-goal to reach!
BEN NACHMANI.
"O the brightness, clearness, beauty of heaven!
Seer Ben Nachmani," Rabbi Levi said,
"Of the Hagada Master thou of seven,
Would that I knew whence Light, its fountainhead?"
The Master whispered in the Rabbi's ear:
"The Holy One, blessëd be He, in white
Himself doth robe, and then the whole world clear
In beauty glows with His majestic light."
"Sayest thou so? That's word for word the psalm:
'The light Thy garment is which Thou dost wear.'
Thou tell'st it here a secret 'neath the palm,
O Master thou of seven with whitened hair!"
_And softer fell the Master's whispered word:
"I heard it this; O Rabbi, hast thou heard?"_
RENEWAL.
In the old days Vannucci, color-dowered,
Lit up young eyes with vision large and pure,
That gathered in its iris-glow the lure
Of sea and sky, and beauty earth-embowered;
And Rafael Santi on the master showered
The rich-hued passion of his soul, secure
In art that should for evermore endure,--
But as he wrought his vision was defloured.
For sake of art divine a seer bright-stoled,
Whose eyes had drunk the steadfast splendors true
Of sacred gems, this precious secret told:
"Oft sight of these doth color-sense renew!"
_Ah thus, true soul assoiled of life, thou ey'st,
Mid thy enduring work, the quickening Christ!_
THE CHRIST.
The noonday Truth
In its sevenfold beam,
Is the Christ, sandal-shod;
Yea, the Truth in warm gleam
Of color and shine,
Both of age and of youth,
As on life's plains and wolds
His soul's prism unfolds
The white thought of God,
In human passion divine.
REVELATION.
As rising waves, rich jeweled by the sun,
In movement link their brilliants each to each,
And flash their glories in one crest of light,
E'en so, unveiling, the Eternal One
Did shew Himself by signs and glimmering speech,
Then flashed in Christ His love-lit glory bright.
LIGHT AT EVENTIDE.
Through skies of molten gold and green the sun
Floats with its cloud-wake o'er the glowing rim
Of closing day; the same horizon brim
Glows green and gold with a glad day begun.
So closes life's full day, its guerdon won,
To those whose trustful souls are joined to Him--
The world's great Light--whose hand the splendors limn
At once of breaking day and day that's done.
BEN SHALOM.
Ben Shalom read one night from out a roll:
"Vessel of honor, consecrate ('O soul!')
Prepared for every worthy work, and meet
For the Master's use!" And finger on scroll,
He prayed aloud: "Make me his silvern bowl!"
Lo! Emeth at his side, God's angel fleet:
"Yea, in His mansion here; and when unfold
The everlasting doors, chalice of gold
Brimming with His great love--heaven's vintage sweet!"
BANISHMENT.
As tiptoe dawn extinguished all the stars,
There lay on a fevered flower the cooling dew;
Full soon the scornful sun, with white heat glare,
Forever bade the offending thing from view;
But as day closed, it outshone flaming Mars,
Or wheeling splendors of the Northern Bear.
NOW ARE THE BRIDALS OF THE LEAFY WOOD.
Now are the bridals of the leafy wood,
O'er dusky brooks the golden sunbars fall,
Birds fan the moonbeams in the balmy dark--
Look me! the banners of the holy rood
Shake in the battle's roar; sweet duty's call
Wings all my spirit like a soaring lark.
MAY'S FAIRY TALE.
Under the yellow chestnut tree
The children played right merrily.
From leafy gold came pattering down
The prickly burs with nuts of brown.
"I do believe," said bright-eyed May,
"We're pelted by some startled fay!
For fairies love no tree so well
As chestnut broad in which to dwell."
"Tell us a fairy tale," they said,
"A fairy tale," they eager pled,
"About the fairies of to-day!"
And circled round the wise-eyed May.
With air of one who tells new truth,
The gentle May, with touch of ruth,
This tale of Elfland sweetly told,
While all stood deep in autumn's gold:
"Long, long ago the fairies found
Their homes in flowers on the ground.
The buttercups were full of them,
And pansies sparkled like a gem.
But fields by men were often mown,
The flowers were plucked as soon as grown.
Thus without tents to shed cold dews,
The pixies lost their brilliant hues.
Their kirtles green and mantles gold
Were crushed and torn and smeared with mould.
(You should have seen Mab's ermine cape,
Draggled in muck till black as crape!)
At last, his gossamer hammocks gone,
Their daylight king, bright Oberon,
(Who could not find two crimson heads
Of clover strung with spider-webs)
And Mab, the moonlight queen of elves
Took solemn counsel with themselves.
'Twas in the early summer days
They met at twilight all the fays,
Under a grove with fronded plumes,
Whose trees were white with spikes of blooms.
With elfin lance of wild-bee sting
Stood Oberon, at the outer ring.
His knights each wore upon his breast
A firefly lamp in beetle's vest.
With glow-worm crown of greenish light,
Sitting her fairy palfrey white,
The queen, by wave of saffron brand,
Hushed into silence fairyland.
Then with her sandaled foot she pricked
Her wasp-sting spur (and palfrey kicked!)--
Her moonbeam bridle firm in grip,
She plied the silken milkweed whip,
And rode straight up the waiting tree,
And out each branch its blooms to see.
When Mab (her own and palfrey's wings
Of gauzy blue outspread) the rings
Of wistful pixies leapt into,
Sitting erect her horse so true,
In silvery laughter broke each fay,
Like silvery tinkling brook in May.
Waving her saffron brand, she said:
'Fairies! your future home and bed!'
And pointed up the flower-lit tree,--
Thither they swarmed as swarms the bee!
In turn each bole and fronded roof
Was trod by Elf-queen palfrey's hoof,
Till fays who bore the flame-wood lamp,
Swung in their peaceful airy camp.
That was a chestnut grove they found!
And as the sunny spring comes round,
Queen Mab, when shines the silver moon,
And elfin bugles blow in tune,
Still rides high up each chestnut tree,
That fays may know where safe they'll be,
And golden-belted Oberon
Swing in his hammock like a Don,--
For palfrey prints his tiny shoe
On every branch that's wet with dew.
My story's told, now for our play!"
"And is the story true, O May?"
With air of one who knows the truth,
The sweet-eyed May, tall for her youth,
The overhanging branch down drew,
And shewed the prints of palfrey's shoe--
And laughing said: "Now you all see
Why it is called _Horse_-Chestnut tree."
MY ROBIN.
[B. B. D.]
At the very dawn of day,
My robin from the hill flies down,
And from the fence across the way,
With black cap on his handsome head,
And slatish cloak and vest of red,
He calls me from my easeful bed:
Dear _up_, dear _up_, dear!
Cheer up, cheer up, cheer!
Constant as the coming morn,
He leaves his green fir copse to see
If I will greet his breezy horn,
And share his joy that day is here
To shimmer the sea, the fog to clear,
And yellow the corn of the hasting year:
Dear _up_, dear _up_, dear!
Cheer up, cheer up, cheer!
Ah robin, so debonair,
So glad of the darkness gone away,
So heedful of this heart of care,
Sweet to me is your roundelay,
Born of a spirit so tender, so gay,--
Let me join you in duet for aye!
_Dear up, dear up, dear!
Cheer up, cheer up, cheer!_
ELISSA.
I hold my secret fast!
Sunset I watch, and dawn,
Wait the white moonbeam cast,
The pall of night down-drawn.
Then in the ebon dark
I whisper to myself,
While every sense doth hark
Lest blade, or leaf, or elf,
Should catch the trembling word,
And all the listening air
Be to its utmost stirred,
The giddy world aware!
The willow heedful is,
And the titmouse peers at me,
The kingcups nod and quiz
With an air of mystery;
But no one knows at all--
I hold my secret fast!
The wizard loon may call
Till night be overpast,
Troops of bright eyes may smile,
The people look me o'er,
The parson turn the stile,
Friends tarry at the door!
I hold my secret fast!
Sunset I watch, and dawn,
See the blue heavens o'ercast,
The pall of night down-drawn;
And then in raven dark
I whisper to myself,--
My whitest soul ahark
Lest blade, or leaf, or elf,
Should hear the trembling word,
And all the listening air
Be to its farthest stirred,
The rolling world aware
THE HUMMING-BIRD.
Thought-sudden presence
Out of blank air--
Humming of wings!
Here--a whisk and a flash!
Sipping red balm there--
And the silence sings.
Thy will works its end
In freedom complete,--
Deed flashing in sheen;
Forward or backward
As easeful, as fleet,
As a spirit unseen.
Plumed gem all athrob,
Thy ruby throat burns
As from the hot kiss
Of a heaven-smit soul
As it panteth and yearns,
In its rapture of bliss!
Thing of beauty, of life,
Bright wink of a day
When we'll be what we are--
Freed of this garment's hem!
O soul, get thy wings,
Find the red balm for aye,
(Life of earth and of star!)
Flash with love, a live gem!
THE HEPATICA.
Hail, first of the spring,
Pearly sky-tinted thing
Touched with pencil of Him
Who rollest the year!
Lo, thy aureole rim
No painter may limn--
Vision thou hast, and no fear!
Fair child of the light,
What fixes thy sight?
Wide-open thy roll
From the seal of the clod,
And thy heaven-writ scroll
Glows, beautiful soul,
With the shining of God!
Thou look'st into heaven
As surely as Stephen,
So steadfast thy will is!
And from earth's inglenook
Seest Christ of the lilies
And daffadowndillies,
And catchest His look.
And a portion is mine,
Rapt gazer divine,
From thy countenance given--
Angel bliss in thy face!
I've looked into heaven
As surely as Stephen,
From out of my place!
THE WHITE ROSE.
(AT ----'S GRAVE.)
Rose pendent in calm of the sun,
(A type of my holiest thought)
Fair substance and emblem in one,--
Sweet rose--sweet soul without spot!
Sweetness of beauty of God
Both over and under the sod.
Each moulded in earth's cloud and shine,
White fulness of being complete,
Love's rose of beauty divine!
Thy past, but evolvings sweet,
Now, moment of essence for aye,
Thy future, eternity's day!
O rose in the mirror of time--
Calm image from under the sod--
O form of eternal prime,
All-peaceful beauty of God,--
Fulness of seventy times seven,
Made without hands, in the heaven!
What though thy time-garment fade
And vanish from out of my sight,
Thy beauty shall never know shade
With the Chief of the sons of light--
Redeemed from under the sod,
Ravishing beauty of God!
THE WAR HERCULES.
Under Mount [OE]ta
The blue Artemisium,
Flanked about with huge crags,
Stilled its wild winter drum,--
The sun turned aside,
The sea nestled in calm,
Zeus's wisdom of calm,--
Rude Hercules died!
A wine-glass of azure
From the breast of the bay,
Caught up by the sun,
Smiled on by the sun,--
Hope's halcyon ray!
Kiss of love for a bride,
Kiss of peace and of calm,
Zeus's wisdom of calm,--
Wild Hercules died!
A nest and a home
On the wintry sea,
On the blue Artemise,
In the rough country,
Heaven set in the azure tide!
The sea nestled in calm,
Zeus's wisdom of calm,--
Fierce Hercules died!
O halcyon of rest,
Sweet azure of peace,
Brood thy sky-tinted eggs,
Fill the world with increase--
On the sea's bosom ride!
Now it nestles to calm,
Zeus's wisdom of calm,--
Mad Hercules died!
_January, 1896._
IN THE COOL OF THE DAY.
I.
To him that hears the calling in the calm,
And, naked, feeds his soul at Wisdom's lip,
Bird, grove, and brook--God's voice in silver psalm--
Are like a secret honeycomb adrip.
II.
Remote in thought from every living thing,
Silent the sage without his threshold sate,
Pondering the mysteries of Gyges' ring,
Dreaming of timeless years and iron fate.
The whirr of sudden wings his ear awoke,--
A lark rose free in its grey singing robe.
"O miracle of life," in speech he broke,
"A bird is greater than the solid globe!"
III.
But yesterday I saw a hillside grove
Whose trunks were clad with lichens grey as frost;
At night a storm of rain and wind fierce drove,--
Each bole to-day in living green's embossed!
And so, I said, the clinging lives which make
Yearful and spectral those who yield them ruth,
Shall, when o'er these the night in storm doth break,
Wreathe them in freshness of immortal youth.
IV.
Adown the steep cliff's face I saw unurn
Its waters full, a crystal brook to-day;
The silvery bubbles coursed each scar by turn,
Safe as on a full-fed meadow stream in May.
I thought of that sweet Scripture Satan used
To tempt the Christ, and knew it true they bear
In woven hands our souls, else deadly bruised,
By hell thrust down some precipice's stair.
V.
Still at the breeze of day doth nature's God
Forth in earth's paradisal bowers walk,
And of soul-freedom, Love's restoring rod,
And angel guardianship, He deigns to talk.
BEAUTY.
I.
"Had I two loaves of bread--ay, ay!
One would I sell and hyacinths buy
To feed my soul."--"Or let me die!"
Beauty, dew-sweet, of heavenly birth,
Thy flower is writ of grief, not mirth,
Thy rainbow's footed on the earth.
Rainbows and hyacinths! O seers,
Your voices call across the years:
"The bread of Beauty's wet with tears!
II.
The living words from Beauty's mien,
Than blade by swordsman swung more keen,
Spirit and soul divide between:
"Pure as the sapphire-blue from blame,
Humble as glad, of holiest aim--
Love's seven-fold beam a flashing flame!"
III.
It yearns me sore, so near, so far!
My heart moans like the harbor-bar,
For coming of the morning star.
Buy hyacinths--a goodly share!
Ascend, O soul, love's iris-stair,
The bridegroom waiteth for thee there!
THE DRAGONFLY.
I.
Winged wonder of motion
In splendor of sheen,
Cruising the shining blue
Waters all day,
Smit with hunger of heart
And seized of a quest
Which nor beauty of flower
Nor promise of rest
Has charm to appease
Or slacken or stay,--
What is it you seek,
Unopen, unseen?
II.
Are you blind to the sight
Of the heavens of blue,
Or the wind-fretted clouds
On their white, airy wings,
Or the emerald grass
That velvets the lawn,
Or glory of meadows
Aflame like the dawn?
Are you deaf to the note
In the woodland that rings
With the song of the whitethroat,
As crystal as dew?
III.
Winged wonder of motion
In splendor of sheen,
Stay, stay a brief moment
Thy hither and thither
Quick-beating wings,
Thy flashes of flight;
And tell me thy heart,
Is it sad, is it light,
Is it pulsing with fears
Which scorch it and wither,
Or joys that up-well
In a girdle of green?
IV.
"O breather of words
And poet of life,
I tremble with joy,
I flutter with fear!
Ages it seemeth,
Yet only to-day
Into this world of
Gold sunbeams at play,
I came from the deeps.
O crystalline sphere!
O beauteous light!
O glory of life!
V.
"On the watery floor
Of this sibilant lake,
I lived in the twilight dim.
'There's a world of Day,'
Some pled, 'a world
Of ether and wings athrob
Close over our head.'
'It's a dream, it's a whim,
A whisper of reeds,' they said,--
And anon the waters would sob,
And ever the going
Went on to the dead
Without the glint of a ray,
And the watchers watched
In their vanishing wake.
VI.
"The passing
Passed for aye,
And the waiting
Waited in vain!
Some power seemed to enfold
The tremulous waters around,
Yet never in heat
Nor in shrivelling cold,
Nor darkness deep or grey,--
Came token of sound or touch,--
A clear unquestioned 'Yea!'
And the scoffers scoffed,
In swelling refrain,
'Let us eat and drink,
For to-morrow we die.'
VII.
"But, O, in a trance of bliss,
With gauzy wings I awoke!
An ecstasy bore me away
O'er field and meadow and plain.
I thought not of recent pain,
But revelled, as splendors broke
From sun and cloud and air,
In the eye of golden Day.
VIII.
"I'm yearning to break
To my fellows below
The secret of ages hoar;
In the quick-flashing light
I dart up and down,
Forth and back, everywhere,
But the waters are sealed
Like a pavement of glass,--
Sealed that I may not pass.
O for waters of air!
Or the wing of an eagle's might
To cleave a pathway below!"
IX.
And the Dragonfly in splendor
Cruises ever o'er the lake,
Holding in his heart a secret
Which in vain he seeks to break.
DEATHLESS.
I.
The coy soul of man,
Moving through its time-span,
Unheeding of wings,
Tastes the death of all things--
Of the flower and weed
And the faint-voiced reed.
II.
The fair seasons roll
For you and for me.
The inhabiting soul
Of the flower and tree,
With the day of each
Born to be and to die,--
No eternity-speech,
No eternity-cry
That pierces above,
Nor infinite thrill
At the touch of Love,
Or the voice of His will--
From His fingers begot,--
God-breathed it is not!
III.
'Twas a shy fair one,
Like a beam of light
From the clouded sun,
That rose to the sight
Of the eye of emotion
In the soul of the Greek,
And eternized the form;
And vision, devotion,
Ever fixt on the norm,--
Type of beauty of flower,
Of grove and of bower,
Deathless, unique!
IV.
Not from pole unto pole
Is man's hunger of soul,
But eternity's set
As a deathless fret
In the heart of man
As it beats the earth-span,--
Beating not from the sod,
But an ongoing of God!
And it listens for Him
Over Time's flying rim,
And it sips, or it stings,
A life from all things--
From the flower and the weed
And the faint-voiced reed.
A DREAM.
I dreamed the Lord of Life was dead.
Tremulous awe fell on the earth,
Virtue had gone from out all things,
The sun and rain were nothing worth.
Rude power seized the painted woods
And hurled their glory down the steep,
The landscape wrapt in cerements
And left in death's eternal sleep.
Nor bloom nor odor met the sense,
Nor wind-chant of the foliaged tree,
Nor grove of singing birds, nor psalm
Borne from the ever-voiceful sea.
Color had fled the air and sky,
A stony stillness held the earth,
Virtue had gone from out all things,
Man's ebbing life was nothing worth.
And as I wept within my dream
And knew my pulse of being slowed,
I sudden was aware of change--
A flush on pallid nature showed!
Lo, heralds of the arriving year!
The bugled flock beclangs the blue,
The hyla pipes by willowed run,
The flashing swallow skims the dew.
Up from the rampike's ghastly arms
The gold-shaft high-hole's challenge floats,
While greening hill and valley laugh
And shore breaks out in pæan notes.
And in my dream I leapt for joy--
"'Twas but an awful dream," I said,
"The Lord of Life, for evermore
He lives--'twas once for all He bled!"
And waked from sleep by beating heart,
I heard the first red robin sing,
And knew that once again had come
Fresh from the life of God the spring.
NATURE.
The large, far intent
Of the Kingly One
Is only begun
In rearing the tent;
To nurture a soul
Is the shining goal.
Keen science speaketh
A word clear and fair
"The carbon in air
The young oak seeketh
In the greening years,
Lo, a giant appears!
"Shelter and warmth, see!
Here final cause
Of nature's wise laws;
And the breath of the tree
Is life unto man
And lengthens his span.'
But the Chemist who moves
The atoms in dance,
His all-seeing glance
By His working proves,--
From far-off to nigher,
Feeds life that is higher.
From blade to full ear,
From acorn to beam,
Unfoldings of dream,
Linkëd series of cheer,
Evolvings of grace,
Shadows bright of His face!
Sweet procession and slow,
Every step of the way
More precious each day,
Till the starlit airs blow,
Wake emotion that sleeps,
Stir the fount of the deeps.
O heaven's own fact
Eternal, that beauty,
As the sword on duty,
Hangs silent on act
Of nature forever,--
Soul and body together!
Nature, series divine
Of act and of word
From God's mouth seen or heard!
As thou bring'st bread and wine
I hear thy deep tone,
"O not these alone!"
All-divine unity!
Writes the heaven-touched mind
Responsive, once blind:
All-divine harmony!
Emotion's attest
In the glow of my breast.
"I AM."
I am, and therefore these,
Existence is by me,--
Flux of pendulous seas,
The stable, free.
I am in blush of the rose,
The shimmer of dawn;
Am girdle Orion knows,
The fount undrawn.
I am earth's potency,
The chemic ray's, the rain's,
The reciprocity
That loads the wains.
I am, or the heavens fall!
I dwell in my woven tent,
Am immanent in all,--
Suprámanent!
I am the Life in life,
Impact and verve of thought,
The reason's lens and knife,
The ethic "ought."
I am of being the stress,
I am the brooding Dove,
I am the blessing in "bless,"
The Love in love.