Ye wise ones, knowing in Nature’s scheme,
Oh tell us whither they go, the years
That drop in the gulfs of time and dream!
They go to the goal of all things mortal,
Where fade our destinies, scarce perceived,
To the dim abyss wherein time confounds them--
The hours we laughed and the days we grieved.
They go where the bubbles of rainbow break
We breathed in our youth of love and fame,
Where great and small are as one together,
And oak and windflower counted the same.
They go where follow our smiles and tears,
The gold of youth and the gray of age,
Where falls the storm and falls the stillness,
The laughter of spring and winter’s rage.
What hand shall gauge the depth of time
Or a little measure eternity?
God only, as they unroll before Him,
Conceives and orders the mystery.
_A CHRISTMAS-EVE COURTIN’_
The snow’d laid deep that winter from the middle of November;
The goin’, as I remember, was the purtiest kind of goin’;
An’ as the time drawed nigh fur turkeys an’ mince pie
The woods, all white an’ frosted, was a sight worth showin’.
The snow hung down the woodpiles all scalloped-like an’ curled.
You’d swear in all the world ther’ warn’t no fences any more.
The cows kep’ under cover, an’ the chickens scratched twice over
The yaller ruck of straw a-layin’ round the stable door.
’Twas Christmas Eve, in the afternoon, an’ the store was jest a-hummin’
When we seen the parson comin’ in his pung along the road;
An’ as he passed the store he called in through the door,
‘Church to-night at the Crossroads! Come, boys, and bring a load!’
’Twas a new idee in them parts, an’ Bill Simmons made ’n oration
About ‘High Church innovation,’ an’ ‘a-driftin’ back to Rome,’
But I backed the parson’s rights to have Church o’ moonlight nights;
An’ I thought of Nance’s cute red lips, an’ pinted straight fur home.
I wasn’t long a-gittin’ the chores done up, you bet,
An’ the supper that I eat wouldn’t more’n a’ fed a fly!
Then I hitched the mare in the pung an’ soon was bowlin’ along
Down by the crick to Nance’s while the moon was white an’ high.
She didn’t keep me waitin’, fur church was at half-pas’ seven;
An’ my idee of Heaven, as I tucked her into the furs,
Was a-ridin’ with Nance at night when the moon was high an’ white,
An’ the deep sky all a-sparkle like them laughin’ eyes of hers.
I had a heap to say, but I couldn’t jest find my tongue;
But my heart it sung an’ sung, like canaries was into it.
So I chirruped to the mare with a kind of easy air,
An’ Nance had to do the talkin’,--as was jest the one could do it!
An’ I could feel her shoulder, kind of comfortin’ an’ warm,
Nestlin’ agin my arm,--sech a sweet an’ cunnin’ shoulder.
My heart was all afire, but I kep’ gittin’ shyer an’ shyer,
An’ wished that I’d been born a leetle sassier an’ bolder.
We come to them there Crossroads ’fore I’d time to say a word;
An’ I reckon as how I heard mighty little of the sarvice.
But ’twas grand to hear Nance sing ‘Glory to the new-born King,’
Tho’ the way the choir folks stared at us, it made me kind of narvous.
I wished the parson’d stop an’ give me another chance
Out there in the night with Nance, under the stars an’ moon;
An’ I vowed I’d have my say in the tidiest kind of way,
An’ she shouldn’t have no more call to think me a blame gossoon.
At last the preachin’ come to an end, an’ the folks all crowded out.
’Fore I knowed what I was about we was on the road fur home.
But the sky was overcast an’ a thick snow droppin’ fast,
An’ a big wind down from the mountins got a-rantin’ an moanin’ some.
We hadn’t rode two mile when it blowed like all possessed,
An’ at that I kind of guessed we was in fur a ticklish night.
We couldn’t go more’n a walk, an’ Nance she forgot to talk;
Then I jest slipped my arm around her, an’ she never kicked a mite.
Well, now, if the hull blame roof’d blowed off I wouldn’t ’a keered,
But I seen as how Nance was skeered, so I sez, ‘By gracious, Nance,
I guess if we don’t turn, an’ cut back for the Crossroads, durn
The shelter we’ll git to-night by any kind of a chance!’
Then the mare stopped short an’ whinnied, an’ Nance jest said, ‘Oh, Si!’
An’ then commenced to cry, till I felt like cryin’ too;
I forgot about the storm, an’ jest hugged her close an’ warm,
An’ kissed her, an’ kissed her, an’ swore as how I’d be true.
Then Nance she quit her cryin’ an’ said she wastn’t skeered
So long’s she knowed I keered jest a leetle mite fur her;
But she guessed we’d better try an’ git home, an’ ‘by-an’-by
The storm ’ll stop, an’ anyways, it ain’t so very fur!’
My heart was that chock full I couldn’t find a word to say,
But she understood the way that I looked into her eyes!
In buffaler robe an’ rug I wrapped her warm an’ snug,
An’ got out an’ broke the mare a road all the way to Barnes’s Rise.
’Twas a tallish tramp, I tell you, a-leadin’ that flounderin’ mare
Thro’ snow drifts anywheres from four to six foot deep.
An’ a ‘painter’ now an’ then howled out from his mountin den;
But Nance, she never heered it, fur she must ’a fell to sleep.
It wasn’t fur from mornin’ when we come to Barnes’s Rise,--
An’ I found to my surprise I’d tramped nine mile an’ wasn’t tired.
I was in sech a happy dream it didn’t hardly seem
As the ride had been any tougher’n jest what I’d desired.
It was easier goin’ now, an’ Nance woke up all rosy.
She was sweeter’n any posy as I kissed her at the gate.
The dawn was jest a-growin’ so I wished her a Merry Christmas,
An’ remarked I must be goin’ as it might be gittin’ late!
We was married at the Crossroads jest six weeks from Christmas Eve;
An’ Nance an’ me believe in our parson’s innovations;
We ain’t much skeered o’ Rome, an’ we reckon he can preach some,
An’ we call that evenin’ sarvice a Providential Dispensation.
_THE SUCCOUR OF GLUSKÂP_
(A MICMAC LEGEND)
The happy valley laughed with sun,
The corn grew firm in stalk,
The lodges clustered safe where run
The streams of Peniawk.
The washing-pools and shallows rang
With shout of lads at play;
At corn-hoeing the women sang;
The warriors were away.
The splashed white pebbles on the beach,
The idling paddles, gleamed;
Before the lodge doors, spare of speech,
The old men basked and dreamed.
And when the windless noon grew hot,
And the white sun beat like steel,
In shade about the shimmering pot
They gathered to their meal.
Then from the hills, on flying feet,
A desperate runner came,
With cry that smote the peaceful street,
And slew the peace with shame.
‘Trapped in the night, and snared in sleep,
Our warriors wake no more!
Up from Wahloos the Mohawks creep--
Their feet are at the door!’
The grey old sachems rose and mocked
The ruin that drew near;
And down the beach the children flocked,
And women wild with fear.
Launched were the red canoes; when, lo!
Beside them Gluskâp stood,
Appearing with his giant bow
From out his mystic wood.
With quiet voice he called them back,
And comforted their fears;
He swore the lodges should not lack,
He dried the children’s tears;
Till sorrowing mothers almost deemed
The desperate runner lied,
And the tired children slept, and dreamed
Their fathers had not died.
That night behind the mystic wood
The Mohawk warriors crept;
A spell went through the solitude
And stilled them, and they slept.
And when the round moon, rising late,
The Hills of Kawlm had crossed,
She saw the camp of Mohawk hate
Swathed in a great white frost.
At morn, behind the mystic wood
Came Gluskâp, bow in hand,
And marked the ice-bound solitude,
And that unwaking band.
But as he gazed his lips grew mild,
For, safe among the dead,
There played a ruddy, laughing child
By a captive mother’s head;
And child and mother, nestling warm,
Scarce knew their foes had died,
As past their sleep the noiseless storm
Of strange death turned aside.
_HOW THE MOHAWKS SET OUT FOR MEDOCTEC_
[When the invading Mohawks captured the outlying Melicite village of
Madawaska, they spared two squaws to guide them down stream to the main
Melicite town of Medoctec, below Grand Falls. The squaws steered
themselves and their captors over the Falls.]
I
Grows the great deed, though none
Shout to behold it done!
To the brave deed done by night
Heaven testifies in the light
Stealthy and swift as a dream,
Crowding the breast of the stream,
In their paint and plumes of war
And their war-canoes four score,
They are threading the Oolastook,
Where his cradling hills o’erlook.
The branchy thickets hide them;
The unstartled waters guide them.
II
Comes night to the quiet hills
Where the Madawaska spills,--
To his slumbering huts no warning,
Nor mirth of another morning!
No more shall the children wake
As the dawns through the hut-door break;
But the dogs, a trembling pack,
With wistful eyes steal back.
And, to pilot the noiseless foe
Through the perilous passes, go
Two women who could not die--
Whom the knife in the dark passed by.
III
Where the shoaling waters froth,
Churned thick like devils’ broth,--
Where the rocky shark-jaw waits,
Never a bark that grates.
And the tearless captives’ skill
Contents them. Onward still!
And the low-voiced captives tell
The tidings that cheer them well:
How a clear stream leads them down
Well-nigh to Medoctec town,
Ere to the great Falls’ thunder
The long wall yawns asunder.
IV
The clear stream glimmers before them;
The faint night falters o’er them;
Lashed lightly bark to bark,
They glide the windless dark.
Late grows the night. No fear
While the skilful captives steer!
Sleeps the tired warrior, sleeps
The chief; and the river creeps.
V
In the town of the Melicite
The unjarred peace is sweet,
Green grows the corn and great,
And the hunt is fortunate.
This many a heedless year
The Mohawks come not near.
The lodge-gate stands unbarred;
Scarce even a dog keeps guard.
No mother shrieks from a dream
Of blood on the threshold stream,--
But the thought of those mute guides
Is where the sleeper bides!
VI
Gets forth those caverned walls
No roar from the giant Falls,
Whose mountainous foam treads under
The abyss of awful thunder.
But--the river’s sudden speed!
How the ghost-grey shores recede!
And the tearless pilots hear
A muttering voice creep near.
A tremor! The blanched waves leap.
The warriors start from sleep.
Faints in the sudden blare
The cry of their swift despair,
And the captives’ death-chant shrills ...
But afar, remote from ills,
Quiet under the quiet skies
The Melicite village lies.
_THE WOOD FROLIC_
The Morning Star was bitter bright, the morning sky was grey;
And we hitched our teams and started for the woods at break of day.
_Oh, the frost is on the forest, and the snow piles high!_
Along the white and winding road the sled-bells jangled keen
Between the buried fences, the billowy drifts between.
_Oh, merry swing the axes, and the bright chips fly!_
So crisp sang the runners, and so swift the horses sped,
That the woods were all about us ere the sky grew red.
_Oh, the frost is on the forest, and the snow piles high!_
The bark hung ragged on the birch, the lichen on the fir,
The lungwort fringed the maple, and grey moss the juniper.
_Oh, merry swing the axes, and the bright chips fly!_
So still the air and chill the air the branches seemed asleep,
But we broke their ancient visions as the axe bit deep.
_Oh, the frost is on the forest, and the snow piles high!_
With the shouts of the choppers and the barking of their blades,
How rang the startled valleys and the rabbit-haunted glades!
_Oh, merry swing the axes, and the bright chips fly!_
The hard wood and the soft wood, we felled them for our use;
And chiefly, for its scented gum, we loved the scaly spruce;
_Oh, the frost is on the forest, and the snow piles high!_
And here and there, with solemn roar, some hoary tree came down,
And we heard the rolling of the years in the thunder of its crown.
_Oh, merry swing the axes, and the bright chips fly!_
So, many a sled was loaded up above the stake-tops soon;
And many a load was at the farm before the horn of noon;
_Oh, the frost is on the forest, and the snow piles high!_
And ere we saw the sundown all yellow through the trees,
The farmyard stood as thick with wood as a buckwheat patch with bees;
_Oh, merry swing the axes, and the bright chips fly!_
And with the last-returning teams, and axes burnished bright,
We left the woods to slumber in the frosty shadowed night.
_Oh, the frost is on the forest, and the snow piles high!_
And then the wide, warm kitchen, with beams across the ceiling,
Thick hung with red-skinned onions, and homely herbs of healing!
_Oh, merry swing the axes, and the bright chips fly!_
The dishes on the dresser-shelves were shining blue and white,
And o’er the loaded table the lamps beamed bright.
_Oh, the frost is on the forest, and the snow piles high!_
Then, how the ham and turkey and the apple-sauce did fly,
The heights of boiled potatoes and the flats of pumpkin-pie!
_Oh, merry swing the axes, and the bright chips fly!_
With bread-and-cheese and doughnuts fit to feed a farm a year!
And we washed them down with tides of tea and oceans of spruce beer.
_Oh, the frost is on the forest, and the snow piles high!_
At last the pipes were lighted and the chairs pushed back,
And Bill struck up a sea-song on a rather risky tack;
_Oh, merry swing the axes, and the bright chips fly!_
And the girls all thought it funny--but they never knew ’twas worse,
For we gagged him with a doughnut at the famous second verse.
_Oh, the frost is on the forest, and the snow piles high!_
Then someone fetched a fiddle, and we shoved away the table,
And ’twas jig and reel and polka just as long as we were able,
_Oh, merry swing the axes, and the bright chips fly!_
Till at last the girls grew sleepy, and we got our coats to go.
We started off with racing-teams and moonlight on the snow;
_Oh, the frost is on the forest, and the snow piles high!_
And soon again the winter world was voiceless as of old,
Alone with all the wheeling stars, and the great white cold.
_Oh, the frost is on the forest, and the snow piles high!_
_CANADIAN STREAMS_
O rivers rolling to the sea
From lands that bear the maple-tree,
How swell your voices with the strain
Of loyalty and liberty!
A holy music, heard in vain
By coward heart and sordid brain,
To whom this strenuous being seems
Naught but a greedy race for gain.
O unsung streams--not splendid themes
Ye lack to fire your patriot dreams!
Annals of glory gild your waves,
Hope freights your tides, Canadian streams!
St. Lawrence, whose wide water laves
The shores that ne’er have nourished slaves!
Swift Richelieu of lilied fame!
Niagara of glorious graves!
Thy rapids, Ottawa, proclaim
Where Daulac and his heroes came!
Thy tides, St. John, declare La Tour,
And, later, many a loyal name!
Thou inland stream, whose vales, secure
From storm, Tecumseh’s death made poor!
And thou small water, red with war,
’Twixt Beaubassin and Beauséjour!
Dread Saguenay, where eagles soar,
What voice shall from the bastioned shore
The tale of Roberval reveal,
Or his mysterious fate deplore?
Annapolis, do thy floods yet feel
Faint memories of Champlain’s keel,
Thy pulses yet the deed repeat
Of Poutrincourt and d’Iberville?
And thou far tide, whose plains now beat
With march of myriad westering feet,
Saskatchewan, whose virgin sod
So late Canadian blood made sweet?
Your bulwark hills, your valleys broad,
Streams where de Salaberry trod,
Where Wolfe achieved, where Brock was slain,--
Their voices are the voice of God!
O sacred waters! not in vain,
Across Canadian height and plain,
Ye sound us in triumphant tone
The summons of your high refrain,
_AVE!_
AN ODE FOR THE CENTENARY OF SHELLEY’S BIRTH
I
O tranquil meadows, grassy Tantramar,
Wide marshes ever washed in clearest air,
Whether beneath the sole and spectral star
The dear severity of dawn you wear,
Or whether in the joy of ample day
And speechless ecstasy of growing June
You lie and dream the long blue hours away
Till nightfall comes too soon,
Or whether, naked to the unstarred night,
You strike with wondering awe my inward sight,--
II
You know how I have loved you, how my dreams
Go forth to you with longing, though the years
That turn not back like your returning streams
And fain would mist the memory with tears,
Though the inexorable years deny
My feet the fellowship of your deep grass,
O’er which, as o’er another, tenderer sky,
Cloud phantoms drift and pass,--
You know my confident love, since first, a child,
Amid your wastes of green I wandered wild.
III
Inconstant, eager, curious, I roamed;
And ever your long reaches lured me on;
And ever o’er my feet your grasses foamed,
And in my eyes your far horizons shone.
But sometimes would you (as a stillness fell
And on my pulse you laid a soothing palm),
Instruct my ears in your most secret spell;
And sometimes in the calm
Initiate my young and wondering eyes
Until my spirit grew more still and wise.
IV
Purged with high thoughts and infinite desire
I entered fearless the most holy place,
Received between my lips the secret fire,
The breath of inspiration on my face.
But not for long these rare illumined hours,
The deep surprise and rapture not for long.
Again I saw the common, kindly flowers,
Again I heard the song
Of the glad bobolink, whose lyric throat
Pealed like a tangle of small bells afloat.
V
The pounce of mottled marsh-hawk on his prey;
The flicker of sand-pipers in from sea
In gusty flocks that puffed and fled; the play
Of field-mice in the vetches;--these to me
Were memorable events. But most availed
Your strange unquiet waters to engage
My kindred heart’s companionship; nor failed
To grant this heritage,--
That in my veins for ever must abide
The urge and fluctuation of the tide.
VI
The mystic river whence you take your name,
River of hubbub, raucous Tantramar,
Untamable and changeable as flame,
It called me and compelled me from afar,
Shaping my soul with its impetuous stress.
When in its gaping channel deep withdrawn
Its waves ran crying of the wilderness
And winds and stars and dawn,
How I companioned them in speed sublime,
Led out a vagrant on the hills of Time!
VII
And when the orange flood came roaring in
From Fundy’s tumbling troughs and tide-worn caves,
While red Minudie’s flats were drowned with din
And rough Chignecto’s front oppugned the waves,
How blithely with the refluent foam I raced
Inland along the radiant chasm, exploring
The green solemnity with boisterous haste;
My pulse of joy outpouring
To visit all the creeks that twist and shine
From Beauséjour to utmost Tormentine.
VIII
And after, when the tide was full, and stilled
A little while the seething and the hiss,
And every tributary channel filled
To the brim with rosy streams that swelled to kiss
The grass-roots all a-wash and goose-tongue wild
And salt-sap rosemary,--then how well content
I was to rest me like a breathless child
With play-time rapture spent,--
To lapse and loiter till the change should come
And the great floods turn seaward, roaring home.
IX
And now, O tranquil marshes, in your vast
Serenity of vision and of dream,
Wherethrough by every intricate vein have passed
With joy impetuous and pain supreme
The sharp fierce tides that chafe the shores of earth
In endless and controlless ebb and flow,
Strangely akin you seem to him whose birth
One hundred years ago
With fiery succour to the ranks of song
Defied the ancient gates of wrath and wrong.
X
Like yours, O marshes, his compassionate breast,
Wherein abode all dreams of love and peace,
Was tortured with perpetual unrest.
Now loud with flood, now languid with release,
Now poignant with the lonely ebb, the strife
Of tides from the salt sea of human pain
That hiss along the perilous coasts of life
Beat in his eager brain;
But all about the tumult of his heart
Stretched the great calm of his celestial art.
XI
Therefore with no far flight, from Tantramar
And my still world of ecstasy, to thee,
Shelley, to thee I turn, the avatar
Of Song, Love, Dream, Desire and Liberty;
To thee I turn with reverent hands of prayer
And lips that fain would ease my heart of praise,
Whom chief of all whose brows prophetic wear
The pure and sacred bays
I worship, and have worshipped since the hour
When first I felt thy bright and chainless power.
XII
About thy sheltered cradle, in the green
Untroubled groves of Sussex, brooded forms
That to the mother’s eye remained unseen,--
Terrors and ardours, passionate hopes, and storms
Of fierce retributive fury, such as jarred
Ancient and sceptred creeds, and cast down kings,
And oft the holy cause of Freedom marred
With lust of meaner things,
With guiltless blood, and many a frenzied crime
Dared in the face of unforgetful Time.
XIII
The star that burns on revolution smote
Wild heats and change on thine ascendant sphere,
Whose influence thereafter seemed to float
Through many a strange eclipse of wrath and fear,
Dimming awhile the radiance of thy love.
But still supreme in thy nativity,
All dark, invidious aspects far above,
Beamed one clear orb for thee,--
The star whose ministrations just and strong
Controlled the tireless flight of Dante’s song.
XIV
With how august contrition, and what tears
Of penitential unavailing shame,
Thy venerable foster-mother hears
The sons of song impeach her ancient name,
Because in one rash hour of anger blind
She thrust thee forth in exile, and thy feet
Too soon to earth’s wild outer ways consigned,--
Far from her well-loved seat,
Far from her studious halls and storied towers
And weedy Isis winding through his flowers.
XV
And thou, thenceforth the breathless child of change,
Thine own Alastor, on an endless quest
Of unimagined loveliness, didst range,
Urged ever by the soul’s divine unrest.
Of that high quest and that unrest divine
Thy first immortal music thou didst make,
Inwrought with fairy Alp, and Reuss, and Rhine,
And phantom seas that break
In soundless foam along the shores of Time,
Prisoned in thine imperishable rhyme.
XVI
Thyself the lark melodious in mid-heaven;
Thyself the Protean shape of chainless cloud,
Pregnant with elemental fire, and driven
Through deeps of quivering light, and darkness loud
With tempest, yet beneficent as prayer;
Thyself the wild west wind, relentless strewing
The withered leaves of custom on the air,
And through the wreck pursuing
O’er lovelier Arnos, more imperial Romes,
Thy radiant visions to their viewless homes.
XVII
And when thy mightiest creation thou
Wert fain to body forth,--the dauntless form,
The all-enduring, all-forgiving brow
Of the great Titan, flinchless in the storm
Of pangs unspeakable and nameless hates,
Yet rent by all the wrongs and woes of men,
And triumphing in his pain, that so their fates
Might be assuaged,--oh then
Out of that vast compassionate heart of thine
Thou wert constrained to shape the dream benign.
XVIII
--O Baths of Caracalla, arches clad
In such transcendent rhapsodies of green
That one might guess the sprites of spring were glad
For your majestic ruin, yours the scene,
The illuminating air of sense and thought;
And yours the enchanted light, O skies of Rome,
Where the giant vision into form was wrought;
Beneath your blazing dome
The intensest song our language ever knew
Beat up exhaustless to the blinding blue!--
XIX
The domes of Pisa and her towers superb,
The myrtles and the ilexes that sigh
O’er San Giuliano, where no jars disturb
The lonely aziola’s evening cry,
The Serchio’s sun-kissed waters,--these conspired
With Plato’s theme occult, with Dante’s calm
Rapture of mystic love, and so inspired
Thy soul’s espousal psalm,
A strain of such elect and pure intent
It breathes of a diviner element.
XX
Thou on whose lips the word of Love became
A rapt evangel to assuage all wrong,
Not Love alone, but the austerer name
Of Death engaged the splendours of thy song.
The luminous grief, the spacious consolation
Of thy supreme lament, that mourned for him
Too early haled to that still habitation
Beneath the grass-roots dim,--
Where his faint limbs and pain-o’erwearied heart
Of all earth’s loveliness became a part,
XXI
But where, thou sayest, himself would not abide,--
Thy solemn incommunicable joy
Announcing Adonais has not died,
Attesting death to free but not destroy,
All this was as thy swan-song mystical.
Even while the note serene was on thy tongue
Thin grew the veil of the Invisible,
The white sword nearer swung,--
And in the sudden wisdom of thy rest
Thou knewest all thou hadst but dimly guessed.
XXII