Such queer jokes and funny greetings,
O, such running and such chasing,
O, such banter and grimacing,
Thou'rt the wag of wags the pink--
Bobolink! Bobolink!
How you tumble 'mong the hay,
Romping all the summer's day;
Now upon the wing all over
In and out among the clover--
Far too happy e'er to think--
Bobolink! Bobolink!
Now thou'rt on the apple tree,
Crying, "Listen unto me!"
Now upon the mossy banks,
Where thou cuttest up such pranks--
One would swear thou wert in drink--
Bobolink! Bobolink!
Nothing canst thou know of sorrow,
As to-day shall be to-morrow;
Never dost thou dream of sadness--
All thy life a merry madness,
Never may thy spirits sink--
Bobolink! Bobolink!
THE MAN WHO ROSE FROM NOTHING
Around the world the fame is blown
Of fighting heroes, dead and gone;
But we've a hero of our own--
The man who rose from nothing.
He's a magician great and grand;
The forests fled at his command;
And here he said, "Let cities stand!"--
The man who rose from nothing.
And in our legislative hall
He towering stands alone, like Saul,
"A head and shoulders over all,"--
The man who rose from nothing.
His efforts he will ne'er relax,
His faith in figures and in facts,
And always calls an axe an axe,--
The man who rose from nothing.
The gentleman in word and deed;
And short and simple in his creed;
"Fear God and help the soul in need!"
The man who rose from nothing.
In other lands he's hardly known,
For he's a product of our own;
Could grace a shanty or a throne,--
The man who rose from nothing.
Here's to the land of lakes and pines,
On which the sun of freedom shines,
Because we meet on all our lines
The man who rose from nothing.
JOHN M'PHERSON
THE MAYFLOWER
Sweet child of an April shower,
First gift of spring to Flora's bower,
Acadia's own peculiar flower,
I hail thee here!
Thou com'st, like hope in sorrow's hour,
To whisper cheer.
I love to stray with careless feet,
Thy balm on morning breeze to meet--
Thy earliest opening bloom to greet--
To take thy stem,
And bear thee to my lady sweet,
Thou lovely gem.
What though green mosses o'er thee steal,
And half thy lovely form conceal--
Though but thy fragrant breath reveal
Thy place of birth--
Gladly I own thy mute appeal,
Of modest worth!
Thy charms so pure a spell impart,
Thy softening smiles so touch my heart,
That silent tears of rapture start,
Sweet flower of May!
E'en while I sing, devoid of art,
This simple lay.
IN THE WOODS
I come, ye lovely wild-wood groves,
Where placid contemplation roves,
And breathes untroubled air;
I come to woo your genial sweets,
To wander in your green retreats,
And lose the sense of care.
Unformed to brook the vulgar strife
And heartlessness of worldly life,
I court your silent gloom--
Where Thought may nurse, without annoy,
The soothing sense of native joy--
The soul's inherent bloom.
Receive me to your fostering arms--
Surround me with your varied charms
Of birds and streams and flowers;
And bless me with the sweet repose
That crowns the simple thoughts of those
Who love your leafy bowers.
Here in the ancient forest maze,
Remote from Mammon's specious ways,
And wandering at my will,
Herbs, flowers, and trees shall be my friends,
And birds and streamlets make amends
For much of earthly ill.
Yet give me here a kindred tie--
Affection's sympathetic eye,
And kind consoling tone;
For though the multitude are cold,
And anxious most for sordid gold,
I would not live alone.
The heart--the heart is human still,
And yearns for trusting love to fill
Its frequent, aching void;
Unless partaken with our kind,
The sweetest joys of sense and mind
Are not enough enjoyed.
Then will I seek repose from strife,
The tender ministries of life,
And peace, the timid dove,
In one still calm, one dear retreat,
The circle of my cottage sweet--
The home of wedded love.
CHARLES MAIR
UNTAMED
There was a time on this fair continent
When all things throve in spacious peacefulness.
The prosperous forests unmolested stood,
For where the stalwart oak grew, there it lived
Long ages, and then died among its kind.
The hoary pines--those ancients of the earth,
Brimful of legends of the early world--
Stood thick on their own mountains unsubdued.
And all things else illumined by the sun,
Inland, or by the lifted wave, had rest.
The passionate or calm pageants of the skies
No artist drew; but in the auburn west
Innumerable faces of fair cloud
Vanished in silent darkness with the day.
The prairie realm--vast ocean's paraphrase--
Rich in wild grasses numberless, and flowers
Unnamed save in mute Nature's inventory,
No civilized barbarian trenched for gain.
And all that flowed was sweet and uncorrupt:
The rivers and their tributary streams,
Undammed, wound on forever, and gave up
Their lonely torrents of weird gulfs of sea,
And ocean wastes unshadowed by a sail.
And all the wild life of this western world
Knew not the fear of man; yet in those woods ...
There lived a soul more wild than barbarous;
A tameless soul--the sunburnt savage free--
Free, and untainted by the greed of gain:
Great Nature's man content with Nature's food.
THE VOICE OF THE PINES
We fear not the thunder, we fear not the rain,
For our stems are stout and long;
Or the growling winds, though they blow amain,
For our roots are great and strong;
Our voice is eternal, our song sublime,
And its theme is the days of yore--
Back thousands of years of misty time,
When we first grew old and hoar!
Deep down in the crevice our roots were hid,
And our limbs were thick and green
Ere Cheops had builded his pyramid,
Or the Sphinx's form was seen.
Whole forests have risen within our ken,
Which withered upon the plain;
And cities, and race after race of men,
Have risen and sunk again.
We commune with the stars thro' the paly night,
For we love to talk with them;
The wind is our harp, and the marvellous light
Of the moon our diadem.
Like the murmur of ocean our branches stir
When the night air whispers low;
Like the voices of ocean our voices are,
When the hurtling tempests blow.
We nod to the sun ere the glimmering morn
Prints her sandals on the mere;
We part with the sun when the stars are borne
By the silvery waters clear.
And when lovers are breathing a thousand vows,
With their hearts and cheeks aglow,
We chant a love strain 'mid our breezy boughs,
Of a thousand years ago!
We stand all aloof, for the giant's strength
Craveth naught from lesser powers;
'Tis the shrub that loveth the fertile ground,
But the sturdy rock is ours!
We tower aloft where the hunters lag
By the weary mountain side,
By the jaggy cliff, by the grimy crag,
And the chasms yawning wide.
When the great clouds march in a mountain heap,
By the light of the dwindled sun,
We steady our heads 'gainst their misty sweep,
And accost them one by one.
Then our limbs they jostle in thunder-mirth,
And the storm-fires flash again;
But baffled and weary they sink to earth,
And the monarch-stems remain.
The passage of years doth not move us much,
And Time himself grows old
Ere we bow to his flight, or feel his touch
In our "limbs of giant mould."
And the dwarfs of the wood, by decay oppressed,
With our laughter grim we mock;
For the burden of age doth lightly rest
On the ancient forest folk.
Cold Winter, who filches the flying leaf,
And steals the floweret's sheen,
Can injure us not, or work us grief,
Or make our tops less green.
And Spring, who awakens her sleeping train
By meadow, and hill, and lea,
Brings no new life to our old domain,
Unfading, stern, and free.
Sublime in our solitude, changeless, vast,
While men build, work, and save,
We mock--for their years glide away to the past,
And we grimly look on their grave.
Our voice is eternal, our song sublime,
For its theme is the days of yore--
Back thousands of years of misty time,
When we first grew old and hoar.
THE HUMMING BIRD
It comes! This strange bird from a distant clime
Has fled with arrowy speed on fluttering wing.
From the sweet south, all sick of revelling,
It wanders hitherward to rest a time,
And taste the hardy flora of the west.
And now, O joy! the urchins hear the mirth
Of its light wings, and crouch unto the earth
In watchful eagerness, contented, blest.
Bird of eternal summers! thou dost wake,
Whene'er thou comest and where'er thou art,
A new born gladness in my swelling heart.
Go, gentle flutterer, my blessing take!
Less like a bird thou hast appeared to me
Than some sweet fancy in old poesy.
INNOCENCE
Oft I have met her
In openings of the woods and pleasant ways,
Where flowers beset her,
And hanging branches crowned her head with bays.
Oft have I seen her walk
Through flower-decked fields unto the oaken pass,
Where lay the slumbery flock,
Swoln with much eating of the tender grass.
Oft have I seen her stand
By wandering brooks o'er which the willows met;
Or where the meadow-land
Balmed the soft air with dew-mist drapery wet.
Much patting of the wind
Had bloomed her cheek with color of the rose;
Rare beauty was entwined
With locks and looks in movement or repose....
The floriage of the spring
And summer coronals were hers in trust,
Till came the winter-king
To droop their sweetness into native dust....
The dingle and the glade,
The brown-ribbed mountains, and tall, talking trees
Seemed fairer while she stayed,
And drank of their dim meanings and old ease....
And chiefly she did love
To soothe the widow's ruth and orphan's tear;
With counsel from above,
Alleviating woe, allaying fear....
There was a quiet grace
In all her actions, tokening gentleness,
Yet firm intent to trace
The paths of duty leading up to bliss....
She thought of One who bore
The awful burden of the world's despair--
What could she give Him more
Than blameless thoughts, a simple life and fair?
She was and is, for still
She lives and moves upon the grass-green earth,
And, as of old, doth fill
Her heart with peace, still mingling tears with mirth.
O, could we find her out,
And learn of her this wildering maze to tread!
And, eased of every doubt,
Let deadly passions linger with the dead!...
GEORGE MARTIN
SHELLEY
Lover of Man, if not of God, the Sea
That took thy latest breath, and fondly bore
Its music round the world from shore to shore,
Will never cease to make lament for thee;
For thou wert of its spirit, tameless, free,
At war with ermined Custom, and the hoar
Enslavements of a venerated lore,--
At deadly feud with all the Powers that be.
Supreme Enchanter, lord of rhythmic sound,
Child of Imagination, born for flight,
Loved of all poets, and by all men crowned
The foe of every form of savage might,
Thou wert the true Prometheus unbound,
Whose genius shaped an Era's golden height.
TO MY CANARY BIRD
Borne on the wavelets of thy fluent notes,
Impassioned little minstrel of the cage,
My spirit like a happy sea-gull floats,
Unheedful of the clamor and the rage
Of storms that menace ruin as they pass,
Impatient for the freedom of the plain,
Crusted and polished like a sea of glass,
Whereon they shout their wild and weird refrain.
There is no touch of winter in thy song,
No wail of winds, my yellow-coated friend;
All beauties of the Spring to thee belong,
All bloomy charms and all the scents that lend
A drowsy gladness to the summer hours.
Again I hear swift rivulets descend
The mountain slopes, like children loosed from school;
Again I see the lily on the pool,
And hear the whispered loves of leaves and flowers.
Not only through the golden hours of day,
From early dawn till dusk, melodious sprite,
Do thy delicious trills and quavers stray
Around the quiet chamber where I write,
But often in the slumbrous hush of night,
When moonbeams silver o'er the pendant swing,
On which thy head thou pillowest 'neath thy wing,
Thou wakest, and again thy transports ring,
As if thy soul wert skyward seeking flight.
Blow, all ye winds, and at my window tap,
Like sheeted ghosts, with icy finger-tips;
Press hard against the pane your whitened lips,
And at the outer portal louder rap;
My songster hears you not: a higher note,
A more reverbant, more delirious strain,
Issues exultant from his quivering throat,
And reaches to the people on the street,
Who pause, look up, take step, and pause again,
Retiring slowly with unwilling feet.
O that thou couldst to me this hour impart
The secret of thy unremitting joy!
The music that dilates thy little heart
No frost can chill, no doubt, no fear destroy.
Here, seated listless in my easy chair,
I can but yield to phantasy and dream,
And gird my spirit with a jewelled beam
Of soft enchantment, hopeful that a share
Of thy divine emotion, happy bird,
By which my holiest thoughts are often stirred,
May slip into my verse and warble there.
LALEET
How beautiful she was, the little maiden,
Scarce twelve years old,
Who faded like a fading star, love laden,
Her love untold.
I knew not, I who far outran her days,
How much I erred
In making much of her endearing ways,
How much I stirred
The fount of her affection with my praise.
No sunrise fairer is than was her face,
No moonlit skies
More lovely than the tenderness and grace
That filled her eyes.
Her presence harmonized all dissonance,
And ever wore
A charm akin to music and romance,
And faery lore.
Poor child! among her hidden notes one said
She dreamed of me,
And fancied that she saw me lying dead,
Drowned in the sea,
But that no dream it was the tears she shed.
When life's white rose its latest leaf was shedding,
And o'er her broke
The sobs of mourners in her chamber treading,
Vaguely she spoke:
He knew not of my weeping at his wedding!
Those simple words, in whispered cadence spoken,
All winds repeat;
I shudder at the tale which they betoken,
My lost Laleet!
I hear them in the surging of the billow,
Through storm and gloom;
They pierce me from the rustle of the willow
That shades her tomb
And drops a denser shadow on my pillow.
Ye softest harmonies of air and ocean,
Of mount and vale,
Rehearse, to love-led maids, her heart's devotion
Till suns shall fail
And orphaned planets lose the joy of motion.
HELEN M. MERRILL
THE BLUE FLOWER
Still, though the sun is setting,
She lingers unheeding the hour,
Her face held to its splendor,
Her heart in thrall of its power.
Her hair is golden burnished;
In her eye the heaven's hue;
Her charm of immortal beauty
Holds me from dawn till dew.
She has a soul of fire,
Pure as a star's white flame;
I gaze in silence, and wonder
The glory whence it came.
She is the spirit elusive
Sorrowing poets seek;
I stand rapt in her presence,
And listen to hear her speak.
All time in the forest olden,
She tells her wondrous chain;
My hope of suns eternal,
Priest of a mighty fane.
Through the pale light glowing golden,
She watches the day decline;
She sings from her ancient volume,
I interpret line on line.
Flower or star bright shining,
A bird, or a silver sheaf;
In her great book I discover
An enigma on every leaf.
Her song is of paradises
Where wheeling fires shine,
To mystic dreams beguiling
Like whispering wind in a pine.
She would that the spirits of mortals
Wander in amaranth meads;
Never a shadow trembles
On the soul-path where she leads,
Under the flashing stars
And the splendor of suns in prime,
In a land of new horizons,
In the unknown aftertime.
AT EDGEWATER
One by one they pass away,
Days, like white ships which sail peacefully
From the shore, yet come not back again.
And their freight is Life, and Love, and lesser things,
Yet as beautiful and good. And ever they set sail
Under golden suns for sea,
Till the summer is gone and shadows fall so gloomily,
At Edgewater!
When the winds of autumn blow
Through the brown vines swinging mournfully,
Calling for the sun disconsolate,
And the rain falls, and the spirit of the deep,
Grieving for the summer, chants its death-song of the sun,
It is lonely by the sea,
And the heart is haunted by unhappy memory,
At Edgewater.
Yet again a golden day
Gilds the blue wave flowing tranquilly,
And a sudden splendor lights the shore,
And the heart of autumn, trembling, turneth warm,
As though summer loitered in it dreaming of the sun.
By-gone dreams, and dreams to be,
Their white shadows on the soul reflect ceaselessly,
At Edgewater.
THE PROMISE OF SPRING
Blue-black like the breast of the gusty sea,
Cumulus clouds where the sun goes down,
Stormful shadows against the gold,
Under the arches of even blown.
Nowhere a white bird beating the storm,
Nowhere a sunray gilding the sea;
Bud nor leaf on the orchard bough,
Butterfly, nor blossom, nor bee.
Yet to-night, where the blue waves beat,
Under the shadows, the storm-winds bring
Omen mysterious out of the dusk,
Out of the darkness the promise of Spring.
SUN-GOLD
All day the sun drops gold, the grassy mead
Like miser olden hoarding underground,
Till soft-shod June will track it, like a hound
Scents the lone covert where the wild deer feed.
Then from an ample mint, with lavish hand,
In every field, by every fountain-side,
She'll scatter gold-bits round her far and wide,
In flower cups o'er all the fragrant land.
Wherever butter-flowers and wild daisies blow,
You'll mark her presence in the green lush grasses;
You'll hear her blithely singing as she passes
On sunny uplands where gold violets grow.
SUSANNA MOODIE
THE MAPLE-TREE
Hail to the pride of the forest--hail
To the maple, tall and green!
It yields a treasure which ne'er shall fail
While leaves on its boughs are seen.
When the moon shines bright
On the wintry night,
And silvers the frozen snow,
And echo dwells
On the jingling bells
As the sleighs dart to and fro,
Then it brightens the mirth
Of the social hearth
With its red and cheery glow.
Afar, 'mid the bosky forest shades,
It lifts its tall head on high,
When the crimson-tinted evening fades
From the glowing saffron sky;
When the sun's last beams
Light up woods and streams,
And brighten the gloom below;
And the deer springs by
With his flashing eye,
And the shy, swift-footed doe;
And the sad winds chide
In the branches wide,
With a tender plaint of woe.
The Indian leans on its rugged trunk,
With the bow in his red right-hand,
And mourns that his race, like a stream, has sunk
From the glorious forest land.
But, blithe and free,
The maple-tree,
Still tosses to sun and air
Its thousand arms,
While in countless swarms
The wild bee revels there;
But soon not a trace
Of the red-man's race
Shall be found in the landscape fair.
When the snows of winter are melting fast,
And the sap begins to rise,
And the biting breath of the frozen blast
Yields to the spring's soft sighs,
Then away to the wood,
For the maple good
Shall unseal its honeyed store;
And boys and girls,
With their sunny curls,
Bring their vessels brimming o'er
With the luscious flood
Of the brave tree's blood,
Into caldrons deep to pour.
The blaze from the sugar-bush gleams red;
Far down in the forest dark
A ruddy glow on the trees is shed,
That lights up their rugged bark;
And with merry shout
The busy rout
Watch the sap as it bubbles high;
And they talk of the cheer
Of the coming year,
And the jest and the song pass by;
And brave tales of old
Round the fire are told,
That kindle youth's beaming eye.
Hurrah! for the sturdy maple-tree!
Long may its green branch wave
In native strength, sublime and free,
Meet emblem for the brave.
May the nation's peace
With its growth increase,
And its worth be widely spread;
For it lifts not in vain
To the sun and rain
Its tall, majestic head.
May it grace our soil,
And reward our toil,
While the nation's day is sped!
THE FISHERMAN'S LIGHT
The air is still, the night is dark,
No ripple breaks the dusky tide;
From isle to isle the fisher's bark,
Like fairy meteor, seems to glide,--
Now lost in shade, now flashing bright;
On sleeping wave and forest tree,
We hail with joy the ruddy light,
Which far into the darksome night
Shines red and cheerily.
With spear high poised and steady hand,
The centre of that fiery ray,
Behold the skilful fisher stand,
Prepared to strike the finny prey.
"Now, now!" the shaft has sped below,--
Transfixed the shining prize we see;
On swiftly glides the birch canoe,
The woods send back the long halloo
In echoes loud, and cheerily!
Around yon bluff, whose pine crest hides
The noisy rapids from our sight,
Another bark! another glides!
Red spirits of the murky night!
The bosom of the silent stream
With mimic stars is dotted free;
The tall woods lighten in the beam,
Through darkness shining cheerily.
MARY MORGAN
"IN APPREHENSION, SO LIKE A GOD."
Take the mouldering dust,
Wake it into life,--
Matter is but servant of the mind.
Touch the silent keys:
Genius can evoke
Music wherein gods commune with men.
Read the soul of man,
And the farthest star;
Truth is one, and is forever true.
Think the wildest thought,
Hope the utmost hope--
Time shall be when all shall be fulfilled.
Wonder not at deed,
Wonder more at thought,
Wonder at the hope that feeds itself.
Genius is divine,
Genius is the true:
Man becomes that which he worships,--God!
CHARITY
Thou askest not to know the creed,
The rank or name is naught to thee;
Where'er the human heart cries "Help!"
Thy kingdom is, O Charity!
LIFE
Mysterious Life! we speak as if we knew
What meant this vortex: Ah, what doth it mean?
A spirit of unrest is Life--hath been
Alluring made with many-tinted hue.
From darkest chasm it lifts man to a peak
Where he may see ideal flowers blow;
But as he learns to love them, it will show
Him other heights that he is forced to seek.
Enchantress, Disenchantress,--both in one!
Surrounding us to-day with dazzling light,
To-morrow hiding every ray of sun
Till we are sunk in the abyss of night.
The oracles are dumb: whate'er Life be,
Man walks by faith alone; he cannot see.
IRENE ELDER MORTON
BROWNING
He sits at last among his peers,
While we stand chilled with eyes grown dim
In looking over life's grey fields,
And feel the heart-light folded in.
O great soul! entered in to know
The fulness of the Central Life!
O giant leader of the race,
Who never with the world made strife,
But led it surely, grandly on,
Scaling clear heights with leap and bound,--
Then, beckoning with a strong man's hand,
He kept his way to higher ground!
No maudlin cry he gave the world,--
"Behold my grief, pity my pain;"
Strong as the breath of Alpine hills,
Sweet as the sound of summer rain,
The songs he gave us. Evermore
The deathless might of English speech
Shall sound their notes from shore to shore,
And to the coming nations teach
That it is nobler to endure,
And smother back the cry of pain--
Shall call us onward to the heights,
To press ahead and bear the strain.
He wore no caste-bound fetters here;
A man of men he proved his soul;
The mighty pulse within his words
Beat full and free above control.
The illumined fringes of his thoughts
Have set the world's face after him,
As one would follow clear flute notes
Heard in cool aisles of forests dim.
With loving face of child and friend
To look on as the last of earth,
God wrapt him in a robe of light,
And gave him strong immortal birth.
He looks again in the clear eyes
Of her, the love-dream of his youth,
The moonlit side of his great heart,
To whom he gave his manhood's truth.
Perfect conditions of new life
Are vibrant to his being there,--
Gone in to feel the wider thrill,
Gone in to breathe the purer air.
COMPLETENESS
Life gives us better than it takes away,--
In brighter hope, and broader, fuller day.
There is no past, but all things move and blend
In sure fulfilment of a promised end.
We leave the misty capes and vales we trod,
For the glad sunshine on the Hills of God.
To slow grand measure up the aisle of years
Move truths enfranchised from long bonds and tears.
Hands that groped darkly for the truth of things
Hold the clear signet of the King of Kings.
Broad waves that tossed in fierce white passion-heat
Fall into psalm and kiss the resting feet.
MY GARDEN WALL
I
It comforts me through all my days
To know that on this strange old earth,
On which we two found human birth,
I have a friend who cares for me.
Not a high God, serene and just,
Who from His calm sure place of bliss
Looks down from His world into this,
And burns me that I grow more white.
But just a man, so strong and dear--
How dear the stars know in the sky,
And the sweet birds as home they fly,
When evening comes, to the warm nest!
He can do things that I can not:
He builds a wall around my heart;
Some day we will not dwell apart--
A man is stronger than a girl.
II
Within the wall that he has made
I plant the seeds of life's queen flowers;
I watch them grow through pleasant hours,--
Be sure they neither droop nor fade.
Perhaps some passers-by may think:
"It only is a common wall,
Solid and square, not very tall"--
But could they look over the brink,