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 gray,--
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.
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 sevenfold 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!
LOVE
The blooming flowers, the galaxies of space,
Lie pictured in a sheeny drop of even;
And globed in one round word, on lips of grace,
Shine out the best of earth and all of heaven.
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!
"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.
I am the living thrill
And fire of poet and seer,
The breath of man's goodwill,
The Father near;
Am end of the way men grope,
Core of the ceaseless strife,
I am man's bread of hope,
Water of life.
I am the root of faith,
Substance of vision, too,
The spirit shadowed in wraith,
Urim in dew.
I am the soul's white Sun,
Love's slain, enthronëd Lamb,
I am the Holy One,
I am I AM.
THE VEILED PRESENCE
An ashen gray touched faint my night-dark room,
I flung my window wide to the whispering lawn--
Great God! I saw the 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.
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 kist 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_?
GLORY-ROSES
"Only a penny, Sir!"--
A child held to my view
A bunch of "glory-roses," red
As blood, and wet with dew.
(O earnest little face,
With living light in eye,
Your roses are too fair for earth,
And you seem of the sky!)
"My beauties, Sir!" he said,
"Only a penny, too!"--
His face shone in their ruddy glow
A Rafael cherub true.
"Yestreen their hoods were close
About their faces tight,
But ere the sun was up, I saw
That God had come last night.
O, Sir, to see them then!
The bush was all aflame!--
O yes, they're glory-roses, Sir,
That is their holy name.
Only a penny, sir!"--
Heaven seemed across the way!
I took the red, red beauties home--
Roses to me for aye!
For aye, that radiant voice
As if from heaven it came--
"O yes, they're glory-roses, Sir,
That is their holy name!"
THE CARVEN SHORES
How bold the Imagination and how strong
That makes so rich with carven-work these shores!
More gorgeous they than Oriental throng--
What altar-pomps, and rough with beaten ores!
These great events, once fluid as a song,
Now gates uplift, e'en His authentic doors!
(His stay no tent is for-a-night along
The murmuring floods and boisterous battle-roars.)
The wedge of frost, and beetle wave, sand blast,
With stroke of pencil-sun, and wash of rain,
Outline unsearchable and shadow vast!
And evermore, as moons grow or decline,
The whirl and speed of tidal lathe and plane
Shaping chaotic mass to forms divine!
WALTER A. RATCLIFFE
WANTED
Wanted, a stalwart man!
The man who, when he knows the Right,
The same pursues against all Might;
The man who dares to stand alone
For Conscience' sake when Hope is gone;
Who dares to leave a beaten path,
And live within the light he hath,
Nor shrinks to strike a deadly blow
At Error found in friend or foe:
This is the stalwart man.
Wanted, an honest man!
A man may live within the laws,
Or 'scape their grasp through flimsy flaws,
But he who scorns an action mean,
Is honest where he is not seen,
Nor dares advance at others' cost,
Counts all ill-gotten wealth as lost,
Ne'er grudges each his fullest due,
Whose word as is his oath is true:
This is the honest man.
Wanted, a noble man!
Not one who from a favored place
Claims kindred with a worn-out race;
Whose empty titles, ancient name,
Are all his wealth, are all his fame;
But one whose usefulness men see,
Though humble may his station be;
For such will bless on every hand
His friend, his home, his native land:
This is the noble man.
Wanted, the broader man!
Untrammelled by a narrow creed
That loves to make its doubters bleed;
The man who learns from nature's plan
That man should love his fellowman;
The man whose soul, so deep and true,
Embraces all as brothers too;
The man whom none may buy with pelf,
The man delivered from himself:
Such is the needed man.
JOHN READE
RIZPAH
It is growing dark.
At such a sunset I have been with Saul--
But saw it not. I only saw his eyes
And the wild beauty of his roaming locks,
And--oh! there never was a man like Saul!
Strong arm, and gentle heart and tender ways
To win a woman's very soul, were his.
When he would take my hand and look on me,
And whisper "Rizpah"--ah! those days are gone!
Why should I weep? was I not loved by Saul?
And Saul was king of all the Land of God.
"God save the king!" But, hush! what noise was that?
Oh heaven! to think a mother's eyes should look
On such a sight! Away! vile carrion-beast!
Those are the sons of Saul,--poor Rizpah's sons.
O my dead darlings! O my only joy!
O sweet twin treasure of my lonely life,
Since that most mournful day upon Gilboa,
Torn from me thus!
I have no tears to shed.
O God! my heart is broken! Let me die!
* * * * *
Gilboa! David wrote a song on it,
And had it put in _Jasher_--"Weep for Saul."
Armoni used to sing it to his harp.
Poor blackened lips!...
I wonder if they dream,
My pretty children....
Come, Mephibosheth,
Here is your father; say "God save the king!"
The Gibeonites! Ah! that was long ago.
Why should they die for what they never did?
No; David never would consent to that?
* * * * *
Whose son is he, this youth? Dost know him, Abner?
Ha, ha! they shout again "God save the king!"
* * * * *
Was I asleep? I came not here to sleep.
O poor old eyes, sorrow has made you weak.
My sons! No, nought has touched them. O, how cold!
Cold, cold! O stars of God, have pity on me,
Poor lonely woman! O my sons, Saul's sons!
Kind stars, watch with me; let no evil beast
Rend that dear flesh. O God of Israel,
Pardon my sins! My heart is broken!
PICTURES OF MEMORY
I
Here is the old church. Now I see it all--
The hills, the sea, the bridge, the waterfall.
The dear old sleepy town is still abed
Although the eastern clouds are tinged with red.
And everything is as this graveyard still,
Except the soldiers at their morning drill,
And in the Pool a fishing boat or two
Belated, homeward pulled with weary oar,
And the dim curlews on the distant shore,
And the lark soaring through the ether blue.
But now the lazy smoke curls through the air--
I will go down and see who tenant there,
And meet old friends. "First, wanderer, look around
And see what friends of thine are underground!"
II
The mountains gather round thee as of yore,
O holy lake, across whose tranquil breast
Was borne the saint who to the farthest west
Brought the sweet knowledge that transcends all lore.
There on the islet at the chapel door
The penitents are kneeling, while along
There flows the mystic tide of sacred song
To where I stand upon the rugged shore.
But now there is a silence weird and dread--
And utter loneliness is in my heart.
I came to seek the living but the dead--
This is _their_ welcome. Slowly I depart,
Nor read the name beneath a single cross--
He still is rich who doth not know his loss.
III
There is the school-house; there the lake, the lawn;
And there, just fronting it, the barrack square;
But of all those I knew not one is there--
Even the old gate-keeper--he is gone.
Ah, me! ah, me! when last I stood upon
This grassy mound, with what proud hopes elate
I was to wrestle with the strength of fate
And conquer! Now--I live and that is all.
Oh! happier those whose lot it was to fall
In noble conflict with their country's foes
Far on the shores of Taurie Chersonese!
Nay, all are blest who answer duty's call.
But--do I dream or wake? What ghosts are these?
Hush, throbbing heart! _these_ are the sons of _those_.
IV
Oh! what could wake to life that first sweet flame
That warmed my heart when by the little bay
On blissful summer evenings I lay
Beneath our thorn-bush, waiting till she came
Who was to me far more than wealth or fame,
But yet for whom I wished all fair things mine,
To make her, if she could be, more divine
By outer splendor and a noble name.
Now I may wait in vain from early morn
Till sunset for the music of her feet.
And yet how little change has come upon
This fairy scene her beauty made so sweet!
It weareth still the glory of her smile.
Ah! if she were but here a little while.
IN MY HEART
In my heart are many chambers through which I wander free;
Some are furnished, some are empty, some are sombre, some are
light;
Some are open to all comers, and of some I keep the key,
And I enter in the stillness of the night.
But there's one I never enter,--it is closed to even me!
Only once its door was opened, and it shut forevermore;
And though sounds of many voices gather round it, like a sea,
It is silent, ever silent as the shore.
In that chamber long ago my love's casket was concealed,
And the jewel that it sheltered I knew only one could win;
And my soul foreboded sorrow, should that jewel be revealed,
And I almost hoped that none might enter in.
Yet day and night I lingered by that fatal chamber door,
Till--she came at last, my darling one, of all the earth my own;
And she entered--and she vanished with my jewel, which she wore;
And the door was closed--and I was left alone.
She gave me back no jewel, but the spirit of her eyes
Shone with tenderness a moment, as she closed that chamber door,
And the memory of that moment is all I have to prize--
But that, at least, is mine forevermore.
Was she conscious, when she took it, that the jewel was my love?
Did she think it but a bauble she might wear or toss aside?
I know not, I accuse not, but I hope that it may prove
A blessing, though she spurn it in her pride.
TO LOUIS FRECHETTE[A]
O gifted son of our dear land and thine,
We joy with thee on this thy joyous day,
And in thy laurel crown would fain entwine
A modest wreath of our own simple bay!
Shamrock and thistle and sweet roses gay,
Both red and white, with parted lips that smile,
Like some bright maiden of their native isle--
These, with the later maple, take, we pray,
To mingle with thy laurelled lily, long
Pride of the brave and theme of poet's song.
They err who deem us aliens. Are not we
Bretons and Normans, too? North, south and west
Gave us, like you, of blood and speech their best,
Here, re-united, one great race to be.
[A] On the occasion of his poems being crowned by the French
Academy.
KINGS OF MEN
As hills seem Alps, when veiled in misty shroud,
Some men seem kings, through mists of ignorance;
Must we have darkness, then, and cloud on cloud,
To give our hills and pigmy kings a chance?
Must we conspire to curse the humbling light,
Lest some one, at whose feet our fathers bowed,
Should suddenly appear, full length, in sight,
Scaring to laughter the adoring crowd?
Oh, no! God send us light!--Who loses then?
The king of slaves, and not the king of men.
True kings are kings for ever, crowned of God,
The King of Kings,--we need not fear for them.
'Tis only the usurper's diadem
That shakes at touch of light, revealing fraud.
DOMINION DAY
Canada, Canada, land of the maple,
Queen of the forest and river and lake,
Open thy soul to the voice of thy people,
Close not thy heart to the music they make.
Bells, chime out merrily,
Trumpets, call cheerily,
Silence is vocal, and sleep is awake!
Canada, Canada, land of the beaver,
Labor and skill have their triumph to-day;
Oh! may the joy of it flow like a river,
Wider and deeper as time flies away.
Bells, chime out merrily,
Trumpets, call cheerily,
Science and industry laugh and are gay.
Canada, Canada, land of the snow-bird,
Emblem of constancy change cannot kill,
Faith, that no strange cup has ever unsobered,
Drinketh, to-day, from love's chalice her fill.
Bells, chime out merrily,
Trumpets, call cheerily,
Loyalty singeth and treason is still!
Canada, Canada, land of the bravest,
Sons of the war-path, and sons of the sea,
Land of no slave-lash, to-day thou enslavest
Millions of hearts with affection for thee.
Bells, chime out merrily,
Trumpets, call cheerily,
Let the sky ring with the shout of the free.
Canada, Canada, land of the fairest,
Daughters of snow that is kissed by the sun,
Binding the charms of all lands that are rarest,
Like the bright cestus of Venus in one!
Bells, chime out merrily,
Trumpets, call cheerily,
A new reign of beauty on earth is begun!
ROBERT REID
POESIE
Whence comes the charm that broods along thy shore,
O sunny land of song? What potent thrall,
Reckless of ocean's rise, or flow, or fall,
Holds us about thy marge for evermore?
Here, where the long wave breaks in measured time,
And fills our being with its rhythmic moan,
From far inland the glories of thy zone
Burst on our view, and beckon us to climb.
Shades of the mighty dead! whose snowy towers
Stud the deep gorges and the wooded braes,
Is there no nook for cots so small as ours?
No tree whereof we yet might gather bays?
But to be with thee, and to hear the wave
Roll music round the land, is all we crave.
A SONG OF CANADA
Sing me a song of the great Dominion!
Soul-felt words for a patriot's ear!
Ring out boldly the well-turned measure,
Voicing your notes that the world may hear;
Here is no starveling--Heaven-forsaken--
Shrinking aside where the Nations throng;
Proud as the proudest moves she among them--
Worthy is she of a noble song!
Sing me the might of her giant mountains,
Baring their brows in the dazzling blue;
Changeless alone, where all else changes,
Emblems of all that is grand and true:
Free as the eagles around them soaring;
Fair as they rose from their Maker's hand;
Shout, till the snow-caps catch the chorus--
The white-topp'd peaks of our mountain land!
Sing me the calm of her tranquil forests,
Silence eternal, and peace profound,
Into whose great heart's deep recesses
Breaks no tempest, and comes no sound;
Face to face with the death-like stillness,
Here, if at all, man's soul might quail:
Nay! 'tis the love of that great peace leads us
Thither, where solace will never fail!
Sing me the pride of her stately rivers,
Cleaving their way to the far-off sea;
Glory of strength in their deep-mouth'd music--
Glory of mirth in their tameless glee.
Hark! 'tis the roar of the tumbling rapids;
Deep unto deep through the dead night calls;
Truly, I hear but the voice of Freedom
Shouting her name from her fortress walls!
Sing me the joy of her fertile prairies,
League upon league of the golden grain:
Comfort, housed in the smiling homestead--
Plenty, throned on the lumbering wain.
Land of Contentment! May no strife vex you,
Never war's flag on your plains unfurl'd;
Only the blessings of mankind reach you--
Finding the food for a hungry world!
Sing me the charm of her blazing camp-fires;
Sing me the quiet of her happy homes,
Whether afar 'neath the forest arches,
Or in the shade of the city's domes;
Sing me her life, her loves, her labors;
All of a mother a son would hear;
For when a lov'd one's praise is sounding,
Sweet are the strains to the lover's ear.
Sing me the worth of each Canadian--
Roamer in wilderness, toiler in town--
Search earth over you'll find none stauncher,
Whether his hands be white or brown;
Come of a right good stock to start with,
Best of the world's blood in each vein;
Lords of ourselves, and slaves to no one,
For us or from us, you'll find we're--MEN!
Sing me the song, then; sing it bravely;
Put your soul in the words you sing;
Sing me the praise of this glorious country--
Clear on the ear let the deep notes ring.
Here is no starveling--Heaven-forsaken--
Crouching apart where the Nations throng;
Proud as the proudest moves she among them--
Well is she worthy a noble song!
CHARLES GEORGE DOUGLAS ROBERTS
A NOCTURNE OF CONSECRATION
I talked about you, Dear, the other night,
Having myself alone with my delight.
Alone with dreams and memories of you,
All the divine-houred summer stillness through
I talked of life, of love the always new,
Of tears, and joy,--yet only talked of you.
To the sweet air
That breathed upon my face
The spirit of lilies in a leafy place,
Your breath's caress, the lingering of your hair,
I said--"In all your wandering through the dusk,
Your waitings on the marriages of flowers
Through the long, intimate hours
When soul and sense, desire and love confer,
You must have known the best that God has made.
What do you know of Her?"
Said the sweet air--
"Since I have touched her lips,
Bringing the consecration of her kiss,
Half passion and half prayer,
And all for you,
My various lore has suffered an eclipse.
I have forgot all else of sweet I know."
To the wise earth,
Kind, and companionable, and dewy cool,
Fair beyond words to tell, as you are fair,
And cunning past compare
To leash all heaven in a windless pool,
I said--"The mysteries of death and birth
Are in your care.
You love, and sleep; you drain life to the lees;
And wonderful things you know.
Angels have visited you, and at your knees
Learned what I learn forever at her eyes,
The pain that still enhances Paradise.
You in your breast felt her first pulses stir;
And you have thrilled to the light touch of her feet,
Blindingly sweet.
Now make me wise with some new word of Her."
Said the wise earth--
"She is not all my child.
But the wild spirit that rules her heart-beats wild
Is of diviner birth,
And kin to the unknown light beyond my ken.
All I can give to Her have I not given?
Strength to be glad, to suffer, and to know;
The sorcery that subdues the souls of men;
The beauty that is as the shadow of heaven;
The hunger of love
And unspeakable joy thereof.
And these are dear to Her because of you.
You need no word of mine to make you wise
Who worship at her eyes
And find there life and love forever new!"
To the white stars,
Eternal and all-seeing,
In their wide home beyond the wells of being,
I said--"There is a little cloud that mars
The mystical perfection of her kiss.
Mine, mine, She is,
As far as lip to lip, and heart to heart,
And spirit to spirit when lips and hands must part,
Can make her mine. But there is more than this,--
More, more of Her to know.
For still her soul escapes me unaware,
To dwell in secret where I may not go.
Take, and uplift me. Make me wholly Hers."
Said the white stars, the heavenly ministers,--
"This life is brief, but it is only one.
Before to-morrow's sun
For one or both of you it may be done.
This love of yours is only just begun.
Will all the ecstasy that may be won
Before this life its little course has run
At all suffice
The love that agonizes in your eyes?
Therefore be wise.
Content you with the wonder of love that lies
Between her lips and underneath her eyes.
If more you should surprise,
What would be left to hope from Paradise?
In other worlds expect another joy
Of Her, which blundering fate shall not annoy,
Nor time nor change destroy."
So, Dear, I talked the long, divine night through,
And felt you in the chrismal balms of dew.
The thing then learned
Has ever since within my bosom burned--
One life is not enough for love of you.
A NOCTURNE OF SPIRITUAL LOVE
Sleep, sleep, imperious heart! Sleep, fair and undefiled!
Sleep, and be free!
Come in your dreams at last, comrade and queen and child,--
At last to me.
Come, for the honeysuckle calls you out of the night.
Come, for the air
Calls with a tyrannous remembrance of delight,
Passion and prayer.
Sleep, sovereign heart! And now--for dream and memory
Endure no door,--
My spirit undenied goes where my feet, to thee,
Have gone before.
A moonbeam or a breath, above thine eyes I bow,
Silent, unseen,
But not, ah not unknown! Thy spirit knows me now
Where I have been.
Surely my long desire upon thy soul hath power.
Surely for this
Thy sleep shall breathe thee forth, soul of the lily flower,
Under my kiss.
Sleep, body wonderful! Wake, spirit wise and wild,
White and divine!
Here is our heaven of dreams, O dear and undefiled,
All thine, all mine.
AN ODE FOR THE CANADIAN CONFEDERACY
Awake, my country, the hour is great with change!
Under this gloom which yet obscures the land,
From ice-blue strait and stem Laurentian range
To where giant peaks our western bounds command,
A deep voice stirs, vibrating in men's ears
As if their own hearts throbbed that thunder forth,
A sound wherein who hearkens wisely hears
The voice of the desire of this strong North,--
This North whose heart of fire
Yet knows not its desire
Clearly, but dreams, and murmurs in the dream.
The hour of dreams is done. Lo, on the hills the gleam!
Awake, my country, the hour of dreams is done!
Doubt not, nor dread the greatness of thy fate.
Tho' faint souls fear the keen confronting sun,
And fain would bid the morn of splendor wait;
Tho' dreamers, rapt in starry visions, cry
"Lo, yon thy future, yon thy faith, thy fame!"
And stretch vain hands to stars, thy fame is nigh,
Here in Canadian hearth, and home, and name;--
This name which yet shall grow
Till all the nations know
Us for a patriot people, heart and hand
Loyal to our native earth, our own Canadian land!