Transcriber’s Notes:
Underscores “_” before and after a word or phrase indicate _italics_
in the original text.
Small capitals have been converted to SOLID capitals.
Typographical errors have been silently corrected.
Footnotes have been moved to the end of the poem in which they occur.
GEORGE MARTIN’S
POEMS.
MARGUERITE;
OR, THE ISLE OF DEMONS
AND OTHER POEMS
BY
GEORGE MARTIN.
MONTREAL:
DAWSON BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS.
1887.
Entered according to Act of Parliament of Canada in the year 1886,
by GEORGE MARTIN, in the Office of the Minister of Agriculture.
GAZETTE PRINT, MONTREAL.
TO
A TRUE WOMAN, IN WHOM ARE UNITED THE
MANY VIRTUES WHICH ADORN HER SEX,
WITH A STRENGTH OF INTELLECT
RARELY SURPASSED,
THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED
BY HER HUSBAND
PREFACE.
The poems in this volume have been written at various periods of a
busy life, and are widely separated in date of composition. Most of
the minor poems have appeared in Canadian periodicals, and some of
them have the local colour of the city in which they were written. The
poem most recent in date is _Marguerite_, which has been written under
conditions more favourable than the rest, and which appears now for the
first time. The poems have been inspired by the history and the scenery
of Canada, and in collecting them, and in issuing and publishing them,
the author hopes to put in permanent literary form some of the natural
and social aspects which are peculiar to this country.
MONTREAL, Nov., 1886.
CONTENTS.
PAGE.
PREFATORY NOTE 4
SONNET TO LOVE 6
MARGUERITE, OR THE ISLE OF DEMONS 8
EUDORA 79
THE VOICE OF THE AGES 88
THE WOODLAND WALK 90
THE STREET WAIF 94
THE SONG OF A GLORIFIED SPIRIT 100
BOUND TO THE WHEEL 103
THE APPLE WOMAN 106
ON MOUNT ROYAL 111
MAIDEN LONGINGS 117
ASPIRATION 119
THE HAWK AND THE SPARROW 123
CELESTINE 129
TO A YOUNG LADY 131
BETRAYED 134
EPITHALAMIUM 137
IN THE WOODS OF ST. LEON 147
THE LOVER’S DREAM 149
THE HEROES OF VILLE-MARIE 153
CHANGE ON THE OTTAWA 161
THE BLIND MINSTREL OF THE MARKET PLACE 167
TO W. H. MAGEE 173
LINES ON RECOVERING FROM ILLNESS 178
HALLOWEEN IN CANADA 181
ETHEL 192
KEATS 195
THE CRISIS 198
IN MEMORY OF JOSEPH GUIBORD 201
“IT MOVES” 204
SUPERSTITION 207
VIGER SQUARE 208
1881 210
DESPONDENT 211
THOMAS D’ARCY McGEE 213
THE NEWS-BOY 215
CHARLES HEAVYSEGE 219
BOOKS 222
THE DRUNKARD 224
A NIGHT ON THE SKATING RINK 227
JACK FROST’S HAPPY DREAM 231
MONTREAL CARNIVAL SPORTS 234
PETER WIMPLE’S COURTSHIP 242
FEAR OF BLINDNESS 269
UNKNOWN 271
FLORAL ENVOY 273
ON THE DEATH OF A VETERAN JOURNALIST 276
HEART-HUNGER 277
TO A YOUNG AUTHOR ON HIS BIRTHDAY 278
TO G. I., AT STRATFORD-ON-AVON 279
MERCY 280
LOVE AND DEATH 281
MARGUERITE.
PREFATORY NOTE.
The story narrated in the following poem is one of the most touching
of the many romantic legends of the early history of Canada. Some
foundation in fact it undoubtedly has, for it forms the basis of one
of the stories in the collection of Queen Margaret of Navarre, written
while the chief actors in the tragedy were alive. The version of Queen
Margaret differs from that of Thevet in many respects. He gives for his
authorities Roberval and the unfortunate Marguerite herself.
Parkman, in the first volume of his admirable series of histories—the
Pioneers of New France—gives the story as related by Thevet. The
subject readily lends itself to poetical treatment, and, if the
heroine in the poem is made to put a more favourable construction upon
her conduct than the chronicler, it is surely no more than, as the
narrator of her own story, she might have a right to do. The harsh and
tyrannical character of Roberval is drawn in dark lines by Parkman. His
cruelties, in the short lived colony at Cap Rouge, were such than even
the Indians were moved to pity for his victims. On his return to France
he was assassinated at night in the streets of Paris, probably by the
hand of one who had suffered from his tyranny.
In these prosaic days of ocean steamers, cable telegraphs and
light-houses, it is difficult to realize the mystery which, in old
days, enshrouded the shores of the Western continent. The imaginations
of the daring sailors who in their little vessels explored the stormy
seas of the West, teemed with stories of dangers, spiritual as well
as physical. In those days of supernaturalism, Satan might well stand
guard over the great world, where, until then, he had held undivided
sway. This Isle of Demons was one of his outposts. On Wytfliet’s Map
(1597), _I. de las Demonios_ is laid down to the North of Newfoundland,
but too far out of Roberval’s course to be the island of our story. It
is necessary to the narrative that the island in question should be in
the regular route of vessels, and, as the earliest course of sailors to
the Gulf of St. Lawrence was by the straits of Belle Isle, some of the
islands which shelter the harbours of Labrador would probably have been
the scene of the events narrated. Jean Alphonse of Saintonge, who was
Roberval’s first pilot, no doubt indicates the island of our heroine’s
trials under the name of _Isles de la Demoiselle_ in latitude 50° 45′,
and he says there is a good harbour there. This name clung for a long
time to the locality and is found on many old maps. To-day the most
important of the group is known as Grand Meccatina Island.
SONNET.
O Love! thou art the soul’s fixed star, whose light—
A rapture felt through all the rolling years,—
Absorbs with silent touch the mourner’s tears,
A guide, a glory through our mortal night;—
All other passions, be they dark or bright,
All high desires are but thy subject spheres,
And captive servitors, whose pathway veers,
Obedient to thine all-pervading might;—
And therefore I no hesitation make
In choosing thee, a theme accounted old,
Yet ever young, and for poor Marguerite’s sake
I trust some kind remembrance to awake
That shall in tenderest clasp her story hold,
Even as a rose a drop of dew doth fold.
MARGUERITE
OR THE ISLE OF DEMONS.
The interior of a Convent in France: Group of Nuns
listening to Marguerite narrating her adventure.
1545.
PART I.
You ask me, Sisters, to relate
The story of the wanton fate
That over sea, with dole and strife
And love and hate enthralled my life,
Entwined with his, whose gentle eyes,
That never lost their winsome smile,
Illumed for me those sullen skies
Which canopy the haunted Isle,
A tale so wild, I pray you think,
May ill beseem and prove amiss
For such a hallowed place as this;
A chain it is whose every link
Is rusted with some earthly stain,
The which you may esteem profane
And from its hapless wearer shrink,
I would not, Heaven knows, offend
The sanctity of sinless ears,
Nor vex the pious soul that hears
Good angels on soft wings descend,
Illumined, from the starry spheres,
To tread these cloistered aisles and bend
O’er dreaming couches lily pure.
But since your suffrance makes secure,
And since you kindly deign assent,
And graciously with eager look
Dispel the fluttering fears that shook
My contrite heart, I am content.
_Ave Maria._
Mystic Mother! who erewhile
Sought me on the Demons’ Isle,
Sought, and with compassion mild
Shielded thy afflicted child;
Shielded, and with vengeance new
Scattered the Satanic crew:
Blest Madonna! aid me now,
Lift the pressure from my brow;
Bid the thunder-cloud depart
From my overladen heart;
Tune my tongue, my lips inspire,
Touch them with celestial fire;
Shape the lay as meet to set,
Like a modest violet,
In Saint Cecilia’s coronet.
Three gallant ships that owned command
Of Roberval’s imperial hand
Thundered to France a proud farewell
And sailed away from brusque Rochelle;
Sailed on a breezy April day,
Sailed westward for a land that lay,
I heard the people wisely tell,
Betwixt the ocean and Cathay.
From shore to ship, from ship to shore
A thousand parting signals flew;
Ah! hopeful hearts, they little knew
That many were there who never more
Must see those faces that faded away,
And were lost in the distance cold and gray.
With troubled breast and tearful eye,
In fear and doubt, I knew not why—
Unheedful of the sea-winds chill—
I watched the land recede until
The mountain peaks had passed from sight,
Like clouds absorbed in morning’s light,
And ocean’s border touched the sky.
Long backward, over leagues of foam,
My greyhound gazed,—poor _Fida_ knew
That he was borne afar from home,
But not from friends, albeit few,
His still, for better days or worse,
His mistress and her Norman nurse.
Far, out beyond the shining bay,
The sister vessels held their way,
Where, gifted with superior speed,
The “Royal Griffin” takes the lead,
As if she felt and understood
The stern old Viceroy’s hasty mood.
A man of courteous mien was he,
And smooth as any summer sea
When winds are laid; he could be so
When naught befell to rouse the flow
Of passions that with scanty rest
Lay lava-like within his breast.
But Heaven fend or man or woman
Who set that fiery flood in motion;—
His anger, like a storm-tossed ocean,
Was fearful in its rage; no human
Expostulation, no appeal
Of speech, or tears, could make him feel
The benediction that is felt
By one whose soul, if prone to error,
Will yield at last and kindly melt,
And lay aside its robe of terror.
He could be calm, could well repress
His evil nature’s fierce excess,
But only when upon him fell
The shadow of superior power,
Then like all tyrants he would cower
And play the courtier passing well.
But no superior save the king
Had he in all the land of France;
In Picardy, his single glance
Was law, religion, everything.
His vassals prized his slightest nod,
And feared him more than fiend or God.
The modest maid, the peasant’s bride
His foul approaches must not chide;
I blush, as if it were a sin,
To own him all too near of kin.
Seven sunny years had barely flown
When I, an only child, was left,
Of sire and happy home bereft,
To wipe a mother’s tears alone.
A leader in the wars with Spain,
The hero whom we wept was slain.
Oh! I remember well his look,
His stature tall and noble brow,
Remember how he often strook
And praised my long dark hair, and how
On that last morn of clouded bliss
He woke me with a parting kiss;
His hurried prayer, his slow farewell,
The window flowers, the little room,
The dangling sword, the nodding plume,
The long top-boots and shining spurs;—
O, let this pass! O, let me quell
A memory shot through years of gloom.
My comely mother from the hour
That chronicled his honoured death
Wilted and drooped, a pale sweet flower,
And three years gone I saw her breath
Grow faint and fail. Dear sainted mother!
’Twas just before her spirit fled
She did beseech her lordly brother
To shield her orphaned Marguerite’s head.
He promised with a ready grace
And in his rude capricious way
Thenceforth assigned me fitting place;—
But I was volatile and gay,
Ready of wit, of skilful hands,
And minded not his curt commands.
Thus came to pass that on his ship,—
A ringdove in a falcon’s grip,—
I sailed the surging seas afar.
But one was there, Eugene Lamar,
My bliss, my bane—I cared not what,
Who worshipped me, beside me sat,
And with me paced the giddy deck,
What time we watched the sea-mews peck
The foam that fringed the crested wave.
For me he ventured all, and gave
His fortune to the winds; then why
Should aught disturb, or cause one sigh
To prophesy of lurking harm?
Exultant in their new-found charm,
A motley throng of either sex,
Of divers rank and variant age
Now promenade the oaken decks,
Proud of an ocean pilgrimage.
We heeded not their boisterous glee,
Their merry songs and dancing feet,
Our happiness was too complete.
The azure sky and emerald sea,
And free-born winds their magic wrought,
Till every feeling, every thought,
Involved in tremulous ecstacy
Made no account of sight or sound;—
We twain another world had found,
Whose warm excess of drowsing bliss
Excluded all the chills of this.
Our ship sped on, fresh blew the wind,
Her plodding mates lagged far behind;
Like two white cloudlets waxing dim
They hung on the horizon’s rim
For many days, but hull and mast
All wholly disappeared at last.
Mid-ocean crossed, the wind blew strong
And like a Nereid’s dolorous song
Wailed through the rigging; rose and fell
The billows with portentous swell.
Swift night came down, cold, wild and black,
Red lightnings lit the inky rack
Of hostile clouds; a storm it grew,
And such a storm as men might rue.
The prince of air his bondage broke,
And loud in horrent thunder spoke;
Our staunch craft felt the perilous strain,
And like a thing in mortal pain
Groaned audibly; strong sails, though furled,
Were rent in shreds
From their ash spar beds
And wafted to some calmer world.
Two seamen from the yards were blown:
An instant mid the tempest’s roar,
Above the rattling thunder’s tone,
A double shriek was heard—no more!—
Their names, their fate, no stone records,
For them no consecrated words,
Nor bell, nor candle;—only this,
“Two mortals, to the world unknown
Were blown into the salt abyss.”
All night the elements beset
Our hapless bark; the mad waves leaped
Like krakens on the deck, and reaped
A harvest which they garner yet.
Fierce down the hatchways snarled the sea,
I heard the shout of Roberval
Command them closed; ah me! ah me!
What prayers! what shrieks! I never shall,
While memory marks the flight of years,
Forget that storm of phrenzied fears.
Think not our sex alone gave way
To craven doubt and blanched despair;—
Great burly men, whose heads were gray,
Gave wildest wings to desperate prayer.
I dare believe they felt ashamed,—
The blessed Saints whose names were named
In phrase that seemed impiety.
What marvel if at such a time
My lover groped his way to where
My couch was spread, and tarried there?
Was such devotedness a crime?
Together on the floor we knelt
In quiet hopefulness, and felt
Assurance in our souls that He,
Who walked the waves of Galilee,
When, weak of faith and sore afraid,
The sinking Peter cried for aid,
Would manifest His sacred will;
Would stretch His saving hand and bind
The fury of the maddened wind,
And bid the savage waves be still.
My greyhound, ever near me, took
A painful and bewildered look;
All that dread night the narrow space
He traversed with unwearied pace.
The imminent danger well he knew,
And watched the changes of my face,
And moaned at its unwonted hue.
The morn broke fair but other storm,
More dreadful than the wrath of heaven,
Or rage of hell, began to form;
The high-bred gossips, envy-driven
Did look askance, and whisper blame,
And young Lamar’s and Marguerite’s name
Were caught at, with but slight excuse,
As playthings for their wanton use.
Soon drifting round my uncle’s ears
The idle tale in wrath he hears,
And starting from his proud repose
His fury like a whirlwind rose
And suddenly upon us burst.
I heard my name most foully curst
And coupled with a word of shame;
My tear-drenched cheeks grew all aflame;
Beside me, where I trembling stood,
My watchful _Fida_ whined and growled;
The glaring maniac on him scowled,
His eyes two throbbing balls of blood,
And choking with some fiery word,
Drew forth and waved his gleaming sword,
Then smote the faithful brute;—his neck
Received the edge; athwart the deck
The severed head the slayer spurned:
O God! I saw a sea of gore,
From which my eyes in horror turned;—
I swooned and wrecked of nothing more.
When from that death-like sleep I woke
Lamar’s moist eyes were near my face,
Some tender words he softly spoke,—
My languid arms his neck embrace,
My lips their wonted banquet share,
And breathe again the vital air.
Ah! never since that hour when whirled
Around with me a crimson world
Have I forgot or ceased to mourn
The playmate of my childhood’s years;
(Pardon, I pray, these silly tears.)
His long slim neck had often borne
My cheek, when tired with romping play
Under a chestnut’s shade we lay,
His taper head flexed backward, till
His loving eyes had gazed their fill.
Harsh prelude this! a warning fit
Of coming woes. The brow hard-knit,
The curling lip and heaving chest
Of Roberval presaged the rest.
But what his dark design might be
Eluded anxious scrutiny;
We only knew some purpose dire,
Like a swollen adder cirqued with fire,
Lay coiled within his vengeful heart,
Ready against our lives to dart.
“Fear not, my love!” Eugene exclaimed,
“Faint not, true heart! whose peace is spilt;
The evil tongues that have defamed
Thy innocence shall own their guilt.
If blame there be ’tis I alone
Have erred, nor do I shrink to bear
Thy kinsman’s wrath, but how atone
For wrong committed unaware?
Let unjust Roberval decree
What punishment his ire may crave;
However tends his evil course,
He cannot, dearest one, divorce
My constant soul from thine—from thee,
For even from the silent grave
I verily believe my love
Would issue through the cope above,
And mingling with the volant air
Pursue thy beauty always, where
On any spot of land or sea
My Marguerite might chance to be.”
His voice failed—tremulous, his eyes
Such passion held as well might save
A world from wreck; our wedded sighs
Made interlude to honied speech,
And bound us closer, each to each.
On flew the ship; a bounteous gale
Fed to repletion every sail,
And Tethys, turbulent no more,
Advanced her banners, green and white,
(In sooth it was a goodly sight)
Toward the wild Hesperian shore.
At length glad signs of land were seen,
Strange birds, a friendly escort, came
And perched upon the spars, so tame,
So numbed and wearied with the keen
Cold journey it had been no feat
To clasp their wings; but who could treat
Those little rovers of the sea,
That claimed our hospitality,
With less than Christian charity?
Westward across the ridgy waste
My uncle gazed as if in haste
To reach the promised port, but no!—
His thought to other ends was set,
As soon the traitor meant to show.
With sudden stride, his hot brow wet
In oozing wrath, he gave command:
“Steer north-by-west!” The wonderland
Of Nurumbega hove in sight,
And outlined in a purple light
The dreaded _Isle of Demons_ lay;
Thither the _Griffin_ bore away.
I saw the treacherous villain smile,
And as the ship was drawing near
The marge of that unholy Isle
I saw the sailors quake with fear.
A boat was launched, provisioned, stored
With arms and ammunition, oared
And quickly manned;—for what? for where
Let my false guardian’s tongue declare.
“Go! wretched girl,” he fiercely said,
As, from the ship, myself and nurse
He hurried, “go, and take my curse,
All evil light upon thy head!
Hence to the _Demons’ Isle_, a place
Than which, save hell, there is no worse,
And ponder o’er thy rank disgrace;
There only foul-faced devils dwell,
As every seaman here can tell.
Hence! and prefer thy dainty charms
To glad some princely demon’s arms.
Dishonour on my house, my name,
Confusion, everlasting shame,
Thou and thy paramour have wrought;
For him, I swear he shall be taught
What torture means;—the crippled crone
Who all your secret sins has known
And pandered to, let her partake
The punishment assigned to you,
A penance to such service due.
And when your threads of life shall break,
Then may you both for ages ache,
Conjoined in purgatorial fires,
Sure antidote to lewd desires.”
His insults pierced like barbs of steel;
My patience I no longer nursed,
I bade the tyrant do his worst:—
O, if he thought to see me kneel,
And for his mercy humbly sue,
’Twas little of his niece he knew;
His curse, his terrors, I defied,
And told him in his teeth, he lied!
I even dared predict his fate;[1]
“Foredoomed,” I said, “to all men’s hate,
Like Cain or Judas thou shalt die
Unhoused, where none will pause to sigh
Denied the pity you deny.”
He winced and wondered, powerless
To check such unexpected scorn.
A strength miraculous, new born
In uncontrollable excess,
From God or fiend I questioned not,
Through all my rigid being shot.
The boat received and swiftly bore
Its convicts to the fearful shore.
There all my fortitude departed,
And lorn and lost and broken-hearted
I stood upon the windy beach,
And stretched my hands as if to reach
The idol of my widowed soul.
“Farewell! dear friend Eugene, farewell!
Those breakers that between us roll
Shall sound for me a fitting knell
When thou art borne I know not where.”
Thus did my sorrow load the air.
He saw, he seemed to hear my wail,
And springing from the forward rail
Leapt in the sea, and bravely smote
With lusty arms the foamy flood,
Oh! how my hot impetuous blood
Surged through my veins; while still remote
He battled shoreward gallantly;
Now borne upon a toppling wave,
And blinded by the surfy spray,
Now lost to sight, now seen again,
While on the ship some fearless men
Loud shouts of exultation gave;
Then others into tumult broke,
Whose cheers the Island echoes woke.
But Roberval, whose stormy face
Flamed like a furnace, fiendish, base,
With levelled arquebuse took aim
Straight at the swimmer, shrieks of “Shame!”
He heeded not; the bullets sped,
And whistled past my hero’s head.
A few more strokes and he is safe!
The jagged rocks his strong limbs chafe,
But soon the slippery sands are gained
And I am to his bosom strained.
Their coifs the women, wild with gladness,
Stripped from their heads and, in their madness,
Flung to the waves, an offering fair
In witness of the Virgin’s care,
My solace in the gulphs of sadness.
From stem to stern the furor ruled,
And Roberval, chagrined, befooled,
His sails reset, and sailed away,
But half avenged; and we were left
Of all the peopled world bereft,
To hell’s dark brood a helpless prey.
But for that he I loved was still
Linked to my fate, for good or ill,
My thanks to gracious Heaven I wept.
The poor old nurse behind us crept,
And kneeling on the salty ground,
A benediction even there,
In answer to her silent prayer,
Deep in her withered heart she found.
The ship was gone, and with it went
All hope of ever seeing more
The glory of our native shore;
I knew our cruel banishment
Was purposed for a lingering death,
A dirige of painful breath.
Was it in mercy he bestowed
The food and arms, a goodly load?
Nay, these were meant to stretch the doom
That made the Isle an open tomb.
“Mourn not—sweetheart!” Eugene began,
“Here where the sea-winds rudely fan
Thy queenly brow, a queen to me
Henceforward thou shalt truly be;
And if thou choose to reign alone
I’ll be thy faithful paladin,
And many a noble trophy win
In honour of thy virgin throne.
Then come, while yet the lord of day
Dispenses light and gentle heat,
And let us hand and hand survey
The wonders of our new retreat.
This little kingdom, Marguerite!
Encircled by the shining sea,
Is large enough for thee and me.”
’Twas thus in cheerful mood he sought
To lure the current of my thought
From cypress shades to run abroad
In pleasant ways, approved of God;
Nor sought in vain: my spirit caught
The hue, the blessedness, the glow
That love’s endearing words bestow,
And like a lark that sudden springs
From barren lands and soaring sings,
Rose heavenward on hopeful wings.
But hark! the vesper _angelus_
In holy accents, tremulous,
Now calls us to the Virgin’s shrine.
If still your wishes fair incline
To follow this capricious clue
To-morrow after open dawn
I’ll join you on the eastern lawn,
Under the lindens, and pursue
My story to its tragic close.
PART II.
The tale continued in the Convent grounds;
the same group of Nuns listening.
How softly have my limbs reposed!
Nor stormy sea, nor haunted land,
Nor sorcerer’s unhallowed wand,
Disturbed the opiate shades that closed
The sleepy avenues of sense;
And therefore I, without pretence
Of weariness or dream-wrought gloom,
My tale of yester-eve resume.
Together o’er the mystic Isle
We wandered many a sinuous mile.
’Twas midway in the month of June,
And rivulets with lisping rune,
And bowering trees of tender green,
And flowering shrubs their trunks between
Enticed our steps till gloaming gray
Upon the pathless forest lay.
Think not I journeyed void of fear;
Sir Roberval’s hot malediction
Like hurtling thunder sounded near;
Our steps the envious demons haunted,
And peeped, or seemed to peep and leer,
From rocky clefts and caverns drear.
But still defiantly, undaunted,
Eugene averred it had been held
By wise philosophers of eld
That all such sights and sounds are mere
Fantastic tricks of eye and ear,
And only meet for tales of fiction.
“Heed not,” he said, “the vicious threat,
’Twas but a ruffian’s empty talk,
The which I pray thou may’st forget
And half his evil purpose baulk.”
A silent doubt and grateful kiss
Was all I could oppose to this.
But firmer grew my steps. The air
Was laden with delicious balm;
Rich exhalations everywhere,
From pine and spruce and cedar grove,
And over all a dreamy calm,
An affluence of brooding love,
A palpable, beneficent
Sufficiency of blest content.
Amid the hours, in restful pause
We loitered on the moss-clad rocks,
And listened to the sober caws
Of lonely rooks, and watched thick flocks
Of pigeons passing overhead;
Or where the scarlet grosbeak sped,
A wingéd fire, through clumps of pine
Sent chasing looks of joy and wonder.
Blue violets and celandine,
And modest ferns that glanced from under
Gray-hooded boulders, seemed to say—
“O, tarry, gentle folk; O, stay,
For we are lonely in this wood,
And sigh for human sympathy
To cheer our days of solitude.”
Meek forest flowers, how dear to me!
I loved them, kissed them on the stem,
And felt that I must ever be
Secluded from the world like them.
The long-drawn shadows, eastward cast,
Admonished us that day was fast
Dissolving, and would soon be past;
And we must needs regain the spot
Where waited good Nanette our coming.
The chattering squirrel we heeded not,
Nor paused to list the partridge drumming.
The wedded bird was in her nest,
And knew from the suspended song
(A tribute to her listening ear)
That from the green boughs rustling near
Had trilled and warbled all day long,
A brief space only must she wait
The fondling of her chirping mate.
With some wise meaning, wise and deep
That from her eyes was fain to peep,
And wealth of words and lifted hands
Our thoughtful servitor, Nanette,
Gave kindly greeting ere we met.
“Come, children, follow me,” she said,
And silently the way she led
An arpent from the ocean sands,
Directly to a piny grove,
Where she with wondrous skill had wove
A double bower of evergreen,
Meet for a fairy king and queen.—
“There, tell your rosaries and take
A sabbath slumber; till you wake,
Nanette, hard by, will watchful stand,
With loaded arquebuse in hand,
Your trusty sentinel, for here
Some prowling beast may chance appear
On no good neighbour’s lawful quest;
To-morrow I can doze and rest.”—
Thus, voluble, my faithful Nurse.
Amazed, I stood and could not speak,
But kissed her on the brow and cheek,
And wept to think my Uncle’s curse
Should fall on her, so worn and bent,
So moved with every good intent.
A flushing joy it was to see
That double-chambered arbour fair,
Re-calling to my memory
The storied lore of things that were
My childhood’s moonlit witchery.
Next morn we sought the circling strand
And question made of wind and sea
If such a thing might ever be,
That, soon or late, from any land
Some friendly sail would come that way
And waft us thence: in vain, in vain!
The hollow wind had nought to say,
But, like a troubled ghost, passed by;—
The waste illimitable main
And awful silence of the sky
Vouchsafed no sign, made no reply.—
Oft times upon some lifted rock
That overhung the waves, we sate
And listened to the undershock
Whose sad persistency, like fate,
Made land and sea more desolate.
Again in lighter mood we trod
The yellow sands and pale-green sod
Strewn with innumerable shells,
In whose pink whorls and breathing cells
Beauty and wonder slept enshrined,
Like holy thoughts in a dreamer’s mind.
Of these sea-waifs an ample store
We gathered, and at twilight bore
The treasure to our sylvan home.
Once more the star encumbered dome
Of heaven its thrilling story told,
And Dian, lovely as of old,
Poured lavishly her pallid sheen
Upon that tranquil world of green;
Whose cool and dewy depths, now rife
With luminous and noiseless life,
Responded wide; the fire-fly race
In myriads lit their tiny lamps;
As an army’s countless camps
The warder in some woody place
At nightfall on his watch may trace;
So gleamed and flashed those mimic lamps.
The third day came. From shore to shore,
Adventurous ever more and more,
Our penal Isle we wandered o’er.—
Which way our roving fancy led,
A wilding beauty largely spread
Rewarded our ambitious feet,
And made our banishment too sweet
For further censure or repining.
Now culling flowers of dainty dyes,
Now chasing gaudy butterflies,
And now on herbaged slopes reclining,
Where purple blooms of lilac trees,
And sultry hum of hermit bees
Disarmed the hours of weariness.—
Nor can you fail, dear friends, to guess
That time for dalliance we found,—
And if we loved to an excess
In many a long involved caress,
O think how we were cribbed and bound.—
Lush nature and necessity,
As witnessed by the Saints above,
In one delicious circle wove
The pulsings of our destiny.
The great rude world was far away,
And like a troubled vision lay
Outside our thoughts; its cold deceits,
The babble of its noisy streets,
And all the selfish rivalry
That courts and castles propagate
Were alien to our new estate.—
A fragment of propitious sky,
Whereon a puff of cloud might lie,
Through verdured boughs o’er-arching seen,
And glimpses of the sea between
Far stretches of majestic trees,
Such peaceful sanctities as these
Were our abiding joyance now.
Cheerily and with lifted brow
Eugene led on, where tamaracs grew,
And where tall elms their shadows threw
Athwart a little glen wherein
A virgin brook seemed glad to win
The pressure of our thirsty lips.
Pleasant it was to linger there
And cool our fevered finger-tips
In that pellucid stream and share
The solace of the ocean breeze.
For summer heats were now aglow,
The fox sat down and took his ease,
The hare moved purposeless and slow;
But louder rang the blue jay’s scream,
The woodpeck tapped the naked tree,
Nor ceased the simple chickadee
To twitter in the noonday beam.—
My lover, wheresoe’er we strayed,
Made search in every charmed nook,
And angled in the winding brook
For all sweet flowers that love the shade
To twine for me a bridal braid.
Pale yellow lilies, nursed by rocks
Rifted and scarred by lightning shocks,
Or earthquake; river buds and pinks,
And modest snow-drops, pearly white,
And lilies of the vale unite
Their beauty in close-loving links
Around a scented woodbine fair
To coronate my dark brown hair.
The fragile fern and clover sweet
On that enchanted circlet meet;
Young roses lent their blushing hues,
Nor could the cedar leaf refuse
With helmet flowers to intertwine
Its glossy amplitude divine.—
Emerging from that solemn wood,
High on a rocky cliff we stood
At set of sun; far, far away
The splendors of departing day
Upon the barren ocean lay.—
There on that lone sea-beaten height,
Investured in a golden light,
Eugene, with looks half sad, whole sweet,
Upon my brow the garland set,
At once a chaplet and aigrette,
And said: “Be crowned, my Marguerite!
My own true soul, my ever dear
Companion in this wilderness.
Though hopeful still, I sometimes fear
That days of darkness and distress
May come to thee when woods are sere,—
When it may baffle all my skill
To guard thee from white winter’s chill;—
But hence all raven-thoughts of ill,
Let me believe that Nature will
Relax her rigour, having caught
The soft infection of those eyes
In whose blue depths my image lies,
Even as my soul, with love distraught,
Like a lone star drowned in the sea,
Is wholly drowned and lost in thee.—
Love is our own essential being,
Sole sovereign over utmost fate,
Its own sufficient laws decreeing,
Immortal and immaculate;
And when this mild ethereal flame
To mortal man was kindly given
’Twas surely meant by highest Heaven
That never aught of evil name
Should dare attempt to thwart its power.—
Then let us, dearest, from this hour
Defy the future, and pursue
The unimagined pleasure due
To such surpassing love as ours.
One moment in thy folding arms
Alone in these sequestered bowers;
One throb of thy impassioned heart,
Now speaking audibly to mine,
And saying, ‘It were death to part;’
One honey-dew caress of thine,
Out-sums a million rude alarms,
Out-lives whole centuries that weigh
On loveless souls, on sordid clay,
That gravitate to ways of shame,
And know love’s magic but by name.—
These roseate skies will change their hue;
This pomp of leaves when autumn lowers
The windy ways of earth will strew;
This aromatic crown of flowers,
Made sacred now since worn by you,
To-morrow will begin to fade.—
But love, sweet spirit, linked as ours,
By sad vicissitude o’erlaid,
Endures, unchanged by any breath
Of adverse fate, and surely will
Life’s last inevitable chill
Survive, and triumph over death.”—
Thus, eloquent, the radiant youth,
Like one inspired with sacred truth,
Fair as Adonis, o’er me breathed
The incense of pure love, and wreathed
My heart in dewy dreams of bliss.
Consenting Nature, pleased the while,
Bestowed upon her outcast Isle
The magic of a mother’s smile.
Spent Sol impressed his warmest kiss
On ocean’s brow; the wanton wind
Went sighing up and down to find
Meet objects for his soft embrace
All things to amity inclined;
Fierce bird and beast forebore to chase
Their feeble prey, as if they felt
Love’s universal breathings melt
Their savage instincts; everywhere,
Like mute enchantment in the air,
This subtle permeating power
Reigned sole. O, blest ambrosial hour!
O, halcyon days that followed after,
With music from my lute, and laughter,
And song and jest, and such full measure
Of secret love’s exhaustless treasure
As gave to pain the wings of pleasure!—
So fled our summer dream, as flies
An angel through cerulean skies
On some good errand swiftly bent,
So brief its stay that ere we wist,
Gruff Autumn, garmented in mist.
His courier winds before him sent,
The which, equipped with sleet and hail,
Beat down as with an iron flail
The grandeur of the woods, and left
Their naked solitudes bereft
Of bird and flower. The trees stood stark
And desolate against the dark
Chaotic sky. The mighty sea
Its billows hurled upon the shore
As if resolved to over-pour
And gulph our prison-house. Ah, me!
All roofless now, save here and there
A tall pine stretched its spear-shaped head
Aloft into the gelid air;
The hemlock, too, its beauty spread,
A tent-like pyramid of green,
Symbols of hope amid a scene
Where hope grew pale at winter’s tread.
No more, along the sounding shore,
In hushed voluptuous dells, no more,
Nor on the perilous rock which gave
Rude welcome to the climbing wave,
Might we, in amplitude of joy,
Our paradisal hours employ,—
From green to gray, from gray to white,
So rapidly the change came on,
It seemed but the work of a single night
And all our faery world was gone.—
Down came the snow, compact, hard-driven
By all the scourging blasts of heaven,
Until, like clouds, dethroned and hurled
Tumultuous to this nether world,
Around the desert isle it lay,
A rampart to the ocean’s spray.
Half hid where friendly pine trees spread
Perpetual shelter overhead,
Hugging a hillside lifted high
Betwixt us and the arctic sky,
Our cabin stood; a poor defence
Against the mute omnipotence
Of searching and insidious frost,
Which, like a ghoul condemned and lost,
The closeness of an inmate claimed;—
But on the rustic hearthstone flamed
Dry wood and pine-knots resinous:
A ready and abundant hoard
When days were long our hands had stored
Against the season perilous;
And good Nanette, ’twas her desire
To feed the bickering tongues of fire
That warned the dumb intruder hence.
When night fell thick, I loved to sit
And watch the fire-gleams fall and flit
On wooden walls and birch-bark ceiling,
Among the densest shadows stealing,
Till these, in folds and festoons golden,
Like tapestry of castles olden,
Shifted and fluttered free, revealing
To fancy’s charmed and wiser vision
Such fabrics as in looms elysian
The angels weave; and thus our hut
A palace seemed; and was it not
More beautiful, illumed the while
By dear Eugene’s adoring smile,
Than many a royal chamber where,
Concealed amid the gloss and glare,
A thousand hateful evils are?—
Such fare as woodland wilds afford,
Supplied our ever-cheerful board;
Nor such alone; the salt sea wave
Its tributary largess gave,
All that our lenten wants might crave.
Slow crept the whitened months, so slow—
I sometimes felt I never more
Should see the pretty roses blow,
Or tread on aught but endless snow,
And listen to the nightly roar
Of tempest and the ocean flow.
Weird voices, woven with the wind,
Riding on darkness often came
And syllabled the buried name
Of Roberval, which, like a hearse,
Bore inward to my palsied mind
The ghost of his inhuman curse.
Was it sick fancy, sore misled,
That to my shuddering spirit said?—
“Those sounds that shake the midnight air,
Are threats of Shapes that will not spare
Your trespass on their fief accurst.”
“Hush, hush, my love,” Eugene would say,
“That cry which o’er our cabin burst,
Came from the owls, perched royally
Among the pine-tops; you but heard
The language of some beast or bird;
The mooing of a mother bear,
An hungered in her frozen lair;
The laugh and mooing of the loon
That welcometh the rising moon.
The howling of the wolves you hear,
In chase of some unhappy deer,
Impeded in its desperate flight
By deep and thickly crusted snows,
O’er which its lighter-footed foes
Pursue like shadows of the night.
That lengthened groan, that fearful shriek
Was but the grinding stress and creak
Of aged trees; they seem to feel
The wrench of storms, and make appeal
For mercy; in their ducts and cells
The sap, which is their life-blood, swells
When frosts prevail and bursts asunder
With sharp report its prison walls;
Then cease, beloved, to fear and wonder
For all these harmless peals and calls.
In sweet assurance rest, love, rest
Thy head on this devoted breast,
And dream sweet dreams; the gentle spring
Will come anon, and birds will sing
As sweetly as they sang last year;
And shall I not be ever near
To share with thee the murmuring
Of waking life? the humble bee
Will drone again as blissfully
As when from flower to flower he went
And to the choral symphony
His basso horn serenely lent.”—
My fears were laid; I ceased to think;
Athirst and eager still to drink
The nectar of his speech.
How oft,
If he but chanced to hear me sigh
When wild winds blew, or when the soft
And flaky harvest of the sky
Descended silent, he would sit
Under that snow-thatched roof and tell
Such marvellous tales of mirth and wit,
They held me like a wizard’s spell.
Or else some poet’s plaintive verse
That breathed soft vows of youth and maiden,
With love-begotten sorrow laden,
In twilight tones he would rehearse;
And whilst the rhythmic measure flowed
From those attuned lips, my breast
With trepidation heaved and glowed,
For in such guise was well expressed
The master-passion’s undertone,
Or happy or disconsolate,
Of many a lover’s wayward fate
That bore some semblance to our own.
’Twere over-much to pause and tell
How slid the weeks, and all befell
Ere we could to the heavens say,
“The terror of your rage is past,
The gnawing frost, the biting blast,
And life is in the matin ray.”—
The swallow came, the heron’s scream
Athwart the marsh-lands, through the woods,
Sped resonant; I ceased to dream
Of demons, and my waking moods
The radiance of the morning took.
Upon the bare brown leaves I stood,
And saw and heard with raptured look
The gleam and murmur of the brook,
Which we in summer’s plenitude
Had traced to many an arbored nook.
’Twas midmost in the budding May,
Whilst on my couch of cedar boughs,
Perturbed with nameless fears I lay,
And breathed to Heaven my silent vows,—
A cloud-like cope of purple hue
Descended o’er me, hid me quite,
And seemed a soft wind round it blew,
And from the mystic wind a voice
Spoke low: “Poor child of darkened light!
The pure of heart are Heaven’s choice;
The Virgin who hath seen thy tears,
In pity for thy tender years,
Will aid thee in thine utmost plight.”
A hallowed tremor o’er me crept,
And in that purple cloud I slept
Enshrined, how long I never knew;—
And through my dreams the soft wind blew
Like music heard at dusk or dawn,
And when I woke and found it gone,
In fullness of great joy I wept.
’Twas thus a new revealment came,
A something out of nothingness,
To which we gave the simple name
Of Lua. O, the first caress
A mother to her first-born gives!—
Methinks the angels must confess,
Through all the after ages’ lives,
An influence so pure and holy,
That human hearts, the proud and lowly,
Are touched thereby. I kissed, and kissed
My pretty babe, and through the mist
Of happy tears upon it gazed
In silent thankfulness, and praised
The Empress of the skies, whose grace
Had glorified that humble place.
The sandy marge again we trod
Round the green Isle, and felt that God
Was very near,—in ocean’s roar,
And in the zephyr’s scented breath,
In summer green, in winter hoar,
In joy, in grief, in life, in death,
Our Friend and Father evermore.
Again across the naked sea,—
In tumult or in blank repose,
At morn and noon, and evening close,—
Sick yearnings from our souls were sent.
But bootless still the hungry sigh,
A southward sail still southward went,
If any such we might descry,—
As twice or thrice it chanced to be,
We saw or fancied shimmering,
Like a white eagle’s outstretched wing,
Hiding the strait and dubious space
That separates the lifted face
Of ocean from the stooping sky.
The sail would melt, the hollow dome
Above us and our prison home,
And girdling waves, and sobbing rain,
And winds full-fledged,—all things that were
Of earth and sky, of sea and air,
Strangled sweet Hope, and in the pit
Of outer darkness buried it.
Yet seemed it sinful to complain,
When to our feast of love was given
The fairest fruit that gracious Heaven
Had e’er for human joyance shed.
Sweet Innocence! the small hands spread,
Dimpled and white, catching at things
Viewless to us, but clearly seen
By those wide-open eyes; the wings
Of heavenly guests it must have been
Fluttering near the sinless child,
Azure and golden, till she smiled
And shrank from their excessive sheen.
Again the forest’s green arcades
Gladly we paced; their sun-lit shades
Investured us; the laughing brook
That solaced us the year before,
Mirrored again my lingering look;
In that clear glass I could not fail
To see my face grown somewhat pale,
But not less fair; we trod once more
The lofty cliff whereon Eugene
Had crowned me his bride and queen.
Pleasant those summer days to walk
Where no intrusive step could baulk
Our happiness; no tongue to dare
Whisper disparagement, and bare
The mysteries of Love’s free-will,
Approved of Heaven to strive for still,
The liberty that angels share.—
Another summer’s beauty dead,
Another winter’s cerements wound
On tree and shrub; the sheeted ground,
The cruel storm-land overhead,
The scream of frightened birds, the wind
That in its teeth the tree-tops took
And worried all day long and shook,
These and the monstrous ocean blind
With foamy wrath, were ours once more;—
Once more within our cabin mewed
Under the pine-tops, crisp and hoar,
My fears their old alarms pursued.
Four times the moon had waxed and waned
Since summer blooms, so bright and brief,
Were mourned for by the falling leaf,
And winter winds were all unchained,
When came the direful, fatal day.
The Spectre of the wide world came
In league with winter’s fierce array,
In league with fiends that hissed the name
Of Death around the ruined Isle.
Deep lay the snow, pile heaped on pile,
When food fell scant, and on a morn,
Ere yet the infant light was born,
Eager-thus always to provide,
Eugene forsook my drowsy side,
And lavished on my happy lips
His silent love; then gently slips,
Upon the little callow heap
That lay embalmed in downy sleep
His softest kisses: happy child!
She made a little stir and smiled,
As if in soothest dreams she knew
Whence came that quiet fond adieu.
Then pausing at the windy door,
His arquebuse on shoulder laid,
And in his belt a shining blade,
His brow a troubled shadow wore;—
Or was it but my own blurred thought
A semblance of foreboding wrought?
Backward he moved, a tardy pace,
And toward me turned his comely face
And said: “Dear love, I thought to go
Ere thou shouldst wake, for well I know
These frequent partings, though but brief,
Aye touch thy tender heart with grief.”
“Loud blows the nor-wind,” I replied.
“Surely thou needst not haste away
Before the leaden eyes of Day
On our small world are opened wide;
For all these partings, my Eugene,
Are bitter drops that fall between
Our honied draughts of happiness;
Ah! well I know what dangerous toil,
What weary hours companionless,
Are thine in quest of needful spoil,
Be-wrenched, from stubborn wood and wave,
Wherein—Oh God!—an early grave
May compass thee; and I remain
A wretched mourner, doomed to bear
The burning curse and bitter bane
Bequeathed me by Sir Roberval;—
O stay, Eugene, stay yet awhile!
Just now I dreamt I saw thee borne
By Shapes unshapely, stark and shorn,
Three times around the darkened Isle;
Then did the heavens o’er thee bend,
And in a cloud thou didst ascend,
Lost to the world and me forever.”
“Twas but a dream,” he said, “no more,”
But saying which, a painful quiver
His lips betrayed, then cheerily bore
His manly head, and thus made end.
“No evil can such dreams portend:—
Nor need I, dearest, say farewell;
For love and faith cannot deceive,
And hence I cannot but believe,
What holy whispers round me tell,
That though thou tarriest here behind,
Thy spirit journeyeth with me,
Clasping me round whereso I be,
A shelter from the bruising wind,
A covert from the drenching sea.
Then rest, my own brave Marguerite,
Rest thee in trust; ’tis meet that I
The savage elements defy
For thy loved sake, and for the sweet,
Sweet sake of her who slumbers there,
Pillowed upon her golden hair,
Her beauty, love, so like thine own;—
Sweet babe! dear wife!” Ere I could speak
He kissed the tear-drop from my cheek,
And ere I wist I was alone,
The door stood wide, and he had passed
Into the dusky void, and vast
Uncertainties concealed by Fate.
Ah, me! I could but watch and wait
For his return. For his return?
I felt my heart within me burn,
Then sicken to an icy dread,
For seemed a sad voice near me said,
“Thou ne’er shall see his face again!”
The paragon of noblest men!
It could not be; I would not own
A prophecy that turned to stone
All joys that I had ever known.
The wind increased, the day wore on,
And ere the hour was half-way gone
That follows noon, a storm of snow
Blinded the heavens, and denser grew,
And fiercer still the fierce wind blew
As night approached, a night of woe,
Such as no fiend might add thereto.
The double darkness walled us in,
The blackness of the storm and night,
And still he came not! O, what sin,
What blasphemy against the light
Of Heaven had my soul committed?
Never before had eventide
Once found him absent from my side.
Eugene came not! deceived, outwitted,
Sore tempest-tossed and lured astray.
By demons, when the night-owl flitted
Across his face at close of day,
Groping for home, exhausted, faint,
No angel near, no pitying saint
To aid his steps and point the way.
From ebb of day till noon of night,
And onward till return of light,
The signal horn, Nanette and I,
Alternate blew, but for reply
The wind’s unprecedented roar,
And ocean thundering round the shore
Our labor mocked; and other sounds,
Nor of the land, nor sea, nor sky,
Our ears profaned; the unleashed hounds
Of spleenful hell were all abroad,
And round our snow-bound cabin trod,
And stormed on clashing wings aloof,
And stamped upon the yielding roof,
And all our lamentation jeered.
Down the wide chimney-gorge they peered
With great green eye-balls fringed with flame;—
The holy cross I kissed and reared,
And in sweet Mary’s blessed name,
Who erst had buoyed my sinking heart,
Conjured the foul-faced fiends depart.
Their shriekings made a storm more loud
Than that before whose fury bowed
The hundred-ringéd oaken trees;
More fearful, more appalling these
Than thunder from the thunder-cloud;
But trembling at the sacred sign,
And mention of the Name divine,
They dared not, could not disobey,
But fled in baffled rage away.—