Enough that generous fingers freely fling
Such tokens as confess the minstrel’s skill,
And testify how sweet is music’s thrill.
Then long may he survive to wield the bow,
And muse beside the river’s rushing flow,
Apollo’s heir—his territorial space,
The full circumference of the Market Place.
W. H. MAGEE.
(_A friend of early days._)
You saw, my friend, when last we met,
Time’s sober reckoning on my face;
But neither time nor change of place
Can cause my spirit to forget
One honest throb, one living trace
Of friendship, till life’s sun shall set,—
Such friendship as I’ve found in you,—
A glory that unites and binds
The poetry of kindred minds,
Forever stedfast, ever true.
The years are drifting fast and far;
We half-way hear the haunted river
Whose monody is, _Never, never!_
We half-discern the misty bar
Past which no soul returneth ever;
Our lamp is not the morning star.
Nor can we of our lot complain;
We’ve had of bliss an ample share;
We banquet on ambrosial fare
And nectar wines of heart and brain.
No heritage of goods or lands
We owe to an ancestral line;
Obedient to the voice divine,
We earn our bread with willing hands.
No drones nor parasites are we;
And hence brave comrade, you and I
Can lift our foreheads to the sky
And plead our lawful right, _to be_,—
To be, enjoy, and sternly try
To leave the world more fair and free
Than when upon its round we fell,—
Two feeble rays that wandered far
From nebula, or hidden star—
Whence? wherefore? whither? who can tell?
We only know that we are here,
That life is brief and death is sure;
That it is noble to endure,
And keep the eye of conscience clear.
Will love and knowledge ever cure
The evils of this troubled sphere?
We look in Nature’s face, and doubt
Whether she means us good or ill;
We know that she can stab and kill,
And blow our taper-joys all out.
An angel and a fiend by turns,
A grace, a fury,—all we find
As shapings of the human mind
In her strange aspect shines and burns;
One moment infinitely kind;
The next, a breaking heart she spurns.
Her lightnings smite; her arctic breath
Congeals the traveller’s blood, and lo,
He sinks into a tomb of snow!
No prayer can bribe the clutch of death.
She lets her savage cyclones loose,
She bids her flaming lavas flow,
And sudden as a ruffian’s blow
Great cities perish! What excuse?
Does God, indeed, ordain it so?
Is not the problem more abstruse?
If we but mark how finely blend
The foul and fair, the dark and bright
That in this Mother-Sphinx unite,
We may believe her still our friend.
Excessive beauty floods the sky,
And earth is fair through all the year;—
In autumn, when the woods are sere,
In winter, when the white winds fly,
And blow their trumpets far and near,
There’s beauty for a loving eye.
The sculptor, in long ages past,
Enamoured, taxed his glorious art
That he might press his hungry heart
To Nature’s charms, and hold her fast.
Like him, we shall not fail to find
On earth, in sky, in air, in sea,
Many a dazzling deity,
If pure in heart, and great in mind.
Then let us live as best we may,
And bid our souls ascend, and sing
Like birds and brooks that greet the spring.
Shall we be found less wise than they?
Hence, Care, upon thy ebon wing!
I’m happy with my friend to-day.
LINES.
(_Written on recovering from the effects of a serious accident._)
I.
I felt the cold shadow
Of Death as he passed,
And counted that horrible
Moment my last.
No fear of a Future
Took part in the play
Of thoughts that were losing
The sweet light of day.
A shock and a tumult,—
A crash and a strife,—
And all that pertains to
The aim of my life
Swept o’er me and through me,
As if to remind
I had housed with the sluggard,
And loitered behind.
If this penance hath hinted
The value of time,
Hath taught me to reckon
Delay as a crime,
The days yet uncounted
May balance the cost
Of all I have suffered,
Of more than I’ve lost.
II.
When the Demon of Torture
O’ertakes and assails,
And thy skill, Cotyæus!
But little avails;
What is it that sheddeth
The balm of relief?
What anodyne softens
The pain and the grief?
’Tis the presence of friendship,
The clasp of a hand,
’Tis the kindness that speaketh
In tones to command
The Demon to loosen
His hold and depart,
That Hope may return to
Her nest in the heart.
This boon have I tasted
While couched in my room;
And fair, as the rainbow
That spanneth the gloom,
Shall be the remembrance
Of faces that shed
A magic that blunted
The thorns of my bed,
That wrought on the Demon
Of pain till he fled.
HALLOWE’EN IN CANADA;
AND HOW IT SETTLED A DOMESTIC QUARREL.
To-night, upon the land or sea,
Wherever Scotland’s bairns may be,
Whether they plough Australian soil,
Or in Canadian forests toil;—
Or, on the Ganges or the Nile,
Defy the gaping crocodile;
Or on the South Sea waters sail,
A terror to the fated whale;
In lonely dell or crowded street,
Wherever two or more may meet,
Warm hands are clasped—no formal grip,—
No dainty, bloodless fingers’ tip,
But such a cordial squeeze and shake
As leave behind a welcome ache,
Such greeting as can only mean,
_To-night, my friend, is Hallowe’en_.
The quicksand of the sliding years,
Is moistened with perpetual tears;
But as the sunshine tempers showers,
As perfume clings to wounded flowers,
As music tones the midnight storm,
As beauty clothes the lightning’s form,
So wedded to each human ill,
Some pleasing charm is felt or seen,
And hence, though exiles here, they thrill
With yearly joys of Hallowe’en.
But in this logic-leavened age,
When every boot-black is a sage,
When naught but the electric wire,
Or steam-propulsion can inspire,—
When lovers travelling to the moon,
Are married in a great balloon,[6]
“What folly,” says my neighbour wise,
A cyclopædia in his eyes,
“What superstition to uphold
This Hallowe’en, so ghostly, old,
A custom suit for infant schools,
Gray dotards, and the mob of fools.”
Just hearken to a truthful story
Of two plain folk who dwelt alone,
To city shows and glare unknown,
A forest life their only glory,
Then judge, ye unbelieving crew,
What faith in Hallowe’en can do.
THE QUARREL.
Tam Gregg and Jean, a thrifty pair,
He lithe and tall, she plump and fair,
Far westward in the wild woods’ shade,
A comfortable home had made,
And lived for years, true man and wife,
Without a single word of strife.
Till one day, with the toothache crossed,
His even temper Tammy lost,
And glowered, and snarled, and snapped, and swore,
And stamped upon the cottage floor,
Kicked the poor dog, and cuffed the wean,
And knit his angry brows at Jean.
At length some bitter words he said
Which fell like fire-flakes on her heart,
And turned her cheek from pale to red,
When bouncing up with sudden start,
She hurried from his evil view;
And with hot purpose inly vowed
That Tam his spiteful fling should rue.
For she was Highland born, and proud,
And boasted the McGregor blood,
Now coursing like a fiery flood
Through all her veins: her heart throbs loud,
But careless if its chambers burst,
Her head upon her hot hands bowed,
She thought: “Weel, Tam, you’ve said your worst,
And even if it holds a week,
I winna look at you, nor speak,
Till sorry for the wrang ye’ve done,
A wrang that would provoke the Deil,
Ye bend your hough, and seek to wun
Forgiveness for the pangs I feel.”
Three days crept past, they slept and woke,
And neither to the other spoke;—
Three wretched days, with sunless eye
Each passed the other coldly by,
Like shadows in a pantomime;
And in that silent lapse of time,
What thoughts, what griefs, were known to each,
Conjecture only scarce may reach.
The woods, but lately green, were bare,
And moaning winds were wandering there;
Their feathered guests had ceased to sing,
And southward flew on chilly wing;
Dark clouds obscured the sickly light,
And night seemed death, and day seemed night.
Sad signals these, and o’er the change
The vacant looks of both would range,
While Love, slow pointing to the past,
Asked each, “Must this forever last?”
Jean still maintained her stately tread,
But Tam grew sad, and drooped his head,
That uncombed, mop-like, sandy pow,
That never looked so wild as now.
He twitched his beard and peeped askance,
In hopes to catch some random glance
Of Jean’s blue eyes, but there, O, fate!
The sullen lids seemed charged with hate,
And curdled scorn, and wounded pride.
But anxious still the truth to hide,
His reasoning all perversely ran;
“If guilty, am I not a man?
And is it not a woman’s place
To yield with a relenting grace?”
Thus did he manage still to frown
And fight his best convictions down.
The fourth day fell on Hallowe’en,
And now remorse and anguish keen,
Like wild cats seized on Tammy’s mind.
A moment’s peace he could not find.
All day he shuffled in and out,
And snuffed, and coughed, and glowered about,
And tried to whistle, but his lips,
As dry as two sun-seasoned chips,
Refused to pucker:—what a look,
When baffled thus, his visage took!
The gloaming hour drew on, and Tam
Was seated by the chimney jamb.
His eyes were bent upon the fire,
And, listening to his heart’s desire,
“To-night,” thought he, “is Hallowe’en,
Seven years ago this very night
I first beheld my comely Jean,
And courted her till morning’s light.
O happy, happy hours! and now!”—
He struck his hand against his brow,
When suddenly a gladsome thought
He from the glowing cinders caught.—
Two nuts with eager hand he drew
From forth his pouch, and muttering low,
“_That’s her, that’s me_,” he gently threw
The orbs of fate amid the glow
Of golden fire upon the hearth,
And watched them with such eager gaze,
As if his all of heaven and earth
Depended on their puny blaze.
“Now,” whispered Tam, “if I but lean
My kindled kindness toward my Jean,
If over her my flamelet spread,
No matter how she bear her head,
Then must I be the first to speak,
And press repentance on her cheek.”
The nuts caught fire, and Tam’s at first
Swelled up as if its sides would burst;
But instantly a blaze shot out,
And reached and clasped his Jean about,
And round her never ceased to play,
Till both in ashy cinders lay.
“Enough,” cried Tam, with moistened eye,
“Thus may we live, and love, and die,
And thus at last together lie!”
Meantime, poor Jean, sore sick at heart,—
Though mindful of her vow and smart,
Began to feel her purpose fail,
And, strolling out among the kail,
She conjured up some soft excuse
For tooth-afflicted Tam’s abuse.
So came it, as the fates decreed,
She with herself and Heaven agreed
To take her chance, by pulling out
A kail stalk, which, “if tall and stout,
Then must Tam Gregg come ben and speak,
But otherwise if slim and weak,
I’ll take it as a solemn proof
That I maun first hold out my loof.”
Her eyes she bandaged, groped about,
Perturbed with many a tender doubt,
And mindless of the gain or cost,
Cared little if she won or lost.
Just then, as Tam the garden gained,
He spied her, and his heart was pained,
For scarcely could he understand
Whether his wife was daft or wise,
Groping around with shaky hand,
Her apron tied across her eyes.
With open mouth amazed he stood,
And watched her, all remorseful now,
The big veins throbbing on his brow,
Till she her verdict clutched, then rude,
Tore off the bandage from her sight,
And frowning, smiling, red, and white,
Confessed her prize a puny thing,
But little thicker than her thumb;
So must she cower her haughty wing,
And hold her lips no longer dumb.
Still wondering what the lass could mean,
Tam stole upon her ere she knew,
Exclaiming fondly, “Jean! why, Jean!”
His arm around her waist he threw.
No sooner done, no sooner said,
Than on his breast she leaned her head,
And wept like any child;—But no,
Our story must not further go,
Except to add, that tall Tam Gregg,
Grown wild with gladness, shook his leg,
And joked, and laughed and filled his cup,
And threw his auld blue bonnet up,
And kissed the bairn, and Jean, and sang,
Till through the woods such echoes rang,
That prowling catamount and bear,
Fled frightened to their distant lair.
Each learned the other’s plot and plan,
And through their veins such rapture ran,
That heedless of their recent pain,
They almost wished to quarrel again.
So ends the tale, and if I’ve shown,
That though the world has wiser grown,
A loving heart and generous mind
Some good in Hallowe’en may find,—
Then, Caledonians, prize it still,
And whether on the land or sea,
Your scattered homes may chance to be,
Maintain it with a right good will.
Old Scotia! Though they never more
May stand upon thy rugged shore,—
The lofty fame which thou hast won,
The daring deeds thy sons have done,
Thy storied glens, and streams, and heights,
Where heroes fought for freeman’s rights,
And stubborn as the will of fate,
Maintained their independent state,—
These, feeding still their patriot fire,
Will never let the flame expire;
And when, beneath a foreign sky,
Some home-nursed trifle meets the eye,—
A simple bluebell from the glen
Where trod the feet of “Cameron men,”
Or white-cheeked daisy from the braes
Where Burns exhaled his thrilling lays;—
A sigh will rise, a tear will start,
And every prompting of the heart,
Though half the globe should intervene,
Will teach them evermore, I ween,
To meet and hold their Hallowe’en.
[6] An instance of such performance was reported in the public prints
at the time when these lines were written.
ETHEL.
Little sky-waif, come astray
Twice twelve months ago to-day!
What a world of joy is thine!
What a glow of summer shine
Cheers the house wherein thou art,
Sly magician of the heart!
In those large, those azure eyes,
All the splendour of the skies,
All the beauty that belongs
To the poet’s sweetest songs,
All the wisdom known and lost
That the wisest sage could boast,
Beam and lure and half reveal
Secrets that the gods conceal.
See those ringlets all unshorn
That her pretty neck adorn;—
Golden hues and silken gloss
On the charméd air they toss
Sun-gleams in a starry spray.—
Dearest little laughing fay!
See her tiny feet beat time,
In an ecstasy of rhyme,
To the pearly notes that win
From the speaking violin.
See her fingers, dimpled, white,
Mimic with a grave delight
Those that wonderingly she sees
Race along the ivory keys.
Hear her prattle, indistinct;—
Much we guess at, still we think
It may be some long lost speech
That she fondly strives to teach,—
Language known to airy things,
It may chance, whose spirit wings
In a merry mischief keep
Little human elves from sleep.
Ask her father, ask her mother,
They will vouch there is no other,
Never was on land or sea
Such a charming girl as she.
Surely they who know her best
Must the simple truth attest;
But if further proof you seek,
Let her solemn grandpa speak.—
He a mighty oath will swear,
By the silver in his hair!
By his sober-sided muse!
All good people needs must choose
Make confession, that for grace,
Loveliness of form and face,
Ways so simple, yet so wise,
Large-eyed Ethel takes the prize.
KEATS.
Full late in life I found thee, glorious Keats!
Some chance blown verse had visited my ear
And careless eye, once in some sliding year,
Like some fair-plumaged bird one rarely meets.
And when it came that o’er thy page I bent,
A sudden gladness smote upon my blood;—
Wonder and joy, an aromatic flood,
Distilled from an enchanted firmament.
And on this flood I floated, hours and hours,
Unconscious of the world’s perplexing din,
Its blackened crust of misery and sin,
Rocked in a shallop of elysian flowers.
All melodies of earth and heaven are thine.
That one so young such music could rehearse
As swells the undulations of thy verse
Is what Hyperion only might define.
The voices of old pines, the lulling song
Of silver-crested waterfalls, the sweep
Of symphonies that swell the booming deep
To thy immortal minstrelsy belong.
Nor less the whispered harmony that falls,
Like twilight dews, from heaven’s starry arch,
For gentle souls that listen to the march
Of airy footfalls in ethereal halls.
Unhappy, happy Keats! A bitter sweet
Was thy life’s dream; death grinning at thy heels,
While Fame, before thee, smiled her grand appeals,
Tempting to dizzy heights thy winged feet.
Methinks thou didst resemble (over-bold
May be the fancy) thy Endymion,—
Now charmed with earth-born beauty and anon
Finding some imperfection in the mould.
He sued a heaven-born splendor to allay
The hunger and the fever of his heart;
And thus to Cynthia he did impart
The fearful secret of his misery.
Oh, had I missed this Hippocrene, and slept
Without full measure of the choicest draught
That ever mortal man divinely quaffed,
What depth of bliss the Gods from me had kept!
THE CRISIS.[7]
The roar of battle peals afar.
In lurid haze, the Northern star
Gleams through the flaming clouds of war;
Death rides the burning blast.
What havoc on the groaning plain!
What never ending heaps of slain!
What tepid pools of purple rain!—
We look, and stand aghast.
And still the strife resounds abroad,
Earth trembles, and her forests nod,
As if she felt the stamp of God,
And heard His voice at last.
He speaks, indeed! Who hath an ear
To learn His will, may hark and hear
These hallowed words, to freedom dear,
_Tyrants, release the slave!_
And till that mandate is obeyed,
May Northern hearts beat undismayed,
And all the world, with generous aid,
Cheer on the loyal brave.
Ha! o’er the Southern plains shall spread
The children of the honoured dead,
And evermore above their head
The dear old flag shall wave;—
Shall wave with all its stars, a sign
That though the hosts of hell combine,
The cause of freedom is divine,
And slavery must expire.
A sign that, not in vain, the great
And good of every clime and state
Have battled with a bloody fate,
Breathing heroic fire.
I love the flag, because it flings
Defiance in the face of kings,
While Liberty expands her wings
To crown the world’s desire.
[7] These lines were written in reference to the American civil war, at
the time known as “Grant’s Battles in the Wilderness,” when, in a note
to the War Department, (May 11, 1864), he penned those memorable words,
“I propose to fight it out on this line, if it takes all summer.”
IN MEMORY OF JOSEPH GUIBORD.
1875.
The storm of six long years is past,
And peacefully he rests at last.—
Thrice hearsed, thrice cursed, let honest fame
Blow treble honour to his name.
If endless years of praise ensue,
’Tis but the hero’s earthly due.
The humble printer’s mighty art,
Though banned, will vindicate her son,
And tell to every truthful heart
While woods grow green and waters run—
That he who braves a despot’s frown
Will wear at length the victor’s crown;
Even when slain, and torn asunder,
And scattered piecemeal, trodden under
The brutal feet of frenzied foes,
His deeds will rise, as Christ’s arose,
And, borne upon the chainless air,
Will plead for freedom everywhere.
Let curses from their rookery fly,
And flap their foul wings o’er his bones,
The autumn wind that round him moans
Will mock them, while in vain they try
To penetrate those friendly stones.
Come what might come, from man or elf,
He dared not quarrel with himself,
Nor stab the Truth that in his breast
Had found a warm and welcome nest.
No terrors of the burning lake,
Fancied or real, beyond the grave,
Nor purgatorial flames could shake
His manly soul, so firm and brave,
For he was neither fool nor slave.
True to himself, he lived and died,
Not wilful, nor elate with pride,
But steadfast in his honest thought,
Self-justified, self-ruled, self-taught.
Our Brother! wheresoever now
Thy spirit lifts its free-born brow,
Behold thy kindred!—not alone
In Canada will thousands own
Relationship; throughout all lands,—
Wherever freedom shines or dawns,
An army with uplifted hands,
Constrained by glowing links that bind
Nobility of mind to mind,
Will crown thee with their benisons.
Thus Guibord! shall the commonwealth
Of truth’s and reason’s fearless sons,—
Scorners of men who think by stealth,
Now hold thee in fraternal trust,
And consecrate thine injured dust,
While woods grow green and water runs.
IT MOVES.
“I know it moves,” so said the man
Whose genius read the astral scroll
From east to west, from pole to pole,
Yet, under a terrific ban,
Denied his thought, the truth denied,
And crushed in soul betwixt the strife
Of love of truth and love of life,
To silence doomed he slowly died.
Since that dark hour, ’tis joy to know,
The thoughts of fearless men have moved
As move the stars; the years have proved
Thy deathless worth, Galileo!
What marvel if he shrank with dread
Beneath the lifted iron hand
Whose marks were seen on every land,—
Red marks where truest seers had bled.
The glare of Bruno’s fiery shroud
Still seemed to haunt the midnight skies,
And falling on his menaced eyes,
His head the noble Pisan bowed.
And who the number may compute
Of kindred souls, whose secret fears
Have held them captive all their years,
And kept their lips forever mute?
Grim Persecution’s sleepless rage
Has many guises, all the same
In essence, differing but in name,
O’er all the earth, from age to age.
And if less potent now for harm,
Let Freedom’s watchmen guard her towers;
Happy to cry the all-well hours,
Ready to ring the prompt alarm.
Low sinks the race where thought and speech
Are helpless slaves to crown and cross;
Where heresy brings blame and loss;
And each is set a spy on each.
Blest is the soil where men can stand
And say it is a crime to hide
The light of reason, to deride
The one sure Deity’s command—
The voice of Conscience;—here to-night
This heritage of centuries, old
And new, in sacred trust we hold:
Our watchword—“Freedom and the Right.”
SUPERSTITION.
O Superstition, could the world behold
Thy wrinkled visage,—worshipped as thou art,
Not all the pomp of earth, nor all its gold
Could purchase for thee one devoted heart;
The sons of science, eloquently bold,
Have felt the strokes of thy unsparing dart,
And knaves despotic, kneeling at thy shrines,
Have made thy slaves the tools of their designs.
To science turn; she cultivates the rough
And barren regions of the savage mind,
Her lore is not the visionary stuff
Of gloomy monks; blind leaders of the blind.
Her ways are mild and beautiful enough
To melt the rigour of a heart unkind,
Her truths are diamonds, such as will endure
Throughout all ages, palpable and sure.
VIGER SQUARE.[8]
Here in this quiet garden shade,
Whose blossoms spread their bloom before me,
The world’s gay cheats,—Life’s masquerade,
Like evil ghosts from memory fade,
And calm and holy thoughts come o’er me.
Ambrosial haunt; the orient light
Falls golden on thy soft seclusion;
And like the lone and shadowy night,
Grim care, abashed, has taken flight,
And joys gleam forth in rich profusion.
These odorous flowers that feast the bee,
Those mimic fountains sunward leaping,
And yon red-berried rowan tree,
That brings my childhood back to me,
With hallowed scenes of Memory’s keeping.
All these, and more, with beauty clad,
Invite the city’s weary mortals—
The pale-faced maid, the widow sad,
The sinking merchant, growing mad,
To muse within these peaceful portals.
Here is the stone that sages sought,
Here the famed lamp of blest Aladdin;
Objects that tell ambitious thought,
“All that thy greed hath ever caught
Cannot like us, console and gladden.”
[8] A beautiful public park, in the east end of Montreal.
1881.
Year of all years, that hath been unto me
More bitter than the depths of Acheron,
I will not curse thee for the ill thou’st done,
But bow as best I may to thy decree.
With what a buoyancy of hope and trust
I gave thee generous welcome at thy birth,
Swelling the chorus of the general mirth;
And thou my greeting hast returned with—dust!
Two happy eyes that shone upon thy dawn,
And beamed upon us from our chamber door
Are quenched, and closed to open nevermore—
The face, the form, the loving voice is gone.
Go, savage and inexorable year!
Haste to the gloomy Hades of the Past!
Not to thy memory are these moanings cast,
Not for thy exit falls the hasty tear.
DESPONDENT.
(_Occasioned by hearing a pathetic air played on the Flute._)
Oh! cease, sweet Minstrel, cease to play,
My eyes with tears are filling fast;
I see life’s pleasures fade away,
I feel misfortune’s coldest blast.
Thy witching strain is sad and sweet,
I cannot bear its melting sound;
It tells of joys that passed too fleet,
And early loves in sorrow drowned.
I see the ranks of early years
Like awful spectres pass along;
I see a dismal lake of tears,
I hear lost Hope’s expiring song.
Then cease, Musician! cease to play,
My heavy heart is filled with grief;
And every note but seems to say—
The world for me has no relief.
THOMAS D’ARCY McGEE.
(_April 7th, 1868._)