And homes of the people of lowly estate.
A deed has been done which o’ershadows the heart
With a darkness and horror that will not depart.—
The Poet and Statesman lies cold in his gore,
His eloquent accents will thrill us no more:
No more, with our hearts to all charities strung,
Shall we listen to catch the sweet sounds of his tongue.
That tongue, whose enchantment could hold us in thrall
Will never more gladden the close, crowded hall;
But the light of his genius will shine o’er the land,
And his fame, like Mount Royal, forever shall stand,
For his thoughts were the lights of our northern sky,
And the soul’s spoken melody never can die.
O God! could no virtue, no pity restrain
The wretch who has sown such a harvest of pain?
What though on the scaffold he die for the deed
That causes fond hearts, like his victim, to bleed?
A million such lives no atonement can make
For the star that is quenched, for the sorrows that shake
Our trust in the highest and holiest plan,
Our faith in the ultimate goodness of man.
THE NEWS-BOY.
Hark on the street the News-boy’s call,
Above all other sounds it rings;
“Great news by telegraph”[9] he brings,
A luxury devoured by all;
And some with vacant visage laugh;—
Laugh while they read of ruthless war,
Of huge disasters, near and far,
Of crimes that give the world a jar,
O wondrous news by telegraph!
The Press is modern Jove, and he
Swift Mercury, who bears abroad
The utterance of the sleepless god,
Wherever thriving cities be;
Wherever steeples pierce the sky;
Where desperate politicians bawl,
Responsive to their country’s call,
And drunkards reel against the wall,
There peals the eager News-boy’s cry.
Through central and suburban part
He hurries on, and who may tell
What hopes his little bosom swell,
What distant visions warm his heart.
At times you see him—hapless one!
With elbows out, a tuft of hair
Seeking, through crown-rent hat, the air,
His feet half shod, or wholly bare,
And buttons of importance gone.
But whether ragged, spruce or grand,
Proudly his pile of pence he jinks,
And, reckoning his profits, thinks:—
“The day may come when I shall stand
Among the richest and the best.”
And then his troubles, light as chaff,
Pass from him; he could leap and laugh;
“Great news, great news, by telegraph!”
Again he shouts with swelling chest.
And thus his rill of boyhood runs;
And oft dependent on his mite,
A widowed mother waits at night,
Waits with her famished little ones,
And listens for his homeward tread.
A happy smile illumes her face;
The mother and the boy embrace,
And, all within the humble place,
A sudden light from Heaven is shed.
He tells her of the day’s success,
Of incidents both grave and gay,
The dandy’s hat that flew away,
And wind-tossed ladies in distress.
The widow gazes while he speaks;
Another voice in his she hears,
Another face in his appears,
And holy are the silent tears
That trickle down her pallid cheeks.
But other parents, different far,
Await the News-boy, and purloin
The little fellow’s honest coin
To spend at some pernicious bar;
They think not how, with weary tread,
All day the child has nobly striven
To merit praise;—with curses driven,
A scanty supper, harshly given,
He weeps within his little bed.
The angels heed his lowly state,
And pity him, and kindly weave
A destiny which none perceive,
Save those at the celestial gate.
Then give, my brothers, words of cheer
To waft the News-boy on his way;
His country, at some future day,
May learn his name, and proudly say:—
_Of noblest men he is the peer._
[9] This was written in the early days of telegraphing, when the
News-boy delighted to proclaim that his papers, sparkled with
intelligence, flashed along the electric wire.
CHARLES HEAVYSEGE.
A man of worth, a man of mind,
Has bade farewell to human kind.
No pomp, no sound of muffled drum,
No multitudes’ uncertain hum
Has stirred the air; but stifled sighs,
And gleaming tears and shaded eyes
Are tokens of a reverence felt
For one who to the Muses knelt,
In fealty with noblest vow,
And rose with garland on his brow.
So child-like, modest, reticent,
With head in meditation bent,
He walked our streets!—and no one knew
That something of celestial hue
Had passed along; a toil-worn man
Was seen, no more; the fire that ran
Electric through his veins and wrought
Sublimity of soul and thought,
And kindled into song, no eye
Beheld until a foreign sky[10]
Reflected back the wondrous light,
And heralded the poet’s might.
Though doomed to less of sun than shade,
No weak complaint he ever made;
But bravely lived, content to let
The great world roar, and fume, and fret.
In visions of the days of eld
He revelled, and in joy beheld
The glory of the Hebrew sages,
Whose utterance has toned the ages.
The sacred mount, the cave, the stream
Where holy seers were wont to dream,
He knew and loved, and summoned thence
The agents of Omnipotence;
Fantastic sprites, and buried men
To fight gray battles o’er again.
Behold dread Samuel’s shade appear!
Behold Goliath’s mighty spear!
And lithe-limbed David’s sling and stone,
And Saul’s fierce madness; one by one
They rise before us, march, or stand,
Obedient to the Poet’s wand.
Dear friend, adieu! if Malzah-like
An adverse Fate ordained to strike,
Beset thee on life’s weary way,
And followed close from day to day,
He failed to conquer, failed to wrest
One murmur from thy manly breast.
Companion of my happiest hours,
Would that my words were fadeless flowers!
That I might lay them on thy tomb
To mitigate its lasting gloom,
And evermore above thee bloom.
[10] The lofty genius of this author attracted no attention in Canada
till noticed by the _North British Review_ in an article on his “Saul,”
which appeared in the August number of 1858.
BOOKS.
In books I find companionship, they are
My household gods, and naught shall wholly bar
Their voices from me; from their precious pages
I quaff the immortality of ages.
They are the spirits of the dead, not dumb,
From ancient tombs and monuments they come
To hold communion with the living; they,
While nations perish and the world grows gray,
Their regal power and pristine beauty keep,
Despite the havoc, and inglorious sleep
Of centuries that bore a crimson hue,—
Despite the flames which they have travelled through,
Unscathed they hold their sceptres, meek they bear
These royal dignities;—like light and air
They enter, silver-shod, the humblest door,
And breathe their benedictions on the poor.
Ye avatars, true saviours of the world,
Round whom the hopes of wisest souls are curled,
Be mine through life, in pain, or pleasure, mine!
If near me still your pleasant faces shine
The skies may lower—upon my thorny path
The heavens may pour their cataracts of wrath,
I need not falter, need not hold my breath,
Nor tremble at the menaces of Death.
THE DRUNKARD.
He drank;—
All warning he repelled with scorn.
He boasted his superior strength,
But in the light of manhood’s morn
That boasted strength was from him shorn,
His days had measured out their length.
He reeled;—
And day by day the cheerful sun
Looked kindly on his crooked path,
The nights beheld no credit won,
But brooded over evils done,
And fearful threats and burning wrath.
He fell;—
A maniac’s look he cast around,
Then shook the air with one wild yell,
And smote with bloody hand the ground,
And uttered startling words whose sound
Ended with blasphemy and hell.
He died;—
With madness in his blood and brain,
With curses on his purple lips,
And bloodshot eyes whose every vein
Lay like a red and burning chain,
As raised by demons’ knotted whips.
He lay;—
Not as the spoils of death are laid,
When Nature hath no outrage borne,—
Not as the old or young, arrayed
In decent shroud, when calm they fade,
And honoured by the eyes that mourn.
He lay
Unblest, unprized, uncombed, unwashed,
A fresh, red, cut was on his brow,
His teeth were set as last they gnashed,
His eyes glared fierce as last they flashed,
And few could bear to see him now.
His grave!—
I stood beside the Drunkard’s grave,
And moralized above the sod
Which rested on the wine-cup’s slave,
The dupe of self, whom none could save,
Now left to silence, and his God.
A NIGHT ON THE SKATING RINK.
Our rink is in motion,
Like waves of the ocean,
When Summer shines broad on the sea.
The skaters strike out,
Scarce forbearing to shout,
All happy and joyous and free;
And the speed of their flight,
Like an arrow of light,
Takes the breath from a laggard like me.
II.
The exquisite whirl
Of that lovely girl
Has tripped up some heart—I fear—
Ah! were I as young
As when first I sung,
And the rustics were fain to hear,
I would pour out my soul
In a strain that should roll
Aloft to the heavenly sphere.
III.
But though old enough now
To have sons teach me how
To voyage the crystalline floor,
I yield to the power
Of the jubilant hour
And think of my moustache no more;
For a poet, at least,
Should partake of mirth’s feast
Till his top is exceedingly hoar.
IV.
See!—see where she flies,
How adroitly she plies
Those feet with the shining wings,
With a graceful swerve
And a classical curve,
While beneath her the ice-path rings;
And the wind in a freak
Stops to kiss her fair cheek,
Then around her in ecstacy sings.
V.
Still sweep we around
With a rippling sound,
Keeping time to the orchestra’s swell,
Which, like a bright river
Falling headlong forever
O’er a precipice down to the dell,
Bears our troubles far hence,
And entrancing each sense,
Makes the world one melodious spell.
VI.
Let bacchanals drink,
Till like dotards they wink,
Or laugh with a maniac’s stare;
They embrace but the ghost
Of true pleasure, at most,
And their morrow is dark with despair;
But the health-giving cheer,
That we revel in here,
Makes our lives more enduringly fair.
VII.
So I’m jovial to-night
With the wine of delight,
I am back to my boyhood again;
For a moment like this
Brings a torrent of bliss
That floods over heart and brain;
And the era foretold
By the sages of old
Has commenced its millennial reign.
JACK FROST’S HAPPY DREAM.
1883.
In his white world of snow by the northern pole—
I can point the identical spot on the map—
Jack Frost became weary of working, poor soul,
So pulled up his collar and pulled down his cap,
And stretched himself down in his hut for a nap.
Soon snoring he lay, and he dreamt a fine dream
Of his antics abroad; of whole streets of glare ice,
Where stout ladies falling unthinkingly scream,
And gray-bearded gallants, exceedingly nice,
Making haste to assist them, are down in a trice.
Of snow drifts and sleigh-loads of people upset,—
Roaring sport for the young, but a grief to the old;—
And flying toboggans—the jolliest yet—
Landing lovers in snow-banks, which out of the cold
The laughing defiants a moment enfold.
At length in his vision he noticed afar
Our Crystalline Palace in grandeur arise,
Till it gleamed in mid air like a magical star,
Creation’s last jewel, a thing of the skies,
And he sprang to his feet in a whirl of surprise.
He swallowed some ice cakes and mounted his steed,
A Storm, that stood ready to serve at his call,
Strong-winded, and shod with such marvellous speed,
That he came like the rush of a huge cannon ball,
Till he brushed the wide border of gay Montreal.
At the Windsor alighting, Jack spied with amaze,
The Palace translucent that rose in his dream,
Its opaline walls and tall towers ablaze
With a light that outrivalled Aurora’s first beam,
And he laughed a huge laugh that was more like a scream.
And he danced and cut capers around the wide square,
Like a harlequin, crowing at times like a cock,
His hands on the snow and his feet in the air,
Till fatigued with his fun, on a glistening block
Of his own manufacture he sank with a shock.
Then he chuckled and sneezed, and profanely made boast—
In spite of the churches that seemed to protest—
That he hoped in an orthodox fashion to roast,
If our Palace of Ice was not truly the best
That ever invited his limbs to take rest.
“And here,” said the fellow, “I mean to remain,
Till this Carnival’s over, and then I suppose
I shall have to be off to the Arctic again,
Where the Wind-god his trumpet in merriment blows,
And scatters my hail and my harvest of snows.”
MONTREAL CARNIVAL SPORTS.
1884.
The Frost-King sat on a throne of snow,
On a plain in the Royal Isle:
In his hand a sceptre of ice he bore,
On his brow a crown of ice he wore,
And his face was set in a holiday smile,
When he bade the carnival trumpet blow
For the famous Sports to begin.
The voluble hills returned the din
In echoes that travelled o’er many a mile;
O’er the broad St. Lawrence to St. Helen’s Isle,
To the sounding rapids of old Lachine,
To the Boucherville woods with their tufts of green,
And the peaceful hamlets that smiled between.
A multitude vast as the waves of the sea,
When Tritons rejoice that the winds are free,
People from far off Southern lands,
Where the eagle exults on outspread vans,—
People who came from the prairied West,
And pine-clad East, and numbers untold
Of natives who laughed at the teeth of the cold
Were there for a gala-day, threefold blest.
The trumpeter wight was an Arctic sprite,
Whose limbs were lank and whose locks were white,
And when he had blown with all his might,
The Frost-King raised his sceptre high,
When it flashed all the lights of a boreal sky,
And thus, in accents of festive tone,
He welcomed the guests who encircled his throne:—
“Friends! who have journeyed far to share
The verve of our Canadian air,
Greeting and love to all.
’Tis wise to lay aside each heavy care
And all the petty ills that do enthral,
To find in ampler scope this lusty joy,
This social amity, where no alloy
Of turbid passion mingles with the gold
Of kindly fellowship:
Where harmony betwixt the heart and lip
Its primal sanctity delights to hold.
Pleasure is native to the heart of man,
Here let it freely flow;
Here let an ocean tide of gladness roll,
Here where no tyrant’s interdict can ban
The sacred glow
That freedom kindles in the human soul.
Now let the _Sports_ begin, and first
Let youths and maids who stand athirst
For Canada’s supreme sensation,
For motion’s wild intoxication,
Launch from yon hills their swift _Toboggans_.
Behold, upon the utmost crest,
How democratic Jones and Scroggins
With Lords and Ladies freely jest.
Blow, trumpet, blow!
The signal sound how well they know!
Down, down they plunge, what frantic speed!
No lightning-shod celestial steed
E’er swifter clove the azure air
Than headlong down the polished slide
Those young athletes and damsels ride,
Obedient to the trumpet’s blare;
Like foamy waves that seek the shore,
When red-mouthed storms behind them roar,—
Like avalanches loosed from high,—
Like meteors rushing down the sky,—
They spurn the steep, they leap, they fly,
Till on the flats in bubbling joy they pour.
A _Sport_ of more elastic grace
Now claims from us its honoured place.
Again, my merry sprite,
The trumpet sound, and let the night
In starry azure veil the face
Of Earth, enrobed in purest white.
The signal blast the _Skaters_ know,
And eagerly—with cheeks aglow,
Their costumes varied as the flowers
And blossoms that the Summer hours
On all the sunny lands bestow—
They skim in joy the crystal floor,
So full their bliss they ask no more.
In sooth it is a goodly show,
Twice twenty hundred twinkling feet
In fairy flight, advance, retreat,
Whilst others, more ambitious still,
In loops and scrolls assert their skill.
The Champion of a hundred rinks,
Behold him there! his bosom mailed
With trophies rich; what fancy jinks
Those lithe, light limbs that never failed!
What complicated, airy links
They weave, as weaves a spider’s feet!
Till tip-toe wonder, stares and winks,
And plauding hands his triumphs greet.
What ho! what means yon wild array,
In blanket-coats and sashes gay,
With red fire armed, that wind this way?
Stretching afar for many a mile,
Hither they haste in Indian file,
Ha! Ha! the rebel horde I know;
Blow, Trumpeter, the trumpet blow!—
To arms!—the _Snowshoe_ host have sworn
To storm our castle walls,—this morn
A faithful courier warning gave;
Defiant let our war-flag wave!
And you, my guests, remain in sight,
Spectators of the weirdest fight
That ever shook the vault of night.
To arms our veterans! man the walls,
Receive them with a million balls
Of roaring flame, with dart and brand,
And serpents that no mortal hand
Can parry; let our trusty _Pinch_,
Who never has been known to flinch,
Protect the gates; our princely friend,
Great _Zero_, shall in wrath defend
The turrets and the loop-holed walls;
Let _Blizzard_—a tremendous power—
In fury guard the centre tower;
And _Coldsnap_, thine the task to shower
With fiery hail and blistering squalls,
And cannonade of burning snow
From every point the reeling foe!
The rebels advance with a shout and a cheer;
But they reck not the might of that spectral host,
Each warrior chieftain a blood-freezing ghost,
Who answered their mirth with a jeer.
Strange voices—such sounds as the winter winds make
When lattice and casement they wrench at and shake,
Were heard in those halls;
And such terrible calls
As made the most valiant assailant to quake.
The castle, a lucent volcano, emits
An ocean of flame on the heads of the foe,
They waver—they stagger—they lose their five wits,
And print their appalling defeat in the snow.
Short, sharp and decisive the battle—no breach—
In that marvellous structure the rebels could reach.
To the mountain, abashed, bearing torches, they fled,
Oppressed with the weight of their wounded and dead.
The Frost-King, no longer enveloped in wrath,
With pity surveyed their laborious path;
And then, to the multitude bending, he said:—
“What folly, what ingratitude!
To think with such rebellious war
This wonder of the world to mar!
This temple that in mist and flood
And cataract in embryo slept,
Till near this Royal Island crept
The fluent particles, on which
I breathed and wedded each to each,
And made the solid lustre rich
In dazzling beauty, fit to reach
And rival, in these gleaming spires,
The loveliness of astral fires,
The mellow radiance of the moon.
Ah! whether late or soon
We with our retinue depart,
Is there a single human heart
Will mourn our exit? Shall we not
Some few months hence be quite forgot?
If even so, another year,
With equal pleasure, equal cheer,
King Frost shall hold his court, we wot,
And meet your warmest welcome here.”
PETER WIMPLE’S COURTSHIP.
This poem was written when the author
was a pupil of a literary institute in the
State of New York, and was read at a public
entertainment given by that institution, too
long ago to make mention of the date desirable.
I.
Twice forty years have rolled away
Since first I saw the light of day,
And sage experience bids me say,
Without a grumble,
The youth who yields to woman’s sway,
Down hill will tumble.
II.
While in my “teens,” like some of you,
And life’s gay colours all were new,
My heart was in a constant stew
About the fair;
Though oft a learned friend and true
Said: “Pete, beware!”
III.
Love songs I scribbled when a lad,
For many a transient choice I had,
Now marching gay, now moping sad,
Time’s flight unheeded;
A switch, which cures—or kills—the mad,
Was what I needed.
IV.
My sixteenth summer drawing nigh,
I winked with an experienced eye;
At church I chanced a maid to spy,
With beauty blest,
Who made me heave a double sigh,
And spoiled my rest.
V.
The fairest form of hundreds there,
I gazed upon her graces rare,
And breathed, for once, a pithy prayer,
In earnest diction.
Some took my wild, unearthly stare
For deep conviction.
VI.
Oh, how I spent the days ensuing,
With sighs, and groans, and nothing doing
Save weaving plots for instant wooing,
And sudden marriage!
Meantime the Fates for me were brewing
A sad miscarriage.
VII.
’Twas summer, and at dawn of day,
When bird to bird gave greeting lay,
Alone I sought the meadows gay,
Or forest shade,
And there in fancy would portray
The blue-eyed maid.
VIII.
Each fragrant flower that met my view,
Each pendant drop of glittering dew,
Each little bird that warbling flew
From spray to spray,
Each bore methought, some semblance true
Of Jane Levay.
IX.
Her name I carved on fifty trees,
I breathed it to the passing breeze,
And bade the winds o’er all the seas
To bear it far;
I fancied her by fond degrees,
The morning star.
X.
My inward man I felt consume,
My cheeks waxed thin and lost their bloom;
Some prophesied an early tomb
Would hide poor Peter;
I heeded not their words of gloom,
My thoughts ran sweeter.
XI.
At length it came at gloaming hour,
Dan Cupid strove with all his power,
And sent, at once, a fiery shower
Through all my frame;
My shivering nerves could scarce endure
The scorching flame.
XII.
While thus my youthful marrow fried,
“Ye Gods,” said I, “who lovers guide,
This night my charmer must be tried,
I’ll go and see her;
I’ll make her my affianced bride,
My ever-dear.”
XIII.
In Sunday trim I soon was dressed,
My clothes, be sure, were not the best,
But people were of humbler taste
In those good days;
Girls were not pinched about the waist
By belts or stays,
XIV.
Folk then might go to church or play
In home-made suits of plain sheep-gray,
And no proud fop be heard to say
“What awkward shapes!”
Those simple times, long fled away,
Reared no such apes.
XV.
Our sweethearts spun the frocks they wore,
Before their wheels upon the floor
They stepped as lightly evermore
As belles of France
Who wander from their native shore
To skip and dance.
XVI.
Thus Eastern maids, whose vernal bloom
In Homer’s verse can ne’er consume,
Assumed the distaff and the loom,
With cheerful hands;
Their fame is like a sweet perfume
Of their own lands.
XVII.
But to our theme—too long delayed:
In Sabbath costume now arrayed,
My hat, a gift, of oat-straw braid,
My kerchief white,
I started as began to fade
The western light.
XVIII.
I found it hard my thoughts to rally,
Love’s heaven appeared a little squally,
But on the road I made no dally,—
My heart was jumping:
You would have vowed it beat to jelly,
To have heard it thumping.
XIX.
The whip-poor-will was on the wing,
And “whip-poor-Pete” he seemed to sing,
Yet what such plaguy thought could bring
To Peter Wimple?
I gave my head a manly swing,
At whim so simple.
XX.
The waters of my own loved stream—
The Hudson—shone with silvery gleam,
And in the moon’s subduing beam
The signs of war
(Whose glory was my topmost dream)
Glittered afar.
XXI.
“Those were the times that tried men’s souls;”—
The blazing cannon’s thunder rolls
Around the hills; no church bell tolls
The soldier’s fall;
He passes to the goal of goals
In crimson pall.
XXII.
My father and my elder brother
Their martial ardour could not smother,
So, bade adieu to home and mother,
And rushed to battle;
They fought, alas! ’gainst one another,
Like men of mettle.
XXIII.
In Carleton’s ranks my father stood,
A loyal man of stubborn mood;
My brother—for his country’s good—
Led on by Green—
The routed foe with shouts pursued
And weapons keen.
XXIV.
Pardon, dear folk, this slight digression,
Too grave to stamp a gay impression;
Old men forget themselves in session
As journals tell ye:
But hearken now a full confession
Of what befel me.
XXV.
I hurried on, ’twas wearing late,
With soft caresses in my pate;
I reached my charmer’s cottage gate,
But here I halted;
My grit, like some old pewter plate,
Was tried—and melted.
XXVI.
I felt a weakness at the knee,
Large drops were running warm and free
Like rillets hasting to the sea—
Adown my cheeks,
I called on Heaven to pity me,—
He finds who seeks.
XXVII.
My prayer was answered by a strain
Which fell, like magic on my pain;
The songstress was my peerless Jane,
Her voice I knew;
The words on memory’s leaves remain
Like honey dew.
SONG.
1
A little bird of plumage gay
Sat singing in a myrtle tree;
What think you did the birdie say?
What said it, love, to you and me?
2
It said be happy in the light
Of love’s young morn, when love is truth;
Be happy ere has taken flight
The witchery of dreaming youth.
3
An owlet sat at close of day
Too-hoo-ing in a linden tree;
What think you did the owlet say?
What said it, love, to you and me?
4
It said, be wise ere comes the night
Of lone repining, keep your truth,
Be wise and wed ere takes its flight
The witchery of dreaming youth.
XXVIII.
The song had ceased; again I started,
So resolute, so joyous-hearted,
No earthly power could then have thwarted
My steps from Jane;
A little laughing Cupid darted
From vein to vein.
XXIX.