Who, leaving earth unto his brother’s care,
Did gentle battle with the powers of air,
And made them his and ours by victor’s right!
Adah, the first-beloved of Lamech’s wives,
Bare him two sons. Jabal, the eldest-born,
Grew up to manhood, strong and bold and free;
And leaving Enoch, sought a boundless home,
Living in tents, a king amid his flocks,
Setting his throne where’er his subjects thrived,
Lord, or allowed vicegerent under God,
Unto the “cattle on a thousand hills.”
But Jubal, wise and gentle, ’tis for thee
That we would raise to life the giant shades
That lived and loved, and sinned and wept and died
Ere Heaven’s great tears had washed away the crime
That stained the beauty of the early earth;
And Enoch, mistress of primeval Art,
Lay, the dead mistress of a drownèd world.
What was thy year, thy month, thy day of birth,
That we may mark it in our Calendar,
“On this day, in a year before the Flood,
Jubal was born, Inventor of the Harp?”
Where shall we seek this knowledge? Of the stars?
’Tis said by some our hearts and brains depend
Upon the union in their mystic dance
They happen to be forming at the hour
When we are born. Then we shall ask the stars.
For they may recollect the year and hour
They formed that wondrous figure when the power
Of music touched the soul of man
For the first time, and if they can,
’Twas then that Jubal’s life began!
Sibyl-stars, that sing the chorus
Of the life that lies before us
As we open mortal eyes!
Strange phrenologists of Heaven,
That infuse the spirit-leaven
Into nascent, infant brains,
That can make them dull or wise,
Forging subtle mental chains
That must bind us until death,
As ye calmly glitter o’er us,
When we draw our primal breath!
Mixing qualities together,
Just according to the weather,
Just according to the season,
And the point of daily time,
Noon or even, night or morn,
That we happen to be born,
For some sage, sidereal reason,
Which some sophomores call “chance,”
Some the “force of circumstance!”
Tell, O fatal stars, sublime,
What the swelling of the chime
Into which you wove your dance,
What the day and what the hour,
Was so happy as to dower
Earth with Music’s heavenly power!
Tell the day of Jubal’s birth,
Day of Jubilee to earth.
Was the “music of the spheres”
Audible to mortal ears?
Did the winds of Heaven sing
Till the forests clapped their hands?
Did the ocean, heralding,
Bear the tidings to all lands,
Whispering, “Rejoice, rejoice,”
Till the earth, unprisoning
All her sounds, became a Voice?
As the soaring of his wing
When the distant eagle moves,
Wakes to life the silent groves,
At the coming of their king!
Sibyl-stars, was this the way
That Earth greeted Jubal’s day?
In those far shadowy years before the Flood
Jubal was born, and this is all we know;
Born in the land where Cain, in solitude
And occupation sought to hide his woe
Born with a gift, well-used, of sin the foe,
A heaven-sent harbinger of promised good.
Oh! was not Adah happy in her boy?
Oh! who could tell the secret of her joy,
When, with a mother’s love, she pierced the veil
That childhood draws round genius, lest it fail
In its high aim, by adulation fed,
And only feel the poison, when ’tis dead?
And Lamech, first of bards, whose kindred art
Would welcome her sweet sister, watched his son
As day by day he saw the promise start
Towards accomplishment. Yet neither one,
Father nor mother, knew as yet the prize
For which they waited with such anxious eyes.
They saw that he was not of common mould:
His quiet thoughtfulness, his pensive ways,
His listening oft as to a story told,
With side-turned head, and distant, earnest gaze,
Told of some god-like purpose in his brain,
Though what it was they asked themselves in vain.
So Jubal grew in those far, shadowy years
Before the Flood; and so the music grew
Within his soul. The common air to him
Was as a constant feast; its slightest touch
Was joy to which all other joy was pain.
The first sensations of his infancy
Were blent with it. His mother’s tender sighs,--
Half sighs, half laughter,--as she looked on him,
Wondering what sort of man he should become,
Were like the breath of angels to his ear;
And when his father’s mighty voice came forth,
Majestic, through its bearded doors, he hushed
The tremulous beatings of his heart to hear.
And when his brother Jabal went away,
And there were sounds of sorrow in his home,
(And he wept too, though hardly knowing why)
He treasured up the sounds as precious things,
Until they seemed a portion of his life.
So did he gather all the tones of love
And joy and grief, by strange instinctive power;
And by and by, how anger wounds the air,
And all the passions of the fallen heart
That Satan hissed into the ear of Eve,
He sadly learned; and yet with balanced sense,
His great, high gift, he traced through all the tones
The woman struggling with her serpent-foe,
And desperate yearnings for lost innocence.
But most he joyed to listen to the words
Of happy children, respited a while,
From fearful looking to the day of death;
And it was Jubal’s chief delight to wed
Their gladsome voices with the Eden notes
To which the first sweet marriage-hymn was set--
The silver-throated wooing of the birds--
The trilling of the zephyr-courted leaves--
The merry-hearted laughter of the brooks--
The multitudinous hum of joyous life--
The weird lullaby that Nature sings
Unto the darlings fondled in her lap,
Loving but helpless, and their low response;
And all the vocal charms of summer time,
That wrap the soul in dreamy, languid bliss.
All gentle sounds nestled within his heart,
But not alone (though these he loved the most)
Were gentle sounds the study of the boy.
The mournful requiem of the dying leaves,--
The piping gales that make the forest dance,--
The tempest’s rage, to which the pine and oak
Are but as playthings to an angry child:
The rain, the whirlwind and the thundercrash,--
The mountain torrent, “the vexed ocean’s roar,”--
The noisy lapping of the tongues of fire,--
The howl of hungry, ravenous beasts of prey,--
All that is sad or mad in Nature’s voice,--
All that reminds us of the awful words
That pierced the fancied hiding place of sin,
Ere yet the curse descended,--these he knew.
For, in those giant days before the Flood,
Nature and man were ever face to face,
Till Art grew, Nature’s image, in man’s heart.
So Jubal revelled in all sweet, grand sounds,
A seeming spendthrift, but with miser craft,
Locking his airy jewels in the casket
Of lovingest remembrance,--till the boy
Dreamed himself into manhood.
Then there weighed
Upon his brain the burden of a thought,--
To bring to life the music that his soul
Had gathered from the music of the world,--
To make, by cunning union, every tone
Of its great voice obedient to his will.
And so he planned, awake, and, sleeping, dreamed
Of this, his one idea; till at last
’Neath his creative hand the “Harp” was born.
And then he planned again, for life was long
In those far, shadowy years before the Flood,
Until the “Organ,” in its mighty heart,
Echoed the throbbings of the heart of man.
APOLLO DROPT A SEED OF SONG.
I.
Apollo dropt a seed of song
Into my heart one day,
And, smiling godlike, passed along
Upon his heavenly way.
II.
I saw him make his golden arc,
For many a weary day,
But still the little seedling, dark
Lay hid beneath the clay.
III.
But gentle eyes, one joyous hour,
Shone where my seedling lay,--
O Love, tend well thy little flower,
And let it not decay.
VOX DEI.
The beauteous pyramid of harmless flame
Spelled G O D for Moses; but the thundered law
Was needed for the wild, unruly crowd.
The awful test of swift-consuming fire
Alone shewed Baal false to Baal’s friends;
The “still, small voice” touched lone Elijah’s heart.
So God speaks variously to various men:
To some in nature’s sternest parables;
To others, in the breath that woos the flowers,
Until they blush and pale, and blush again.
To _these_ the Decalogue were just as true
If uttered on a summer Sabbath-day
In village church--to _those_ there is no God,
Till fiery rain has scarred the face of earth.
THE OLD WAR-HORSE.
I.
He paweth no more in the field,
Where glitter the spear and the shield;
Nor heareth the thunder of war,
Nor smelleth the battle afar;
In his eyes is no glory of gleam,
And his strength is the strength of a dream.
II.
He never turned back from the sword,
When the pride of the land was his lord,
Yet his neck is bowed meekly--the brave
Can be meek, aye, as meek as a slave,--
And he works near the dark of his day,--
’Twas _his_ pride (he was taught) to obey.
III.
In the gloaming of life his old eyes
May see visions of glory arise;
Who knows but within his old heart
May thousands of memories start
Of the march and the drum and the fife,
Of the charge and the cry and the strife?
IV.
Who can tell? But, hark! once again
He hears, as in whispers the strain
Of that long-ago hid in his blood;
It comes nearer; he paweth the mud
Of the street, and his sinews rejoice,
And he hears not his slave-master’s voice!
V.
Though his form no gay war-trappings deck,
The thunder returns to his neck;
Ha! ha! he is free! for the sound
Of the trumpet his soul has unbound!
He is off! not a pause, till he comes
To the midst of the din of the drums.
VI.
He has taken his place, as of yore,
He is marching to battle once more;
They may mock him as haggard and thin,
They may laugh at the marks on his skin,
But naught recks he; the master he bore,
_His_ name may well cover them o’er.
VII.
The music is hushed; the array
Of the soldiers has vanished away;
The old charger, poor fellow, elate
No longer, returns to his fate;
And the light of his eyes has burned low,
And his paces are feeble and slow.
* * * * *
VIII.
He has heard his last call to parade
From the trumpet of death and obeyed;
And the brave soldier-steed from all harness is freed
Evermore, and his sleep
Is so placid and deep,
He needs fear no awakening. Rest to his shade!
* * * * *
IX.
There are men, there are women who toil
At the mill or the mart or the soil,
Who wearily drudge day by day
Till the soul of them seems to decay;
Only _seems_,--for within, after all,
There’s a something that waits for its call.
X.
And if even the call never come
In this world of the deaf and the dumb,
When the Great Trumpet music shall fall
On the ears of the quick and the dead,
They shall burst from their clay
And hasten away
To their place in that host of which God is the Head.
ELOISE.
I.
I’ll call thee Elöise. Such eyes as thine
With fatal beauty marred
The peace of Abelard,
And dimmed with human love the light divine
That lingers near Religion’s holy shrine!
II.
O pitiless eyes, you burn unto my soul,
Each one a living coal
From off Love’s altar! Fall, O silken lashes,
And shade me, like a screen, from their control,
Ere all my warm delight be turned to ashes!
III.
Oh, no! I cannot bear the shade. Burn on,
And let me slowly perish with sweet fire,
Myself at once the victim and the pyre,--
I die of cold when that dear heat is gone.
WHEN THE SPRING-TIME COMES.
I.
“When the Spring-time comes”--
So we say in wintry hours;
And we look upon the snow,
While we think upon the flowers.
And we gaze till hope’s bright glory is kindled in our eyes,
And earth becomes an Eden full of beauty and delight,
Where the air is far too happy to bear any weight of sighs,
And myriad forms of gentle things bring gladness to the sight.
And we wander through and through,
Past the fairest trees and flowers,
Till we find the friends we knew,
And link their hands in ours,
And then, in ecstacy of bliss, we seek the sweetest bowers.
II.
“When the Spring-time comes”--
But ah! the snow is cold,
And Death is colder still,--
Whom may he not enfold?
The glory in our eyes that shone is dimmed with bitter tears,
And our Eden-flowers have faded into nothingness again;
And we wander sadly, darkly, through a labyrinth of years,
And we call for vanished faces, and act wildly in our pain.
And then there comes a calm,
And our sorrow grows less bold,
As Nature’s mighty psalm,
O’er God’s own mountain rolled,
Once heralded the still, small voice to that lone seer of old.
III.
“When the Spring-time comes”--
Think we of griefs we know;
Had we foreseen them long,
Could we have stood the blow?
Then should we not be thankful for the mercy that conceals
The future, whether dark or bright, from our too curious eyes?
God knows what’s best for all of us; He covers or reveals,
As it seemeth to him best, the ill that in our pathway lies.
So let us journey on,
Content in weal or woe
To feel at least that One
Smiles on us as we go,
Who in sublime humility once suffered here below.
IV.
“When the Spring-time comes”--
Let us live well the hours,
God’s spring within the heart
Will wreathe them all with flowers.
And when the snow has fallen over hand and heart and brain,
Some few may say above our graves “Let us be like to them,
And though we may not see them when the Spring-time comes again,
We hold their memory more dear than gold or precious gem.
And at the great Spring day,
When melted are the powers
That hide our souls in clay,
As winter hides the flowers,
May we wreathe amaranths with them in Eden’s choicest bowers.”
HOPE.
She touched me in my sorrow; I awoke.
Her kind hands broke the fetters of my grief;
The light of smiles shone round me, as she spoke:
“I come, my friend, to bring thee sweet relief.
Of those that minister, I am the chief,
To man’s sick heart; I made the tears of Eve
Bright with the hues of Heaven, when loth to leave
The joys her disobedience made so brief.
I sailed with Noah o’er the buried earth,
I sat with Hagar by the new-found well,
I solaced Joseph in his lonely cell,
I filled sad David’s soul with songs of mirth.”
Much more she whispered, till my heart grew bright
And sorrow vanished, as at dawn, the night.
DOMINION DAY.
JULY, 1st, 1867.
I.
Our land is flushed with love; through the wealth of her gay-hued tresses
From his bright-red fingers the sun has been dropping his amorous fire,
And her eyes are gladly oppressed with the weight of his lips’ caresses,
And the zephyr-throbs of her bosom keep time with the voice of his lyre.
II.
’Tis the noon of the sweet, strong summer, the king of the months
of the year,
And the king of the year is crowning our Land with his glory of love,
And the King of all kings, in whose crown each gem is the light of
a sphere,
Looks smilingly down on our Land from the height of His heaven above.
III.
For to-day she breathes what to her is the first of a nation’s breath,
As she lies ’neath the gaze of the sun, as a bride, or a child new-born,
Lies with fair motionless limbs in the beautiful semblance of death,
Yet awake with the joy of a bird that awakes with the whisper of morn.
IV.
And her soul is drinking the music that flows through the golden lyre,
From the deeps of the woods and waters and wonderful hearts of men,
From the long-hushed songs of the forest, the wild, primeval choir,
Till she feels the breath of the Spirit move over her face again.
1.
Of the shadowy distant ages,
(This is the song they sing),
That scorn historic pages,
When the Maple alone was king;
When the bears were lords of creation,
The beaver’s the only trade,
And the greatest Confederation
Was that which the wolves had made.
2.
And then, long ages after,
How the first of the forest men,
With sounds of war and laughter,
Invaded the wild beast’s den;
They tell of the axe’s ringing,
Of the camp-fire’s savage glee,
Of the pipe of peace and the singing
Under the maple tree.
3.
And how strange birds of ocean
Came from the dawn of day,
And woke untold commotion,
Where’er they winged their way;
How pale-faced men and cruel
Carried the sword and brand,
In search of gold and jewel,
Into the red man’s land.
4.
How, with the warriors, others
Of gentle manners came,
Who called the red men brothers
And told them of His Name,
Who came from the Great Spirit,
To bless mankind and save;
And who, for man’s demerit,
Suffered the cross and grave.
5.
How still in spite of preaching
Of brotherhood and peace,
It seemed that war’s stern teaching
Should never, never cease;
How blood was shed like water,
How treaties were despised,
How massacre and slaughter
Were night and day devised.
6.
How, in the course of seasons,
Other strange ocean birds
Brought violence and treasons,
And smooth, deceitful words;
And how the first pale-faces
Fought with the last who came,
Until a war of races
Set all the woods aflame.
7.
How valiant deeds and noble
Shone out amid the night,
Illuming scenes of trouble,
With Heaven’s blessed light;
How oft, in human nature,
Though wofully defaced,
Was seen some god-like feature--
A flower in a waste;
8.
Till now, through God’s good guiding,
Those who as foemen strove,
With heart in heart confiding,
As brothers join in love;
Till, from lake, sea and ocean,
Mountain and woody dell,
Is heard, with glad emotion,
Division’s passing-bell.
V.
So she hears, not in words, but in spirit, the changeful tale of the past,
As she leans to the sun with veins that are blue like the
blue of the sky,
Hears with a smile on her lips that the demon Division is cast
Into the river of death, as a monster worthy to die.
VI.
And she hears many tongues of men, that are singing as one in her praise,
Calling her, all, by one name, a name that is noble and old,
Singing a pæan of joy for the light of the gladdest of days,
Making a noise of thanksgiving for union more precious than gold.
VII.
1.
Canada, Canada, land of the maple,
Queen of the forest and river and lake,
Open thy soul to the voice of thy people,
Close not thy heart to the music they make.
Bells, chime out merrily,
Trumpets, call cheerily,
Silence is vocal, and sleep is awake!
2.
Canada, Canada, land of the beaver,
Labour and skill have their triumph to-day;
Oh! may the joy of it flow like a river,
Wider and deeper as time flies away.
Bells, chime out merrily,
Trumpets, call cheerily,
Science and industry laugh and are gay.
3.
Canada, Canada, land of the snow-bird,
Emblem of constancy change cannot kill,
Faith, that no strange cup has ever unsobered,
Drinketh, to-day, from love’s chalice her fill.
Bells, chime out merrily,
Trumpets, call cheerily,
Loyalty singeth and treason is still!
4.
Canada, Canada, land of the bravest,
Sons of the war-path, and sons of the sea,
Land of no slave-lash, to-day thou enslavest
Millions of hearts with affection for thee.
Bells, chime out merrily,
Trumpets, call cheerily,
Let the sky ring with the shout of the free.
5.
Canada, Canada, land of the fairest,
Daughters of snow that is kissed by the sun,
Binding the charms of all lands that are rarest,
Like the bright cestus of Venus in one!
Bells, chime out merrily,
Trumpets, call cheerily,
A new reign of beauty on earth is begun!
VIII.
1.
The ocean has kissed her feet
With cool, soft lips that smile,
And his breath is wondrously sweet
With the odours of many an isle.
2.
He has many a grand old song
Of his grand, old fearless kings;
And the voice from his breast is strong,
As he sings and laughs as he sings.
3.
Though often his heart is sad
With the weight of the gray-haired days
That were once as light and as glad
As the soul of a child that plays.
4.
But to-day at Canada’s feet,
He smiles, as when Venus was born,
And the breath from his lips is as sweet
As the breath of wet flowers at morn.
IX.
1.
The mountains raise their faces
Up to the face of God;
They are fresh with balmy graces
And with flowers their feet are shod.
2.
In their soul is a noise of gladness,
Their veins swell out with song,--
With a feathery touch of sadness,
Like a dream of forgotten wrong.
3.
They have set their song to the metre
Of the bright-eyed summer days,
And our Land, to-day they greet her,
With lips that are red with praise.
X.
1.
Lake is calling to lake
With a ripply, musical sound,
As though half afraid to awake
The storm from his sleep profound.
2.
The hem of their garments is gay
With gardens that look to the south;
And the smile of the dawn of to-day
Has touched them on bosom and mouth.
XI.
The rivers have gladly embraced,
And carry the joy of the lakes,
Past mountain and island and waste,
To where the sea’s laughter outbreaks.
XII.
And sea and lake and mountain,
And man and beast and bird--
Our happy Land’s life fountain--
By one great voice are stirred.
Bells chime out merrily,
Trumpets call cheerily,
Cannons boom lustily,
Greet the glad day!
Rose-wreath and fleur-de-lys,
Shamrock and thistle be
Joined to the maple tree
Now and for aye!
XIII.
Let the shout of our joy to-day be borne through the pulse of the sea,
To the grand old lands of our fathers,--a token of loyalest love;
And may the winds bring back sweet words, O our Land, to thee--
As, in the far old time, the peace-leaf came with the dove.
XIV.
And long, long ages hence, when the Land that we love so well
Has clasped us all (as a mother clasps her babe) to her
motherly bosom,
Those who shall walk on the dust of us, with pride in their
Land shall tell,
Holding the fruit in their grateful hands, of the birth
of to-day, the blossom.
IN MY HEART.
I.
In my heart are many chambers through which I wander free;
Some are furnished, some are empty, some are sombre, some are light;
Some are open to all comers, and of some I keep the key,
And I enter in the stillness of the night.
II.
But there’s one I never enter,--it is closed to even me!
Only once its door was opened, and it shut for evermore;
And though sounds of many voices gather round it, like the sea,
It is silent, ever silent, as the shore.
III.
In that chamber, long ago, my love’s casket was concealed,
And the jewel that it sheltered I knew only one could win;
And my soul foreboded sorrow, should that jewel be revealed,
And I almost hoped that none might enter in.
IV.
Yet day and night I lingered by that fatal chamber door,
Till--she came at last, my darling one, of all the earth my own;
And she entered--and she vanished with my jewel, which she wore;
And the door was closed--and I was left alone.
V.
She gave me back no jewel, but the spirit of her eyes
Shone with tenderness a moment, as she closed that chamber door,
And the memory of that moment is all I have to prize,--
But _that, at least_, is mine for evermore.
VI.
Was she conscious, when she took it, that the jewel was my love?
Did she think it but a bauble, she might wear or toss aside?
I know not, I accuse not, but I hope that it may prove
A blessing, though she spurn it in her pride.
SISERA.
JUDGES v., 28-30.
“Why comes he not? why comes he not,
My brave and noble son?
Why comes he not with his warlike men,
And the trophies his sword has won?
How slowly roll his chariot wheels!
How weary is the day!
Pride of thy mother’s lonely heart,
Why dost thou still delay?
He comes not yet! will he never come
To gladden these heavy eyes,
That have watched and watched from morn till eve,
And again till the sun did rise?
Shall I greet no more his look of joy,
Nor hear his manly voice?
Why comes he not with the spoils of war,
And the damsels of his choice?”
Years rushed along in their ceaseless course,
But Sisera came no more,
With his mighty men and his captive maids,
As he oft had come before.
A woman’s hand had done the deed
That laid a hero low;--
A woman’s heart had felt the grief
That childless mothers know.
COLUMBA SIBYLLA.
Ex mediis viridem surgentem ut lœta columba
Undis aspexit, post tempora tristia, terram,
Et levibus volitans folia alis carpsit olivæ,
Pacifera et rediit, libertatemque futuram
Navali inclusis in carcere significavit;
Sic terram, lœtis, super œquora vasta, Columbus
Insequitur, ventis astrisque faventibus, alis;
Inventam et terram placidis consevit olivis.
Aevorum super æquora parva columba Columbum
Inscia persequitur cum vaticinantibus alis!
Omina nomina sunt et Verbo facta reguntur,
Prœteritum nectitque futuro Aeterna Catena.
SUMMER IS DEAD.
I.
Summer is dead. Shall we weep or laugh,
As we gaze on the dead queen’s epitaph
Which Autumn has written in letters of gold:
“She was bright and beautiful, blithe and young,
And through grove and meadow she gaily sung,
As with careless footsteps she danced along
To the grave, where she now lies cold?”
II.
Shall we weep that her beauty from earth has gone?
Shall we weep for the friends that with her have flown?
Shall we weep for those that with her have died?
For the man that has perished in manhood’s pride?
For the maiden that never can be a bride?
For the hearts that are left alone?
III.
Shall we laugh as we stand at earth’s palace-door,
With the faded crown that poor Summer wore,
And placing it on her sister’s brow,
Forget the face that once smiled beneath
That faded crown, and the flowery breath
That parted those lips now cold in death?
For Autumn is monarch now.
IV.