1891.
The White Canoe
And other Verse.
The White Canoe.
There's a whisper of life in the grey dead trees,
And a murmuring wash on the shore,
And a breath of the South in the loitering breeze,
To tell that a winter is o'er.
While free, at last, from its fetters of ice
The river is clear and blue,
And cries with a tremulous quivering voice
For the launch of the White Canoe.
Oh, gently the ripples will kiss her side,
And tenderly bear her on;
For she is the wandering phantom bride
Of the river she rests upon;
She is loved with a love that cannot forget,
A passion so strong and true,
That never a billow has risen yet
To peril the White Canoe.
So come when the moon is enthroned in the sky,
And the echoes are sweet and low,
And Nature is full of the mystery
That none but her children know;
Come, taste of the rest that the weary crave,
But is only revealed to a few:
When there's trouble on shore, there's peace on the wave,
Afloat in the White Canoe.
A Vision.
To-night, sweetheart, when all about me lay
In shadow deep the wood,
I felt my soul within me reel and sway
And pulse my sluggish blood,
As when along a quiet land-locked bay
Swells some resistless flood.
My spirit leapt from out its earthly prison,
Higher and ever higher,
Until it reached those barriers Elysian
Where the eternal fire
Creates one great impassable division
Twixt us and our desire.
Up, till it left the regions of the night,
Of sorrow and of fear,
Emerging into that soft mellow light,
That radiance pure and clear,
Where Love reigns all supreme, and all is bright
If only Love be near.
There through sweet meadows, on by brimming streams,
Wandered my soul at will,
And saw such forms as haunt our loveliest dreams
And, waking, haunt us still;
Voices like music, smiles like sunny beams
Lost in a rippling rill.
But ah! my soul saw one supremely fair,
One form the most divine,
One face enhaloed all with golden hair,
In beauty most benign,
Surpassing all the perfect beauty there:
Heart of my heart, 'twas thine!
My soul went forth, but all grew strange and dim--
Meadow and stream were gone--
I heard a sound as of a far-off hymn
By night winds softly blown;
Then all around me seemed to sink and swim,
And I am here alone.
A Question.
Pale Moon, whose tranquil orb resplendent sails
The ethereal main; thy curved prow
For ever braving the celestial gales,
Serene and slow:
Myriads of Stars, that ever dot the blue
Great vault of heaven: eyes that keep
Eternal watch, unshaken, strong, and true,
Yet never sleep:
Ye southern Zephyrs, redolent with balm
Of myrtle, orange, and the rose;
Blowing from islands where the fronded palm
In beauty grows:
Wind of the North, whose trumpet voice can shake
The shuddering echoes of the cave;
Storm-born, blast-driven; thou, whose breath doth make
The mighty wave:
Perpetual Fire, whose never-dying flame
Consumes the glowing heart of earth,
Until a wide destruction shall proclaim
A second birth:
Tell me, oh! mighty concourse, have ye seen
In all this great infinity
Of worlds unborn and planets that have been,
A place for me?
Confession, Creed, and Prayer.
Silent around me a cathedral dim,
Still throbbing with the echoes of a hymn,
Lifted its ghostly arches, great and grim;
Slowly the worshippers had filed away;
Untenanted the vacant cloisters lay;
As even followed on the steps of day;
But one remained, who bent his reverent head
Where graven figures slumber with the dead,
And spake with faltering accents, and he said:
"Light, light, more light; Great Father, give me light;
I cannot see my way, so dark the night;
My finite heart shrinks from the infinite.
"Anon the shadow lifts: my straining eyes
One moment see that which before me lies;
This fades, and new-born hope within me dies.
"I looked for sunshine, yet there cometh rain;
My sweetest pleasure turneth into pain:
I would sink back to nothingness again.
"Beliefs are but perpetual ideas,
The gospel worketh only on my fears,
In bitterness and sorrow, void of tears;
"In one God I believe, eternally
Omnipotent and present, and that He
Rules Heaven and Hell, the earth, the sky, the sea.
"As carnal life by carnal love is given,
So life divine by love divine is proven,
Of which the fountain head is God in Heaven.
"That since each body is the fleshly home
Of something better, something not our own,
So God all faults but foulness will condone.
"For I believe impurity is sin
Against the Spirit life that dwells within
Creating Father and created men;
"That every soul is judged true and well
According to the light that on it fell:
No light, no judgment; strong light, Heaven or Hell.
"All this and more; Great Father, I have heard
Of Thy dear Son; my heart expectant stirred
To welcome Him, confessing I had erred.
"Nay, said humanity within me, nay,
I cannot grasp this mystery, so stay
Until I comprehend, and I obey:
"I would, yet cannot--herein lies my grief.
Thy Son spake comfort to the dying thief,
So speak to me and help mine unbelief."
Here the voice faltered, ceased. God, can it be
The morn has dawned on him and not on me?
Is this the Publican, I Pharisee?
To My Pipe.
Others their nectar from the goblet sip;
I draw sweet solace from thine amber lip.
"A feast of reason and a flow of soul"
Lurk in the perfumed vapors of thy bowl.
Some scoff, and say I err from nature's rules--
Tobacco's poison; but, friend, some are fools.
If times are hard, no comrade like to thee;
If prosperous, thou'rt the priest of jollity.
Browned in my service, silver-rimmed through age,
Thy smouldering fire, reflection's heritage;
When the day comes, old friend, and I'm dead broke,
Then just one puff--we'll both go up in smoke.
Supposing.