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At Minas Basin and Other Poems

<div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/cover.jpg" width-obs="383" height-obs="616" alt="" /></div> <hr class="chap" /> <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/frontis.jpg" width-obs="400" height-obs="531" alt="" /> Reduced fac-simile of original of page 34.</div> <hr class="chap" /> <h1 class="space-above">AT MINAS BASIN And Other Poems</h1> BY <big>THEODORE H. RAND</big> D.C.L. TORONTO: WILLIAM BRIGGS WESLEY BUILDINGS. Montreal: C. W. COATES.Halifax: S. F. HUESTIS. 1897 <hr class="chap" /> Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year one thousand eight hundred and ninety-seven, by Theodore H. Rand, at the Department of Agriculture. <hr class="chap" /> To E. SHARER OF PERFECT SUMMER DAYS AT PARTRIDGE ISLAND BASIN OF MINAS Toronto, Canada, 1897 <hr class="chap" /> [Pg ix] <h2>(POESY SPEAKS.)</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> A body of beauty is mine. O poet, moulder of me, Withhold not the breath divine, The soul of truth that makes free. </div> <div class="stanza"> Fair form in repose for a day (The body of beauty of me) With the pulse-beats of life all away, Is well, for beauty and thee. </div> <div class="stanza"> Yet give to me life all aglow,— Not a demon of darkness to blight, But a love-lit soul pure as snow,— Beckon me an angel of light. </div> <div class="stanza"> A body of beauty is mine. O poet, moulder of me, Inbreathe with breathings divine, Or body alone let it be. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg xi] <h2>CONTENTS.</h2> <div class="center"> <table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents"> <tr><td></td><td align="right">Page</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">Poesy Speaks</td><td align="right">ix</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">At Minas Basin</td><td align="right">15</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">The Rain Cloud</td><td align="right">16</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">The Rose</td><td align="right">17</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">A Willow at Grand Pré</td><td align="right">18</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">The Bowing Dyke</td><td align="right">19</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">Love's Immanence</td><td align="right">20</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">Mystery</td><td align="right">21</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">The Night-Fisher</td><td align="right">22</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">A Deep-Sea Shell</td><td align="right">23</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">A Red Sunrise</td><td align="right">24</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">The Opal Fires are Gone</td><td align="right">25</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">The Cumulus Cloud</td><td align="right">26</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">Sea Fog</td><td align="right">27</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">Partridge Island</td><td align="right">28</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">Tennyson Rock</td><td align="right">29</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">Of Beauty</td><td align="right">30</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">The Undertow</td><td align="right">31</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">Glooscap</td><td align="right">32</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">Silas Tertius Rand</td><td align="right">33</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">The Tireless Sea</td><td align="right">34</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">The Veiled Presence</td><td align="right">35</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">Resistless Fate</td><td align="right">36</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">The Sea Undine</td><td align="right">37</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">To Emeline</td><td align="right">38</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">The Cirrus Cloud</td><td align="right">39</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">Day and Night</td><td align="right">40</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">Under the Beeches</td><td align="right">41</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">The Nightingale</td><td align="right">42</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">The Loon</td><td align="right">43</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">Hepaticas</td><td align="right">44</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">In the Mayflower Copse</td><td align="right">45</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">June</td><td align="right">46</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">An Inland Spruce</td><td align="right">47</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">The Ghost Flower</td><td align="right">48</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">Annapolis Basin</td><td align="right">49</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">In Autumn's Dreamy Ear</td><td align="right">50</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">Victor is He!</td><td align="right">51</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">McMaster University</td><td align="right">52</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">Conduct</td><td align="right">53</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">International Arbitration</td><td align="right">54</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">The House of God</td><td align="right">55</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">Ben Nachmani</td><td align="right">56</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">Renewal</td><td align="right">57</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">The Christ</td><td align="right">58</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">Revelation</td><td align="right">58</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">Light at Eventide</td><td align="right">59</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">Ben Shalom</td><td align="right">59</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">Banishment</td><td align="right">60</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">Now are the Bridals of the Leafy Wood</td><td align="right">60</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">May's Fairy Tale</td><td align="right">61</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">My Robin</td><td align="right">67</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">Elissa</td><td align="right">69</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">The Humming-Bird</td><td align="right">71</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">The Hepatica</td><td align="right">73</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">The White Rose.—(At ——'s Grave)</td><td align="right">75</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">The War Hercules</td><td align="right">77</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">In the Cool of the Day</td><td align="right">79</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">Beauty</td><td align="right">82</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">The Dragonfly</td><td align="right">84</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">Deathless</td><td align="right">90</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">A Dream</td><td align="right">93</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">Nature</td><td align="right">96</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">"I Am"</td><td align="right">99</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">The Glad Golden Year</td><td align="right">102</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">Tetrapla</td><td align="right">105</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">Fairy Glen</td><td align="right">107</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">In City Streets</td><td align="right">109</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">Bay of Fundy</td><td align="right">112</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">At the Look-off.—(Partridge Island)</td><td align="right">116</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">The Stormy Petrel</td><td align="right">120</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">Oblivion</td><td align="right">122</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">Sea Music</td><td align="right">126</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">Summer Fog</td><td align="right">130</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">The Arethusa</td><td align="right">132</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">Dian and Fundy.—(Designs for a Time-Piece)</td><td align="right">134</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">The Old Fisher's Song</td><td align="right">136</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">Nora Lee</td><td align="right">144</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">To W</td><td align="right">150</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">Marie Depure</td><td align="right">157</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">"By the Love."—An Easter Idyll</td><td align="right">161</td></tr> <tr><td align="left">Notes</td><td align="right">171</td></tr> </table></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 15] <h2>AT MINAS BASIN.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> About the buried feet of Blomidon, Red-breasted sphinx with crown of grey and green, The tides of Minas swirl,—their veilëd queen Fleet-oared from far by galleys of the sun. The tidal breeze blows its divinest gale! The blue air winks with life like beaded wine!— Storied of Glooscap, of Evangeline— Each to the setting sun this sea did sail. Opulent day has poured its living gold Till all the west is belt with crimson bars, Now darkness lights its silver moon and stars,— The festal beauty of the world new-old. Facing the dawn, in vigil that ne'er sleeps, The sphinx the secret of the Basin keeps. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 16] <h2>THE RAIN CLOUD.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Swift changed to storm tones is the golden air, And shut the heavens with the descending veil Of cloud,—here warm and brown, there cold and pale, White-veined with sudden fire and red with glare. Now falls the twisted rain, like unbound hair, Dusking the wooded hills and mountain trail, Now, marshalled by the trumpets of the gale, Sweeps wide with level lances to their blare. </div> <div class="stanza"> O rain cloud, minister of cooling dew To waiting harvests sheathed in mystery, Bearer of blessed balms for fevered ills! Thy rending veil breaks on the holiest blue, All quick and palpitant as angels see, And God's smile falls upon the breathing hills. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 17] <h2>THE ROSE.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Five-petaled splendor set in hillside place, Parent of queenly sisterhood that stir To every garden wind, and swift confer Attar to pour from out each precious vase! Symbol of secrecy to Latin race, Virtue and blood to York and Lancaster, Thy tint de Pompadour sweet arts transfer To Sevres', and erst "rose noble" bore thy grace. </div> <div class="stanza"> To me thou art the glow of secret heat That burneth at the heart of day and night, An odorous flush of beauty without blame,— Love's oriel wherethrough my eyes discreet May look far in beyond the outward sight And, unconsumëd, see His fiery flame. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 18] <h2>A WILLOW AT GRAND PRÉ.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> The fitful rustle of thy sea-green leaves Tells of the homeward tide, and free-blown air Upturns thy gleaming leafage like a share,— A silvery foam thy bosom, as it heaves! O peasant tree, the regal Bay doth bare Its throbbing breast to ebbs and floods—and grieves! O slender fronds, pale as a moonbeam weaves, Joy woke your strain that trembles to despair! </div> <div class="stanza"> Willow of Normandy, say, do the birds Of Motherland plain in thy sea-chant low, Or voice of those who brought thee in the ships To tidal vales of Acadie?—Vain words! Grief unassuaged makes moan that Gaspereau Bore on its flood the fleet with iron lips! </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 19] <h2>THE BOWING DYKE.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Sea-widowed lands more fair than Tantramar! Winter's green providence in July's sun! The clattering steel till all was over and done, Flashed on thy breast from dawn to evening star. Soon herds of sweet-breathed kine of sere Canard, Whose eager hoofs the hasting morn outrun, Sea of lush clover aftermath has won, And golden-girdled bees anear and far. </div> <div class="stanza"> Lo, as the harvest moon comes up the sky, Her shield of argent mellowed to the rim, The phantom of the buried tide doth flow; And without noise of wave or sea-bird's cry Fills all thy ancient channels to the brim, Thy levels of a thousand years ago! </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 20] <h2>LOVE'S IMMANENCE.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> I watch the cloud soft-poised in upper air And feel a presence bodied in its folds, The wind in dark and shine a voice aye holds, The noontide forest listens to my prayer. The trampling seas with rumbling chariots bear Significant behests in heats and colds, Urim fire throbs intense on barren wolds— The crystal globëd dew-drops Love declare! </div> <div class="stanza"> The silence of the wheeling heavens by night, By day, is but the pealing anthem sweet Beyond the pitch of my dull ears to hear, While veiling shadows are the excess of light That marks the goings of His power so near, And hides Love's regal presence on His seat. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 21] <h2>MYSTERY.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> O veiled enchantress of my days and nights, That in sweet wonder's realm of witchery To fairer visions ever beckons me, Thou'st left the valleys for the rugged heights! A gladsome youth, the hill of thy delights Winged my lithe spirit to speed after thee, But now, come down, close-veilëd Mystery, The garish sun but withers and affrights. </div> <div class="stanza"> I feel thy charm, shy and elusive one, As in the gleaming springtide of my life, Whose zest was all thy unattained pursuit. Still flit before me till the race is run, And when with doubt the common day is rife, Thy wonder-wand set thick with flower and fruit. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 22] <h2>THE NIGHT-FISHER.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Grey liegeman of sundown and dawn, who chides With a lone song the ocean-murmuring trees, I haste with thee at dusk to stalk the seas Where feed the finny flocks of shepherding tides. O wild the pulses beat as round us glides The tidal spirit, like a midnight breeze, Burdened with moan of life-and-death decrees,— The deep night's tide-line pacing with our strides! </div> <div class="stanza"> More weird than winkings of the ruddy Mars These flitting gleams and breaths of hell and heaven, Searching the shadowy folds 'twixt peace and dread!— Nor dreamed I such solemnities did leaven Life's daily meal and league its dole of bread With unseen forces vaster than the stars'. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 23] <h2>A DEEP-SEA SHELL.</h2> [GEORGE V. DEARBORN.] <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Arrived from out abysmal deeps of brine, A regal splendor glows within thy whorl, Like pomp of rosy morn in shimmering pearl. Surely "the hand that made thee is divine"! Ah, why so richly dight for beauty's shrine? No eye can feast on walls of gemmëd burl Far down the overwhelming rush and swirl Of awful wastes scarce plumbed of fathom-line! </div> <div class="stanza"> Fit for the palace of high seneschal! Inlaid with colors which the Tyrian King Vain sought to rival on his royal scroll, And echoing yet the ocean's trembling string: Methinks the Master wrought this ivory hall To please the love of beauty in His soul. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 24] <h2>A RED SUNRISE.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> The naked Bay its silver notes is telling Sweeter than flute or harp or singing bird, Beatings of rosy rhythm in winsome word Of lilting song are softly shoreward welling: Anear and far the ruddy waters swelling, In laughter-peals around the fair earth heard, Thrill swift the home-bound keels so long unstirred— The kiss of day the weary wings compelling. </div> <div class="stanza"> Beware the elfin bugles sounding clear As glows morn's pallid ash to crimson flame And makes a bloody dazzle of the waves! Ere burn the embers in the west all blear, The deep shall thunder its awful chant of fame O'er noble hearts gone down to wandering graves. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 25] <h2>THE OPAL FIRES ARE GONE.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> The opal fires are gone, and but a stain Of day yet lingers as the sudden night With swift cloud blots the crouching hills from sight, And the far sea moans deep in ominous pain. Ah me, it is the swart-winged hurricane! The furious tide in elemental fight Is lashing fierce and hoar with giant might,— The bleeding shores the tale shall tell the main! </div> <div class="stanza"> Brave sailor, reeling in thy storm-drunk bark, Blinded by sheeted rain blown tempest-wild, And vexed with roaring darkness round about! The heaven-sent vision fair of wife and child Calm seated at love's hearth, with face ahark, Makes thee divine amid the awful rout. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 26] <h2>THE CUMULUS CLOUD.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Mountains of heaven, in stainless white ye shine, Islanded in calm of pearl- and sapphire-blue! The pillared heights are lifted into view In spectral power reposeful as divine. A timeless peace abides in every line Soft moulded from the quarries of the dew, Yet fateful fire the inmost heart throbs through, And thunder slumbers in the brows benign. </div> <div class="stanza"> Paling before the massive whiteness there, The faltering moon comes up the waiting night; The faithful stars, like folded lilies, sleep Till Love's wide wonder of the lullëd air Melts with its rose-tipt crests in azure deep, And sets the skyey plains abloom with light. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 27] <h2>SEA FOG.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Here danced an hour ago a sapphire sea; Now, airy nothingness, wan spaces vast, Pale draperies of the formless fog o'ercast, And wreathëd waters grey with mystery! The ship glides like a phantom silently, As screams the white-winged gull before the mast; Weird elemental shapes go flitting past, Which loom as giant ghosts above the quay. </div> <div class="stanza"> The vapor lifts! Again the sea gleams bright; The heavens have hid within their chambers far Cloud-stuff of gossamer, from which are spun To-morrow's skyey pomps inwove with light, The belted splendors for the rising sun, And rosy curtains for the evening star. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 28] <h2>PARTRIDGE ISLAND.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> The title deeds of these rich shores are thine By age,—thine, too, by succor and defence; Ere they were kissed by winds, or waves beat thence, Thy breast of beauty broke the beating brine. All hail, fair Isle, first born! Thy jeweled shrine Is worn by pilgrim feet; thy firgroves dense, Peopled with Hamadryads, cheat the sense With frolic fays and all the rosy Nine. </div> <div class="stanza"> These younglings—Gilbert's Cliff, and Sharp, and Split, Bold Silver Crag, the Islands Five, and Two, And broad-browed Blomidon—the Basin's Ben,— When comes the witchery of fog-wreathed view, Each robed in richest hues, with curtsies fit, Sails in and out the circle of thy ken. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 29] <h2>TENNYSON ROCK.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Majestic, awesome and inspiring mock, Sculptured by frost and sun and bitter brine! Has nature sympathy with men divine, To carve remembrance in colossal rock? Circled by voices of the sea-god's flock, Deep calm is his, aloofness of the pine,— As when he waited his great Pilot's sign Ere he embarked from out earth's sheltered loch. </div> <div class="stanza"> O seer and Englishman, our answering hearts Leapt at thy words of empire! Sure 'tis meet In "that true North" thy form should front the sea, Where Howe, McDonald, Tupper played their parts At statecraft, gath'ring at Old England's feet Our Pleiad State,—one flag, one destiny. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 30] <h2>OF BEAUTY.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> The convoluted wave, God's first sea-shell, Upgathers now the deep's great harmonies; From the far blue an Alp-like cloud doth well, Baring its azured peaks to the heavenlies. My spirit's outward bound, hath liberty! Earnest as rising flame its young love burns To catch the awesome gladness flowing free O'er earth and sky as Beauty's face upturns. </div> <div class="stanza"> O naught is great without thy effluence! In curving billow's culminating sweep, In mountain heights, the strength of grace is seen. Essence divine, of God-like competence,— Reposeful in the heart of things as sleep! Robed in the purple, sceptred, throned a queen! </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 31] <h2>THE UNDERTOW.</h2> [B. B. D.] <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> O'er all the shining levels of the beach The tide outpours its hissing, foaming brine, While with the primal surge the winds combine To press the eager waves to utmost reach. See yon brave billow, rising from the pleach Of seething waters, with a might divine, Its sinews wrought in beauty's flowing line, Leap forward now to make the age-sought breach! </div> <div class="stanza"> Lo, as the cresting plume is seen aloft, The footing of its strength on sudden slips And all is whelmed in thunderous recoils! Ah, tragedy of lusty life! How oft Some high emprise a soul divinely grips, But as it crests fate's undertow despoils! </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 32] <h2>GLOOSCAP.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Dim name, yet grand, that ever winks serene In the red fagot's light, and like a ghost Hovers above these raucous tides, this coast, Wreathing weird webs of arrowy salts and keen! Under the black blue night's unrollëd screen The loon is calling to the fiery host, And yet no answer comes to keep thy boast,— Far years their mellow thunders roll between. </div> <div class="stanza"> Divinest of the red man's race and name, Fulness of Hiawatha's dawning day, Giver of laws, priest, prophet, all confest! Thou'lt come again, appeased thy wrath and shame, Thy speed in all thy limbs, up yonder Bay In white canoe from out the naked west. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 33] <h2>SILAS TERTIUS RAND.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Oft did thy spell enthrall me, spite the cost! Thou brought'st a charmed and fadeless holiday— Stories and songs and Indian epic lay— Whene'er thy eager step the threshold crost. Imagination all its plumes uptost To follow where thy spirit led the way!— (The sense that thou saw'st God when thou didst pray I never through the dimming years have lost.) </div> <div class="stanza"> Fair Minas' shores thy step did gladden, too! Thou charm'dst great Glooscap from the unlettered past, And told'st his story to the listener nigh'st; Ay, lover of song, of learnëd lore and vast, Thou lov'dst the Indian with a love so true, In his sweet tongue thou gavest him the Christ. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 34] <h2>THE TIRELESS SEA.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Age after age the tireless sea doth fling Its serried waves against this frowning rock, (Whose base has known a thousand years of shock,) And shouts its purpose to its floor to bring. High up and landward now the ravens wing, On trees sure-rooted inland nests the hawk; Instinct of doom! for here swift ships shall dock, And give of east and west, and commerce sing. </div> <div class="stanza"> Warriors of truth, unwearied host of God, Who, like the deep, march to the signs of heaven, "Thus saith the Lord" your cry, count not the years! Grey superstition's crumbling front shall nod Beneath the iteration of your steven, And God's sweet love flood all the place of tears. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 35] <h2>THE VEILED PRESENCE.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> An ashen grey touched faint my night-dark room, I flung my window wide to the whispering lawn— Great God! I saw Thy mighty globe from gloom Roll with its sleeping millions to the dawn. No tremor spoke its motion swift and vast, In hush it swept the awful curve adown, The shadow that its rushing speed did cast Concealed the Father's hand, the Kingly crown. </div> <div class="stanza"> Into the deeps an age has passed since then, Yet evermore for me, more humble grown, The vision of His awesome presence veiled, Burns in the flying spheres, still all unknown, In nature's mist-immantled seas unsailed, And in the deeper shadowed hearts of men. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 36] <h2>RESISTLESS FATE.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Resistless fate and iron destiny Are writ upon the tide—its branded mark. It comes and goes heedless of wind or bark, Nature's untamed and tameless energy. So rolls the cycle of eternity,— Days, months, and years—faint shadows on the arc Within our human ken—rush from the dark And speed return as God's own mystery. </div> <div class="stanza"> I on this tide-beat shore, and clutching time, Marvel of what account my selfhood's will,— 'Gainst timeless might time's impotence is laid! And through my inmost soul, as at the prime, A voice from out the awesome vast doth thrill: "O man, thou art in God's own image made!" </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 37] <h2>THE SEA UNDINE.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Exquisite thing soft cradled by the tide, Sprung not from lathe or wheel or human wit, Wonder of whorls which touch the infinite,— Shallop that waits a brave undine's white bride! Within, the smooth and sheeny walls are dyed With the pure pink of autumn dawns alit; Without, with stories of the deep o'er-writ,— How fairy slight the thunderous seas to ride! </div> <div class="stanza"> The massy tides gride over reef and ledge, And sudden waves from fell Euroclydon Dash to swift death the sailor in the Bay; But this, all lipt with pearl, and on the edge Of doom—the fingers of a babe might slay— Sleeps in the stressful surge at Blomidon. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 38] <h2>TO EMELINE.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> In white-spruce bower, with outlook on the sea, Kingcups and daisies dancing down the slope, And broad-winged ships, world-messengers of hope, Furling their plumes or lifting them all free To catch the skyey airs—here 'tis that we Oft watch the fringes of the tide, where ope The swinging doors through which all blind-fold grope The muffled waves of shoreless mystery. </div> <div class="stanza"> The touch of two vast worlds is on us now. Our spirits hear the ebb and flow unseen Of swift commingling tides of far and near,— The low sweet murmur of the early vow, Commerce of life's strange sea, on wing between, And folding plumes arrived the heavenly pier. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 39] <h2>THE CIRRUS CLOUD.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Thou hast the secret of the fiery dew, Variety and number infinite Are vestured in thy wavy flakes of white,— Of distance and of space thou hast the clue. Aloof from vapory clouds that fume and spue, Lifting thyself victorious in fight Into the far repose of zonëd light, Thou strivest to attain nirvâna-blue. </div> <div class="stanza"> Mottled, or plumed, or ribbed, or ripple-barred, Encamped upon the unfenced fields of space, Unsullied are thy tents cool-washed in air; And when morn's bugle blows, or sky's new-starred, Thy cohorts wait day's coming, parting face, Like flocks of rosy angels drifting there. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 40] <h2>DAY AND NIGHT.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> And so the strife goes on from age to age, In ceaseless round of victory and defeat: Young Day comes forth, sun-clad, with shining feet, In beauteous pomp, and throws his battle-gage. Grim ancient Night, distraught and blind with rage, Twanging her dreadful bow, flies in retreat, Wrapt round with raven darkness as a sheet, Till from the east she may the duel wage. </div> <div class="stanza"> So Night, pursuing wounded Day, takes breath To find his blood-stained mantle in the west, And dusks it o'er with plumëd shafts of death. Secure beneath the horizon's verge, in wrath He wings a Parthian arrow back his path, And dyes with crimson Ethiop's jeweled vest. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 41] <h2>UNDER THE BEECHES.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> The sibyl's speech breaks from these leafen lips, Moved by soft airs from shadowy spaces blown: "We rear these giant boles amid eclipse, We workmen die, the work abides alone." The day has met the night beneath the sky, And the hot earth put off its robe of flame; Sweet peace and rest come with the night-bird's cry, Sweet rest and peace the herald stars proclaim. </div> <div class="stanza"> 'Tis very heaven to taste the wells of sleep, The founts of supersensuous repose!— The sibyl's rune still murmurs on the breeze, The purple night falls thick about the trees, And blessed stars, like lilies white and rose, Burst into bloom on heaven's far azure deep. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 42] <h2>THE NIGHTINGALE.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> O seraph bird who on God's altar-stairs Dost ring, in showers of silver peals, thy bells Of song that ceaseless flows like dropping-wells, And sprinkles all the dusk with holy prayers! O welkin glad, shot through and through with song, As upward springs the spirit tipt with flame! 'Tis not to Itys dead nor Dian's shame These joy-pangs, with their hint of tears, belong. </div> <div class="stanza"> The life which pulses in the bursting year A thousand choirs hymn on the sunlit globe; But, lest the living flame to ashes turn, Thou, in the voiceless night, O priestly seer, Interpreter of nature, tak'st thy robe, And fill'st with vocal fire the sacred urn. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 43] <h2>THE LOON.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> 'Neath northern skies thou hid'st thy punctual nest By crystal waters in their lonely play, Meeting the challenge with which instant day And night thy chariness and courage test. Half bird, half spirit!—O elusive quest That thinks thy dappled mould but common clay! Thou wak'st with demon laughter Ha Ha Bay, Art soul of solitariness, unblest. </div> <div class="stanza"> Flash of pure wildness on dusk Saguenay, Awareness of wild nature's subtle breast, Freight and athrill with weirdsome life, yet gay, Thou cleav'st the deluge dense, a wingëd jest!— That rallying mock and jeer's an impish mark— The echo of thy flout of Noah's ark! </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 44] <h2>HEPATICAS.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> A shining troop of cherubs just alit From the low-bending skies,—child faces sweet, Upturned and open to our human greet,— Fresh from the gladsome fount of life emit! Heralds of spring, forewinging, as ye flit, The garland seasons with their sheaves of wheat, And to all listening ears Christ's words repeat: "Man shall not live by bread alone, 'tis writ"! </div> <div class="stanza"> Evangelists fair of the new-made year, This news from God, forgot, blow everywhere, And fill the hollow sky, the haunting air; Till from His loving mouth, as sphere to sphere, Man knows the beautiful, the good, the true, Divinest manna dipt in heavenly dew! </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 45] <h2>IN THE MAYFLOWER COPSE.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> With gladsome note the robin debonair Heralds bright May. Pale sky and earth-stained snow Warm at the touch of south winds as they blow Their wafts of life through winter's lingering air. Hid, like some laughing child, shy Mayflower fair, Beneath the leafy shield, with face aglow, Thy pearly self the coy spring's first tableau, Come to the day and yield thy fragrance rare! </div> <div class="stanza"> Ah me! while thrushes pipe and plumy winds Fan northward all their balmy fervors sweet, And groves are misty with the reddening bud, A gentle spirit from the past unbinds The peace of Lethe, and with quickening beat Stirs to divine unrest my fevered blood. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 46] <h2>JUNE.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Now weave the winds to music of June's lyre Their bowers of cloud whence odorous blooms are flung Far down the dells and cedarn vales among,— See, lowly plains, sky-touched, to heaven aspire! Now flash the golden robin's plumes with fire, The bobolink is bubbling o'er with song, And leafy trees, Æolian harps new-strung, Murmur far notes blown from some starry choir. </div> <div class="stanza"> My heart thrills like the wilding sap to flowers, And leaps as a swoln brook in summer rain Past meadows green to the great sea untold. O month divine, all fresh with falling showers, Waft, waft from open heaven thy balm for pain, Life and sweet Earth are young, God grows not old! </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 47] <h2>AN INLAND SPRUCE.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Peasant of northern forests, humble tree, Kirtled and frocked in all-year homespun green, And lacking not among thy kind the mien Of such as bear the white sails gallantly! Magician thou! Thy full-breathed symphony Of spacious dream dissolves the walls between Me now and nature's organ-voicëd queen, The multitudinous ongoing sea! </div> <div class="stanza"> The sheeny garb from thy tall shoulders hung, Making thy spiry form like vase antique For resinous balms of frankincense and myrrh, And round the bearded skirts the drowsy purr Of life, and murmurings of thy sea-harp strung,— Touch thee to kinship fine with Celt and Greek. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 48] <h2>THE GHOST FLOWER.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Like Israel's seer I come from out the earth Confronting with the question air and sky, Why dost thou bring me up? White ghost am I Of that which was God's beauty at its birth. In eld the sun kissed me to ruby red, I held my chalice up to heaven's full view, The wistful stars dropt down their golden dew, And skyey balms exhaled about my bed. Alas, I loved the darkness, not the light! The deadly shadows, not the bending blue, Spoke to my trancëd heart, made false seem true, And drowned my spirit in the deeps of night. O Painter of the flowers, O God most sweet, Dost say my spirit for the light is meet? </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 49] <h2>ANNAPOLIS BASIN.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> The full-fed crystal streams from east and west And south, thy rich-wrought cup filled to the brim, Till where the northern star soft gilds the rim, Thy waters, called, o'erbroke at love's behest. O to have seen thy cataract's white breast, Rifted with ruth through the lone centuries dim, For toiling Fundy's wooing tide—for him To blend thy sylvan calm with world unrest! Far floods thy bridal brought, fair lake, brave sea! And late, the wingëd ships—Champlain, De Monts, With Poutrincourt, and sequent games of war. Thy marge, now crowned with peaceful husbandry, And set with England's rose where bloomed fleur d'or, Still croons all day love's wedded tidal song. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 50] <h2>IN AUTUMN'S DREAMY EAR.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> In autumn's dreamy ear, as suns go by Whose yellow beams are dulled with languorous motes, The deep vibrations of the cosmic notes Are as the voice of those that prophesy. Her spirit kindles, and her filmy eye! In haste the fluttering robe, whose glory floats In pictured folds, her eager soul devotes— Lo, she with her winged harper sweeps the sky! </div> <div class="stanza"> Splendors of blossomed time, like poppies red, Distil dull slumbers o'er the engagëd soul And thrall with sensuous pomp its azured dower; Till, roused by vibrant touch from the unseen Power, The spirit keen, freed from the painted dead, On wings mounts up to reach its living Goal. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 51] <h2>VICTOR IS HE!</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Victor is he whose tremulous soul the notes Of starry spaces hears, their far appeal, And cries "Amen!" and sets thereto the seal With which winged aspiration life devotes! That seal rays golden flame, and bright connotes The transmutation through the spirit's zeal Of earthly passions to the high anneal That rings the harmony that heavenward floats. </div> <div class="stanza"> While other triremes vain withstood the guile, The lyric prow of Orpheus easeful past In gladsome scorn's disdain the Sirens' Isle; And proud Calliope o'er each black mast Whispered her thrilling taunt in ears of pain: "I taught my Thracian boy a heavenlier strain!" </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 52] <h2>McMASTER UNIVERSITY.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> As some grey captain of a merchantship, Whose prosperous voyage o'er the watery strife Has large concern for all, knows that his wife Waits his home-coming up the horizon's dip With holier heart than crowds that throng the slip, So He well knew, thou—flower-elect of life! Chosen from out a clamor of voices rife— Waitedst his voyage o'er with prayerful lip. </div> <div class="stanza"> Fair Bride, forget him not through circling years! But with a Christ-like love, deep as unfeigned Surpassing that of commerce or of state, With holy hands thy dower devote with tears Of gratitude and loyal heart unstained; Thy sacred vow perform with soul elate. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 53] <h2>CONDUCT.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Nay, Arnold, not "three-fourths" but all "of life"! The ethic spirit that makes conduct so, Slays all mythologies and witchcrafts, lo, False sciences as well, with ruthless knife, Lest intercourse of human souls be rife With demi-gods and unclean things below, And work corruption at the founts that flow, From hearts of fellowmen in loving strife. </div> <div class="stanza"> That spirit more than science is the hope Of man's uplifting, and doth knowledge make Servant of individual, social worth. Not truth for truth's own sake, as tense we cope With life, but rather truth for love's own sake Calls forth heaven's plaudit round the girdled earth. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 54] <h2>INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Boom, boom, ye mellow joy-bells, like the sea! Peace, peace on earth, good-will! (and all hell gapes!)— Yet immemorial sadness ever drapes The upward way of far humanity: All prone through dark and strait Gethsemane Thou cam'st in blood, a cluster of trod grapes!— O bruisëd race, whose wail so surgeful shapes Melodious sorrow's awful threnody! </div> <div class="stanza"> Late, late, love's Areopagus unfurled Right-reason's sun-glad banner from the height, While rage the Furies in their cave beneath! Hush, hush, it is the daybreak of the world! Man's warring sky is passing out of night, And stark black demons flit with sword in sheath. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 55] <h2>THE HOUSE OF GOD.</h2> [G. A. G.] <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> No finished castle is the house of God. The mind of Christ, supremest Architect, Man's puny apprehension doth correct From age to age, and turns afresh the sod. The vast historic temple now is trod 'Neath loftier roof and heavenlier aspéct; New light, new need, revealed, each ripe defect Goes down beneath man's feet diviner shod. </div> <div class="stanza"> Alas, humanity no more can grasp Of thought of the divine Artificer, Than holds of ocean crinkled shell on beach! Yet His unfolding plan in vital clasp Possess, O human soul, amid the stir Of speeding worlds Love's flying-goal to reach! </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 56] <h2>BEN NACHMANI.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> "O the brightness, clearness, beauty of heaven! Seer Ben Nachmani," Rabbi Levi said, "Of the Hagada Master thou of seven, Would that I knew whence Light, its fountainhead?" The Master whispered in the Rabbi's ear: "The Holy One, blessëd be He, in white Himself doth robe, and then the whole world clear In beauty glows with His majestic light." "Sayest thou so? That's word for word the psalm: 'The light Thy garment is which Thou dost wear.' Thou tell'st it here a secret 'neath the palm, O Master thou of seven with whitened hair!" </div> <div class="stanza"> And softer fell the Master's whispered word: "I heard it this; O Rabbi, hast thou heard?" </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 57] <h2>RENEWAL.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> In the old days Vannucci, color-dowered, Lit up young eyes with vision large and pure, That gathered in its iris-glow the lure Of sea and sky, and beauty earth-embowered; And Rafael Santi on the master showered The rich-hued passion of his soul, secure In art that should for evermore endure,— But as he wrought his vision was defloured. For sake of art divine a seer bright-stoled, Whose eyes had drunk the steadfast splendors true Of sacred gems, this precious secret told: "Oft sight of these doth color-sense renew!" </div> <div class="stanza"> Ah thus, true soul assoiled of life, thou ey'st, Mid thy enduring work, the quickening Christ! </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 58] <h2>THE CHRIST.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> The noonday Truth In its sevenfold beam, Is the Christ, sandal-shod; Yea, the Truth in warm gleam Of color and shine, Both of age and of youth, As on life's plains and wolds His soul's prism unfolds The white thought of God, In human passion divine. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> <h2>REVELATION.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> As rising waves, rich jeweled by the sun, In movement link their brilliants each to each, And flash their glories in one crest of light, E'en so, unveiling, the Eternal One Did shew Himself by signs and glimmering speech, Then flashed in Christ His love-lit glory bright. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 59] <h2>LIGHT AT EVENTIDE.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Through skies of molten gold and green the sun Floats with its cloud-wake o'er the glowing rim Of closing day; the same horizon brim Glows green and gold with a glad day begun. So closes life's full day, its guerdon won, To those whose trustful souls are joined to Him— The world's great Light—whose hand the splendors limn At once of breaking day and day that's done. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> <h2>BEN SHALOM.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Ben Shalom read one night from out a roll: "Vessel of honor, consecrate ('O soul!') Prepared for every worthy work, and meet For the Master's use!" And finger on scroll, He prayed aloud: "Make me his silvern bowl!" Lo! Emeth at his side, God's angel fleet: "Yea, in His mansion here; and when unfold The everlasting doors, chalice of gold Brimming with His great love—heaven's vintage sweet!" </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 60] <h2>BANISHMENT.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> As tiptoe dawn extinguished all the stars, There lay on a fevered flower the cooling dew; Full soon the scornful sun, with white heat glare, Forever bade the offending thing from view; But as day closed, it outshone flaming Mars, Or wheeling splendors of the Northern Bear. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> <h2>NOW ARE THE BRIDALS OF THE LEAFY WOOD.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Now are the bridals of the leafy wood, O'er dusky brooks the golden sunbars fall, Birds fan the moonbeams in the balmy dark— Look me! the banners of the holy rood Shake in the battle's roar; sweet duty's call Wings all my spirit like a soaring lark. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 61] <h2>MAY'S FAIRY TALE.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Under the yellow chestnut tree The children played right merrily. </div> <div class="stanza"> From leafy gold came pattering down The prickly burs with nuts of brown. </div> <div class="stanza"> "I do believe," said bright-eyed May, "We're pelted by some startled fay! </div> <div class="stanza"> For fairies love no tree so well As chestnut broad in which to dwell." </div> <div class="stanza"> "Tell us a fairy tale," they said, "A fairy tale," they eager pled, </div> <div class="stanza"> "About the fairies of to-day!" And circled round the wise-eyed May. </div> <div class="stanza"> With air of one who tells new truth, The gentle May, with touch of ruth, </div> <div class="stanza"> This tale of Elfland sweetly told, While all stood deep in autumn's gold: </div> <div class="stanza"> "Long, long ago the fairies found Their homes in flowers on the ground. </div> <div class="stanza"> The buttercups were full of them, And pansies sparkled like a gem. </div> <div class="stanza"> But fields by men were often mown, The flowers were plucked as soon as grown. </div> <div class="stanza"> Thus without tents to shed cold dews, The pixies lost their brilliant hues. </div> <div class="stanza"> Their kirtles green and mantles gold Were crushed and torn and smeared with mould. </div> <div class="stanza"> (You should have seen Mab's ermine cape, Draggled in muck till black as crape!) </div> <div class="stanza"> At last, his gossamer hammocks gone, Their daylight king, bright Oberon, </div> <div class="stanza"> (Who could not find two crimson heads Of clover strung with spider-webs) </div> <div class="stanza"> And Mab, the moonlight queen of elves Took solemn counsel with themselves. </div> <div class="stanza"> 'Twas in the early summer days They met at twilight all the fays, </div> <div class="stanza"> Under a grove with fronded plumes, Whose trees were white with spikes of blooms. </div> <div class="stanza"> With elfin lance of wild-bee sting Stood Oberon, at the outer ring. </div> <div class="stanza"> His knights each wore upon his breast A firefly lamp in beetle's vest. </div> <div class="stanza"> With glow-worm crown of greenish light, Sitting her fairy palfrey white, </div> <div class="stanza"> The queen, by wave of saffron brand, Hushed into silence fairyland. </div> <div class="stanza"> Then with her sandaled foot she pricked Her wasp-sting spur (and palfrey kicked!)— </div> <div class="stanza"> Her moonbeam bridle firm in grip, She plied the silken milkweed whip, </div> <div class="stanza"> And rode straight up the waiting tree, And out each branch its blooms to see. </div> <div class="stanza"> When Mab (her own and palfrey's wings Of gauzy blue outspread) the rings </div> <div class="stanza"> Of wistful pixies leapt into, Sitting erect her horse so true, </div> <div class="stanza"> In silvery laughter broke each fay, Like silvery tinkling brook in May. </div> <div class="stanza"> Waving her saffron brand, she said: 'Fairies! your future home and bed!' </div> <div class="stanza"> And pointed up the flower-lit tree,— Thither they swarmed as swarms the bee! </div> <div class="stanza"> In turn each bole and fronded roof Was trod by Elf-queen palfrey's hoof, </div> <div class="stanza"> Till fays who bore the flame-wood lamp, Swung in their peaceful airy camp. </div> <div class="stanza"> That was a chestnut grove they found! And as the sunny spring comes round, </div> <div class="stanza"> Queen Mab, when shines the silver moon, And elfin bugles blow in tune, </div> <div class="stanza"> Still rides high up each chestnut tree, That fays may know where safe they'll be, </div> <div class="stanza"> And golden-belted Oberon Swing in his hammock like a Don,— </div> <div class="stanza"> For palfrey prints his tiny shoe On every branch that's wet with dew. </div> <div class="stanza"> My story's told, now for our play!" "And is the story true, O May?" </div> <div class="stanza"> With air of one who knows the truth, The sweet-eyed May, tall for her youth, </div> <div class="stanza"> The overhanging branch down drew, And shewed the prints of palfrey's shoe— </div> <div class="stanza"> And laughing said: "Now you all see Why it is called Horse-Chestnut tree." </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 67] <h2>MY ROBIN.</h2> [B. B. D.] <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> At the very dawn of day, My robin from the hill flies down, And from the fence across the way, With black cap on his handsome head, And slatish cloak and vest of red, He calls me from my easeful bed: Dear up, dear up, dear! Cheer up, cheer up, cheer! </div> <div class="stanza"> Constant as the coming morn, He leaves his green fir copse to see If I will greet his breezy horn, And share his joy that day is here To shimmer the sea, the fog to clear, And yellow the corn of the hasting year: Dear up, dear up, dear! Cheer up, cheer up, cheer! </div> <div class="stanza"> Ah robin, so debonair, So glad of the darkness gone away, So heedful of this heart of care, Sweet to me is your roundelay, Born of a spirit so tender, so gay,— Let me join you in duet for aye! Dear up, dear up, dear! Cheer up, cheer up, cheer! </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 69] <h2>ELISSA.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> I hold my secret fast! Sunset I watch, and dawn, Wait the white moonbeam cast, The pall of night down-drawn. Then in the ebon dark I whisper to myself, While every sense doth hark Lest blade, or leaf, or elf, Should catch the trembling word, And all the listening air Be to its utmost stirred, The giddy world aware! </div> <div class="stanza"> The willow heedful is, And the titmouse peers at me, The kingcups nod and quiz With an air of mystery; But no one knows at all— I hold my secret fast! The wizard loon may call Till night be overpast, Troops of bright eyes may smile, The people look me o'er, The parson turn the stile, Friends tarry at the door! </div> <div class="stanza"> I hold my secret fast! Sunset I watch, and dawn, See the blue heavens o'ercast, The pall of night down-drawn; And then in raven dark I whisper to myself,— My whitest soul ahark Lest blade, or leaf, or elf, Should hear the trembling word, And all the listening air Be to its farthest stirred, The rolling world aware </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 71] <h2>THE HUMMING-BIRD.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Thought-sudden presence Out of blank air— Humming of wings! Here—a whisk and a flash! Sipping red balm there— And the silence sings. </div> <div class="stanza"> Thy will works its end In freedom complete,— Deed flashing in sheen; Forward or backward As easeful, as fleet, As a spirit unseen. </div> <div class="stanza"> Plumed gem all athrob, Thy ruby throat burns As from the hot kiss Of a heaven-smit soul As it panteth and yearns, In its rapture of bliss! </div> <div class="stanza"> Thing of beauty, of life, Bright wink of a day When we'll be what we are— Freed of this garment's hem! O soul, get thy wings, Find the red balm for aye, (Life of earth and of star!) Flash with love, a live gem! </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 73] <h2>THE HEPATICA.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Hail, first of the spring, Pearly sky-tinted thing Touched with pencil of Him Who rollest the year! Lo, thy aureole rim No painter may limn— Vision thou hast, and no fear! </div> <div class="stanza"> Fair child of the light, What fixes thy sight? Wide-open thy roll From the seal of the clod, And thy heaven-writ scroll Glows, beautiful soul, With the shining of God! </div> <div class="stanza"> Thou look'st into heaven As surely as Stephen, So steadfast thy will is! And from earth's inglenook Seest Christ of the lilies And daffadowndillies, And catchest His look. </div> <div class="stanza"> And a portion is mine, Rapt gazer divine, From thy countenance given— Angel bliss in thy face! I've looked into heaven As surely as Stephen, From out of my place! </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 75] <h2>THE WHITE ROSE.</h2> (AT ——'S GRAVE.) <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Rose pendent in calm of the sun, (A type of my holiest thought) Fair substance and emblem in one,— Sweet rose—sweet soul without spot! Sweetness of beauty of God Both over and under the sod. </div> <div class="stanza"> Each moulded in earth's cloud and shine, White fulness of being complete, Love's rose of beauty divine! Thy past, but evolvings sweet, Now, moment of essence for aye, Thy future, eternity's day! </div> <div class="stanza"> O rose in the mirror of time— Calm image from under the sod— O form of eternal prime, All-peaceful beauty of God,— Fulness of seventy times seven, Made without hands, in the heaven! </div> <div class="stanza"> What though thy time-garment fade And vanish from out of my sight, Thy beauty shall never know shade With the Chief of the sons of light— Redeemed from under the sod, Ravishing beauty of God! </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 77] <h2>THE WAR HERCULES.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Under Mount &OElig;ta The blue Artemisium, Flanked about with huge crags, Stilled its wild winter drum,— The sun turned aside, The sea nestled in calm, Zeus's wisdom of calm,— Rude Hercules died! </div> <div class="stanza"> A wine-glass of azure From the breast of the bay, Caught up by the sun, Smiled on by the sun,— Hope's halcyon ray! Kiss of love for a bride, Kiss of peace and of calm, Zeus's wisdom of calm,— Wild Hercules died! </div> <div class="stanza"> A nest and a home On the wintry sea, On the blue Artemise, In the rough country, Heaven set in the azure tide! The sea nestled in calm, Zeus's wisdom of calm,— Fierce Hercules died! </div> <div class="stanza"> O halcyon of rest, Sweet azure of peace, Brood thy sky-tinted eggs, Fill the world with increase— On the sea's bosom ride! Now it nestles to calm, Zeus's wisdom of calm,— Mad Hercules died! </div> <div class="stanza"> January, 1896. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 79] <h2>IN THE COOL OF THE DAY.</h2> I. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> To him that hears the calling in the calm, And, naked, feeds his soul at Wisdom's lip, Bird, grove, and brook—God's voice in silver psalm— Are like a secret honeycomb adrip. </div> </div></div> II. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Remote in thought from every living thing, Silent the sage without his threshold sate, Pondering the mysteries of Gyges' ring, Dreaming of timeless years and iron fate. </div> <div class="stanza"> The whirr of sudden wings his ear awoke,— A lark rose free in its grey singing robe. "O miracle of life," in speech he broke, "A bird is greater than the solid globe!" </div> </div></div> III. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> But yesterday I saw a hillside grove Whose trunks were clad with lichens grey as frost; At night a storm of rain and wind fierce drove,— Each bole to-day in living green's embossed! </div> <div class="stanza"> And so, I said, the clinging lives which make Yearful and spectral those who yield them ruth, Shall, when o'er these the night in storm doth break, Wreathe them in freshness of immortal youth. </div> </div></div> IV. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Adown the steep cliff's face I saw unurn Its waters full, a crystal brook to-day; The silvery bubbles coursed each scar by turn, Safe as on a full-fed meadow stream in May. </div> <div class="stanza"> I thought of that sweet Scripture Satan used To tempt the Christ, and knew it true they bear In woven hands our souls, else deadly bruised, By hell thrust down some precipice's stair. </div> </div></div> V. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Still at the breeze of day doth nature's God Forth in earth's paradisal bowers walk, And of soul-freedom, Love's restoring rod, And angel guardianship, He deigns to talk. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 82] <h2>BEAUTY.</h2> I. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> "Had I two loaves of bread—ay, ay! One would I sell and hyacinths buy To feed my soul."—"Or let me die!" </div> <div class="stanza"> Beauty, dew-sweet, of heavenly birth, Thy flower is writ of grief, not mirth, Thy rainbow's footed on the earth. </div> <div class="stanza"> Rainbows and hyacinths! O seers, Your voices call across the years: "The bread of Beauty's wet with tears! </div> </div></div> II. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> The living words from Beauty's mien, Than blade by swordsman swung more keen, Spirit and soul divide between: </div> <div class="stanza"> "Pure as the sapphire-blue from blame, Humble as glad, of holiest aim— Love's seven-fold beam a flashing flame!" </div> </div></div> III. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> It yearns me sore, so near, so far! My heart moans like the harbor-bar, For coming of the morning star. </div> <div class="stanza"> Buy hyacinths—a goodly share! Ascend, O soul, love's iris-stair, The bridegroom waiteth for thee there! </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 84] <h2>THE DRAGONFLY.</h2> I. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Winged wonder of motion In splendor of sheen, Cruising the shining blue Waters all day, Smit with hunger of heart And seized of a quest Which nor beauty of flower Nor promise of rest Has charm to appease Or slacken or stay,— What is it you seek, Unopen, unseen? </div> </div></div> II. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Are you blind to the sight Of the heavens of blue, Or the wind-fretted clouds On their white, airy wings, Or the emerald grass That velvets the lawn, Or glory of meadows Aflame like the dawn? Are you deaf to the note In the woodland that rings With the song of the whitethroat, As crystal as dew? </div> </div></div> III. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Winged wonder of motion In splendor of sheen, Stay, stay a brief moment Thy hither and thither Quick-beating wings, Thy flashes of flight; And tell me thy heart, Is it sad, is it light, Is it pulsing with fears Which scorch it and wither, Or joys that up-well In a girdle of green? </div> </div></div> IV. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> "O breather of words And poet of life, I tremble with joy, I flutter with fear! Ages it seemeth, Yet only to-day Into this world of Gold sunbeams at play, I came from the deeps. O crystalline sphere! O beauteous light! O glory of life! </div> </div></div> V. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> "On the watery floor Of this sibilant lake, I lived in the twilight dim. 'There's a world of Day,' Some pled, 'a world Of ether and wings athrob Close over our head.' 'It's a dream, it's a whim, A whisper of reeds,' they said,— And anon the waters would sob, And ever the going Went on to the dead Without the glint of a ray, And the watchers watched In their vanishing wake. </div> </div></div> VI. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> "The passing Passed for aye, And the waiting Waited in vain! Some power seemed to enfold The tremulous waters around, Yet never in heat Nor in shrivelling cold, Nor darkness deep or grey,— Came token of sound or touch,— A clear unquestioned 'Yea!' And the scoffers scoffed, In swelling refrain, 'Let us eat and drink, For to-morrow we die.' </div> </div></div> VII. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> "But, O, in a trance of bliss, With gauzy wings I awoke! An ecstasy bore me away O'er field and meadow and plain. I thought not of recent pain, But revelled, as splendors broke From sun and cloud and air, In the eye of golden Day. </div> </div></div> VIII. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> "I'm yearning to break To my fellows below The secret of ages hoar; In the quick-flashing light I dart up and down, Forth and back, everywhere, But the waters are sealed Like a pavement of glass,— Sealed that I may not pass. O for waters of air! Or the wing of an eagle's might To cleave a pathway below!" </div> </div></div> IX. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> And the Dragonfly in splendor Cruises ever o'er the lake, Holding in his heart a secret Which in vain he seeks to break. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 90] <h2>DEATHLESS.</h2> I. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> The coy soul of man, Moving through its time-span, Unheeding of wings, Tastes the death of all things— Of the flower and weed And the faint-voiced reed. </div> </div></div> II. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> The fair seasons roll For you and for me. The inhabiting soul Of the flower and tree, With the day of each Born to be and to die,— No eternity-speech, No eternity-cry That pierces above, Nor infinite thrill At the touch of Love, Or the voice of His will— From His fingers begot,— God-breathed it is not! </div> </div></div> III. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> 'Twas a shy fair one, Like a beam of light From the clouded sun, That rose to the sight Of the eye of emotion In the soul of the Greek, And eternized the form; And vision, devotion, Ever fixt on the norm,— Type of beauty of flower, Of grove and of bower, Deathless, unique! </div> </div></div> IV. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Not from pole unto pole Is man's hunger of soul, But eternity's set As a deathless fret In the heart of man As it beats the earth-span,— Beating not from the sod, But an ongoing of God! And it listens for Him Over Time's flying rim, And it sips, or it stings, A life from all things— From the flower and the weed And the faint-voiced reed. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 93] <h2>A DREAM.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> I dreamed the Lord of Life was dead. Tremulous awe fell on the earth, Virtue had gone from out all things, The sun and rain were nothing worth. </div> <div class="stanza"> Rude power seized the painted woods And hurled their glory down the steep, The landscape wrapt in cerements And left in death's eternal sleep. </div> <div class="stanza"> Nor bloom nor odor met the sense, Nor wind-chant of the foliaged tree, Nor grove of singing birds, nor psalm Borne from the ever-voiceful sea. </div> <div class="stanza"> Color had fled the air and sky, A stony stillness held the earth, Virtue had gone from out all things, Man's ebbing life was nothing worth. </div> <div class="stanza"> And as I wept within my dream And knew my pulse of being slowed, I sudden was aware of change— A flush on pallid nature showed! </div> <div class="stanza"> Lo, heralds of the arriving year! The bugled flock beclangs the blue, The hyla pipes by willowed run, The flashing swallow skims the dew. </div> <div class="stanza"> Up from the rampike's ghastly arms The gold-shaft high-hole's challenge floats, While greening hill and valley laugh And shore breaks out in pæan notes. </div> <div class="stanza"> And in my dream I leapt for joy— "'Twas but an awful dream," I said, "The Lord of Life, for evermore He lives—'twas once for all He bled!" </div> <div class="stanza"> And waked from sleep by beating heart, I heard the first red robin sing, And knew that once again had come Fresh from the life of God the spring. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 96] <h2>NATURE.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> The large, far intent Of the Kingly One Is only begun In rearing the tent; To nurture a soul Is the shining goal. </div> <div class="stanza"> Keen science speaketh A word clear and fair "The carbon in air The young oak seeketh In the greening years, Lo, a giant appears! </div> <div class="stanza"> "Shelter and warmth, see! Here final cause Of nature's wise laws; And the breath of the tree Is life unto man And lengthens his span.' </div> <div class="stanza"> But the Chemist who moves The atoms in dance, His all-seeing glance By His working proves,— From far-off to nigher, Feeds life that is higher. </div> <div class="stanza"> From blade to full ear, From acorn to beam, Unfoldings of dream, Linkëd series of cheer, Evolvings of grace, Shadows bright of His face! </div> <div class="stanza"> Sweet procession and slow, Every step of the way More precious each day, Till the starlit airs blow, Wake emotion that sleeps, Stir the fount of the deeps. </div> <div class="stanza"> O heaven's own fact Eternal, that beauty, As the sword on duty, Hangs silent on act Of nature forever,— Soul and body together! </div> <div class="stanza"> Nature, series divine Of act and of word From God's mouth seen or heard! As thou bring'st bread and wine I hear thy deep tone, "O not these alone!" </div> <div class="stanza"> All-divine unity! Writes the heaven-touched mind Responsive, once blind: All-divine harmony! Emotion's attest In the glow of my breast. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 99] <h2>"I AM."</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> I am, and therefore these, Existence is by me,— Flux of pendulous seas, The stable, free. </div> <div class="stanza"> I am in blush of the rose, The shimmer of dawn; Am girdle Orion knows, The fount undrawn. </div> <div class="stanza"> I am earth's potency, The chemic ray's, the rain's, The reciprocity That loads the wains. </div> <div class="stanza"> I am, or the heavens fall! I dwell in my woven tent, Am immanent in all,— Suprámanent! </div> <div class="stanza"> I am the Life in life, Impact and verve of thought, The reason's lens and knife, The ethic "ought." </div> <div class="stanza"> I am of being the stress, I am the brooding Dove, I am the blessing in "bless," The Love in love. </div> <div class="stanza"> I am the living thrill And fire of poet and seer, The breath of man's goodwill, The Father near; </div> <div class="stanza"> Am end of the way men grope, Core of the ceaseless strife, I am man's bread of hope, Water of life. </div> <div class="stanza"> I am the root of faith, Substance of vision, too, The spirit shadowed in wraith, Urim in dew. </div> <div class="stanza"> I am the soul's white Sun, Love's slain, enthronëd Lamb, I am the Holy One, I am I AM! </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 102] <h2>THE GLAD GOLDEN YEAR.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> The glad golden year Wheels slow in its coming. Wild labor commotions And murmurings for bread While besotted with beer Is the day's up-summing,— Insurgent emotions To beauty stone-dead! </div> <div class="stanza"> What help, do you say, For these sons of men? In God's image they're made— Cleanse their eyes to His light, Tune their ears to His lay, Give His bread once again Whose price the Christ paid,— Heaven's bread is their right! </div> <div class="stanza"> Earth's means of achieving (Herds, field-food, and river, Rain-cisterns in sky, And sunshine elysian) Forever are weaving, And fain would deliver, Web of God's beauty nigh— Sense-ravishing vision! </div> <div class="stanza"> Sow bread in the field: Warm rain will transfigure The humble grey furrow With a million pearl suns On the lanceolate shield Of emerald and ligure, And the moon o'er each burrow Of the low-buried ones Turn silver the spear-tips In the dusk, with her lips; And when breezy morn's told, All ripples in gold. </div> <div class="stanza"> With envious repining Or solace of delight— As emotion is pure Or turbid with ill— Man views the outshining From the heavenly height, Feels the sweet picture's lure, Hears the bird-copse athrill, Makes him lord, or does not, Of the park, house, or cot. </div> <div class="stanza"> Who holds the sure key To this largesse of treasure Is a king among men, Though a workman in blue,— Of a strain yet to be Who with God taketh pleasure In the young earth again, And feeleth it new. Slow speeds the glad year Told by poet and seer, Yet I catch the far hum— It will come, it will come! </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 105] <h2>TETRAPLA.</h2> LOVE. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> The blooming flowers, the galaxies of space, Lie pictured in a sheeny drop of even; And globed in one round word, on lips of grace, Shine out the best of earth and all of heaven. </div> </div></div> SACRIFICE. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Green-haloed cup of the gods, cool from the deeps, Fountain of life, whence comes thy wave that blesses? "The burdened cloud attempts the mountain steeps, To perish 'mid the rugged wildernesses." </div> </div></div> LIBERTY. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Thou rugged Gaian of man's free behests, Belted and helmed 'neath God's red thunder-flails; World climes upon thy many-cloven crests, And ordered kingdoms in thy fertile vales! </div> </div></div> BEAUTY. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> The grace of strength the shaggy hills attest, And cresting billows in their power serene; Beauty was suckled at no weakling's breast, She sits the manëd lion like a queen. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 107] <h2>FAIRY GLEN.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Hid in the virgin wilderness, The fretted Conway's Fairy Glen This summer day reveals its charms For painter's brush or poet's pen. </div> <div class="stanza"> The air is flecked with night and day, The ground is tiger-dusk and -gold, The rocks and trees, empearled in haze, A soft and far enchantment hold. </div> <div class="stanza"> The place is peopled with shy winds Whose fitful plumes waft dewy balm From all the wildwood, and let fall An incommunicable calm. </div> <div class="stanza"> Through cleft rocks green with spray-wet moss, Deep in the sweet wood's golden glooms, The amber waters pulsing go, With foam like creamy lily blooms. </div> <div class="stanza"> Shuttles of shadow and of light In-gleam and -gloom the watery woof As rolls the endless stream away Beneath the wind-swayed leafy roof. </div> <div class="stanza"> (So life's swift shuttles dart and play, As ceaseless speeds its flashing loom; Our day is woven of sun and cloud, A figured web of gold and gloom.) </div> <div class="stanza"> God's arbor, this enchanted Glen! The air is sentient with His name; Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, The trees are bursting into flame! </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 109] <h2>IN CITY STREETS.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> The city's ways were crowded thick,— I bent my steps athrough its mass Of men and women, stone and brick, Its whirring wheels and piping brass. </div> <div class="stanza"> And all day long, with hurrying feet, I trod the surging marts of trade; Yet in the rush and roar of street A calm within my breast was made. </div> <div class="stanza"> For visions came of fair things wrought By beauty's witching hand and grace Upon my spirit when I caught Life's spring-time image of her face:— </div> <div class="stanza"> Blue violets in mossy bed, Flashing with jewels on their breast; The sky-stained eggs of robin red Laid in her lined adobe nest; </div> <div class="stanza"> The shy lone brook, crept soft upon Lest I should fright its brattling play; The woods ahark for something gone, Or whispering of elf and fay; </div> <div class="stanza"> The silver lake with lilies in bloom, Their cups half-full of heaven's gold,— The circling shore all prankt with plume Of ferns, whose fronds the waters told; </div> <div class="stanza"> And up the hill the whitethroat's song— A crystal bell that shakes the dew! While floats in dream the cloud along, And veils the palpitating blue; </div> <div class="stanza"> The musical and dream-like rain Falling on roof o'er fragrant hay; The blood-red spear, unflushed of pain, Of sunbeam thrust 'tween battens grey; </div> <div class="stanza"> And in a trice, the sculptured shore Where halcyon tides with wonder-wings Redden their plumes in toil to soar To where Evangeline's memory clings,— </div> <div class="stanza"> Such sights and sounds swift came and went,— Glad sunshafts of an April day! And to impetuous traffic lent The restful sweetness of the may. </div> <div class="stanza"> Imprisoned close in city marts, O childhood, so divinely fair, For thee, deep in my heart of hearts, Sweet pity beats her wings all bare! </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 112] <h2>BAY OF FUNDY.</h2> I. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Deep Bay, broad-breasted and brave! Oft rocked in thy swaying arms Beneath the hidden sun, As foam-bell tost on thy wave I drift again 'mid thy charms To sphinx-like Blomidon. </div> <div class="stanza"> Why are thy glories untold? Thy cliffs of purple and red And crystal-veinëd rocks, Thy hasting waters deep-rolled 'Neath skies whose colors are spread With art that all art mocks; </div> <div class="stanza"> Thy faltering ranks of white mist Flanking vast floods and vast ebbs— A mimicry of war,— Oriflammes of dew-sprent list, Banners of gossamer webs, Soft blown as lights of Thor! </div> </div></div> II. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> The smooth shining flats all bare To the heavens' nakedest ken, Mirror the hills, like lakes. The drowsy lull of the air Will stir anew to life when The tidal note awakes. </div> <div class="stanza"> From lang'rous south seas that creep, These odors dank issue forth, Odors of sun-steeped brine— It comes! a breeze from a deep, Full-fed from seas of the North, A waft of Vikings' wine! </div> <div class="stanza"> Now beats the pulse of the flood, The throbbings deep of a heart Felt all around the world; Now smites its rhythm with a thud,— With ictus sure of its art That mountains huge has hurled. </div> <div class="stanza"> The unsouled rivers and creeks Have being, have life to the full, Into their mouths rebreathed, As heaves the broad breast that seeks T' embosom each leaning hull, Bare on red banks tide-seethed. </div> <div class="stanza"> The iron gride of the flow Powders the rocks in its path, And bears the dust afar To build their urns, where may grow Sweet grasses and "primrose rathe,"— Fair Grand Pré, Tantramar! </div> </div></div> III. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Builder, unbuilder of shores, Thresher of cliffs vapor-stoled, God's masterworkman strong! Yet on thy bosom the oars Of sailor lads ply and fold To sweet refrains of song. </div> <div class="stanza"> And glad in thy twinkling smiles, Awing, like sea-gulls, the ships Are breasting stout the breeze,— Ah me, thy treacherous wiles! Witching fog-wraiths draping rips! Currents of iron seas! </div> </div></div> IV. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> O Fundy, deep-breathing sea, Regal in power and rimmed In hollow of His hand, Captive to beauty, yet free, Sleep now, thy Basin is brimmed In fair Acadian land! </div> <div class="stanza"> Haloed with pearl-raying rings The moon, at her utmost poised, Looks on her silver shield; And the tide wakens and swings— Ebbs with a clangor far noised And wheeling wings afield. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 116] <h2>AT THE LOOK-OFF.</h2> (Partridge Island.) I. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> What more can world-worn spirit ask Than here in nature's arms to bask And see the plangent tide at task? </div> <div class="stanza"> The zest is swift as lusty youth, (Touched with an undertone of ruth,) Invincible as ageless truth,— </div> <div class="stanza"> The wonder of all wondrous things! How coy the birds! they lift their wings; The wary ship to her anchor swings. </div> </div></div> II. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Sun, moon and stars of ancient prime, And of to-day, in confluence chime The universal One sublime; </div> <div class="stanza"> Pouring these floods of deep surcease,— In universal pain, release; In universal travail, peace. </div> <div class="stanza"> The strong right arm is here laid bare In strife, by which He doth declare Another shall not with Him share. </div> <div class="stanza"> Forces of universal law Which hither these vast waters draw Send through my soul His tides of awe; </div> <div class="stanza"> While universal radiance charms And beckons to His winsome arms To soothe my timid soul's alarms. </div> <div class="stanza"> Of joy, of grief He does not rob,— The light with intermittent throb Falls on the waters glad—a-sob. </div> </div></div> III. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Here He and I are conscious each Of each—a Deep, a waiting beach! A shell, a Sea that doth beseech! </div> <div class="stanza"> How all unswift my eyes to see The universal God in Thee, Who walked the waves of Galilee! </div> <div class="stanza"> Give, freely give—Thou dost not dole! Pour chrismal balm upon my soul! Anoint me from Thy golden bowl! </div> </div></div> IV. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> In travail, pain, grief, joy, the wave Slumbers nor sleeps the earth to save— This word the blissful God He gave, </div> <div class="stanza"> Ere yesterday in Palestine Love's flagon poured the ruddy wine, Life of the universal Vine. </div> </div></div> V. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> The tameless tides, unresting, seethe; I rest me, for He works beneath; Peace! peace! the toiling waters breathe. </div> <div class="stanza"> Peace, healing peace, in murmuring main, In brooding sky fanned by lone crane! The sunbeams bicker in the Lane— </div> <div class="stanza"> Peace on the lighter's falling sail! Peace on the ships that breast the gale! And peace in human hearts that fail! </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 120] <h2>THE STORMY PETREL.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Fair hero, brave hero of sea— The sea in its darkness of wrath! I run down the breaker with thee, I mount the next in its path. </div> <div class="stanza"> Our hearts beat together, charmed one, Lift their wings as fearless as free, Ride the gloom as if 'twere the sun Gold-bridled for you and for me. </div> <div class="stanza"> Summer rain, the cold drifting sleet That whistles as spiteful as hail! A roadstead, the billows that fleet Under the black lash of the gale! </div> <div class="stanza"> We laugh at their seething, their roar, Draw our breath full in their face; We have wings, we know we can soar,— Your secret and mine in embrace! </div> <div class="stanza"> (Wings, wings, the soul of our life! Outspread they victory tell,— Upliftings amid gulfs of strife, Wafts of heaven that keep us from hell!) </div> <div class="stanza"> Brave hero, winged hero of sea— The sea with black tempest in breast, Here we mount on the breakers, free, Soon to soar into calm, into rest! </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 122] <h2>OBLIVION.</h2> I. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> The all-devouring sea! I said,— While looking on the green- and red- Ribbed rocks a-tilt that flank Sharp's Head: </div> <div class="stanza"> The diary of the rain cloud driven To yield again its spoil by heaven, The west wind serving the replevin— </div> <div class="stanza"> Notes of the ocean's teeming floor, The carven shell, the seaweed's spore, And ripple-marks of tidal shore— </div> <div class="stanza"> Vast tablets of the world of eld, A mighty Bodleian unspelled, By ravine into dust compelled! </div> <div class="stanza"> The hills are fated to their fall. Upon the great, upon the small, Oblivion drops her raven pall. </div> </div></div> II. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> And then I thought: The form and mass May baffle ken of eye and glass, And yet the record may not pass. </div> <div class="stanza"> Tittle and jot, where all seems nil, A finer form in form may still Wait touch of that which doth fulfil. </div> </div></div> III. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> The liquid air, unseen, unheard, Writes in an everlasting word The wing-beats of the hasting bird. </div> <div class="stanza"> The sweet light leaves, and bears abroad, A picture of the wide realms trod With wingëd feet gold sandal-shod; </div> <div class="stanza"> Etching in truth and beauty's grace, Beyond compare of antique vase, On fronting hills the other's face. </div> <div class="stanza"> Nor shoreless deeps of space debar Blazon on earth of records far, In greening orb or burning star. </div> </div></div> IV. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> I said: Coined for exchange in mart Of purblind men with leaden heart, This word Oblivion on life's chart! </div> <div class="stanza"> Deft science' balance now prevails— This simulacrum in the scales, The verdict to the counter nails. </div> </div></div> V. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> And then, distraught by onward sweep Of meditation long and deep, I sought me out a place to weep— </div> <div class="stanza"> O soul, may not thy leaves, I mused, Stirred by death's shock through all diffused, Reveal thy story unconfused, </div> <div class="stanza"> Clear traced by thought's all-subtle beam— A quickened palimpsest agleam, Re-orient out of dusk and dream! </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 126] <h2>SEA MUSIC.</h2> (For dramatic orchestration.) I. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Fleecy white waters, Shorn by the tempest, Wrathful and doomful Rolling to land! </div> <div class="stanza"> Naked and lustrous, Fiercest of smiters, Straight for the stern cliffs, Iron to steel! </div> <div class="stanza"> Shock unto shock calls, Boom answers boom, Roars the huge tide-loom, Thunder and storm! </div> <div class="stanza"> Torn are the vast webs Woven of tumult, Flung to the cloud-rack, Tatters of sound! </div> </div></div> II. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> The glistening waters again Are marching loyal and true Under the hollow sky,— A hundred million of men Throbbing as fiery dew Under the morning's eye! </div> <div class="stanza"> List to the repetend note, Multiplex tone of the sea, Refrain of grief, of mirth, On violet air afloat Far borne to mountain and lea, To the home of its birth. </div> <div class="stanza"> List as its music unbraids:— Rivulets pour from the hill, Winds wash the lips o' the trees, The brook by the rocky glades Brattles its way to the mill Through fields adream with bees. </div> <div class="stanza"> Forests of pine and of fir Plain as their dark plumes are fret By the free-coursing winds; Alder and golden birch stir To notes too sweet to forget, Sung by brook as it winds. </div> <div class="stanza"> Hark! The lone laugh of the auk As 'twere a disprisoned soul come From out the shining foams! And the loon's "ha! ha!" and mock 'Mid the torn surf's booming drum, Or hushed tide's star-sprent domes! </div> <div class="stanza"> The ringdove coos in the grove, The cataract's thunders jar, Rapids swirl white and hiss; Peoples in temples of love Echo their anthems afar, Diapasons of bliss. </div> <div class="stanza"> Great flux of the world, O sea, Blood of earth's wild pulsing veins Beating to orbs afar, Your life and mine cannot be Unlinked with God's joys and pains Here or in throbbing star! </div> <div class="stanza"> List as its music unbraids, List to the much-sounding sea, List to the repetend note, Multiplex tone of the sea,— Refrain of grief, of mirth, On violet air afloat Far borne to mountain and lea, To the home of its birth. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 130] <h2>SUMMER FOG.</h2> I. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Waft of beaten brine of the Bay, Tonic keen as steel in strife, Blowing wet and cool in my face, Tang of bitter savor of life! </div> </div></div> II. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Billows calm of whitest fog, Over ships and homes now roll,— Breath of seas in quest of heaven, Groping blind as human soul, Blearing, hiding, muffling all,— Life itself laid under the shroud! </div> </div></div> III. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Breath-blown veils of faltering mist, Filmy dreams of luminous cloud, Shifting curtains fret with air, Noiseless sped as northern lights; Opening, shutting gaps of blue, Gleams and glories, glooms and nights! </div> <div class="stanza"> Torn by winds and riven in spray, Borne afar o'er pine trees tall, Clinging round the mountain crests, Melt in azure roofing all! </div> </div></div> IV. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Mystic phantom, mime of life: Witching visions, vanishing play, Belts of shadow, rending veils, Cloudless dome of perfect day! </div> </div></div> V. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Come again, white vapor of seas, Blow thy pungent balm in my face, Soft illusions weave o'er earth, Charm me up to heaven's embrace! </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 132] <h2>THE ARETHUSA.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> A pearly boat am I, From Silver Crag I hail, Wrought of the sea and sky, Freighted with moonbeams pale. </div> <div class="stanza"> I hoist my purple sails To catch the starbeam's gold, And furl them in the gales The sun blows overbold. </div> <div class="stanza"> Rainbows and flying tints, The sunset's crimson glow, A thousand gleams and glints All day do come and go. </div> <div class="stanza"> But as the silver moon Rolls up the breathless blue, And all the stars in swoon Are hidden from my view, </div> <div class="stanza"> I ope my hatches wide And lade with pearl and sheen, To deck my home-bound bride, The Basin's peerless queen. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 134] <h2>DIAN AND FUNDY.</h2> (Designs for a Time-Piece.) I. The Enchantress. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> In silver shoon, on sapphire pavement clear, Fair Dian walks the overarching night; Her spell she lays—great Fundy leaps with cheer! She breaks—he flees in elemental might! </div> </div></div> II. The Lovers. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Dian, pale Dian, sailing the upper sea, Searching for lover lost on earth's lone beach; And Fundy, forward, backward, ceaselessly, By love's impulsions borne to utmost reach. </div> </div></div> III. Art and Science. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Dian, with silver robe from her shoulders flung, And Fundy, with his tidal arc and gauge, Beating as a great pendulum forth-swung, The seconds of the geologic age. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 136] <h2>THE OLD FISHER'S SONG.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> From the broad-shouldered Cobequids we saw Prone Blomidon in lotos-eyed repose, The immemorial vigil lapst to dream. The Basin lay as if in calm of swoon. Upon the bosom of the breathing tide The drifting ships, wide-winged in air, in sea, Sailed double on a single keel—a ship In either stilly heaven, above, beneath. The day was warm, and as we lay beside The woodland brook and watched the pinfish play, We saw the sky within a silver pool, Like a great vase of lapis lazuli Veined with the feathery spray of cirrus cloud, While cumuli in spotless beauty bloomed Therein—a garden of the gods! And all The pool seemed fragrant with a myriad sweets. </div> <div class="stanza"> "There's promise of fair morrow," Harold said, "The witness of the sea and wood is one: The hissing brine, moonstruck, comes vengeful up Its iron gateways with remorseless flood— This little brook in rage and foam tears through A hundred hills—each sets a mirror at Our feet of beauty's self. And so, I ween, The fury of the age will end as full Of calm as are this sea and pool of heaven." </div> <div class="stanza"> And breasting an old path to the carved shore Where fell at ebb the sea-green billows clear,— A path o'ertangled thick with alder hung With tags that take the rich brown Vandyke loved, And cool with dusky air in which, all still, Eye-bright and fronded fern and lichened spruce Swam deep in voiceless sea of wildwood balm— My eye had sight of emerald moss and bells That wreathed the bearded rocks that once were fire. </div> <div class="stanza"> "Ho! here is where the fisher lives who sings All day while fingering nets, and chants the tide To sleep," cried Harold, "as he tends his seines At night. Some three-score souls like his would make A state, and one such state the golden age. This old man never knows when spring is past, But pipes a robin song from May to May, A fresh-blown breezy song of coming good— He's piping now!" </div> <div class="stanza"> Heirs of the century, Sons of the next, Hearten your spirits, Your souls keep unvext. There's an ebb in the tide, There's an open sea wide, But where sun and star dart, You've a trustworthy chart. </div> <div class="stanza"> Beside the wave-worn cliffs, Painted with rainbows of a thousand storms, We sat us down, and took on grateful cheek And brow the waking winds that yestermorn, Far out Atlantic's grey unresting wastes, In awful tempest smote the full-winged ship And pluckt it naked to the hungry deep. "Peace is of conflict born," I said, "and good Seems rooted oft in ill. Man gropes in fog, And is a child tost in a cockle-shell. The stars wink over him and then are gone, The sun is not, and when he deems he's lost, The shore breaks forth in silver welcome sweet." </div> <div class="stanza"> Care for the coming man, Heirs of the race, Hearten your spirits, Gird! quicken your pace! There's a sound in the air, There are trumpets ablare, But there's nothing to dread, You've God overhead. </div> <div class="stanza"> "The Sirens once were symbol of chief fears That met the hardy mariner on life's main," Said Harold, musingly, "but now the coast Is set with sirens groaning lest he touch The isles mist-veiled and hooded white with fog, But cruel as the Sisters twain of death. Science, to-day, the witchery of the past Turns into truth to guide the course of man, Tracks to its lair disease, and bolt and flame Subdues to service of the struggling race; While breeze of health begins to fan alike The cheeks of rich and poor in city ways, And wisdom cries aloud in every street." </div> <div class="stanza"> You of the world-ages, Saviors of man, Hearten your spirits, Lay open God's plan. Labor hungers and wastes While love tarries nor hastes, Yet the note's round and clear, The full time draweth near. </div> <div class="stanza"> "But what of man's grim lust and greed?" said I. "The comradeship of stars and night is not More awful than is that of man with sin, Nor shows more steadfast purpose 'gainst the light. The sky and air fresh-washed with summer rain Forthwith begin to cloud with haze and smoke Till smit again with lightning's wrath, and torn By buffet of the thunder's pealing voice. So hath it been with man, till judgment-ire Reddens in vain to purge his murky sky And flash the light of God upon his soul. The beastly lure of drunkenness that cloaks Itself in the white mantle of the Christ; Delusion's wand that prints mirage for sight On eyes of civic crowds, and nations, too, Or, unclean, faith assoils in simple hearts; The simpering guile that toys with capital And robs the workman of his honest wage, While like the surgy murmurs of the sea Sounds out the moan of willing labor's voice For bread to fill its famished children's mouths; The lust of power to sit in place of God And turn for selfish ends the wheels of fate Of fellowman,—these wait a day of doom!" </div> <div class="stanza"> Heirs of the century, Sons of renown, Lift up humanity's Broad kingdom and crown. There's a purpose replete, To put all 'neath man's feet, And we see it begun In the Virgin's crowned Son. </div> <div class="stanza"> "Injustice," Harold said, with eye that burned Like a star, "is the devil's own trade-mark, And hottest comes from hell through saintly hands! The race of man is in the making yet. Hypocrisy still deftly apes true worth— Thus prophesying universal good. Nature is non-committal of her end, But God is hiding not man's destiny. Yon fitful beacon flares the dark night through, And then the kindling clouds, day's heralds, burn In golden dawn. Earth's skyward crags, which thirst For news from God, are bathed in heavenly light, And from their sunrise shoulders the full morn Shoots far the splendors of its coming noon. The shadows of a fleeing night yet dim The age and mask a hundred ills as good, More eager graspt at since they haste away; But from the slopes there pours a clear new light, Divinely aired, above that of the sun. Philosophy of schools, nor science wise, Nor labor, of itself, life's secret finds, That fills the promise of man's vermeil bloom. 'Tis love alone can sheathe the alien sword, And crown mankind in his own kingdom lord." </div> <div class="stanza"> Heirs of the coming age, Makers of man, The Christ be your pattern, Ay, choose with elan. There's a presence at hand, There's a voice of command— It is Love, King of men, Alleluia, Amen! </div> <div class="stanza"> And as we turned toward home by open beach, The waves were loud in clamor on the shore; But over all, and far away, we caught The drifting chant of the old Christian seer: </div> <div class="stanza"> It is Love, King of men, Alleluia, Amen! </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 144] <h2>NORA LEE.</h2> I. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Away from Howth into the south A stanch brave ship left harbor-mouth. </div> <div class="stanza"> The Easter Bell, all sails a-swell, Gallantly swept to sea they tell, </div> <div class="stanza"> And Nora flamed like one ashamed, When her fair sailor-man they named. </div> </div></div> II. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Three moons did heap the cresting deep Since Nora Lee was wed at Dreep. </div> <div class="stanza"> Up from the dim grey ocean's rim No tidings came of ship, or him. </div> <div class="stanza"> A sea-gull's wing would make her sing, And eye with smiles her wedding-ring. </div> <div class="stanza"> If signal high flew in the sky, She knew the Easter Bell was nigh, </div> <div class="stanza"> And pulled a rose, as wife that knows Her good man cometh at the close. </div> <div class="stanza"> The white ship came—'twas not the name! And Nora Lee was not the same. </div> </div></div> III. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> The kraken grim, in dream, did swim Beside the Easter Bell, and him. </div> <div class="stanza"> The ocean swell and harbor bell Chimed in an endless passing knell. </div> <div class="stanza"> In gleaming green of breaker's sheen, The pallid light of death was seen. </div> <div class="stanza"> The shaping clouds, the mist, like shrouds, Floated in ever-thickening crowds,— </div> <div class="stanza"> Till piping wind her blood did bind, Froze by the phantoms of the mind. </div> </div></div> IV. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> "Cheer up, good wife," the neighbors rife Said all, "the Bell has charmëd life. </div> <div class="stanza"> "Brave Captain Head, no dawn a-red In vain e'er signaled him, 'tis said. </div> <div class="stanza"> "Of all this town, from foot to crown No sailor has so just renown. </div> <div class="stanza"> "The winds that blow, the reefs that grow, Each one by heart he'd know, he'd know. </div> <div class="stanza"> "Some night full soon, or morn, or noon, The Bell will fly her home gossoon!" </div> </div></div> V. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> The days they came and went the same, The moons, the tides, the mists, the flame. </div> <div class="stanza"> And Nora said: "Since I was wed Six moons the heaping tides have led. </div> <div class="stanza"> "In gloom I pine—(love makes him mine, Alive or dead)—I'll throw the line!" </div> </div></div> VI. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> She pulled a rose, as wife that knows Her good man cometh at the close. </div> <div class="stanza"> Three neighbors true with her she drew To the grey shore, and, calling, threw, </div> <div class="stanza"> With passionate leap, far to the deep, The life-line good wives always keep— </div> <div class="stanza"> "O Mike, my man, my dear good man! The line, the line, my dear good man!" </div> <div class="stanza"> (Calling so sore adown the shore, As fell the wintry surge's roar.) </div> <div class="stanza"> Across the line of foaming brine, Low answer came that lit her eyne. </div> <div class="stanza"> ******* </div> <div class="stanza"> The neighbors three with Nora Lee All heard the words from out the sea, </div> <div class="stanza"> Yet none e'er said what past the wed,— A fearsome awe o'er them was spread. </div> </div></div> VII. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> When next moon fell, the Easter Bell Sailed into harbor, as they tell, </div> <div class="stanza"> With silk "gossoon" astream aboon— And Nora in her calm did croon, </div> <div class="stanza"> And softly tell: "I knew it well, His head it tosseth with weed and shell." </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 150] <h2>TO W.</h2> I. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> "Neural and hæmal arch," you say, "Tell out man's history to-day, Brain and mechanics have their way." </div> <div class="stanza"> Is structure then sole test of kin? The ape from man, in form and skin, Is far as holiness from sin! </div> <div class="stanza"> Emotion swears with hand uplift, That beauty is no mere makeshift, Significance divine its drift. </div> <div class="stanza"> Beauty of sound, articulate speech, Lories and pyes might simians teach, These, therefore, nearer to man reach; </div> <div class="stanza"> While nightingale and mocking-bird, Approach, in music's heavenly word, Closer than mammal e'er conferred. </div> </div></div> II. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Were structure and function parallel, The word might break the mystic spell, But function doth its test compel. </div> <div class="stanza"> Upward to man the beaver deft In structure gains of tail bereft— But if there were no house-skill left!— </div> <div class="stanza"> And if in structure beavers be In tooth and larynx nearer me Than flirting blackbird in ash-tree, </div> <div class="stanza"> His song beyond all such control Comes up in kindred echo-roll, With those that tremble in my soul. </div> </div></div> III. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> True, in mechanics there is seen A gross resemblance in the mien Of ape and man—thought nigh unclean! </div> <div class="stanza"> But grosser want of function's shewn Of human attribute and tone,— Sweet rhythmic utterance unknown; </div> <div class="stanza"> Beauty of form, proportion fair, And dignity—all wanting there, Though neural and hæmal arch compare! </div> </div></div> IV. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Of structure, all you find is that A function it performs, whereat A thus or thus of sight's come at. </div> <div class="stanza"> And yet you truly know far more— Feeling from out her open door Affirms, in speech of beauty's lore: </div> <div class="stanza"> "O, awesome!" "beauteous!" "pleasant too!" "Inspiriting!" "ennobling!" "true!" Or contrariwise—each as is due. </div> <div class="stanza"> But no account of this you take; Your thoughts are polarized, and make An open sea of a tiny lake. </div> </div></div> V. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> You don't believe the colors of birds And insects are God's painted words To please the master of His herds! </div> <div class="stanza"> "Mere marks ancestral, once of use, Now useless as an empty cruse— Derived, but not designed," your truce. </div> <div class="stanza"> Yet why such skilful pains bestow, That colors once had use, to shew? Vain zeal, since that you cannot know. </div> <div class="stanza"> Fruitless your words! Is it not plain, "Designed" or not, like April rain, The end achieved is man's high gain? </div> </div></div> VI. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> 'Tis folly to attempt truth's goal With logic got of half the soul,— Truth will not have the half, but whole. </div> <div class="stanza"> Beauty, God's gladness seen in time, Lights up Truth's calm white face sublime With radiance of the golden prime! </div> <div class="stanza"> Shall you and I look down for light? Nay, upward let us fix our sight, Downward's the awful gulf of night. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 157] <h2>MARIE DEPURE.</h2> <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Not with her outward eyes, but with her mind, Her living soul, her faith,—for she was blind— Marie Depure, with simple, loving heart, Had seen the Christ, and chosen the good part. </div> <div class="stanza"> She never thought with Milton, in his pride, "Does God exact day labor, light denied?" But gave her willing hands as one who saw, Deftly to plait for use the yellow straw. </div> <div class="stanza"> With humble workers of her craft she wrought For daily bread, and Christ's great lesson taught, That love the life far more than meat regards, And body, more than raiment sweet with nards. </div> <div class="stanza"> For when the pastor, who, like John, had leaned Upon the Master's breast, spoke words that yeaned The pity of his heart for those that sit In heathen night, nor know Christ's torch is lit; </div> <div class="stanza"> Marie Depure, her soul winged like a dove Eager to bear the news of light and love, Gave of her humble toil more than they all,— Since love makes willing answer to Love's call. </div> <div class="stanza"> Amazed, the man of God to Marie said: "Your gift is great, a part I take instead;" But she, with sweet insistence, spake him, "Nay, I'm richer far than those who see the day. </div> <div class="stanza"> "These workers of the golden straw buy oil, When darkness falls, that they may see to toil; But I am blind, I need no oil for light,— I give this love-lit lamp for darker night." </div> <div class="stanza"> Marie Depure! A sweet and gracious beam Speed from thy burning lamp, a Christ-like gleam, To those who in the darkness sit, and some Who, without serving, pray, "Thy Kingdom Come!" </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 161] <h2>"BY THE LOVE."</h2> An Easter Idyll. <div class="container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Twelve months agone The beauteous face, all white with pity as A wave with foam, sank in the dusk of death. Four summers and the wafture of the fifth Had poured their cataract of gold far down The shining shoulders of the seraph boy, While love, a father's and a mother's, hung Above its laughter like a thing divine. </div> <div class="stanza"> O golden head that drifted down to death! Sweet eye and voice by silence swift devoured! Dawn's kiss upon the forehead of the day! The fresh-blown surge of grief was stilled, And halcyon hope her azure wings outspread As all the hollow sky on Easter morn Was, like a lily, filled with golden light. Swift through the hush of death the thrill of life Touched the still chords of the fair mother's heart, And woke unquenchable desire to lay White lilies from the darksome mother-earth Upon the tomb, where circled, like a dove, Her wingëd hopes,—the tomb where long ago White angels watched the birth of Life anew. </div> <div class="stanza"> Beside the lilied mound she lingered long. Her rising soul pushed at the gates of death, Till, like a creek from which the moon has drunk The tide, they yawned empty and bare of hope. All spectral grew her heart with tearless grief As some sweet plot of lichens reft of rain. "There are no angels now," she said, "to roll The stone away. O that He now were here To raise my dead, if 'tis not all a myth!" And as she spoke she lift a bitter face Into the eyes of the bright Easter day. </div> <div class="stanza"> Not far away she saw a little child Of scarce five years, and drawing near she knew Him one who never felt a mother's kiss,— Now sitting at the grave where one long month Had slept his father,—kith nor kin bequeathed The boy in the wide circle of the earth. She knew that, rose and rosebud on one stem, Father and child had crimsoned life with love, And that the wind of death had snatched The rose and left the unsheltered bud alone; Yet blinded by the night of her own grief Scarce had she seen his golden day's eclipse. Now swift she marked the tender mobile lips, The spirit-light aglow in eye, on brow, And the rare beauty of the noble face. </div> <div class="stanza"> "Is your name Mary," fearlessly he asked, "Who with the angels talked when the great stone Was rolled away?—" "O no, dear child," she said,— "Whom are you looking for?" With reverent mien, Yet eager voice, "For Jesus," said the child. "O Jesus is not here, my darling boy, He's risen, you know." "Yes," said the wistful face, "I've waited here all day for Him to come And raise my father up. I thought perhaps He sent you, 'tis so late, to bid me stay A little—O 'tis never too late for Jesus!" he said, and brushed away the tear; "He's sure to come, for 'tis the Rising-Day." </div> <div class="stanza"> The woman stoopt to kiss the wondrous boy, And sat beside him there upon the grave, And sobbed like organ swept by the master's hand. </div> <div class="stanza"> "What makes you cry?—perhaps your father's here To be raised up?" "No darling,—but my child." He stroked the woman's hand: "Don't cry," he said, "Jesus does not forget the Rising-Day, He'll surely come and give to you your child And me my father—He will come to-night. I saw the two men who from Emmaus came, Go by at early morn, and Jesus will Meet them, and turn and this way come, as they In wonder all about His dying talk, And rising too. The men will know Him not, But I shall, and will call to Him to stop And raise my father up." "How shall you know Him, my dear boy?" she asked. "O by His smile, And by the picture father shewed me once, But" (with his hand upon his heaving breast) "I'll know Him best by the love I keep in here." "Shall you?" she said, "and are you sure you'll know Your father?" "My own father!" said the boy, With wondering voice, "I'll know him by the love, And so will you your child. They will not look The same, for Jesus did not, but they knew Him by His love." And finer grew the face As the fond lingering voice, in love's own tones, Repeated: "And we'll know them by the love." </div> <div class="stanza"> Moveless a moment, as the tide at full, Her heart hung in a balance, and as its Tremulous deeps swayed to the signs of heaven, Its wave broke o'er the banks of self to life. </div> <div class="stanza"> "Philip," she cried, and clasped him in her arms, "Jesus has gone to heaven, and I am sent By Him to take you to your father now. Come!" With faith strong as is the noonday sight, Instant the child clasped home her trembling hand, And passed without the gates, nor backward lookt. Silent he went, for expectation held Him fast, and a great light was on her face. </div> <div class="stanza"> Entering her home, she bade that food be given The famished boy; and when the maid brought milk, Honey and bread with broilëd fish, he said, With exultation: "Now I know this is The house—it's all here just the same, and He'll Be here to-night." With wingëd feet the wife Sped up the stair to meet her husband's step, And in a rapture told him all, and of The wonder-heart below. "Heaven, a fair child, An angel boy, has sent our stone to roll Away! For us his vision is no less Than for himself. O husband, this is life's Supremest hour for us!—'I shall know him By the love,' sweetly he says."—"It shall be So indeed!" cried the father's yearning heart. </div> <div class="stanza"> As she returned, the child most eager said, In a sweet voice half-sob, but full of hope, "O wash my face and comb my hair, before I see my father—'tis not too late yet?" The touch of the ineffable child-trust Pierced deep her heart, yet with assuring tones The words fell: "Philip, come, let us now go To him." </div> <div class="stanza"> The arras opened on a face Noble and winsome sweet, though smiles were close To tears. As azure bird on mountain stream Halts a brief moment on some jutting crag, Ere as a flash of streaming light it cleaves The dewy darkness of the trickling dell; So for a moment halted the sweet child, Took one step forward, and then leapt into The arms where death-shade once was deep as night, But where commingling love now glads the gloom, All lit by the sweet azure of the heart. With head thrown back, and questioning eyes agaze: "Father—you're—changed!" he said, "but by the love, We know each other—by the love, the love!" The father's heaving heart did echo sweet, "The love, the love!" </div> <div class="stanza"> And nestling down upon The manly breast, the curly head, soft-stroked, And soothed with all the lullabies of love, Was rocked, like harbored sail, to rest of sleep, Lapt in the love which fed his simple faith, And poured a golden Easter in the heart Of her who groped in darkness 'mong the tombs. </div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 171] <h2>NOTES.</h2> Page 17. and erst "rose noble" bore thy grace.—The "rose noble," an ancient English gold coin, first minted by Edward III., was stamped with the figure of the rose. 19. The phantom of the buried tide.—This phenomenon is not infrequently seen in the evenings of the last of August or early September. It is caused by the condensation of the invisible vapor of the air resting on the dyked lands—the former sea-bed. As the condensed vapor lies close upon the ground, the illusion of a full sea is complete in the moonlight, the shore line and creeks being perfectly traced. 28. The title deeds of these rich shores are thine.—Geologists affirm that Partridge Island is older than the mainland, or than the other islands mentioned. 29. Tennyson Rock.—This rock is the pinnacle of Pinnacle Island (one of the Five Islands, Basin of Minas). The rock is solitary, and nearly two hundred feet high at low water,—a seated figure strongly resembling, as seen from the Basin, Lord Tennyson in his old age—with his cloak about him. 32. Glooscap.—The divine man of the Micmac Indians. His home was on the shores of the Basin of Minas, particularly at Partridge Island, the Five Islands, and Blomidon. He sailed away "into the west," because of the wickedness of men and beasts, not to return till they should heed his voice. (See "Legends of the Micmacs," gathered by the late Rev. Silas Tertius Rand, D.D., LL.D, of Hantsport, Nova Scotia, and published by Wellesley College, Wellesley, Mass.) 40. Day and Night.—The last three lines of the sonnet refer to the "afterglow," which often appears (at Minas Basin) from half an hour to an hour or more after the first sunset colors have entirely faded into dusk. 45. Mayflower.—The Trailing Arbutus. 48. The Ghost Flower.—The monotropa uniflora,—a true flower, not a fungus. It grows in the deep shadows, the entire flower and stalk being colorless and wax-like. It has white, wax-like bracts in place of green leaves. The cup nods, and stalk and flower together often form an interrogation point (which fact, it will be observed, determines the cast of the sonnet). The flower is widely known as the Ghost Flower, but is often called Indian Pipe. 52. McMaster University.—Founded as a distinctively Christian university, by the late William McMaster, of Toronto, merchant, founder of the Bank of Commerce, and a member of the Senate of the Dominion of Canada. 54. Areopagus ... Furies.—The sessions of the Areopagus, the highest judicial court at Athens, were held on Mars' Hill. The Cave of the Furies was beneath the same rock. 66. And shewed the prints of palfrey's shoe.—These tiny horse-shoe prints, many of them sharp and perfect even to the nail-heads, may be seen in abundance on the branches of any horse-chestnut tree. 82. Had I two loaves of bread,—Mohammed. Or let me die—Wordsworth,—uttered in view of his emotion at the sight of the rainbow. 84. The Dragonfly.—The species of neuropterous insects referred to in the poem deposit their eggs in water. The grub lives at the bottom of the lake or pond, creeping on the submerged parts of aquatic plants and feeding on aquatic insects. When the final transformation is about to take place, the body of the insect becomes swollen until, lighter than the water, it rises to the surface. As its skin dries, it splits at the back, and the perfect insect comes forth, with body and wings quite soft and moist. When dry, the wings expand, until presently the insect spreads them, and soaring upwards, begins to dart to and fro in the full enjoyment of its new and wondrous life. 115. The moon at her utmost poised.—The moon is in meridian at high water in the Bay of Fundy. 159. "By the Love": An Easter Idyll.—The story on which this poem is founded was published in the Congregationalist, by Helen Strong Thompson, as a true incident of the Easter of 1894. <hr class="chap" /> <div class="transnote"> <h2>Transcriber's Notes</h2> Apparent printer's errors and inconsistent spellings have been retained. </div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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