When Lincoln died : and other poems

VICTORIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
TORONTO, ONTARIO

SOURCE:

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WHEN LINCOLN DIED AND OTHER
POEMS

WHEN LINCOLN DIED

AND OTHER POEMS

BY

EDWARD WILLIAM THOMSON

s
S

BOSTON AND NEW YORK.
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

res£ €ambrit»0e
1909

•I

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1303

COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY EDWARD WILLIAM THOMSON
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Published March IQOQ

To S. M. S.

ONE Autumn, after early snow had sprinkled fields with white,
It seemed that quickening Spring returned to Earth with fresh

delight,
Grass greened again, pink blossoms pranked the twigs of orchard

trees,

Good children found ripe strawberries, new roses puzzled bees,
Bold robins that had flocked afar flew back by ones and twos,
The girls resumed their summer frocks, the boys their canvas shoes,
And people thanked, as I thank you, the life-renewing Sun
The more because such things were so unseasonably done.

E. W. T.

NOTE

HERE I express my gratitude to the Editors and Publishers
of "The Atlantic Monthly," "The University Magazine"
(Montreal), "Collier's Weekly," and "The Youth's Com-
panion," for liberal encouragement given me by their serial
publication of sundry of the following poems.

E. W. T

WE TALKED OF LINCOLN

WE talked of Abraham Lincoln in the night,
Ten fur-coat men on North Saskatchewan's plain —
Pure zero cold, and all the prairie white —
Englishman, Scotchman, Scandinavian, Dane,
Two Irish, four Canadians — all for gain
Of food and raiment, children, parents, wives,
Living the hardest life that Man survives,
And secret proud because it was so hard
Exploring, camping, axeing, faring lean. —
Month in and out no creature had we seen
Except our burdened dogs, gaunt foxes gray,
Hard-feathered grouse that shot would seldom slay,
Slinking coyotes, plumy-trailing owls,
Stark Indians warm in rabbit-blanket cowls,
And, still as shadows in their deep-tracked yard,
The dun vague moose we startled from our way.

We talked of Abraham Lincoln in the night
Around our fire of tamarac crackling fierce,
Yet dim, like moon and stars, in that vast light
Boreal, tannery, shifting quick to pierce
Ethereal blanks of Space with falchion streams
Transfigured wondrous into quivering beams
From Forms enormous-marching through the sky
To dissolution and new majesty.
And speech was low around our bivouac fire,
Since in our inmost heart of hearts there grew
The sense of mortal feebleness, to see
Those silent miracles of Might on high
Seemingly done for only such as we
In sign how nearer Death and Doom we drew,
While in the ancient tribal-soul we knew

ix

WE TALKED OF LINCOLN

Our old, hardfaring father-Vikings' dreams
Of Odin at Valhalla's open door,
Where they might see the Battle-father's face
Glowing at last, when Life and Toil were o'er,
Were they but staunch-enduring in their place.

We talked of Abraham Lincoln in the night. —

Oh sweet and strange to hear the hard-hand men

Old-Abeing him, like half the world of yore

In years when Grant's and Lee's young soldiers bore

Rifle and steel, and proved that heroes live

Where folk their lives to Labor mostly give.

And strange and sweet to hear their voices call

Him " Father Abraham," though no man of all

Was born within the Nation of his birth.

It was as if they felt that all on Earth

Possess of right Earth's greatest Common Man,

Her sanest, wisest, simplest, steadiest son,

To whom The Father's children all were one,

And Pomps and Vanities as motes that danced

In the clear sunshine where his humor glanced.

We talked of Abraham Lincoln in the night
Until one spoke, " We yet may see his face"
Whereon the fire crackled loud through space
Of human silence, while eyes reverent
Toward the auroral miracle were bent
Till from that trancing Glory spirits came
Within our semi-circle round the flame,
And drew us closer-ringed, until we could
Feel the kind touch of vital brotherhood
Which Father Abraham Lincoln thought so good.

CONTENTS

We Talked of Lincoln . . . , ix

POEMS OF LINCOLN AND THE GREAT WAR

Father Abraham Lincoln 3

Mary Armistead 10

When Lincoln Died 24

The Vision at Shiloh 31

Parables 37

POEMS OF THE WORLD-WIDE BROTHERHOOD

The Many-Mansioned House 41

Peter Ottawa 47

Parliament of the Ages 62

King Volsung and the Skald 68

BALLADS, LYRICS, MEDITATIONS

Thunderchild's Lament 77

The Mandan Priest 80

Chief Nepoquan's Lament 83

Ridgeway Fight 87

Day Dream 93

The Canadian Rossignol (In May) 94

The Canadian Rossignol (In June) 95

Sweetest Whistle Ever Blew 98

Our Kindergartner 100

Elegy for "the Doctor" 101

Hail to the Chief 103

A Canadian Reply (To one who would refuse Liberty

to the Boers) 105

xi

CONTENTS

To the Princess Louise, on the Death of Princess Alice 107

Environment . , 108

Resurrection no

Judgment Hour in

Happyheart 113

Our Town's Comforter 115

Brethren of the Boat 117

Cupid in the Office . 119

Prelude 119

I. Reverie 119

II. The Christmas Walk I2O

III. Cul-de-Sac 121

IV. April Holiday 12 1

V. Consolation 123

VI. The Puritan 123

VII. Kismet 124

VIII. Hepaticas 124

IX. Flown 125

X. Enshrined 126

The Bad Year 128

To Theodore Roosevelt 129

TRANSLATIONS

Gastibelzah. From the French of Victor Hugo . . 133
O Canada, mon Pays, mes Amours. From the

French of Sir George Etienne Carrier 136

To Brittany. From the French of W. Chapman . . 138
Mother and Child (Old France and New). From the

French of W. Chapman 139

To my two Mothers. From the French of W. Chap-
man 142

Autumn Song. From the French of Achille Frechette 145
To Canada. From the Sclavonic 146

POEMS OF LINCOLN AND THE GREAT
WAR

FATHER ABRAHAM LINCOLN

My private shrine. The Gettysburg Address
Framed in with all authentic photographs
Of him from whom the New Religion flows.

Homely? That's it. A perfect homeliness.
Homely as Home itself that countenance
Benign, immortal sweet, his very soul,
The steadfast, common, great American.

It is a gladness in my aging heart
These eyes three times beheld himself alive,
Ungainly, jointed loose, rail-fence-like, queer
In garb that hung with scarecrow shapelessness
Absolute figure of The States half-made,
Turning from toil and joke to sacred war.

MY heart has smiles and tears, remembering how

The boy, fourteen, round-cheeked and downy-lipped,

With Philadelphia cheese-cake freshly bit,

Halted to stare on marbled Chestnut Street;

He could not gulp the richness in his maw,

Because that black-frock-coated countryman

Of bulged umbrella, rusty stovepipe hat,

Five yards ahead, and coming rapidly,

Could be none other than the President,

From caricatures familiar as the day.

A sudden twinkle lit his downcast eyes,
Marking the cheese-cake and the staring boy;
Tickled to note the checked gastronomy,
3

FATHER ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Passing, he asked, "Good, sonny ?" in a tone
Applausive more than questioning, full of fun,
Yet half-embracive, as your mother's voice,
And smiled so comrade-like the wondering lad
Glowed with a sense of being chosen chum
To Father Abraham Lincoln, President.

Such was the miracle his spirit wrought

In millions while he lived. And still it lives.

He stalked along, unguarded, all alone,

That central soul of unremitting war,

A common man level with common Man.

The heart-warmed, wondering boy stared after him,

And wonders yet to-day on how it chanced

The mighty, well-loved, martyr President

Went rambling on unknown in broadest day

On crowded street, as if by nimbus hid

From all except the cheese-caked worshipper

He sonnied, smiled on, joked at fatherly.

H

That night the streets of Philadelphia thronged ;
No end of faces ; one great human cross,
As far each way as lamp-post boys could see,
Packed Ninth and Chestnut, waiting Father Abe;
The Continental's balcony on high
Glowed Stars and Stripes, with crape for all the dead
!We cannot dedicate, nor consecrate."

On chime of eight precise, gaunt, bare of head,
They saw his tallness in the balcony-flare,
And straightway all the murmurous street grew still,
Till silence absolute as death befell.

And in that perfect silence one clear voice
Inspired began, from out the multitude,
4

FATHER ABRAHAM LINCOLN

The song of all the songs of all the war,
Simple, ecstatic, sacrificial, strong —
" We yre coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand

more " —

And neighboring voices took the long refrain
While some more distant raised the opening words,
Till to and fro and far and near at once,
Never in chorus, chanting as by groups,
Here ending, there beginning, some halfway,
All sang at once, and all renewing all
In pledge and passion of the mighty song,
Their different words and clashing cadences
Wondrously merging in a sound supreme,
As if the inmost meaning of the hymn
Harmonious rolled in one unending vow
While all the singers gazed on Lincoln's face.

Hands gripping balcony-rail, he stooped and saw
And listened motionless, with such a look
The boy upon the lamp-post clearly knew
"The heavens were opened unto him,'*
"The spirit of God descending like a dove" —
Until the mystery of the general soul
Wrought to unwonted sense of unison
Moved all to silence for the homely words
Of Father Abraham Lincoln to his kind —
Words clear as Light itself, so plain — so plain
None deemed him other than their fellow man.

in

Once more. A boy in blue at sixteen years,
Mid groups of blue along the crazy road
Of corduroy astretch from City Point,
Toward yonder spire in fatal Petersburg,
Beyond what trenches, rifle-pits, and forts,
What woeful far-front grave-mounds sunken down
To puddles over pickets shot on post —

5

FATHER ABRAHAM LINCOLN

What cemeteries shingle-marked with names
Of companies and regiments and corps,
Of mouldering bones and rags of blue and gray,
And belts and buttons, rain and wind exposed —
Mired army wagons — forms of swollen mules —
Springfields and Enfields, broken-stocked, stuck up
Or strown, all rusting — parked artillery —
Brush shelter stables — lines and lines of huts,
Tent-covered winter quarters, sticks and mud
For chimneys to the many thousand smokes
Whose dropping cinders black-rimmed million holes
Through veteran canvas ludicrously patched —
Squares of parade all mud — and mud, and mud,
With mingled grass and chips and refuse cans
Strown myriad far about the plain of war,
Whose scrub-oak roots for scanty fires were grubbed,
And one sole house, and never fence remained
Where fifty leagues of corn-land smiled before.

Belated March — a lowering, rainless day
With glints of shine ; the veteran tents of Meade
Gave forth their veteran boys in crowds of blue,
Infantry, cavalry, gunners, engineers,
Easterner, Westerner, Yankee, Irish, "Dutch,"
Canuck, all sorts and sizes, frowsed, unkempt,
Unwashed, half-smoked, profane exceedingly,
Moody or jokeful, formidable, free
From fear of colonels as of corporals,
Each volunteer the child of his own whim,
And every man heart-sworn American
Trudging the mud to view the cavalcade
Of Father Abraham Lincoln to The Front.

He, Chief Commander of all Union hosts,
Of more than thrice three hundred thousand more,
Rode half a horseneck first, since Grant on right
And Meade on left kept reining back their bays;
Full uniformed were they and all their train,
6

FATHER ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Sheridan, Humphreys, Warren, Hazen, Kautz,
Barlow, McLaughlen, Ord, and thirty more,
Blazing for once in feathers and in gold.
Old Abe, all black, bestrode the famous steed,
Grant's pacing black — and sure since war began
No host of war had such Commander seen !

Loose-reined he let the steady pacer walk ;
Those rail-like legs, that forked the saddle, thrust
Prodigious spattered boots anear the mud,
Preposterous his parted coat-tails hung,
In negligence his lounging body stooped,
Tipping the antic-solemn stovepipe hat;
It seemed some old-time circuit preacher turned
From Grant to Meade and back again to Grant,
Attentive, questioning, pondering, deep concerned —
The common Civil Power directing War.

He, travesty of every point of horsemanship,
They, so bedizened, riding soldier stern —
The contrast past all telling comical —
And Father Abraham wholly unaware !

Too much by far for soldier gravity —

A breeze of laughter travelling as he passed,

Rose sudden to a gale that stormed his ear.

The President turned and gazed and understood
All in one moment, slightly shook his head,
Not warningly, but with a cheerful glee,
And sympathy and love, as if he spoke :
You scalawags, you scamps, but have your fun ! "
Pushed up the stovepipe hat, and all around
Bestowed his warming, right paternal smile,
As if his soul embraced us all at once.

Then strangely fell all laughter. Some men choked,
And some grew inarticulate with tears;
7

FATHER ABRAHAM LINCOLN

A thousand veteran children thrilled as one,
And not a man of all the throng knew why;
Some called his name, some blessed his holy heart,
And then, inspired with pentecostal tongues,
We cheered so wildly for Old Father Abe
That all the bearded generals flamed in joy!

What was the miracle ? His miracle.
Was Father Abraham just a son of Man,
As Jesus seemed to common Nazarenes ?

Shall Father Abraham Lincoln yet prevail,
And his Republic come to stay at last ?
Kind Age, unenvious Youth, democracy,
None lower than the first in comradeship,
However differing in mental force,
The higher intellect set free to Serve,
All undistracted by the woeful need
To grab or pander lest its children want;
Old trivial gewgaws of the peacock past
Smiled to the nothingness of desuetude,
With strutful Rank, with pinchbeck Pageantry,
With apish separative-cant of Class,
With inhumane conventions, all designed
To sanctify the immemorial robbery
Of Man by men ; with mockful mummeries,
Called Law, to save the one perennial Wrong —
That fundamental social crime which fates
All babes alike to Inequality,
And so condemns the many million minds
(That might, with happier nurture, finely serve)
To share, through life, the harmful hates or scorns
The accursed System breeds, which still most hurts
The few who fancy it their benefit,
Shutting them lifelong from the happiness
Of such close sympathy with all their kind
As feels the universal God, or Soul,
Alive to love in every human heart.
8

FATHER ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Was it for this our Mother's sons were slain ?
Shall Father Abraham not prevail again ?

We who are marching to the small-flagged graves
We earned by fight to free our fathers' slaves,
We who by Lincoln's hero soul were sworn,
We go more sadly toward our earthly bourne
To join our comrade host of long ago,
Since, oh so clearly, do our old hearts know
We shall not witness what we longed to see —
Our own dear children minded to be free.

Why let democracy be flouted down ?
Why let your money-mongers more renown
Their golden idol than the Common Weal,
Flaunting the gains of liberty-to-steal,
Fouling the promise of the heights we trod
With Freedom's sacrifice to Lincoln's God ?

Was it for this he wept his children slain ?
Or shall our Father's spirit rise again ?

MARY ARM1STEAD

MARY ARMISTEAD

APRIL, 1865

A VETERAN CAVALRYMAN'S TALE

Low in the fertile vale by Tunstall's Run
A rainy rifle skirmish closed the day.

Beyond the April-swollen, narrow stream,
Lee's stubborn rearguard veteran raggedies
Lay prone amid last year's tobacco stalks,
Shooting hot Enfields straight from red-mud pools,
While from their rear four angry howitzers,
High set on Armistead's Plantation Hill,
Flamed shrieking shell o'erhead across the bridge
That Custer raged to seize before black night
Should close his daylong toil in mud and rain.

Thrice did we gallop vainly at the planks,
Then vainly strove on foot the pass to win,
Till through the drizzling dark but flashes showed
The points where sullen rifles opposite rang,
And back we straggled, stumbling up the slope
Where Union buglers shrilled the bivouac.

Ninety unanswering voices told our loss,
While silence ruled so deep we heard the rain's
Small rataplan on ponchos and on hats,
Until the crackling rail-fence Company fires
Lighted the piney length of Ouster's Ridge.

That night John Woolston served as orderly,
The John who strokes to-day his white old beard

10

MARY ARMISTEAD

And sees himself, scarce downy of the lips,
Eyeing young long-haired Custer through the smoke
Across a flaming pyre, that steaming slaves
Of Tunstall fed afresh with Tunstall rails.

Down in the shrouded vale about the Run
Three score of boys John Woolston knew in life
Lay scattered round an old-hoed, red-mud field,
Peaceful with scores of veteran boys in gray,
Whose bodily particles were resurrect
As corn for bread, and leaf for smokers* pipes,
Before the Americans of now were born
To share, through common-soldier sacrifice,
The comrade Union of the States to-day.

A rail-heap seated Custer with his aide,

Their drowsing bugler opposite leaned on John,

While overhead the swaying boughs of pine

Creaked in an upward-rushing draught of warmth,

And from our solitary surgeons' tent

Came smothered ecstasies of mortal pain,

And in the outer darkness horses stamped

And bit and squealed and enviously eyed

The huddling regiments about the fires,

Pipes lit, hats slouched to fend the rain and glare.

As Woolston watched lean Custer' s martial face,
It seemed the hero heard not flame nor bough,
Nor marked the groans, nor knew at what he stared,
So deep intent his mind ranged o'er the Run
And up the opposite-sloping Arm'stead hill,
As questioning if the murderous howitzers
Would hold the bridge at dawn, or march by night,
And so, perchance, next eve, afar repeat
The dusky fight, and cost him ninety more
He would fain range about the field of fields
Where lion Lee, enringed, must stand at bay,
Choosing to greatly die, or greatlier yield.

II

MARY ARMISTEAD

At last he shook his aide. "Get up! Go bring
A prisoner here." And when the head-hurt man
In butternut stood boldly to his eyes,
He asked one word alone: "Your general's name ?"

"My general's name!" stared Butternut, then proud,
As 't were a cubit added to his height,
He spoke, — "My general's name is R. E. Lee!"

"I mean who fights Lee's rearguard ?" Custer said,
"Who held the bridge to-night? His name alone."

And then the bitter man in butternut
Smiled ghastly grim, and smacked as tasting blood;
"It's General Henry Tunstall, his own self,
And if you find our ' Fighting Tunce ' alive
When daylight comes, there '11 be red hell to pay
For every plank that spans that trifling bridge."

"Good man!" said Custer. "Spoke right soldierly!
Here — take this cloak — to save your wound from

rain":
And gave the brave the poncho that he wore.

Then up flamed Butternut: "Say, General,
You 're Yank, and yet, by God, you 're white clean through.
And so I kind of feel to tell you why
Them planks will cost you so almighty dear.
You 're camped to-night on * Fighting Tunce's ' land ;
Cross yonder, on the hill his guns defend,
Is where his lady lives, his promised wife, —
God bless her heart! — Miss Mary Armistead.
She 's there herself to-night — she 'd never run.
Her widowed father fell at Fredericksburg,
Three brothers died in arms, one limps with Lee.
Herself has worked their darkies right along
Four years, to raise our army pork and pone,
And she herself not twenty-four to-day !

12

MARY ARMISTEAD

Will Tunstall fight for her ? Say, General,

Your heart can guess what hell you '11 face at day."

"You're right, my man," said Custer. "That will do."
And off they marched the ponchoed prisoner.

" By heaven ! " spoke Custer then, and faced his aide,
"I know why Tunstall's gunners spared the bridge.

It 's ten to one he means to swarm across,

After his hungry Johnnies get some rest,

To strike us here and hard before the dawn.

His heart was forged in fire and enterprise !

His bully-boys will back his wildest dare!

Lieutenant — pick me out two first-rate men —

Morton for one, if * Praying Mort ' 's alive —

Tell them I go myself to post vedettes.

Now — mind — I want a pair of wideawakes. —

You, Orderly, go saddle up my bay."

"I want to go with Morton," blurted John.
"You! Call yourself a wideawake, my lad ?"

"Yes, sir" said Woolston. —

"But you're just a boy."

"Well, General, Uncle Sam enlisted me

For man, all right." Then Custer smiled, and mused.
"Farm boy?" he asked. —

"Exactly what I am."
"All right," he said. " If once I see he's keen,

A likely farm boy's just the man for me."

When back his aide returned the General spoke :
" It 's barely possible we march to-night.
You '11 see that every man about the fires
Splits torch stuff plenty from the pitchy rails."
And with the words he reined toward Arm'stead's Hill.

MARY ARMISTEAD

ii

Down hill, beyond the flares, beyond the pines,
Beyond his foothill pickets, through the rain,
He led as if his eyes beheld the way;
Yet they, who followed close his bay's fast walk
By sound alone, saw not their horses' heads,
Saw not the hand held up to blotch the gloom.
No breath of wind. The ear heard only hoofs
Splashing and squattering in the puddled field,
Or heard the saddle-leathers scarcely creak,
Or little clanks of curbing bit and chain.

Scattered about whatever way they trod
Must be the clay that marched but yesterday,
And nervously John listened, lest some soul
Faint lingering in the dark immensity
Might call its longing not to die alone.

Sudden a crash, a plunge, a kicking horse,
Then " Praying Morton " whispering cautiously :
"A post-hole, General! My horse is done.
His off fore-leg is broke, as sure as faith !
Oh, what a dispensation of the Lord — "

"Hish-sh. Save the rest!" said Custer. "Broke is broke!
Get back to camp whatever way you can."

"Me, General! What use to post the boy?
You, Woolston, you get back. I '11 take your horse."

"Not much, you won't," said Woolston angrily.

And Custer chuckled crisply in the dark.
"Enough," he ordered. "Morton, get you back!

Be cautious when you near my picket post,

Or else they'll whang to hit your pious voice,

And I may lose a first-rate soldier man."

MARY ARMISTEAD

Then Morton, prayerful, mild, and mollified :
"The merciful man would end a beast in pain —
One shot."

"No, too much noise. You get right back!
Horses, like men, must bear the luck of war."

in

Again the plashing hoofs through endless drip,

Until the solid footing of their beasts

Bespoke them trampling in a turnpike road,

And Custer reined with : "Hish-sh, my man — come here.

Now listen." Then John's ears became aware

Of small articulations in the dark,

Queer laughters, as of countless impish glee,

And one pervasive, low, incessant hum,

All strange till Custer spoke: "You hear the Run ?

All right ! Now, mind exactly what I say.

But no. First hold my horse. I '11 feel the bridge.

Maybe I'll draw their fire; but stay right here."

On foot he went, and came, so stealthily
John could not hear the steps ten feet away.

"All right!" He mounted. "Not one plank removed."
Then, communing rather with himself than John :

"No picket there! It's strange! But surely Tunce
Would smash the bridge unless he meant to cross
And rip right back at me in dark or dawn.
Now, private — mind exactly what I say;
You '11 listen here for trampers on the bridge,
And if you hear them reach the mud this side,
With others following on the planks behind,
You '11 get right back — stick to the turnpike, mind —
And tell my challenging road-guard picket post
They 're coming strong. That 's all you Ve got to do
Unless — " he paused — "unless some negro comes
Bringing the news they 're falling back on Lee ;
Then — if he 's sure — you '11 fire four carbine shots

15

MARY ARMISTEAD

Right quick — and stay until you see me come.
You understand ? "

"I do. I'm not to shoot

In case they 're coming on. But if they 're off,
I '11 fire four shots as fast as I can pull."

"That's right. Be sure you keep your wits awake.
Listen for prowlers — both your ears well skinned."

John heard the spattering bay's fast-walking hoofs
Fainter and fainter through the steady pour,
And then no sound, except the beating rain's
Small pit-a-pat on poncho, and the Run
Drifting its babbling through the blinding mirk.

IV

How long he sat, no guessing in the slow
Monotony of night, that never changed
Save when the burdened horse replaced his hoofs,
Or seemed to raise or droop his weary head,
Or when some shiver shook the weary boy,
Though sheltered dry from aching neck to spurs:

A shiver at the dream of dead men nigh,
Beaten with rain, and merging with the mud,
And staring up with open, sightless eyes
That served as little cups for tiny pools
That trickled in and out incessantly;

A shiver at the thought of home and bed,

And mother tucking in her boy at night,

And how she 'd shiver could she see him there —

Longing more sore than John to wrap him warm ;

A shiver from the tense expectancy
Of warning sounds, while yet no sound he heard
Save springtime water lapping on the pier,

16

MARY ARMISTEAD

Or stumbling often from the clayey banks
Lumps that splashed lifelike in the turbid flood.

His aching ears were strained for other sounds,

And still toward Arm'stead's Hill they ached and strained,

While, in the evening fight of memory,

Again he saw the broad Plantation House

Whene'er a brassy howitzer spouted flame,

Suddenly lighting up its firing men,

Who vanished dim again in streaking rain;

And then, once more, the Enfields in the vale

Thrust cores of fire, until some lightning piece

Again lit all the Arm'stead buildings clear.

From visioning swift that wide Plantation House
John's mind went peering through its fancied rooms.
And who were there ? And did they sleep, or wake ?
Until he found Miss Mary Armistead
And General Henry Tunstall in the dream.

It seemed those lovers could not, could not part,
But murmured low of parting in the dawn,
Since he must march and fight, and she must stay
To hold the home, whatever war might send —
And they might never, never meet again.

So good she looked, described by Butternut's
"God bless her heart," and he so soldier bold
In "fire and enterprise," by Ouster's words, —
So true and sorrowful they talked in dream,
Of Love and Life that walk the ways of Death, —
The dreamer's under lip went quivering.

Until the startled horse put up his head
And stood, John knew, stark stiff with listening
To that kalatta-klank beyond the Run,
As if some cowbell clattered far away
Once, twice, and thrice, to cease as suddenly.

17

MARY ARMISTEAD

Then John, once more keen Yankee soldier boy,
Gathered his rein, half threw his carbine breech,
Made sure again of cartridge ready there,
Felt for the flap of holster at his thigh,
Listened alert for that most dubious bell, —
Thinking of bushwhackers in campfire tales
Impressively related to recruits;

How, in deep night, some lone vedette might hear

An innocent-seeming klatta-klatta-klank,

And never dream but that some roaming cow

Ranged through the covering woodland nigh his post,

Till — suddenly — a bullet laid him low !

Or, perhaps, guerillas crept before the bell,

Their footsteps deadened by its klatta-klank,

Till, rushing in, they clubbed the youngster down,

So "gobbling" him unheard, a prisoner,

Then, sneaking through the gap, on sleeping posts,

They killed, and killed, and killed — so horridly

That green recruities' hairs would stand on end.

John, shrewdly discounting the veteran yarns,
Yet knew full well that klatta-klatta-klank,
Which came again, might mean the enemy
Intent on stratagem to search the dark,
Tempting some shot or challenge to reveal
If any Union picket held the bridge.
Or else the steady-coming, clanging knell
Might signify some party far advanced,
Creeping all noiselessly, and listening keen
For any sound of Custer, horse or man.

Even it might be that the ridgy road
Ten yards, or five, or three from where he sat,
Concealed some foeman hungry for a move
That might betray precisely where their rush
Should be, to seize his tightened bridle-rein,
Or grasp the poncho's skirt to pull him down.

18

MARY ARMISTEAD

John half inclined to lift the neck-yoke off
And lay the armless cloak on saddle-bow,
Lest it encumber him in sudden fight,
Or give the foremost foe a strangling hold.
Yet sat he motionless, since such a sound
As slicking glaze might guide an enemy.
And still the klatta-klatta-klank came on.

It surely neared the bridge! Yet John sat still,
With Ouster's orders clearly in his brain,
Waiting to learn the meaning of the thing.
It trod the planks. It moved with solid hoofs,
Hoofs that declared to farm-bred Woolston's ear
Most unmistakably an actual cow!
But then! Oh, mystery! For rolling wheels
Rumbled upon the planking of the Run !

As up went Woolston's horse's head asnort,
Upon the bridge the other beast stood still.
The clanking ceased. Again no mortal sound
Blent with the tittering tumult of the stream.
Until a clear young voice of lady tone
Inquired in startled accents, — "Who goes there?"
Yet John, in utter wonder, spoke no word.
"If there's a Yankee cavalry picket there,"
The voice proclaimed, " I wish to pass the line."
And still the Yankee knew not what to say,
Since Custer's orders covered not the case,
And since, alas, the wondrous lady voice
Might possibly denote some stratagem.
And yet — suppose 't was only just a girl!
John sickened with a sense of foolishness.

"Go on," she cried, and seemed to slap her beast,
Which moved some doubtful steps, and stopped again.
Then calmly scornful came the lady tones : —

"Oh, Mister Yankee picket, have no fear
To speak right up. No dangerous man am I.

19

MARY ARMISTEAD

Only a woman. And she's got no gun,

No pistol, bayonet, knife, or anything.

And all she asks is just to pass your line,

A prisoner if you like." But there she broke,

Or choked, and wailed, "O God, it's life or death!

Oh, soldier, soldier, let me pass the line."

So John, half desperate, called, "Young lady, come.
I don't care what the orders are. Come on."

"Get up," she slapped again. But then she called: —
"My cow won't move! She sees you, I suppose,

All armed and threatening in the middle road.

Please go away. Or ride a bit aside;

Perhaps then she '11 come. Yes, now she moves along.

You '11 pass me through ? — But are there surgeons there

Where, hours ago, I saw your campfires glow ?

If not, I may as well turn back again."

"No need," said John. "We've got a surgeon there.
But what 's the trouble, Miss ? Yourself been hurt ? "

"The trouble is I've got a soldier here
With desperate wounds — if still alive he be.
Oh, help me save him." And she broke again.

"Why, Miss," said Woolston, melting at the heart,
"Was there no surgeon on the Arm'stead Hill

To help your wounded live ? "

"No, none," she said,.
"No man remained. At eve the negroes fled,

Or followed close behind the wagon train

He urged, with every soldier, back toward Lee.

We two were left alone. I thought you 'd come.

For hours and hours I waited, all in vain.

His life was flowing fast. One chance remained.

We women placed him in our best barouche,

The only vehicle our rearguard spared.

20

MARY ARMISTEAD

Alone I hitched this cow, the only beast

I kept from rations for our starving men.

I led her here. Oh, soldier, help me soon

To pass your lines, and reach a surgeon's care."

Then Custer's orders flashed again to John ; —
"Hold hard one moment, Miss, I've got to shoot."

The carbine rang. "Thank God, that's done," said John.
"We'll wait right here. A surgeon's sure to come

With Custer's march, for march I guess he will.

He '11 turn you round, I think, and see you home.

I s'pose your name 's Miss Mary Armistead ?

I hope that 's not your General wounded there."

She could but choke, or weep, and spoke no word.

It seemed long hours they waited silently,
Save once John heard the hidden carriage creak,
And guessed she rose beside the dying man
Beneath the drumlike pattering, sheltering hood.

At last, the bugles blared on Custer's Ridge.
Then, far away, a lengthening stream of flare
Came round the distant, curtaining screen of pines,
And down the hill the torches, borne on high
By fifteen hundred horsemen, formed a slope
Of flame that moved behind the bugles' call,
Till on the level road a fiery front
Tossing, yet solid-seeming, walked along.
And in the van rode Custer, beardless, tall,
His long hair dabbled in the streaming rain.

John rode to meet him. There he called the halt,
And came, with twenty torches, round the chaise.

Then first they saw Miss Mary Armistead,
Her honorable, fearless, lifted eyes
Gazing on Custer's bare and bended head,
While General Henry Tunstall's countenance,

21

MARY ARMISTEAD

Supported close within her sheltering arm,
Leaned unto hers in pallid soldier death.
'Madam," said Custer, "would that I had known
The bravest of the brave lay needing aid.
Lady, the great heroic name he won
Held me from marching onward to your hill,
Held me expecting from him night attack,
Till now in vain we bring a surgeon's help, —
And words are useless. Yet again I say —
Because a soldier's heart compels the due —
He lived the bravest of the bravest brave
That ever faced the odds of mighty war.
May God sustain yourself for years and years
The living shrine of Tunstall's memory."

She bowed her noble head, but answered naught.

Then past the chariot streamed our wondering men

Behind tall Custer in the foremost front,

Trampling as thunder on the bridging planks,

Their torches gleaming on the swirling Run;

A tossing, swaying column o'er the flat,

A fiery slope of fours abreast the hill,

And on, unresting on, through night and rain,

Remorseless, urgent, yet most merciful,

Because the Nation's life demanded war,

Relentless, hurrying swift to force an end,

And banish night, and bring a peaceful dawn.

But old John Woolston sees across the years,
Beneath the black, cavernous carriage hood,
Flaring in torchlight, Tunstall's face of death
Beside a lovely, living, haloed face,
Heroic, calm, ineffably composed
With pride unconquerable in valiant deeds,
With trust in God our Lord unspeakable —
The sainted Woman of the Perished Cause,
The chastened soul of that Confederacy

22

MARY ARMISTEAD

Which marches on, no less than John Brown's soul,
Inspiring, calling on the Nation's heart,
Urging it dauntlessly to front stark death
For what ideals the Nation's heart holds true.

Straight rain streaks downward through the torches' flare,
And solemn through the ancient darkness sound
The small, bewildered, lingering, million tones
Of atoms streaming to the eternal sea.

WHEN LINCOLN DIED

WHEN LINCOLN DIED

ALREADY Appomattox day
Seemed to our hearts an age away,
Although the April-blossomed trees
Were droning with the very bees
That bumbled round the conference
Where Lee resigned his long defence,
And Grant's new gentleness subdued
The iron Southern fortitude.

From smouldering leaves the smoky smell

Wreathed round Virginian fields a spell

Of homely aromatic haze,

So like New Hampshire springtime days

About the slopes of Moosilauke

It numbed my homesick heart to talk,

And when the bobolinks trilled "Rejoice!"

My comrade could not trust his voice.

We were two cavalrymen assigned
To safeguard Pinckney womankind,
Whose darkies rambled Lord knows where
In some persuasion that they were
Thenceforth, in ease, at public charge
To live as gentlemen at large —
A purpose which, they 'd heard, the war
Was made by "Massa Linkum" for.

The pillared mansion, battle-wrecked,
Yet stood with ivied front erect,
Its mossy gables, shell-fire-torn,
Were still in lordliness upborne
Above the neighboring barns, well stored
With war-time's rich tobacco hoard;
But on the place, for food, was naught
Save what our commissary brought
24

WHEN LINCOLN DIED

To keep the planter's folk alive
Till Colonel Pinckney might arrive
Paroled from northward, if his head
Lay not among the prisoner dead.

We'd captured him ten days before,
When Richard Ewell's veteran corps,
Half-naked, starving, fought amain
To save their dwindling wagon-train.
Since they were weak and we were strong,
The battle was not overlong.
Again I see the prisoners stare
Exultant at the orange glare
Of sunlit flame they saw aspire
Up from the train they gave to fire.
They'd shred apart their hero flags
To share the silk as heart-worn rags.
The trampled field was strewn about
With wreckage of the closing rout —
Their dead, their wounded, rifles broke,
Their mules and horses slain in yoke;
Their torn-up records, widely spread,
Fluttered around the muddy dead —
So bitter did their hearts condemn
To ruin all we took with them.

Ten days before ! The war was past,
The Union saved, Peace come at last,
And Father Abraham's words of balm
Gentling the war-worn States to calm.
Of all the miracles he wrought
That was the sweetest. Men who 'd fought
So long they 'd learned to think in hate,
And savor blood when bread they ate,
And hear their buried comrades wail,
How long, 0 Lord, doth wrong prevail ?
List'ning alike, in blue or gray,
Felt war's wild passions soothed away.
25

WHEN LINCOLN DIED

By homely touches in the air

That morning was so sweet and rare

That Father Abraham's soul serene

Seemed brooding over all the scene;

And when we found the plough, I guess

We were so tired of idleness

Our farmer fingers yearned to hold

The handles, and to sense the mould

Turning the earth behind the knife.

Jim gladdened as with freshened life; —
"Say, John," said he, "I'm feeling beat
To know what these good folks will eat
When you and I are gone. Next fall
They 're sure to have no crop at all.
All their tobacco 's confiscate
By Washington — and what a state
Of poverty they 're bound to see !
Say, buddy, what if you and me

Sist hitch our cavalry horses now
p to this blamed Virginia plough,
And run some furrows through the field ?
With commissary seed they 'd yield
A reasonable crop of corn."
"They will," said I, "as sure's you're born!"

Quickly we rigged, with rope and straps
And saddle leathers — well, perhaps
The Yankiest harness ever planned
To haul a plough through farming land.
It made us kind of happy, too,
Feeling like Father Abraham knew.

The Pinckney place stood on a rise,
And when we 'd turned an end, our eyes
Would see the mansion war had wrecked, —
Such desolation! I suspect
The women's hearts were mourning sore;
26

WHEN LINCOLN DIED

But not one tear we saw — they bore
Composed the fortune fate had sent —
But, O dear Lord, how still they went!
I 've seen such quiet in a shroud,
Inscrutably resigned and proud.

Yet, when we 'd worked an hour or two,
And plain was what we meant to do,
Mother and daughters came kind-eyed, —
'Soldiers — my soldier husband's pride
Will be to thank you well — till then
We call you friendly, helpful men — "
It seemed she stopped for fear of tears.
She turned — they went — Oh, long the years
Gone by since that brave lady spoke —
And yet I hear the voice that broke.

We watched them climb the lilac hill,
Again the spring grew strangely still
Ere, far upon the turnpike road,
Across a clattering bridge, where flowed
Through sand the stream of Pinckney Run,
We heard the galloping of one
Who, hidden by the higher ground,
Pounded as fast as horse could pound.
Then — all again was still as death —
Till up the slope, with laboring breath,
A white steed rose — his rider gray
Spurring like mad his staggering way.

The man was old and tall and white,
His glooming eyes looked dead to light,
He rode with such a fateful air
I felt a coldness thrill my hair,
He rode as one hard hit rides out
In horror from some battle rout,
Bearing a cry for instant aid —
That aspect made my heart afraid.
27

WHEN LINCOLN DIED

The death-like rider drew no rein,
Nor seemed to note us on the plain,
Nor seemed to know how weak in stride
His horse strove up the long hillside;
When down it lurched, on foot the man
Up through the fringing lilacs ran,
His left hand clutching empty air
As if his sabre still hung there.

'T was plain as day that human blast

Was Colonel Pinckney home at last,

And we were free, since ordered so

That with his coming we might go;

Yet on we ploughed — the sun swung high,

Quiet the earth and blue the sky —

Silent we wrought, as men who wait

Some half-imagined stroke of fate,

While through the trembling shine came knells

Tolling from far-off Lynchburg bells.

The solemn, thrilling sounds of gloom
Bore portents of tremendous doom,
On smoky zephyrs drifted by
Shadows of hosts in charging cry,
In fields where silence ruled profound
Growling musketry echoed round,
Pale phantom ranks did starkly pass
Invisible across the grass,
Flags ghosted wild in powder fume
Till, miracled in memory's room,
Rang the old regiment's rousing cheer
For Father Abraham, smiling queer.

*T was when we turned a furrow's end
We saw a martial form descend
From Mansion Hill the lilac way,
Till in our field the veteran gray
Stood tall and straight as at parade,
28

WHEN LINCOLN DIED

And yet as one with soul dismayed.
That living emblem of the South
Faced us unblenching, though his mouth
So quivered with the spoken word
It seemed a tortured heart we heard ; —
'Soldiers" — he eyed us nobly when
We stood to "attention " — "Soldiers — men,
For this good work my thanks are due —
But — men — O God — men, if you knew,
Your kindly hands had shunned the plough —
For hell comes up between us now ! —
Oh, sweet was peace — but gone is peace —
Murder and hate have fresh release ! —
The deed be on the assassin's head! —
Men — Abraham Lincoln 's lying dead ! "

He steadied then — he told us through
All of the tale that Lynchburg knew,
While dumbly raged my anguished heart
With woe from pity wrenched apart,
For, in the fresh red furrow, bled
'T wixt us and him the martyred dead.

That precious crimson ran so fast
It merged in tinge with battles past, —
Hatcher's, Five Forks, The Wilderness,
The Bloody Angle's maddened stress;
Down Cemetery Hill there poured
Torrents that stormed to Kelly's Ford,
And twice Manassas flung its flood
To swell the four years' tide of blood,
And Sumter blazed, and Ellsworth fell,
While memory flashed its gleams of hell.

The colonel's staring eyes declared
In visions wild as ours he shared,
Until — dear Christ — with Thine was blent
The death-transfigured President.
29

WHEN LINCOLN DIED

Strange — strange — the crown of thorns he wore,

His outspread hands were pierced sore,

And down his old black coat a tide

Flowed from the javelin-wounded side;

Yet 't was his homely self there stood,

And gently smiled across the blood,

And changed the mystic stream to tears

That swept afar the angry years,

And flung me down as falls a child

Whose heart breaks out in weeping wild.

Yet in that field we ploughed no more,
We shunned the open Southern door,
We saddled up, we rode away, —
It's that that troubles me to-day.

Full thirty years to dust were turned
Before my pondering soul had learned
The blended vision there was sent
In sign that our Beloved meant; —

Children who wrought so mild my will,
Plough the long furrow kindly still,
"T is sweet the Father's work to see
Done for the memory of me.

3°

THE VISION AT SHILOH

THE VISION AT SHILOH

(A VETERAN'S DEATH-BED STORY)

SHROUDED on Shiloh field in night and rain,
This body rested from the first's day's fight;
Fallen face down, both hands on rifle clutched,
A Shape of sprawling members, blank of thought
As was the April mud in which it lay.

Comrade, you deem that I shall surely lie
Torpid, forgetful, nevermore to march
After the flush of morning pales in day;
But I remember how I rose again
From Shiloh field to march three mighty years,
Until mine eyes beheld in Richmond streets
Our Father Abraham, homely conqueror,
So Son-of-Manlike, fashioned mild and meek,
Averse from triumph, close to common men,
Chief of a Nation mercifully strong.

In boyhood many a time I 'd seen his face,
Knew well the accents of his voice serene,
Loved the kind twinkle of his sad-eyed smile,
Yet never once beheld him save with awe,
For that mysterious sense of unity
With the Eternal Fortitude, which flowed
As from his gaze into my yearning heart.

The peace our Father's four years' Calvary wrought
Has bustled through his huge two-oceaned land
How busily since Shiloh's blood-drenched field
Gave up from death this body men called me. —
Oh, paths of peace were, truly, pleasant ways !
The kindliest Nation earth has ever known
Gave to their veterans grateful preference
In every labor, mart, and council hall,
31

THE VISION AT SHILOH

Which nobleness shall a thousand fold be paid
By soldier hearts in every future Age.

Myself was one whom Fortune favored much,

Children and children's children, troops of friends

Have cheered this firelit chamber silken hung

Where now I rest me easy at the last,

In confidence that Shiloh's miracle

Of Vision and of Song did true forecast

Repose in bliss surpassing mortal dream.

The night outside is black as Shiloh's night,

Save for electric-litten streaks of rain ;

My dripping eaves declare November's shower

Falling as fast as early April's did

When first this time-worn body grew aware

Of Death's reluctant yielding to the Soul.

Utter oblivion could not be from Sleep
While battle roared, and dreaded evening fell,
And sullen foemen kept the plain unsearched,
And rain tempestuous stormed to midnight's gloom.

Oh, let me talk ! I Ve seldom told the tale,
And I care nothing if my strength be strained.
Our generation ever held that Strength
Was given only that it might be tried.
What matters it if so my term of hours
Ere second resurrection be forestalled ?

First did this body dimly sense its form
As something vaguely unified in Space;
Powerless, motionless, unaware of aught
Save merely numbness, while a smothering nose
And mumbling lips and tongue mechanical
Strove for they knew not what, which was to breathe —
Strove as by instinct uncontrolled of Mind,
Which nowise ordered hands enormous-like

3*

THE VISION AT SHILOH

To fumble baffled till they slowly learned
The fast-clutched rifle which bewildered them
Was such a thing as fingers could let go.

Then, to restore the breath, the forearms come
Beneath the brow, and raised the face from mud;
Yet all was numbness, but for tiny blows
Patting behind the neck, and prankily
Creeping at random down the cheeks and hair.
I did not guess them pellets of cold rain
Until a stab came up as from the ground
Into my wounded breast. Then Mind awoke
To wetness, night, and all the agonies
That dogged resolution rose to bear. v

Shocked Memory cried, That stroke one instant past
Was shrapnel shell ! The reasoning power replied,
It laid the body dead on Shiloh field.
Then staunch the Soul, / live — and God is here.

Visions came lightning-quick, clear, unconfused, —

The City tumult in my childish ears,

Our tremulous Church at Sumter's bulletin,

Me naked in the cold recruiting room

Stripped to the hurrying Doctor's callous test ; —

All the innumerable recollections flashed

On to that battle-moment when my chum

Charging beside me on red Shiloh field

Gasped out, "Oh, John" clutched horribly his throat,

Frowned on his bloodied hands, stared wild at me

Who, in that moment, felt the stroke, and fell.

Was Harry nigh ? I groped in puddled grass
Seeking his comrade corpse, and sought in vain.
The wound might not have killed him ! Could I turn,
And so gain ground to search a little more ?
Yes — but the agony! Yet turn I did,
And, groping farther, felt a little bush.

33

THE VISION AT SHILOH

It seemed more friendly to the finger hold
Than emptiness, or muddy earth, or grass;
So there I lay, face up, in absolute night
Whose stillness deepened with the lessening rain.

How long, O Lord, how long the darkness held !
Despite the feverish wound my body chilled,
And oft my desperate fingers strove to loose
The soaking blanket roll which trenched my back
As if it lay diagonal on a ridge.

It may be true that slight delirium touched
My brain that night, for when a little wind
Came rustling through the bushes of the plain,
And drizzling ceased, how clearly my closed eyes
Could see within the house where I was born !

There sister voices conned their lesson books,
And Mother's dress was trailing on the stair
As she were coming up to comfort me,
While in my heart an expectation flowed
Of some inexplicable joy anear,
Angelic, shining-robed, austerely fair.

With that I opened wondering eyes — and Lo
The heavenly host of stars o'er Shiloh field !

And oh the glory of them, and the peace,
The promise, the ethereal hope renewed!
Up rose my soul, supreme past bodily grief,
To rest enraptured as of Heaven assured.

In that blest trance my gaze became intent
On beams I deemed at first a rising moon,
Until mine eyes conceived the luminous space
Haloed a tall and human-seeming Form,
Of countenance uplifted unto God,
And palms breast-clasped as if entreating Him.
34

THE VISION AT SHILOH

In vain my straining sight sought certainty
Whose was the sorrowing figure which I dreamed
To wear a visage as if Christ were come
In pity for the carnage of that plain.

It seemed that nigh that Presence rose a voice
Most heavenly pure of note, and manlike strong;
" When I can read my title clear" it sang
Triumphantly, "To mansions in the skies"
Lifting the hymn in exultation high
Till other voices took it — wounded men
Lying, like me, in pain and close to death;
Myself chimed in, while all about me rang
The soldier chanting of that prostrate host,
Northern and Southern, one united choir
Solemnly glad in Man's supernal dream.1

Comrade, when that high service of great song
Died down, there was no semblance of a moon !
And if indeed one rode the April sky
That wonder-night, I never yet have learned.

But I do know most surely this strange thing, —
That when, in Richmond, Father Abraham,
After three years grassed newly Shiloh plain,
Beheld my veteran men relieve his guard,
I saw the triumph in my countenance
Did grieve afresh his sad and infinite eyes
Which gazed with gentle meaning into mine
The while his silent lips seemed fashioning
For me alone, "Remember Shiloh Choir."

Then clear I knew his brooding tenderness
Bewailed our vanquished brethren, waked from years
Of dreadful dream he was their enemy;

1 The singing of " When I can read my title clear " by the wounded of Shiloh,
at night, is perfectly authenticated.

35

THE VISION AT SHILOH

The exultation vanished from my heart,

A choking pity took me in the throat,

And forth I rushed to join the ranks of Blue

Fighting, as saviours, flames in Richmond Town,

The while his kindly look seemed blessing me.

Now in the contemplation of his eyes
I lie content as stretched on Shiloh field,
Dreaming triumphant, waiting for the dawn.

There it broke fair, till shattering musketry

And cheers of charging Blue right onward swept

So far, it seemed that utter silence fell,

And I lay waiting very peacefully,

As now, for friendly hands to bear me home.

PARABLES
PARABLES

GRANDFATHER TO GRANDSON

AND did you think the war was past
When the long cannonade was done,
And all we homebound soldiers cast
Hope's glances on the blessing sun ?

I tell you that the war shall last

Till every citadel be won.

And did you think was Lincoln dead
Because his mouldering length of clay
Lifts nevermore the brooding head
To eye the slowly brightening day ?
I tell you that his blood was shed
That he might, living, lead the way.

And did you think he does not lead
Because the chains he broke of yore
Maddened scarce less than those that Need
Clanks terribly nigh Dives' door ?

I tell you Dives shall be freed

From dread when Lincoln leads no more.

And did you think that this is Peace,
When every rose in Pleasure's hair
Shakes direful as some blood-red piece
Torn from the heart of hot despair ?
I tell you Pleasure's just release
Comes when her roses all shall share.

And did you think Columbians see
As nothing but a sounding phrase

The "All men were created free
And equal " of the Fathers' days ?
37

PARABLES

I tell you their sincerest glee
Laughs over all whom that dismays.

And did you think you could desist
From service in the changeful fight,
Or that your weapons need assist
Neither the arms of Wrong nor Right ?
I tell you All must here enlist,
There is no neutral and no flight.

POEMS OF THE WORLD-WIDE
BROTHERHOOD

THE MANY-MANSIONED HOUSE

THERE looms, upon the enormous round

Where nations come and nations go,
A many-mansioned house, whose bound

Ranges so wide that none may know
Its temperate lands of corn and vine,

Its solitudes of Arctic gloom,
Its wealth of forest, plain, and mine,

Its jungle world of tropic bloom.
Yet so its architects devise

That still its boundary walls extend,
And still its guardian forts arise,

And still its builders see no end
Of plan, or labor, or the call

By which the Master of their Fate
Urges to lay the advancing wall

Of Law beyond the farthest gate.

The mortar oft is red with blood

Of men within and men without,
For hate's incessant storm and flood

Rage round each uttermost redoubt,
And bullets sing, and shrieks are loud,

And bordering voices curse the hour
That sees the builders onward crowd,

True to the Master Mind, whose power
Impels them build by plumb and line

To give the blood-stained wall increase,
And forward push the huge design

Within whose mansions dwelleth peace.

The Master Mind is in no place,
It hath no settled rank nor name,
41

THE MANY-MANSIONED HOUSE

Its mood, as moulded by the race,

Shifts often, yet remains the same
To meditate what millions think,

And shape the deed to fit their thought,
Now raising high who seemed to sink,

Now flinging down their choice as naught.
It lauds what sons obey its calls

When time has come for hands to smite,
And when the hour to cease befalls

It chastens them it did requite;
Yet still so chooses that the change

From war to peace and peace to war
Confirms the mansions in their range,

And builds the far-built wall more far.

Within the many mansions dwell

Nations diverse of tongue and blood, —
Races whose primal anthems tell

How Ganges grew a sacred flood,
Tribes long fore-fathered when the birds

Of Egypt saw Osiris pass,
They that were ancient when the herds

Of Abraham cropped Chaldean grass,
People whose shepherd-priesthoods saw

The might of Nineveh begin,
And folk whose slaves baked mud and straw

Mid Babylon's revelling fume of sin ;
Blacks that have served in every age

Since first the yoke of Ham they wore,
Yellows who set the printed page

Ere Homer sang from shore to shore,
Swart Browns whose glittering kreeses held

In dread the far-isled Asian seas,
Fierce Reds who waged from primal eld

Their stealthy warfare of the trees ;
Men of the jaguar-haunted swamp

Whose mountain masters dwelt in pride
Of golden-citied Aztec pomp
42

THE MANY-MANSIONED HOUSE

Ages ere Montezuma died;
Builders whose blood was in the hands

That propped the circled Druid stones,
And Odin-fathered men, whose bands

Storming all winds, laid warrior bones
Round all the Roman mid-world sea,

And held the Caesars' might in scorn,
And kept the Viking liberty

That fairer freedom might be born.

The wall defendeth all alike,

The Master Mind on all ordains : —

Within my bound no sword shall strike.

Nor fetter bind, save law arraigns ;
No prisoner here shall feel the rack,

No infant be to slavery born,
The wage shall labor's sweat not lack,

Nor skill of just reward be shorn.
The king and hind alike shall stand

Within the peril of my law,
And though it change at time's demand

Shall every change be held in awe.
Here every voice may freely speak

Wisdom or folly as it choose,
And though the strong must lead the weak.

The weak may yet the strong refuse ;
Thus shall no change be wrought before

The wise who seek a better way
Can win, to share their vision, more

Than praise the wise who wish delay, —
That so the Master Mind be strong

Through every drift of time and change,
To fashion either right or wrong

At will, within the mansions' range.

Of what is wrong and what is right

The Master Mind doth ceaseless hear,
Listens intent to counselling might,
43

THE MANY-MANSIONED HOUSE

Pity or fury, hope or fear,
Sways to the evil, yet repents,

Sways to the good, yet half denies,
Follows revenge, but quick relents,

And makes its wondering foes allies;
In memory sees its frenzied hours,

And holds those fury-fits in scorn;
In gentlest aspiration towers,

Or grovels as of faith forlorn,
Yet never, never loses quite

The thought, the hope, the glory-dream,
That beacon of supernal light,

The shining, holy Grail-like beam,
The Ideal — in which alone it dares

Advance the circuit of the wall —
The faith that yet shall happy shares

Of circumstance be won for all, —
This is the vision of its law,

This is the Asgard of its dream —
That what the world yet never saw

Of justice shall arise supreme.

The Master Mind proclaims as free

Alike, all creeds that men may name,
All worships they devise to be

Their help in hope, or ease in shame;
In Buddha, Mahmoud, Moses, Christ,

Outspokenly may any trust,
Or he whom no belief enticed

May hold the soul a dream of dust,
Yet all alike be free to teach,

And all alike be free to shun,
Because the law of freeman's speech

Impartial guardeth every one;
If but all rites of blood be banned,

Then may each life select its God,
And every congregation stand

Past dread of persecution's rod, —
44

THE MANY-MANSIONED HOUSE

Lo now ! Is thus not Jesus set

Transcendent o'er the broad domain —
The gentle Christ whose anguished sweat

Bled for a world-wide mercy's reign ?

Yet in the many Mansions flaunt,

As if they deem their place secure,
Legion, whose Christ-defying vaunt

How long, O Lord, dost Thou endure!
Belshazzar's Feast is multiplied,

Mammon holds fabulous parade,
Thousands of Minotaurs divide

The procurers' tribute of the maid,
Circe enchants her votary -swine,

Moloch, though veiled his fire, consumes,
And all the man-made Gods assign

Their victims self-elected dooms.

In large, the suffering and the sin

(Full well the Master Mind doth know),
From luxury and want begin,

And through unequal portions flow.
This ancient wrong doth worst defeat

The immortal yearning of His plea
To save the little, wandering feet, —

"Suffer the children come to me ";

Wherefore, on streets that Mammon makes

The Master Mind bends ruthless eye,
Yet calm withholds the blow that breaks,

And leaves that stroke to by and by,
Since faithful memory, backward cast,

Beholds how much hath freedom won,
And lest a pomp-destroying blast

Might shrivel many a guiltless one,
And since it knows that freedom's plan

To build secure alone is skilled,
And that firm-grounded gain for man
45

THE MANY-MANSIONED HOUSE

Is only by what man hath willed. —
Hence waits the Master Mind, in trust

That yet the hour shall Mammon rue,
Since, as the mansions grow, so must

Freedom upraise The Christ anew.

But whether He prevail at last,

Or whether all shall pass away,
Even as Rome's great Empire passed

When wrought the purpose of its day,
Still must the builders heed the call

By which the Master of all Fate
Ordains they lay the advancing wall

Of peace beyond the farthest gate.

And, oh! the Master Mind may well

In pride of gentleness rejoice
That in the Mansions none may quell

The lilt of any nation's voice;
But every race may sing their joy,

May hymn their pride, their glories boast
To listeners glad without alloy —

The primal, wall-extending host,
The founding, freedom-loving race

Whose generous-visioning mind doth see
No worth in holding foremost place,

Save in an Empire of the Free.

PETER OTTAWA

PETER OTTAWA

(CANADIAN NATIVIST)

HE was a mighty rover in his prime,
And still, though bearded white as Father Time,
Content and restless, strong and curious, he
Roams over Canada from sea to sea.

To gaze on all his native love possest —
That impulse urged, for years, his wandering quest;
To achieve some truthful vision of the whole
From Welland's orchards to the circumpole;
To know all tribes and races of the land,
Such was the joy his youthful ardor planned,
And still the yearning holds him, while he smiles
To think of how the Impossible beguiles.

Oft as he turns to share his wealthy home,
So oft, insatiate, hastes he forth to roam;
And in the region round about Quesnel
His ever-wondering farmer-neighbors tell ; —
"He's off again! God knows by what he's led!
Old Peter Ottawa '11 never die in bed!"

That pseudonym he took in youth, they deem
Perchance in pride to boast his native stream,
Or p'r'aps to signify, so some declare,
Himself too nativist to wish to wear
His patronymic of one Old- World race,
Since he four glorious ancestries can trace.

"I roam by right of Scottish blood," he'll say,
"My father's grandsire roved till his last day, —
Roderick the Red, who strode with kilted thighs,
The highland light of battle in his eyes,
47

PETER OTTAWA

Where many a stream of spirting life was spilt
Before, with Wolfe, a claymore's basket hilt
Gript in his iron fist, he climbed with frown
More dour than high Quebec could darkle down."

" Roving is in my blood from Gerald Foy
Who charged the English line at Fontenoy
With wild-heart memories of the home he fled;
Tradition tells that while he thrust and bled
My visioning Irish ancestor could see
His emerald hills, his boyhood's 'fairy tree/
His native glen, with family roofs aglow,
His stacks red-lit, his mother's wailing woe,
His children staring vengeful on the groups
Of half-ashamed, half-stolid English troops,
Whose ranks of oak ne'er learned a foe to rue
Till Ireland's banished bayonets charged them through."

"And yet, praise God, the English heart I share,
The steadfast blood that held the steely square
That broke the cuirassiers at Waterloo,
Firm, for the Iron Duke, as at review;
The blood that bided cool that dread advance —
The veteran, Old, immortal Guard of France
Who charged, yet knowing well they charged in vain —
If vain be death-contemptuous Glory's gain —
Charged to end there th' emblazoned valor scroll
That Fame can never utterly uproll; —
Or so my Grandsire, Pierre Deschamps, would say,
Old Pierre, who charged at Hougomont with Ney."

In filial love he boasts his Gallic part,

His half-French mother gave him half his heart ;

But Pierre of Waterloo is less his pride

Than Pierre's Canadian grandsire, Jean, who died

In seventeen-sixty, hard by Fort Levis,

Where Pouchot's braves renewed Thermopylae.

PETER OTTAWA

There he, with scarce four hundred, held at stand,
For nineteen days, stout Amherst's whole command,
Eleven thousand, balked on ship and shore,
Till Pouchot's muster fell to thirteen score.

"Militiamen remember," Peter says,

"Just habitants, like ours of later days,
Farming their little clearings by the stream
That floated Amherst down its August dream. —
And who dare say the least among them all
Was not a very Paladin of Gaul ?
Go to — our Canada from France retains
A strain as staunch as pulses British veins ! "

French, English, Irish, Scotch he reconciles,
Boasts them alike, and with his boasting smiles; —
"That 's me — that 's Canada — a fourfold flame
Of mighty origins surrounds the name. —
Lives there a man in all the land to-day
Can wish one pioneering race away ?
His heart 's an immigrant. — I say no more ;
We chide no stranger entering at our door,
But bid him welcome, bid him share the meal, —
His children yet the native sense shall feel;
And what care we if twenty races blend
In blood that flows Canadian at the end ? "

Our painted Autumn sets him roaming wide,
As if his lifelong yearning could not bide
To watch his own Laurentian mapled range
From pomp to pomp magnificently change.
But he must up and forth with every dawn,
Through aisles of glamorous color following on,
Mid golden-showering leaves, a viewless trail,
Through rustling corridors a voiceless hail,
Over what vista-mirroring lakes a guide
Whose beckonings misty distance scarce can hide,
Beyond yet one more rapid's murmurous song
49

PETER OTTAWA

The enchanting call of follow, follow long,

Which ever sang, and ever sped before,

And ever led his Fathers one day mote,

Until at last, beyond the enormous plain,

And past the eternal snow-peaks' ranging chain,

The imperious western surges ordered STAND,

And turned them back to claim the traversed land.

And turned them back to axe, and scythe, and plough,
Toil, thrift, long patience, and the thoughtful brow
Inspired to rear on Earth what He commands —
The House that is not builded up of Hands.

"Which is," says Peter, "ancient England's dream,
Though oft she be distracted from the theme
By Viking children, and by threatening voice;
*T is still the dream in which she doth rejoice,
(Even as any whirling human soul
Is glad when toiling toward the heaven-goal),
She doth rejoice to rear for Man's behoof,
Her hospitable, many-mansioned roof,
Wherein the immemorial Laborer yet
Freely shall eat the bread of his own sweat.
It's when we muse on English greathearts' aim,
And muse how true our laws pursue the same,
Then, then we exult about our Mother's throne,
And love her ideal Empire as our own."

Dreaming a better Britain rising here
Mid winter forests lovely and austere,
His creaking snowshoes track what vaulted miles
Where towering pines uprange converging aisles,
When neither shrub nor shadow checks the gaze,
But one white undulation floors the maze
Of colonnades so tall they seem to lean
Inward before they branch the roof of green
Whose rifts, at times asway, disclose the blue,
At times let aimless snowflakes wander through

50

PETER OTTAWA

To waver down, as if they hesitate

Lest merest motion be to desecrate

That subtle stillness, where the high-head grouse

Treads three-toed, wondering, and the forest mouse

Meandering timid, dots a tiny track

Whose every swerve denotes a fear Attack

Were hovering in the Mystery all around —

So much more threatening Silence is than Sound.

The reverent rover, chancing to intrude
Within the borders of such Solitude,
Worships in natural piety sincere
A holy spirit quiet brooding here,
Within a fane whose ministrants are none
Except the chanting Winds, the wheeling Sun,
The patient Seasons' alternating train,
Their potent servitors of Shine and Rain,
Ordained by Something, kin to Time and Space,
Regnant and immanent throughout the place,
Which urges apprehension on the soul
That its own being merges with the Whole.

No less he worships where some Western throng
Of pioneers moves sturdily along
The hurrying, half-built streets of plains he knew
When buffalo ranged round all the circling blue.
There every face declares some inward tune
Of Hope and Happiness at plenilune,
The eyes shine keen, on Enterprise intent,
As if that every west-Canadian meant
To realize some visionary State
Surpassing good, and glorious, and great.
So strode, be sure, the Viking race of old,
Elate though arduous, kind and shrewd and bold,
Scanning the future, as they faced the gale,
With no misgivings lest their strength should fail,
Assured the World was made for them who DO,
And God would see his active children through.
51

PETER OTTAWA

He did, by Heaven, and still our kin fare forth

Beneath all galaxies of South and North,

Degenerate only where, by vested Wrong,

The money-mongers crowd, and rot, the throng.

Give them but land and air, then not the best

Of all the broods that flew the ancient nest

More pleased the All-father by their works and ways

Than His adventurers of the latter days.

In treble ribbons see the prairie run
Black from their ploughshares in the westering sun,
Whose shine the yearning sod-hut settler sees
Gild children's wealthy roofs through future trees,
And, patient joyful, deems the vision fair,
Which his own eyes may never witness there.

Behold rude hamlets, every one with School,

With Church, with Council-hall for lawful rule,

The wind-bronzed, hard-hand Fathers giving free

Their little leisure, that the New Land be

So set for Order in its early years

That Time's long talk shall bless the pioneers.

Or, clearly vision some September plain
Where one sole Reaper shrills in harvest grain
Before the whirring grouse takes morning flight
Till the long gloaming deepens into night
That lets the Stalwart, freed from labor's dues,
Plod shackward, blessing God that sleep renews
His power to lift the morrow's heavy gage,
And day by day the lonely battle wage,
Until at last, with all his wheat well saved,
A haggard victor from the strife he braved,
He eyes the stacks that prove his manhood sound
For her who shall emparadise his ground,
And sternly knows, within his secret heart,
That never Warrior acted higher part.

52

PETER OTTAWA

It seems to me a blasphemy immense
To imagine God the foe of common sense,
And not a Power of sanity complete,
Who surely holds an arduous useful feat
Of resolute labor something over par,
Compared with deeds of War, which ever are,
At best, but just a fate-defying stand
Made, since the World began, in every land,
For hate, or hope, or pay, or love, or lust,
But mostly just because the soldier must
Obey the officer, who must obey
In turn the ordered orderer of the day,
Himself a sort of slave to slaves whose trade
Is just to get Stupidity obeyed ; —
The cruel, dense stupidity of Pride,
Callous to wholesale murder on each side,
And loathe to arbitrate, lest Judges wise
Settle some trivial point by compromise.

Poor World, insensate bred, and deep possest
By febrile Fear pretending warlike zest !
Could your bedevilled peoples see arise
The kindly Sun of west-Canadian skies
Over the solitudes of perfect Peace,
Surely might blustering forever cease;
Then all your unencited multitudes,
Calmed into love of calm, might still the broods
Who rave, persuasive in the Music Hall,
That Man must arm and kill lest worse befall;
Would trust the common wisdom of the heart,
Which purely whispers that all combats start
From that Yahoo suspicion which insists
Peace cannot be, even while peace exists;
Would resolutely reason — God's fair world
Was given all kindly, and by Hate is whirled
Into those horrors which shall henceforth end —
So vast the earth, with room for all to wend
In labor's honest ways, their fellows' friend.
53

PETER OTTAWA

To share the western work, to smack its taste,

Old Peter hies him often to the waste;

One year, with thirty wagons in his train,

He took the Athabasca trail again,

Adventurer, trader, settler all in one, —

Reapers, provisions, disc-ploughs, cartridge, gun, —

Sure, as of old, his proper gain to find

Though every market-place were far behind.

It chanced he saw six hundred acres spread
Golden and ripe, where one sole reaper sped.

"Alone?" called Peter.

"Quite," the settler cried,
Halting his horses in their sweating stride.

"This wheat all yours ? " —

"Well, that I hardly know.
Although I paid its planting months ago,
The blackbird swarms may get the larger share,"
The youth was blue-eyed, ruddy, Saxon fair; —

"My name is Brown — I 'm English — green as grass —
And no one warned me what a thundering ass
I was to buy, at Home, a section here,
Pay cash to have it broke and sowed this year;
It was n't till I came across in May
I learned my ' farm ' is two long days away
From railways, neighbors, markets, help from man. —
But greenhorns just must do the best they can. —
Go on ! " — He chirruped gayly to his pair,
Once more the reaper's whirring held the air.

Old Peter laughed and swore; — "Absurd young fool!
English as English! Eight-year-olds at school
About Quesnel would be too sharp for that !
And yet, tort dieu, he smiles beneath his hat
Good-humored, game ! — I like the fellow fine !
What 's more, the lad 's an Ancestor of mine ! "
Turning he faced his plodding wagons then ; —
"Halt! Halt! Arrete ! Pull up! Unhitch, my men!

54

PETER OTTAWA

Unload the reaper-binders — rig 'em quick !
Pitch all the tents — right here a week we '11 stick.
Who ever saw a prettier spread of wheat ?
Dashed if my English blood shall taste defeat ! "

Ten days went by — the grateful settler saw
Great stacks enroofed — his acres stubble straw —
His fourteen thousand bushels safely stored,
And Peter's wagons winding past the ford.

"Talk me no pay," the oldster laughed him down,
"Call it a wedding gift for Mistress Brown, —
Scotch, Irish, French, her strains of blood must be —
Mixed with your English, Lord the brood we '11 see !
Fathered and mothered on the surest plan
To make 'em through and through Canadian ! "
So Brown reports Old Peter's joke to-day,
Roared as he whipt his team, and raced away.

Ten days of thirty men and thirty teams !
Well — Peter 's often shrewder than he seems.
The veteran's thirty teamsters settled down
On homestead blocks about the land of Brown,
While Peter bought the Railway Lands between. —
Two years — a branch line hastened to the scene !
He saw that finish clearly from the start;
He 'd picked out settlers that he knew by heart,
Furnished them all supplies till next year's Fall,
Horses, machinery, wagons, shacks, and all;
No note, no mortgage, not a scratch of pen
'Twixt him and them — old Peter knew his men.
To-day they farm his boughten tracts on shares,
And half the township 's his, and half is theirs.

"It's square," he says. "But fair? I have my doubt.
Yet, when old Peter Ottawa peters out,
The lads will find him at the latter end,
As at the first, a pretty steady friend ; —

55

PETER OTTAWA

Thank God my children are not money-mad!

Meantime, I hold the Landlord system bad.

Oh yes, it's been my profit many a year,

And owning property is a kind of cheer.

It 's handy, too ; for if your fellow man

Is needing help, it 's good to know you can.

Of course it grits my Irish many a night

To know a Landlord 's just a parasite;

But take the world the way it 's made we must.

Meantime I'll hold myself a Landlord-Trust;

Two hundred tenants get one fourth my ground

When Peter Ottawa 's finished out his round.

That kind of saves my Irish fourth from shame, —

The rest — my Scotch-French-English — stand the blame

For landed property they can't let go,

It 's God Almighty makes Canadians so ! "

Easy in dogma, Peter holds all creeds
Sufficient unto true religion's needs ; —
"Do unto others as you would they should
To you," he says, "sets out the whole of good.
The life that's guided so, its Lord is He
Who savored anguish in Gethsemane;
No matter if such Christian be a Turk,
He '11 get what 's justly coming for his work.
Methodist, Catholic, Shaker, Theist, Jew,
Buddhist, it's all according as they DO.
No need to name the seven score creeds enrolled
Equal in Canada, and each extolled
By true-believing seekers after God
To be preeminent as Aaron's rod;
In what they hold alike is surely found
The essential elemental Truth profound,
And that 's — there 's something heavenly in the plan
Of dealing gently with your fellow man,
And something hellish in the heart that sates
Its cruel greed and domineering hates."

56

PETER OTTAWA

For worship Peter 's never in the lurch
In any place, or any kind of church,
Cathedral glorious built, or chapel rude,
He finds in each his spiritual food;
Ever he enters reverent, with one prayer : —
"Oh! Father, grant thy wandring child to share
The blessing sought by them who built this shrine —
A sense of nearness to the Soul divine " ; —
And from no congregation could he part
Without a benediction in his heart.

"Good will," he says, "is true Canadian growth,
And Toleration is a word I loathe, —
It comes from times when every theolog
Hankered to persecute, as some fierce dog
Chained to a staple, winks with wicked eyes,
Shows snarling teeth, and still quiescent lies,
Angry and devilish from tail to jaws,
Because he 's clamped — as bigots by our laws.
To hearken brag of 'Toleration' here,
Where all are equal, makes me kind of rear,
And, if I swore, I 'd launch my biggest curse
Against such insolence. Can one be worse ?
Except, perhaps, that brawling arrogance
Which roars opinion that our strain from France
Should dumbly bear to have its mother tongue,
Creed, laws, and customs trampled into dung,
Because one set of soldiers long ago
Climbing a hill by night, surprised their foe!
Be hanged to conquerors' right! Our monarch's claim
Is broadly founded on fair Freedom's name,
And half the liberties which we entrench
Came from the patient struggle of our French."

As Scots hold Scottish customs unco sound,
As Erin is by Erin's sons renowned,
As France's children celebrate her praise,
As English folk are staunch for English ways,

57

PETER OTTAWA

So Peter guides him by his native light; —
"Whatever is Canadian, that is right!
And if we change it of our own free will,
It's right again, because Canadian still!
By this great dogma, and by this alone
Can native-born Canadians hold their own
Against the meddling, not ill-meaning crew
Of immigrant advisers What to do;
By this alone the sound Canadian stands,
Like all his forbears in their native lands."

Squared to this dogma he '11 philosophize
Smilingly contra to the imported Wise,
Or Wiseacres, who rail at Separate Schools,
Two tongues official, all the liberal rules
Our Fathers made, by compromise benign,
To ease the creeds, the races, and incline
All native hearts one patriot sense to share
That here mankind is freer than elsewhere.

" Homo-gen-e-ity," he drawls. "Absurd
To make a fetich of the long-tailed word !
And then proceed to allege that its command
Is Christian creed from public schools be banned ;
A plan in puritanic zeal evoked
Mainly to keep one Christian creed provoked,
And force its children to a double tax
For schooling, lest their children's faith relax.

"A sillier tyranny no country shows —
It 's somewhat as if every youngster's nose
To be snipt off were by an edict doomed,
Because some few small noses were presumed
Likely to relish incense if they grew
To know its scent as parent noses do —
Then every youthful nose were snipt — save those
That went apart for incense when they chose ! "

58

PETER OTTAWA

"To teach the children reverence for a creed,
No matter what, which duly taketh heed
Of God's perennial miracle, the World
And all the lives about its orbit whirled, —
To teach them conscience, duty, love, and awe,
Respect for righteous ethics and for Law,
But one sure way the Wise have ever found
Since our first Fathers spaded up the ground, —
And that 's to impart, in childhood's earliest schools,
A sense for guidance by religious rules.

"Give me a Methodist that's methodist,
A true-blue Lutheran, true-blue Calvinist,
An Anglican who is all anglican,
Or catholic Catholic, — then I 've got a man
Who '11 stand for genuine Right through thick and thin,
And help guard Canada from rotten sin.
Even a Chinaman who fears his Joss
And burns a stick before his moral Boss,
Is fitter far to help us run the State
Than those greed-sodden empty-hearts who prate
That plants, and beasts, and men must share one fate,
Material atoms all, enlivened clod,
Dust unto Dust, and nothing raised to God.

"A greedy public victimized by greed,
Women who wed determined not to breed,
Virtue defined as wishy-washy cant
Where long-haired men and short-haired women rant,
That 's what they get, and get it more and more,
Who oust all creeds from Education's door;
That's what they get, a populace dead at heart
To Him who still performs His chastening part,
Whose mills still grind exceeding small, if slow; —
Look at the grist our neighbors have to show; —

"A Nation which, like Hope's bright star, arose
To flash long fear on Man's oppressive foes,

59

PETER OTTAWA

Now seeming destined to be ruled at last,

Controlled, directed contra to its past,

By them whose teachers ever hold on high,

9f is Heaven s command, Increase and Multiply.

" Homo-gen-e-ity ! And why should we
Ignore the blessings of Diversity ?
Where several tongues and many creeds prevail,
Though equal all alike in Freedom's pale,
No sudden general madness strikes the throng
And sweeps the whole to foolishness or wrong.

"We saw the solidarity of France
For war, betray her to the devil's dance;
We saw the solid States rise up in rage,
An inconsistent, tyrant war to wage
For domination over brown allies
Who'd served them faithfully, for Freedom's prize;
We saw the solid English slowly worked
Against their nature, to a war that irked
Their inward, temperate sense that, largely, right
Lay with the freemen whom they wrought to fight ;
And many and many a woeful slaughter more
Must Truth lay at the Homogeneous door.

"Count up the dead by fever, shot, and shell,
Count up the cripples, count all tears that fell,
Count up the orphan children of the strife,
Count the long-yearning heart of parent, wife,
Count the vast treasure, count the labor's waste,
Count all the cost of passion's headlong haste,
And then you '11 know what solid Nations pay
When common impulse sweeps good sense away,
Flushing the millions madly all at once
With Wisdom down, and up the truculent Dunce !

"Give me to live where public matters wait
The careful issue of the long debate,
60

PETER OTTAWA

Where steady champions of divergent creeds
And differing races urge their various needs,
Where naught of serious consequence is done
Unless approved as fraught with wrong to none,
Where every honest man of every kind
(Though momentary party passion blind)
Shall know full well, within his secret heart,
The adopted course is common-sense's part,
Expedient in its time, and therefore sound
For all alike within the Nation's bound.

"In such a land, though many a year we go
So patient-cautious, neighbors call us slow,
We shun the abyss, we move by Reason's light,
We march as brothers, and we climb the height
Where yet our flag shall gently be unfurled
Symbolic of a federated World,
Whose problem do we daily solve while we
Climb upward, peaceful in Diversity."

So Peter Ottawa lives, full well content

To bide the lot he deems as Heaven-sent;

Keeping his glorious ancestries in mind,

To all traditions piously inclined;

He'll plod, and laugh, and hope, and boast, and roam

About the enormous tracts he calls his Home,

And thank the Lord that things are as they are,

And glad his soul with dreams of futures far, —

Whereby, perchance, full many a time he stands

Within The House not builded up of Hands.

61

PARLIAMENT OF THE AGES

PARLIAMENT OF THE AGES
(AN OTTAWA VISION)

OF all who 'd thronged the Commons' galleries
For early April evening's main debate,
One student visionary sole remained.

Down on the floor the members argued yet,
Though midnight long had passed, and rosy dawn
Game streaming in through eastward glory-panes
To tint the lofty ashlared westward wall
With shining jewel-colored phantasies.

The Dreamer watched the brilliancies of morn
Descending on that opposite westward wall
From panelled ceiling down to pointed arch,
From arch to shadowy alcoves' ruby panes,
Where luminous beamed the storied English Kings,
The Crown, the ramping Pards, the Unicorn,
With ancient mottoes of the Ancient Realm,
And new-made Arms of modern provinces
Emblazoned on the young Dominion's shield.

Now in the watcher's dream the sunrise merged
The Fish, the Maple Leaves, the Buffalo
With Rose and Thistle, Shamrock, Fleur-de-lys,
The Crown, the Kings, the emblem Viking-ships,
With some great banner, glorious, indistinct,
The Flag of mighty, English-speaking kin,
All beaming benison ineffable,
Such promise as no mortal ever saw
On Land or Sea, save o'er the mystic shores
And waters of a halcyon Future dreamed.

The desks, the Speaker's Chair seemed rapt away,
No stony walls inclosed the Commons' House,
62

PARLIAMENT OF THE AGES

But in the wonder-light a woodland spread
About one venerable northland Oak
Silent, except for distant-droning bees,
And one tall, blue-eyed, sworded, yellow-haired,
Hard-panting Viking, kirtled gray, who stood
Beneath the trysting-oak, and strove to quell
His gasps, deep-laboring from a lengthy run,
While, listening keen, he heard the bees in drone,
And watched to hail his second to the tryst
Of freemen signalled for a moot of War.

Then, far around, the forest sounded live
With crackling twigs and scores of emulous feet
From every quarter of the glooming shade,
And wonder-shouts, half vexed and half of praise,
Roared at the Champion who to tree of Moot
Had speeded foremost of the valorous band.

Hard-breathing all, they ranged about the Oak

Equal alike, save one they lifted high

On shield, and named him for their Council Earl.

Then there they fell to talk of march and plan,

Of meat and meal and beer and dragon-ships,

And Ways and Means, — contentious, passionate,

Yet one man only speaking up at once,

Heard silently, approved, or laughed to scorn,

Yet hearkened closely, since th' elected Earl

Full briskly stopt each interrupting voice

By one clear word, quite mystic, quite unknown

Unto the Dreamer in the gallery,

For whom no more the banners of the morn

In wholly visionary colors flared,

Because imperious from the Speaker's Chair

A voice called "Order" stoutly, in a tone

So like the ancient Viking Earl's, the two

Seemed blent as one within the Dreamer's brain.

PARLIAMENT OF THE AGES

Scarcely awake, the Student's roaming thought —

Oblivious to the actual place, the dawn,

The visioned tryst of Father Odin's men —

Pondered a Deity who shaped His world

In such a wise that they must most prevail

Who choose one Will to rule by Order's call,

That every Manliness may freely tell

Its thought upon the public thing in hand,

And so the general common sense have sway,

Instead of Policy conceived alone

By any one hereditary Will,

Or, worse, take course tumultuous, scarce resolved

By gabblers chattering unamenable,

In whose Assemblages prehensile tails,

Inscrutable to eyesight, swing the Ape

In futile men through dizzy fooleries.

And still the talkers on the Commons' floor
Contended voluble ; while he who heard
Their drone, forgot once more, and dreamed a scene
More wondrous than the primal Viking moot.

For one came frowning in, with sword in hand
And blazoned armor, and an eye more stern
Than gleamed beneath the brow of England's king: —
"I call," he spoke, "The Realms to Parliament!
Present and Past, by mine, the Founder's right,
Simon de Montfort, I, proclaim the call ! "

It clanged as sounding through The Ages' tombs
So loud that lofty-opening doors of Time
Revealed in earthly garb a Statesman throng
From every Parliament since Montfort breathed,
Majestic, turbulent, guileful, eloquent,
Profound, laborious, witty, whimsical,
Reverend in age, or beardless chinned as boys;
Knight, Admiral, Merchant, Lawyer, Pedagogue,
Yeoman, Adventurer, Soldier, Minister,

PARLIAMENT OF THE AGES

Poet, Philosopher, Roundhead, Cavalier,
Mechanic, Theologue, Philanthropist;
Exploring wights whose bones the jackals pawed
On Lybian arid sands, and they whose forms
Lie, white as marble, stiff nigh either Pole;
Spirits whose mortal vestures braved all fates
That daring hearts or martyr hopes conceived.

It seemed not strange to view the Shapes of Eld
In formal-friendly conference of talk
With some who perished as of yesterday,
With some who founded New World congresses,
With some who wielded outland Parliaments
Which strove so English-like for Liberty
That England reeled to win against their few,
With some whose mien and accents now control
The rising younger Nations of The Race ;
It seemed not strange, so clear they all alike,
Musing the ordered methods of their rule,
Blessed dear the Mother of all Parliaments,
The Many-mansioned Mother of The Free.

There prudent Cecil leaned to Laurier
While John Macdonald held them both in talk,
His "brother," Cartier, nodding to the tale;
There Richard Seddon's burly honest ghost
With Wilberforce and Hampden close conferred ;
There Edmund Burke warned Deakin cautiously
Of tempting Innovation's bright mirage ;
There Pitt, the younger, spoke with Cecil Rhodes
And stout Oom Paul, of Empire building themes,
While Grattan unto icy Parnell sighed
Of angry Ireland's immemorial wrong;
There Chatham, eagle-faced, with Washington
And Franklin nigh, declared, — "I praise again
Your English-minded fight for Liberty —
America's victory secured it firm
For all the outland broods of England's swarm."
65

PARLIAMENT OF THE AGES

There Strafford gloomed to Russell's lofty gaze,
The Stuart circle round each stately neck;
There honest-meaning, muddle-headed Cade,
Who lingered nigh the portal as of right,
Because he called a shirtless Parliament,
Received a courteous nod of compliment
From mighty Gladstone's comprehensive love;
There Peel, considerate still, eyed D'Israeli
As if in wonder that the Great Jew's heart
Should yet be counted one of England's pride ;
There Canning, of the soul-revealing face,
And bull-dog Cobbett, passionately wroth,
And Palmerston and Bright and thousands more
All moved at home within the visioned space
Until, it seemed, a Puritan Statesman stern,
With Puritan Troopers ringed, eyed Harry Vane
With "Take away that bauble." Then the Mace
Seemed borne afar incredibly, by force,
From that great Chamber of the freeman Race,
Old Englandish, New Englandish, Canadian,
Newfoundlandish, Australian, African,
Who hold, or held, the emblem sacrosanct.

With that great sacrilege the dream dissolved,
And clear again the radiancies high
Shone o 'er the Ottawa floor of Parliament,
While, down below, a high-pitched Loyalist
Declared, convinced, with querulous energy, —
" The Empire 's tottering down ! It cant be saved
Unless we get the Preference all around"

Touched sudden by the Sun's imperial beams,
A gargoyle grinned upon the western wall
As if it heard the Preferentialist,
While gales of laughter echoed far below.
Whereat the dreamer, wide awake with glee,
Gazed on the golden, crown-surmounted Mace
Pillowed serene before the Speaker's Chair;
66

PARLIAMENT OF THE AGES

Then marked, in high-built panes, the Kings gleam clear,

The Lion-shield, the mystic Unicorn,

The scrolls, the mottoes, "For my God and Right,"

And "Evil be to him who evil thinks"

All seemed the racial Soul transfigured there,

Ages and Ages old, yet scarcely born,

So future-glorious, past all dreaming, looms

The Voluntary Empire of The Blood,

Monarchical, Republican, all 's one,

With Vikings rushing to the beacon's flare

As long as winds shall blow and waters run.

KING VOLSUNG AND THE SKALD

KING VOLSUNG AND THE SKALD

HE sang on the Heath of the Volsungs,
Mid Volsung common men,
Shepherds, chafferers, delvers,
And fowlers of the fen,
The beaters of the anvil,
Wights who mined the ore,
Tamers of the horsekind,
And fishers from the shore.

Tall through the press strode Sigmund,

Lord-warden of the Peace,

While, shrilling fierce, the blood song

Rang to the throng's increase,

And some lips smiled the pleasure

Of Lynxes scenting prey,

And some brows frowned the anger

That holds the wolf at bay.

"Be dumb, O Skald!" spoke Sigmund,
"Thou singst a troublous song, —
The King of the kindly Volsungs
Shall judge thee right or wrong.'*
Then slow to the Hall of The Mighty,
And silently under its roof,
Flowed the host of the mid-world people
To hear the thing at proof.

On the High-seat shone King Volsung,
His Champions gleamed anear,
And the voice of lordly Sigmund
Came welcome to his ear: —
"Father, King and Judger,
Now tell me what to do.
This Skald divides thy people —
Is praise or death his due ? "
68

KING VOLSUNG AND THE SKALD

"Son Sigmund, tell thy story,
And whence the stranger came";

" I found him chanting on the Heath,
And no man knows his name.
Some think him even as Baldur
Come back to bless the Earth,
And some hear in his blood song
The Dwarf-kind's cruel mirth."

Then softly laughed King Volsung,
Yet pierced so keen his eyes
Men deemed he saw the stranger
As naked from disguise.
"O Skald!" he spoke, "fear nothing;
Though thou be Dwarf or Elf
Come back to trouble mankind,
Sing up, and be thyself."

The stranger eyed the Father
As one who works a spell,
And from the board his fingers
Seized a sounding shell;
His touches thrilled its edges,
He sang, to words all changed,
A strain the brown seafarers
Oft chanted where they ranged.

Then round about the High-seat,
And through the huge-built Hall,
Did all men deem they listened
To waves whelm up and fall ;
They heard the clash and clatter
Of shield-hung longships' sides,
Straining sails gale-bellied,
The snarl of racing tides,

While, foul in seamen's nostrils
Wallowing bilges stank
69

KING VOLSUNG AND THE SKALD

Of ale and meal long sea-borne,
Musty, wormy, rank;
Yet, half a-rot with scurvy,
They toppled up once more
To hail the enchanted looming
Of some unheard-of shore.

Out spoke the gracious Volsung, —
"The chant is good to me
That draws my shoremen closer
To their brothers of the sea.
And now, O Skald, I charge thee
To voice what song most brings
Joy to the hearts of heroes,
And men of worth and Kings."

The stranger pondered, staring
So long on Volsung's Pride
That soft-hand chafferers clamored : —
" Sing what thou sangst outside —
The song that stirred our pulses
As if through war-horn blown,
Thy chant of swords and corpses,
And blood on grass bestrewn.
Hearing, we felt as Champions,
Our foes seemed beaten sore,
And fierce in exultation
We saw them free no more."

Then, nearing close to Volsung,
The singer whispered, " King,
Thou knowst how wild the feeble
Relish a deathf ul thing ;
Here came I hungry, seeking
The means for rest and meat —
They love to dream them heroes,
And praise to Skalds is sweet.
But now, O Volsung Father,
70

KING VOLSUNG AND THE SKALD

I read thy kingly heart,

And I know the battle-mighty

From war-lust dwell apart."

Frowned dark the lordly Volsung, —
"Shame drowneth as a flood
The fame of every singer
Who urgeth men to blood.
The scorn of sworded heroes
Is on the swordless wight
Who stirs the weak to clamor
That sends the strong to fight;
Behold, all blades of battle
Around my shield-hung wall
Are hid in sheath, lest baleful
Their deadly gleams should fall;
And yet thy plea shall save thee
If now thou singst what brings
Most joy to hearts of heroes,
And men of worth, and Kings."

Then beamed so kind the stranger,
It seemed that Baldur there
Had rose from Niflheim's torpor
To bless the shining air;
He grasped an iron hammer,
He tinkled on the steel,
And he sang the ancient stithy
Laboring mankind's weal.

Spike and chain and crowbar,
Axes, bolts, and ploughs,
Mallet, wedge, and hammer,
Bonds to stiffen prows,
Every shape of iron
Listeners saw anew,
For the splendor of the labor
Rang the song-craft through.
71

KING VOLSUNG AND THE SKALD

So changed the tinkled measure
That looms rocked in the Hall,
Spindles twirled, and shuttles
Flew 'twixt wall and wall, —
Cloth for street and temple,
Cloth for sea and wold,
And the weavers' patient pleasure
Wove in every fold.

Through all Man's craft and labor
The runic rhythm changed,
As Valorous Endeavor
All useful works it ranged;
And the Idler was the Dastard,
And the Pleasure-seeker's joy
More weak, and far more witless
Than the pastime of a boy.

"O Skald," spoke gladdened Volsung,
"Thou sangst the truest song!

It endeth and amendeth

Labor's ancient wrong;

Its glory none had chanted,

Its pride no ear had heard,

For the toiling held the toiler

From the finding of the Word.

Yet none, save to that throbbing

My harp hath in its strings,

Can sing what most joys heroes,

And men of worth, and Kings."

He took the harp of Volsung,
His fingers lingered slow,
He sang of Love commingled
With Work, and Joy, and Woe, —
The lover's love for lover,
The bridegroom and the bride,
The father love for children,
7*

KING VOLSUNG AND THE SKALD

The wifely true-heart's pride,
Brother's love for brother,
Love of friend for friend,
The yearning, patient mother love
That hath no stint nor end;
And, even as all World-things
Forth from the World-tree start,
He sang all love forever flows
Back to All-father's heart.

King Volsung and his heroes,

All people round the Hall,

Yearned and flushed and joyed and wept

As if one soul swayed all.

None saw the singer vanish,

So blinding was his spell; —

And was he of the Gods, or Dwarfs,

King Volsung would not tell.

73

BALLADS, LYRICS, MEDITATIONS

THUNDERCHILD'S LAMENT

WHEN the years grew worse, and the tribe longed sore
For a kinsman bred to the white man's lore,
To the Mission School they sent forth me
From the hunting life and the skin tepee.

In the Mission School eight years I wrought
Till my heart grew strange to its boyhood's thought,
Then the white men sent me forth from their ways
To the Blackfoot lodge and the roving days.

"He tells of their God," said the Chiefs when I spake,
" But naught of the magic our foemen make,
JT is a Blackfoot heart with a white man's fear,
And all skill forgot that could help him here."

For the Mission Priest had bent my will
From the art to steal and the mind to kill,
Then out from the life I had learned sent me
To the hungry plain and the dim tepee.

When the moon of March was great and round,
No meat for my father's teeth I found;
When the moon of March was curved and thin,
No meat for his life could my hunting win.

Wide went the tracks of my snowshoe mesh,

Deep was the white, and it still fell fresh

Far in the foothills, far on the plain,

Where I searched for the elk and the grouse in vain.

In the Lodge lay my father, grim in the smoke,
His eyes pierced mine as the gray dawn broke,

77

THUNDERCHILD'S LAMENT

He gnawed on the edge of the buffalo hide,
And I must be accurst if my father died.

He spoke with wail: "In the famine year

When my father starved as I starve here,

Was my heart like the squaw's who has fear to slay

'Mongst the herds of the white man far away ? "

From the Mission School they sent forth me
To the gaunt, wild life of the dark tepee ;
With the fear to steal, and the dread to kill,
And the love of Christ they had bent my will.

But my father gnawed on the buffalo hide ; —
Toward the sunrise trod my snowshoe stride,
Straight to the white man's herd it led,
Till the sun sank down at my back in red.

Next dawn was bleak when I slew the steer,
I ate of the raw, and it gave me cheer;
So I set my feet in the track once more,
With my father's life in the meat I bore.

Far strode the herder, fast on my trail;
Noon was high when I heard his hail;
I fled in fear, but my feet moved slow,
For the load I shouldered sank them low.

Then I heard no sound but the creak and clack
Of his snowshoes treading my snowshoe track,
And I saw never help in plain or sky
Save that he should die or my father die.

The Mission Priest had broke my will
With the curse on him who blood would spill,
But my father starved in the black tepee,
And the cry of his starving shrieked to me.

78

THUNDERCHILD'S LAMENT

The white world reeled to its cloudy rim,

The plain reeled red as I knelt by him, —

Oh, the spot in the snow, how it pulsed and grew,

How it cried from the mid-white up to the blue!

For the Mission Priest had sent forth me
To the wants and deeds of the wild tepee,
Yet the fear of God's strong curse fulfilled,
Cried with the blood that would not be stilled.

They found me not while the year was green
And the rose blew sweet where the stain had been,
They found me not when the fall-flowers flare,
But the red in the snow was ever there.

To the Jail I fled from the safe tepee,
And the Mission Priest will send forth me,
A Blackfoot soul cleansed white from stain —
Yet never the red spot fades from the plain.

It glares in my eyes when sunbeams fall
Through the iron grate of my stone-gray wall,
And I see, through starlight, foxes go
To track and to taste of the ruddy snow.

79

THE MANDAN PRIEST

THE MANDAN PRIEST

THEY call me now the Indian Priest,
Their fathers' fathers did not so,
The very Mandan name hath ceased
From speech since fifty years ago;
I am so old my fingers fail
My trembling rosary beads to tell,
Yet all my years do not avail
My Mandan memories to quell.

The whole flat world I Ve seen how changed
Within my lifetime's hundred years;
O'er plains where herding buffalo ranged
Came strange new grass with white men's steers,
The lowing cattle passed as dreams,
Their pastures reared a farmer race,
Now city windows flash their gleams
Nigh our old Monastery's place.

The Prior gives to me no more

Even a task of inward praise,

The Brethren bear me through our door

To bask me here on summer days;

I am so old I cannot kneel,

I cannot hear, I cannot see,

Often I wonder if I feel

The very sunbeams warming me.

Yet do I watch the Mandan dogs
And Mandan ponies slain for meat
That year the squaws chewed snakes and frogs
That babes might tug a living teat,
And Mandan braves, in daylight dance,
Gashed side and arm and painted breast^
Praying The Manitou might trance
No more the buffalo from their quest.
80

THE MANDAN PRIEST

A circled plain all horse-high grassed

Our mounting scouts beheld at dawn,

They saw naught else though far they passed

Apart before the sun was gone;

Each night's ride back through starlit lanes

They saw the Tepee sparks ascend,

And hoped, and sniffed, and knew their pains

Of famine had not yet an end.

Alone within his magic tent
The new-made Midi wrought the spell
That soothed Life's Master to relent
In years the Old remembered well.
He cried, — "The Mission Priests have wreaked
Some curse that balks the Ancient Art!" —
"Thou useless Fool," the war-chief shrieked,
And sped the knife-thrust to his heart.

With that, " What comes ? " my mother screamed
How quick the squatted braves arose!
Far in the south the tallest deemed
He saw the flight of up-scared crows ;
Above the horse-high grass came slow
A lifted Cross, a tonsured head, —
And what the meaning none could know
Until the black-robed rider said : —

"Mandans, I bear our Mission's word, —
Your children, brought to us, shall eat."
Scarce had the fierce young War-chief heard
Ere fell the Blackrobe from his seat;
The Chief held high the reeking knife,
He frowned about the Woman's Ring,
And yet my mother's face took life
Anew in pondering the thing.

She stole at night the dead Priest's scrip,
His meagre wallet's hard-baked food,
81

THE MANDAN PRIEST

His Crucifix, his waist-rope strip
All blackened with his martyr blood;
Through dark, day-hidden, hand in hand,
We traced his trail for ninety mile,
She starved herself that I might stand,
She spoke me comfort all the while : —
"So shall thou live, my little son,
The white men's magic shalt thou learn,
And when the hungry moons are run,
Be sure thy mother shall return ;
Oh, sweet my joy when, come again,
I find thy Mandan heart untamed,
As fits a warrior of the plain,
That 7, thy mother, be not shamed"

She left me while the black-robed men
Blest and beseeched her sore to stay;
No voice hath told my heart since then
How fared my mother's backward way.
Years, years within the Mission School,
By love, by prayer they gained my heart;
It held me to Our Order's rule,
From all the Mandan life apart.

From tribe to tribe, through sixty years,
The Mandan Priest for Christ he wrought,
And many an Indian heart to tears,
And many a soul to God he brought;
Yet do I hear my mother's voice
Soft lingering round her little son,
And, O dear Lord, dost Thou rejoice
In all my mother's child hath done ?

82

CHIEF NEPOQUAN'S LAMENT

CHIEF NEPOQUAN'S LAMENT

(SALTEAUX-CREE)

THE Judge doomed me, — "At Friday noon — hanged by

the neck till dead ";
But can he catch the diving loon or hang the spirit fled ?

When young I thought the white man just, a white Chief's

heart most wise;
It was where snow lay dry as dust beneath the far north

skies,
The way was hungry, cold, and long, yet we could hunt no

more,
Since madness came on one so strong he must be held by

four;
Three days with him we camped in fast, his blood we would

not shed,
It seemed the Fiend in him would last until we all were

dead.

John Franklin's doctor was our chief; when sure the man

was mad
He shot him for his men's relief, but first he spoke full

sad,

"My men, this man your Chief must kill, though hard the

duty be ;
Let God and ye judge if I spill this blood in cruelty"

It is long seventy years since then, for I am wondrous

old,
My wrinkled fingers tremble when they draw the noose they

hold,
Yet shall they twist it till I choke — and may my blood be

strong
Upon the red-coat Judge who spoke what crazed my heart

with wrong.

83

CHIEF NEPOQUAN'S LAMENT

I told him truth ; — the squaw she craved no more of drink

or meat

After her first-born died, she raved forever on her feet
Till down she fell; there dead she lay till dark came on with

snow;

Then rose the Shape to stalk away, because a Wendigo
Had entered in the corpse to take it far within the Wood
And use the woman Form to slake its endless thirst for blood,
Stealing on Man and Beast alike, scaring afar the game
In terror lest that Demon strike which bears the dreaded

name.

They seized the Thing; they knew our Law; it says "A

hunting band

Shall bring the crazy Brave or Squaw beneath the Chiefs own
hand."

That band was small, its wigwams three, the Spring began to

stir,

It was the moon when wild things be clad in their richest fur;
The Brave who leaves his traps that moon leaves there his

chance to thrive,

Yet did those law-abiders soon tie down that Shape alive
To sled it over forest floor, and over rocky hills,
And drag it to my wigwam door, that I might end their ills.
To me they spoke, — "Our part is done — we marched in

fear five days ;
You are our Chief, the chosen one to set the noose that slays"

The Squaw had been my daughter's child, it seemed a pass-
ing breeze

Since she a round-eyed babbler smiled in play about my
knees.

To hear the Demon howl her tones my heart of hearts was
sore,

At times I hoped that in the moans herself came back once
more.

I wrought for her three days; I laid good medicine all about

84

CHIEF NEPOQUAN'S LAMENT

To make the Wendigo afraid, and fright that Devil out;
And oftentimes she lay as dead, and often rose my hope
That from her Shape the fiend had fled, to shun the stran-
gler's rope.

My Band had twenty-eight to feed, our hunters were but five

To chase the deer, that none might need of meat to keep
alive ;

Yet three by night and two by day must watch the seeming
squaw,

Whose form the Fiend would steal away — such is the
Salteaux law;

Our meat was gone the second night, no man could hunt-
ing go,

And, when my people starved, their fright grew wild with
hunger's woe.

" We starve, we die, O Chief ! " they cried, " unless the Thing

shall choke" ';

So round its neck the noose I plied within my wigwam smoke,
Of that the Stranglers' eyes saw naught while outside ends

they drew;
I fled before they pulled them taut — so none had blood to

rue.

Yet day or night I found no rest, for when I fell asleep
The round-eyed babbler's fingers prest my eyes to wake and

weep.

The talk about my justice went so far the red-coat band
Sledged for a moon, and reached my tent, and brought me
where I stand.

The red-coat Judge spoke, — "Friday noon — hanged by

the neck till dead " ;
But can he catch the diving loon or seize the spirit fled ?

I 've seen the Salteaux babes grow gray since first my years
were old,

85

CHIEF NEPOQUAN'S LAMENT

My wrinkled fingers shake and sway to draw the noose they

hold,
Yet do they work the Salteaux rule, I die by Salteaux

thong,
And here defy the judging fool who crazed my heart with

wrong.

86

RIDGEWAY FIGHT

RIDGEWAY FIGHT

(1866)
(IRISH-CANADIAN BALLAD)

This tale is told by one so old that all she loved are dead,
Yet faintly glows the Irish rose where once her cheeks were red.

My boy was born where fruit and corn, widespread by Wei-
land's shore,

Sway in the moaning monotone from far Niagara's roar.

His father's eyes on England's skies looked first when
brought to birth,

And strong the stride of manful pride he had from English
worth.

My own good name hath Irish fame, my heart is Erin's heart,

My boy soon learned how hot it burned to take Old Ireland's
part.

Yet his young life was free from strife 'twixt Saxon blood and

Celt,

Because so kind his father's mind leaned unto all I felt,
Whose generous way was oft to say, "I love my Irish rose;
That hearts must stand for native land the heart of England

knows."
And swift my voice would then rejoice, "Our Irish hearts

but crave
That England be as you to me, and not as Lord to Slave."

Our threefold cord the loving Lord strengthened each year

anew,
Till hope her time had come to prime once more in Ireland

grew;
'T was in the year when Azrael's spear had smote the fighting

South
My yearning stirred to hear the word that passed from

mouth to mouth : —

87

RIDGEWAY FIGHT

"Our blood can boast in either host of the battle-weary
States,

Sons who have fought as heroes ought against and for the
Fates ;

Their hands and eyes in War are wise, their hearts to Ire-
land true,

And hath not God made them His rod to do what He would
do r

If once they stand on Irish land against her ancient
wrong,

Then sorrows sighed since freedom died shall end in Erin's
song."

In that strange year my son knew clear what longing swelled

my heart,
While yet the thought his father taught seemed scarce from

mine apart;
So his young mind to this inclined, "Freedom is Ireland's

right,
I wish her well though she rebel against free England's

might."

When so I heard him speak that word, how could my eyes

but shine ?
And if it brought his father aught of grief he made no

sign,
But uttered grave, "May Heaven save your mother's race

from pain,
And mine from blood spilt as a flood that England's law may

reign."

So strong they be who hold the sea that when that year was

past,
Erin no more could hope her shore might hear her bugle

blast ;
Yet did her rage the strife to wage bring this strange thought

to birth,

"My sons, belike, may England strike upon Canadian earth."

88

RIDGEWAY FIGHT

When first we heard that raving word my son laughed out in

scorn, —
"A Fool's parade 'twere to invade the soil where I was

born!

Here Irish folk have felt no yoke, our equal laws they share,
'T is madness starts in Irish hearts that give such talk to

air!"

Yet when next June the birds their tune through Welland

orchards poured,
Upon the land a Fenian band came seeking England's sword.

In student's gown Toronto town then held my darling son,
For Youth must roam afar from home lest learning be not

won.
Within his breast like fire prest the urging, "Take your

stand —

Haste to obey — no hour delay — defend your native land —
Tour true-born heart — your natural part — your Country's

cause maintain —
Were foemen come with England's drum your duty were as

plain"

Ere set of sun he shouldered gun with Rifles of the Queen,
Nor deemed it strange in green to range against the flag of
green.

"Near Ridgeway you shall rendezvous," those volunteers

were told,

"Where shall be sent a regiment of regulars famed of old;
Munitions they shall bring your way — march ye with

twenty rounds —
Your pouches full for trigger pull shall be when battle

sounds."

That regiment ? Oh, yes, 'twas sent, — but Irish was its soul,
Its veterans dragged their feet and lagged sullen beyond
control ;

RIDGEWAY FIGHT

Though undismayed, pretence they laid that heat and sun-
stroke scared;

Who blames their heart to shun a part against the Blood
they shared ?

Three miles of march their Colonel's starch melted so soft
he lay

Quartered for night in broad daylight, — and Ridgeway
leagues away.

Oh, blossomed trees of Welland leas, how could ye bloom

so fair

With fragrant joy when on my boy lay such a load of care ?
For in his heart the Irish part dreamed 7 must suffer woe
Whene'er I learned my son had turned his hand against that

foe.
And one, far born o'er seas, that morn had called him

"•traitor foul"
Because he spoke of Ireland's yoke, and met the Cockney

scowl
With, "Oh, that earth which gave me birth should see

Canadians slain
As if in fight that England's might should trample Ireland's

pain!"

Yet did his will set hard to kill when once the bullets flew,
And by his side the comrade died whom all his life he knew;
Then wroth he fought, taking no thought beyond that field

of strife
Where every lead his rifle sped searched for an Irish life.

Their twenty rounds were spent — no sounds of regulars
marching true

To keep the pledge by point and edge to reach the rendez-
vous.

With them not nigh a fresh supply of cartridge ours must
lack;

Though few men quailed when pouches failed they drew to
Ridgeway back.

90

RIDGEWAY FIGHT

But had my son his battle done ? Not he ; but bitter swore, —
" Better to lie beneath this sky with him who breathes no

more
Than native feet should here retreat." He fixed his bayonet

steel —
And By the Dead who there had bled, its point the foe should

feel!

"And now," said he, "you 'traitored* me. Come now and

play the game
Up to the end, my Cockney friend, who fights in England's

name ! "

From South and North alike sprung forth to lift the Sun-
burst's light,

Those Fenians came from fields of fame, and knew all ways
of Fight;

So when alone his bayonet shone, there many a veteran
breath

Spoke, — "Here comes one who scorns the sun and volun-
teers for Death!

By Heaven, the pride that's in his stride! The lad's too
young to kill ;

Now test him fair, yet try to spare his life against his
will."

For still the Brave will heroes save. God bless the Irish
voice,

Which never yet did once forget in valor to rejoice !

As in he ran he chose his man with such a glint of eye
That all knew there how well the stare meant You or I shall

die ;
But when his steel with One would deal, five clashed to

check the thrust,
And yet his tierce delivered fierce brought down his man to

dust
Ere other five took him alive, — for live they must who

must.

RIDGEWAY FIGHT

O'Neil he cried in warlike pride, — "Well done, you English

boy!
All soldiers here rouse up the cheer, — God give his mother

joy!"
But down he sank, and sore he drank of shame to be so

weak
That when he heard that Irish word the tears ran down his

cheek.
Yet why he wept the secret kept — so strong his nature's

pride,
And no man there guessed Erin's share in him who had

defied.

Their raid was past, they hurried fast to gain a friendly

shore,
They left him there as free as air — yet, from afar, once

more
They cheered the lad who 'd strode as glad to charge their

line alone.
Then long he stood in dream, he could hear who but me in

moan
That Ireland's day had passed away, and that my own

son's heart
Had chose the lot to fire the shot against sad Erin's part.

But when he came to take my blame I kissed him fond, and

cried, —
" Son of my love, 't is God above makes dear our Country's

side;
Child of this Land, no man can stand more true to parent's

worth
Than when his life is pledged in strife to guard his native

earth ;
Let who might come with outland drum, your duty were as

plain."
Dear long-dead boy, thy flush of joy delights my soul again I

92

DAY DREAM

DAY DREAM

WHEN high above the busy street
Some hidden voice poured Mary's song,
Oh, then my soul forgot the beat
And tumult of the city's throng,
And bells and voices murmured low,
Blent to a dreamy monotone
That chimed and changed in mystic flow,
And wove a spell for me alone.

The towering blocks no more were there,
No longer pressed the crowd around,
All freely roamed a magic air
Within a vast horizon's bound;
Beneath a sky of lucent gray
Far stretched the circled northern plain,
Wild sunflowers decked a prairie gay,
And one dear autumn came again.

Before me went a winsome maid,
And oh the mien with which she stept
Her long brown hair without a braid
Concealed the shoulders that it swept;
And, glancing backward, me she gave
The smile so angel kind, so wise —
That look of love, those eyes so grave,
Once made my earthly Paradise.

Divinely on my darling went,
The wild flowers leaning from her tread,
Enrapt I followed on intent,
Till, ah, the gracious vision fled;
The plain gave place to blocks of gray,
The sunlit Heaven to murky cloud,
Staring I stood in common day,
And never knew the street so loud.
93

THE CANADIAN ROSSIGNOL

THE CANADIAN ROSSIGNOL

(IN MAY)

WHEN furrowed fields of shaded brown,

And emerald meadows spread between,
And belfries towering from the town,

All blent in wavering mists are seen;
When quickening woods with freshening hue

Along Mount Royal rolling swell,
When winds caress and May is new,

Oh, then my shy bird sings so well!

Because the bloodroots flock so white,

And blossoms scent the wooing air,
And mounds with trillium flags are dight,

And dells with violets frail and rare;
Because such velvet leaves unclose,

And new-born rills all chiming ring,
And blue the sun-kissed river flows,

My timid bird is forced to sing.

A joyful flourish lilted clear,

Four notes, then fails the frolic song,
And memories of a sweeter year

The wistful cadences prolong; —
"A sweeter year — Oh, heart too sore ! —

/ cannot sing ! " — So ends the lay.
Long silence. Then awakes once more

His song, ecstatic with the May.

94

THE CANADIAN ROSSIGNOL

THE CANADIAN ROSSIGNOL

(IN JUNE)

PRONE where maples widely spread
I watch the far blue overhead,
Where little pillowy clouds arise
From naught to die before my eyes;
Within the shade a pleasant rout
Of dallying zephyrs steal about;
Lazily as moves the day
Odors float and faint away
From roses yellow, red, and white,
That prank yon garden with delight;
Round which the locust blossoms swing,
And some late lilacs droop for spring.
Anon swells up a dubious breeze,
Stirring the half-reluctant trees,
Then, rising to a mimic gale,
Ruffles the massy oaks to pale,
Till spent its sudden force, once more
The zephyrs come that went before;
Now silvery poplars shivering stand,
And languid lindens waver bland,
Hemlock traceries scarcely stir,
All the pines of summer purr.
Hovering butterflies I see,
Full of business shoots the bee,
Straight from the valley is his flight
Where crowding marbles solemn white
Show through the trees and mutely tell
How there the low-laid loved rest well.
Half hid in the grasses there
Red breast thrushes jump and stare,
Sparrows flutter up like leaves
Tossed upon the wind in sheaves,
Curve-winged swallows slant and slide
95

THE CANADIAN ROSSIGNOL

O'er the graves that stretch so wide,
Steady crows go laboring by —
Ha! the Rossignol is nigh!

Rossignol, why will you sing,
Though lost the lovely world of spring ?
'T was well that then your roulades rang
Of joy, despite of every pang;
But now the sweet, the bliss is gone —
Nay, now the summer joy is on,
And lo, the foliage and the bloom,
The fuller life, the bluer room,
'T was this the sweet spring promised me.
Oh, bird, and can you sing so free,
Though never yet the roaming wind
Could leave earth's countless graves behind ?
And will you sing when summer goes
And leaves turn brown and dies the rose ?
Oh, then how brave shall Autumn dress
The maple out with gorgeousness !
And red-cheeked apples deck the green,
And corn wave tall its yellow sheen.
But, bird, bethink you well, I pray,
Then marches winter on his way.

Ah, winter — yes, ah yes — but still,
Hark ! sweetly chimes the summer rill,
And joy is here and life is strong,
And love still calls upon my song.
No, Rossignol, sing not that strain,
Triumphant 'spite of all the pain, —
She cannot hear you, Rossignol,
She does not pause and flush, your thrall,
She does not raise that slender hand
And, poised, lips parted, understand
What you are telling of the years,
Her brown eyes soft with happy tears,
She does not hear a note of all,
Ah, Rossignol, ah, Rossignol!
96

THE CANADIAN ROSSIGNOL

But skies are blue, and -flowers bloom,
And roses breathe the old perfume,
And here the murmuring of the trees
In all of lovelier mysteries —
And maybe now she hears thy song
Pouring the summer rills along,
Listens with joy that still to me
Remain the summer time and thee.

97

SWEETEST WHISTLE EVER BLEW

SWEETEST WHISTLE EVER BLEW

A DAY when April willows fringed the pool

Of fifty years ago with freshening gold,
Myself came trudging from the country school

With my tall grandsire of the wars of old ;
His peaceful jack-knife trimmed a ravished shoot,

Nicked deep the green and hollowed out the white,
To fashion for the child a willow flute,
His age exulting in the shrill delight;

"For so," he said, "my grandsire made

The sweetest whistles ever blew,
When I and he were you and me,
And all the world was new."

To-day in mine a grandchild's balmy hand
Eagerly thrills as toward the pool we go,
He confident that never sea nor land

Wotted of wonders more than grandsires know;
They sail all seas, explore all giants' caves,

Play wolves and bears, and panthers worse by far,
Are scalped complacently as Indian braves,
And little boys their favored comrades are;
By grandpa's lore, well learned of yore,

I hold the rank I most esteem

Of dear and wise in Billy's eyes,

And boast the pomp supreme.

Now, blade unclasped, I skirt the marge to choose

One withe from all the willow's greening throng,
The imperfect branches tacitly refuse,

To clip at last the wand without a prong;
Its knots I scan, the smoothest reach to find,

Cut true around the tender bark a ring,
Bevel the end, and artful tip the rind,

Draw out the pith, and shape the chambered thing

SWEETEST WHISTLE EVER BLEW

Exactly so as long ago,

In April weather sweet as this,

My grandsire did when he would bid
A whistle for a kiss.

Now Billy snuggles palm again in mine,

"Over the hills," he blows, "and far away."
O pipe of Arcady, how clear and fine

Thy single note salutes the yearning day!
The breeze in branches bare, the whistling wing,
The subtle-bubbling frogs, the bluebird's call,
The quivering sounds of ever-piercing spring,
That one thin willow note attunes them all;
And, far and near at once, I hear
The sweetest whistle ever blew,
Lilting again the olden strain,
And all the world is new.

99

OUR KINDERGARTNER

OUR KINDERGARTNER

WHEN April's tinge was on the fringe

Of willows near the pool,

She dipt their shoots to fashion flutes

For children of her school;

She sloped the tips to suit the lips

Of rosiness around,

Drew forth the pith and shaped it with

The chambers of the sound.

His fancy said : " That way was made

The magic pipe of Pan,

Which crept so rare upon the air

It crazed a listening man."

She took a flute and shrilled salute

Of Arcady so clear,

He felt the ring and chime of spring

Thrilling through his ear;

A mystic sense of rapt suspense

Mingled strange with all

The bubbling frogs, the echoing dogs,

The bluebirds' mating call.

So sweet the charm, he felt no harm,

Yet there his craze began,

With every note her pulsing throat

Blew on the pipe of Pan.

100

ELEGY FOR "THE DOCTOR"
ELEGY FOR "THE DOCTOR"

ON THE DEATH OF DR. W. H. DRUMMOND

LANDLORD, take a double fee, and let the banquet slide,
Send the viands, send the wine to cheer the poor outside,
Turn the glasses upside down, leave the room alight,
Let the flower-strown tables stand glittering all the night.

Everybody's friend is gone, hushed his gentle mirth,
Sweeter-hearted comrade soul none shall know on earth,
Burly body, manly mind, upright lifted head,
Viking eyes and smiling lips — Dr. Drummond 's dead !

For the Club, for the feast, and for the busy street
Primal natural airs he brought, oh, so fresh and sweet,
Brattling rivers, gleaming lakes, wild-flower forest floors,
To heal the City's weary heart with balms of out-of-doors.

But where the campfire-litten boughs swing swaying over-
head,

And wondering wolf and lynx shrill wild the boding of their
dread,

And strangely through the moony night the hooting owlets
roam,

His tones would yearn in gladsome talk about the doors of
Home.

In sympathy with every pain of all who bear the yoke,

There was a natural piety in all he wrote and spoke,

He warmed with Irish pride in deeds defying Might's strong

host,
Yet ever shared the Saxon sense for ruling at the roast.

He bore the poet's shifting heart that puts itself in place
Of every humble kindly soul it knows of every race,

101

ELEGY FOR "THE DOCTOR"

He felt their sorrow as their joy, but chose the strain to cheer
And help the differing breeds to share one patriot feeling here.

There was no better loyalist than this whose humors played
In pleasant human wise to serve the State two races made —
O Landlord, turn the glasses down, and leave the room

alight,
And let the flower-sweet silence tell his shade our grief

to-night.

102

HAIL TO THE CHIEF

HAIL TO THE CHIEF

ON SIR WILFRID LAURIER'S RETURN FROM THE IMPERIAL

CONFERENCE, 1907

AGAIN we greet the patient heart,

The conference-guiding master-hand,

Who put illusive dreams apart,

And wrought as careful wisdom planned.

With welcoming hearts we strive in vain

To voice the unutterable cheers

That yearn for him whose works attain

For us the longing hopes of years.

For spirits twain possess the hearts
That hold our North from sea to sea;
The one a vigorous love imparts
Of self-dependent liberty,
The other, sweet with kinship's thought,
Forever strives to bridge the main;
And all our country's years were fraught
With hope to serve the spirits twain.

While cynics scorned the dual dream,
Proclaiming one must surely die,
Our lifted eyes beheld the gleam
Afar, of days now looming nigh ;
The Voluntary Empire's form
Of comrade commonwealths allied,
Stands fit, at last, to front the storm,
And thrust Time's hurricane aside.

With countries Old and countries New,
All willing champions round the Throne,
With each to separate freedom true,
Yet shaped in league to hold their own;

103

HAIL TO THE CHIEF

We bless the Chief whose patriot soul
Held both our spirits reconciled,
And grasped the hour in firm control
When on our dreams Occasion smiled.

104

A CANADIAN REPLY
A CANADIAN REPLY

(TO ONE WHO WOULD REFUSE LIBERTY TO THE BOERS)

IF ancient England nobly sing,

We hearken to the song.
Her words ten million echoes bring

To urge the strain along;
It rallies farm and market-square,

If so the note be true, —
But what if every verse declare

But one inspired Yahoo ?

Fifty thousand horse and foot

Trail back from Table Bay
In shame to recollect the toot

To which they sailed away;
Five times fifty thousand more

The fight could barely save,
With aid from every British shore

To quell the burgher brave.

Through forests dim, o'er myriad lakes,

Where sea-wide prairies swell,
It seemed our hearts were like to break;

What time the Shame befell
Of "I regret I must report

Surrendering the Nek,"
And "Guns all captured," "No support,"

Death dogging kop and trek.

From stroke of axe, from herded ranch,
From league-long furrows black,

We sent our children stark and staunch
To tread the battle track;

All bound by grace on England's part
To help her hoe the row,
105

A CANADIAN REPLY

But never hatred in their heart
Against the hero foe.

Majuba Hill! Oh, yes, we grieve

Full sorely at the name,
But what hyena can conceive

We would revenge the blame ?
Ye braves who stormed a mountain crest

To fight with five to one,
By God, praise thunders in the breast

To think such deed was done!

And is it England's voice declares

That yielded men whose souls
Confronted all that valor dares

Must lack the freeman's polls ?
Must lack the balm that soothed away

Canadian memories sore,
And drew to England's battle day

As friends the foes of yore ?

Now bear the strain to London town,

Oh, winds of England's main,
And tell the heirs of old renown

We lilt their old refrain :
"Full measure heaped and running o'er

Of every freeman's right
Subdues the heart of heroes more

Than all the storms of fight."

106

TO THE PRINCESS LOUISE
TO THE PRINCESS LOUISE1

ON THE DEATH OF THE PRINCESS ALICE, DECEMBER, 1878

PRINCESS but yesterday, to-day
You are to us so very near
By human sorrow, that away
All forms and titles disappear;
Your mourning glooms the winter day,
Sunshiny clear although it show,
And all its glittering white array
Seems for our grief a shroud of woe.

Our bells ring out, and in the air
So long vibrate with mournful tone
That English bells seem answering there,
The sound from far-off belfries blown ;
They toll together here as there,
For yours and you and theirs and ours,
And what if now her spirit were
Rejoiced by all the swooning towers ?

1 The Princess Louise is the wife of the Duke of Argyle, in 1878 Governor-
General of Canada.

107

ENVIRONMENT

ENVIRONMENT

OUR prison house extends so wide
It walls the farthest Oceans' tide,
Enarches every Tropic's bloom,
And gives the opposing Arctics room.

Its vistas do all stars include

In one abysm of solitude,

Whose hollow antres swoon where Thought

In vain imagines Aught or Naught.

At time, to ease the jail, we deem
Ourselves companioned in the dream,
Conceiving kindred Spirits share
The doom each soul alone must bear.

They seem to move and smile and moan
With sense of all the heart hath known,
Which helps the pent-up soul beguile
The tension of its domicile ;

Till, doubtful of the fancied zest
It made to soothe its deep unrest,
Once more the solitary thrall
Ponders the illimitable Wall.

'Perchance another Thought supreme
Includes the Dreamer and the Dream ?
Or doth the soundless Prison zone
Confine One absolutely lone ? "

*T is only when Love's angel eyes
Gaze steadfast from a mortal guise,
Tranquil, sincere, divine, devout,
They still the tumult of the Doubt.

108

ENVIRONMENT

Then, prisoning Power, we do accept
The Mystery that Thou hast kept,
And cheerful in Thy bondage dwell,
Blest creatures of Thy miracle.

109

RESURRECTION

RESURRECTION

WHEN iron taskwork levelled low
My youthful dreams of pride,
'Twas "Oh to reach the end and go
Beyond all seas," I sighed;
'For freedom's songbirds pierce me sore,
I wince when lovers greet,
All blessed lives mock mine the more
In this long World's strange street."

Time wrought that envy to an end,

I could endure the day,

The looming sea I took for friend,

Its patient, solemn sway

Taught me acceptance of control,

Contempt for woe and joy,

And Life a dream wherein what soul

Scorns Fate, escapes annoy.

With this stern wisdom once acquaint

My spirit coldly braved,

It gave no thanks, it made no plaint,

Suffered, and nowise craved;

Thy life, O heart, seemed calmly dead,

Thy dirge the friendly Main,

Thy tomb and empty blueness spread

To dome a senseless plain.

At last, with one transfiguring sign
(Love wrought this wonder rare),
Lord God, what anthems intertwine
To thrill Thy shining air!
Our choral gladness wings above
The far resurging sea,
Whose diapason chants the Love
That wakes my soul to Thee,
no

JUDGMENT HOUR

JUDGMENT HOUR

"SPIRIT," said God, "come up for Judgment now."
The words seemed spoke in such familiar tone
As if the accents of a natural voice
Close to the heart as its own beating pulse.

"Come up," it said, "for final judgment now
Before the absolute court of Me in Thee,
The court which hears no plea, allows no charge,
Abates no jot in estimating wrong,
Awards no punishment and grants no boon,
But weighs precise the actual quality
Of Spirit proven by the appointed tests,
And true decides if it recruit in Me
The Immortal Strength, or if the tempted one,
Too weak for toils eternal, sanely pass
To that which I am not, Oblivion."

Then Thee reviewed with Me, O God, the course, —

What bodily appetites indulged or quelled;

What hates and harms repaid with hurts and scorns,

Or with forgetfulness or benefits;

The proper rest that merged to slothful ease,

Or was in pain enduringly ignored;

That laughing, wholesome impulse which, unchecked,

Became derision's cruelty of glee ;

The righteous anger rushing headlong on,

What did, when calmly visioned, piteous seem;

That pity for the Weak, which blamed alike

The unjust heedless and the heedful Strong;

The passionate heart's excess in everything,

Its wild unsteadiness unto the Soul

Which yet persisted, sternly right, to chide

The insensate rebel part averse from Thee.

in

JUDGMENT HOUR

The Thee and Me, O God, revised it all
Clearly, relentlessly, and grave declared, —
'Thou didst not ever fail the Heart, O Soul,
Nor doth it fail thee now. Nay, We elect
No Lethe, no Oblivion, but the strife
Eternal, toward we know not what, save Good."

Then some calm happiness known not before
Came to the Life whose Judgment hour was o'er.

112

HAPPYHEART

HAPPYHEART

AMID a waste of worn-out apple trees,

In doorless ruin, nigh a grass-grown road

Set far from every tumult of to-day,

Stands yet the house where Happyheart was born.

That day, his mother told him once, she wept,
Boding what gusty fates must threat the babe
Who lay as musing all delightedly
To hear the strangest storm she ever knew.

For while a norther hammered on the walls,
Tore crusted snow, whirled orchard branches off,
Pelted the shuttered windows, wailed dismay,
Clear blue and sunshine held the winter sky.

And, happy in the southward lee, she saw
The earliest singing sparrow of the spring
Hop on her sill, chanting melodiously,
Full glad of shelter in the warming beams.

"The bird is his," — declared the Irish nurse,
"Great luck indeed! See, will he notice it?"

Speaking, she turned the new-born man-child's face
In such a wise his wondering mother saw
Within the steady eyes a tiny scene, —
The panes, the singing bird, the whirling world,
Trees madly thrashing, wracks of hurrying drift
Crossing the clear, eternal, sunlit sky.

"What? Crying? Troth, but this will never do!
Sure he takes notice of the bird, I '11 swear!
Cheer up ! 'T is happy fortune will be his !
There's not a child in all the land so blest
"3

HAPPYHEART

As him the winter songbird hastens to ! "
And still the mother wept, she knew not why.

Within the portals of his house of birth

Has Happyheart beheld the snow wraiths reel,

While in the azure height of clear divine

The sun swung lordly o 'er no loneliness

More chill than stared about the scene forlorn;

And yet the eyes his mother wept to see

Pictured fine gleams through every clouding wrack,

Infinite calm, and singers wonderful.

114

OUR TOWN'S COMFORTER

OUR TOWN'S COMFORTER

IT touches the heart of "Our Mother"

with happiness queerly regretful
To muse on all they who instinctively

bring her their innermost grief,
For reasons she never can fathom

they come, as if wholly forgetful
Of fear to repose their confessions

with Our Town's fount of relief.

What crucified faces of maidens

despairing in love's desolation
Have streamed with the weeping they 've hidden

from all, except Mother alone!
What stormy-heart fighters came wildly

lamenting their souls' tribulation
At hearing the weaklings they 'd vanquished

from terrible silences groan!

What saints who had failed of the halo,

because their stiff features retarded
The flow of affection from children

they loved, though with signals confused,
Would open, for Mother's eyes only,

mysterious portals that guarded
Their yearning for all the caresses

their hickory manners refused.

When parents, grown aged, and basking

long years in the Town's veneration,
Shrank bitter and dumb, at the blow of

an archangel son in disgrace,
How he knelt in despair with Our Mother,

and rose with the transfiguration
Of that which is God, or just mother,

that shines in her triumphing face.
"5

OUR TOWN'S COMFORTER

Yet Mother is given to blaming

her nature for cold-hearted dealing; —
"Dear souls, how they pour out their troubles

to me, whose responses are wood !
Though I strive to console them, my sayings

seem void, to myself, of all feeling,
For I never can find an expression

to make my heart half understood."

"And I never can love them enough

in their sadness, however I'm trying
To soften the life in my heart

till it break with their anguishing tears,
For it's flooded with gladness to feel them

so helped by the balm of the crying, —
And, oh, what a shame I 'm made happy

through sorrows they'll carry for years.'

116

BRETHREN OF THE BOAT

BRETHREN OF THE BOAT

(UNION BOAT CLUB, BOSTON)

WHEN some of ancient lineage prate
We brothers listen with a smile,
We do not boast ancestral state,
It really is n't worth our while,
Since all must know that we can trace
Our line to ages so remote
As when Pa Noah gave a place
To none but brethren of his boat.

In that old world where sin was rife,
How natural that the only man
Found worthy of continuing life
Was one who'd lived on such a plan
That when the earth was all submerged
He knew the way to go afloat
And save — the point is once more urged
Our line, the Brethren of the Boat.

Since then our long immorta'l scroll

Has blazed with names of Men of Might,

Jason, Ulysses, on the roll

With Caesar, and with Wallace wight;

From age to age, on every shore,

Who raised the strong triumphant note

If not the Vikings of the Oar,

We, tuggers, Brethren of the Boat ?

Who holds the keys of Heaven and Hell
And Purgatory in his hand ?
A boating man — and does it well —
St. Peter, so we understand !
Where were the first Apostles found ? —
Sure, every child knows this by rote —
117

BRETHREN OF THE BOAT

Amongst the men whose hearts be sound,
The virtuous Brethren of the Boat.

It may be false, yet some contend
That when to other spheres men go,
The judgment of their final end
Hangs on the question, Did he row?
But this is sure, — on us at last
Old Father Charon's eyes will doat,
As o'er the Styx he ferries fast
His comrade Brethren of the Boat.

118

CUPID IN THE OFFICE
CUPID IN THE OFFICE

PRELUDE

We buried in Mount Auburn last July
The gentle, clerkly, wan old bookkeeper.
Who left to me his sheaf of casual verse.

"You'll smile," he wrote, "to learn I poetized,
However little. Here are all my rhymes;
Too intime, surely, to be put in print
While we two lived, with whom the verses deal.
How curious that it really comforts me
To dream you'll give them vogue, and so prolong
In mortal memory a faint, fair wraith
Of her who, while I live, is clearly shrined,
Smiling, within my unforgetting heart."

They give the poignancy of Commonplace;
Accents of fondness, no more like the feigned
Which forms the stock of many a polished strain,
Than fields and woods enwreathed with moving mists
And changeful to the phase of hour and year
Are like a painted canvas of the scene.

REVERIE

DOVE-TINTED, urban-bred, secure,
Nowise self-centred, quite self-sure,
Priestess of Business, Office-nun,
And yet her girlhood scarcely done!

That balanced poise of confidence
Is yet young maiden Innocence,
119

CUPID IN THE OFFICE

Whose deep, gray eyes undreaming wait
The woman's dearest boon from Fate.

My reverie, though it vision plain
Her lucency, can scarce retain
The radiant smile, with humor fraught,
But quick repressed, as if she thought
It wrong to let her seniors guess
That Mirth may visit business;
Yet flits it back in utter charm,
As if to smile were n't really harm.

It is that smile which brings surprise
Jumping to my delighted eyes,
And makes my heart so yearn she were
Absorbed in Woman's natural care.

Cupid, though growing gray I be,
Incline her heart, that I may free
Her life from office drudgery.

II

THE CHRISTMAS WALK

How brisk in frost we stept together west !
The sky, as pearly as her lucent face,
Wore, too, the faint austere which gives her grace,
The sacredness that calms my heart to rest.

Up toward the Roxbury hill, whose builded crest
Outlined a rim serrate of flamelike sky,
Her virginal beauty flushed, — and oh, the shy
Gleam of her pleasure as her glove caressed,
Upon her heart abloom, my glowing rose!

And yet, before our Christmas walk was done,
Its scarlet loveliness of petals froze,
120

CUPID IN THE OFFICE

Whereby upon the stalk it drooped and died;
So cruel shone the nightward slanting sun
This day of our first marching side by side.

Ill

CUL-DE-SAC

"DEAR Dove, both Love and Life command we wed,"
Spoke I. She smiled and shook her sage young head,
And mused, and gravely said : " Before we met,
Life had ruled straight our page, and rules it yet.
Though Love be come to light that even Way,
What else has changed ? The filial tasks of day,
Your day and mine, cannot be put aside
That selfish Love alone be glorified.
Did daily duty done not keep us blest
Our infinite love were infinite unrest.
Our separate earnings still our Aged need —
Spare me, dear love, you shake me when you plead."

IV

APRIL HOLIDAY

AN hour by rail, then up the hill
Where Talking Brook forever calls
In glee that never April rill
Could tinkle lovelier madrigals,
Where pussy-willows' silver spires
So bloomy that a touch might harm,
And frogs in monotoning choirs
Chirp their drowsed miracle of charm.

The World, for once, was ours alone;
Its freshening hazy hillsides high,
121

CUPID IN THE OFFICE

Their billowy woodlands budding zone
Suspiring tops that merged in sky.
How fast our steps in crispy brown
Of last year's rustling foliage fled,
To kneel to fair Spring-beauty's crown
And dear hepatica's starry head!

All was our Paradise, and we

Were Eve and Adam gathering flowers,

Wotting of no forbidden tree

Or bloom in Sussex County bowers,

Until the Man and Dog of Wrath

Came, at our trespass raging wild

Before they saw her in their path

Smiling as one who friendly smiled.

Amazed, disarmed, as if in shame,
How queer the embarrassed farmer stood !
; 'T ain't my old dog you got to blame,
I larnt him chase folks out 'n this wood.
But, Laws, ye 're welcome any day !
Come when ye like — ye won't intrude."
While at her feet old Brindle lay
Fondled, fond squirming, quite subdued!

"Miss Tact! " when they were gone I laughed,
"Miss Nerve! O cool Miss Impudence!"

She beamed demurely while I chaffed,

Saying, "I am Miss Common-sense!

What earthly use to run away ?

What sense to look one bit dismayed ?

It 's gentleness that wins the day —

But, Oh, dear, was nt I afraid"

122

CUPID IN THE OFFICE

CONSOLATION

A TENDER miracle so blends
The separate life which is our fate
With gentle joys, that it transcends
The bridals of the fortunate.

With beams too delicate for name —
So sunny warm, so frosty pure,
I tell her that our business-flame
Of love unfailing, glows secure.

'We have the Best," she says. We smile,
We sigh as if it were not so ;
Yet deep in either heart the while
We know The Best is what we know.

VI

THE PURITAN

" I SHUN the theatre. It 's not the place"
She said, "that I dislike — no — all the sights
Of Orchestra and Audience and the space
Of brilliancy and life are my delights
When people talk at ease between the Acts.
But, oh, the Stage, the piteous puppets there
Posturing, ranting, and without a share
In the quick farce and tragedy of Facts ! —
Unless the essential horror of a Play
Is that bright beings in God's image made
Should fume their little spans of strength away
In simulating fancied joy and grief
WThile really desperate that the mummers' trade
Holds them from useful Work, the soul's relief."
123

CUPID IN THE OFFICE

VII

KISMET

QUIET, my heart! My brain must be

Untroubled by your anxious pain.

I must be laboring patiently

To-day, to-morrow, oft again.

Quiet, my heart, by day, for night
Shakes me with all your wild affright.

Let Lois live, though crippled sore
For life. O God, incline, I pray,
Thy will to this which I implore !
And let me earn our bread each day!

Quiet, my heart, — thy terror lies!

It cannot be that Lois dies!

VIII

HEPATICAS

(THE NEXT APRIL)

Lois, alone I Ve walked the way

By Talking Brook to Fairy Falls

We trod a year ago to-day.

And did you hear such bluebird calls ?
And is the April green as fresh ?
And sings our Brook its cheery tune?

Yes, Darling, and the frogs enmesh

Again such magic in their croon

That you seemed listening with me there.
And where the farmstead buildings stand
Dwell still the Man and Dog who were
So angry first, and then so bland?

Dear Dove, the Dog came barking wild,
124

CUPID IN THE OFFICE

The greybeard roared him on in rage
Just as when you their wrath beguiled.
How fond you dream I did assuage
That angry pair, who perhaps advanced
Half joking at our trespassing.
To-day a thing more touching chanced ; —
For when I cried, "This day last Spring
You bade Miss Lois 'come again'" —
Oh, did that man remember still,
And for my sake was once more fain
To let you search for -flowers his hill?
Lois — he left his plough awhile
To pluck for you this bunch of bloom. —
"Tell her," he said, "I loved her smile."

The dear old man ! How rare my -room
With fair hepaticas ! Dear you !
You went so far to bring me these!
That gladsome voice I never knew
To flinch in all her agonies.

IX

FLOWN

TO-DAY our Office friends declare, —
"Fate gave to her a hopeless part,
And wondous was her pluck to bear
So long that knowledge at her heart.
Stretched straining on the rack of pain
She dwelt, it seemed, as one in bliss,
Yet who that knew her lot is fain
To weep that she has peace like this ? "

But they, whose faithful hearts believed
They knew her lot, were never told
How strong her valorous soul conceived
That happy was her fate controlled.
125

CUPID IN THE OFFICE

Last night she told me, — "Though I lay
Withdrawn by bodily pangs from mirth,
There could not be a lovelier way
To live than you made mine on earth.
Your love was summer's bloom and leaf,
It tranced my narrow strip of blue,
It touched my cheeks in zephyrs brief
That purely strengthened me anew;
It haloed City cloud and hill.
From clanging streets it fashioned song,
And when Night's pealing chimes fell still
Its murmuring music trembled long.
Oh, love, you were my halcyon calm,
You were my mystic chrism that blest,
And your dear arms the lulling balm
That soothes me now to thankful rest."

ENSHRINED

SINCE Lois died the tyrant Sun
Drags haggard in his orbit bound
This puppet Earth, whose seasons run
For me an aimless, wasted round.

Incessantly I think to die,
Nor ever doubt that Death is Peace,
And many an hour I ponder why
My soul desists from her release.

I do not dread the crash of pain
For one loud moment at the close,
Nor shrink to taste the slow, inane,
Pervasive opiate's repose.

126

CUPID IN THE OFFICE

But in my saddest trances still
Her steadfast soul upholdeth mine
To endure till it be Nature's will
My heart shall cease to be her shrine.

127

THE BAD YEAR

THE BAD YEAR

MAY, blighted by keen frosts, passed on to June;
No blooms, but many a stalk with drooping leaves,
And arid Summer wilted these full soon,
And Autumn gathered up no wealthy sheaves;
Plaintive October saddened for the year,
But wild November raged that hope was past,
Shrieking, "All days of life are made how drear —
Wild whirls of snow! and Death comes driving fast."
Yet sane December when the winds fell low,
And cold calm light with sunshine tinkled clear,
Harkened to bells more sweet than long ago,
And meditated in a mind sincere : —

"Beneath these snows shining from yon red west

How sleep the blooms of some delighted May,
And June shall riot, lovely as the best

That flung their odors forth on all their way;
Yes, violet Spring, the balms of her soft breath,
Her birdlike voice, the child-joy in her air,

Her gentle colors " — sane December saith
"They come, they come — O heart, sigh not 'They were/

128

TO THEODORE ROOSEVELT

(ON HIS DEPARTURE FOR AFRICA)

SHALL we to great Deliverers be blind
If they within our sight have daily wrought ?
Must we forever cast our gaze behind,
Praising the past immortals of our kind,
And to our present heroes grudging aught ?
Shall we lament that now no Hercules
Clubs down oppressors, and the people frees ?
We, who have seen one valiant soul alone
Fronting the banded pirates of the State,
Renewing millions in a hope long flown,
Rousing his Nation to a heart elate.

There was no man bent faithful to his work
In all the Land but deemed this man his friend ;
No woman did her natural duties shirk
But felt his scorn within her conscience irk;
No losel knave but longed to see an end

Of him who, Samson strong, smote every foe
That, guileful, gathered gain from public woe.
This man gave such example in high seat
That nevermore a President dares gaze
Gently on those who shivered while his feet
Trod in the righteous ruthlessness which slays.

Sought ye the Lord's anointed mid the Kings
Enthroned in pomp barbaric and outworn,
Entinselled, millinered, bedizened things
Pranked out as butterflies of peacocked wings,
Or gaudy poppies in the useful corn ?

Go seek mid them who do, like him, oppose
129

TO THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Their strength in equal fight with equal foes
Where Worth can summon Friendship to its side,
Can help the piteous Weak, can smite the Base,
Can spurn the flauntings of a gewgaw pride,
Effeminate Pleasure's cunning lures deride,
And, Godlike laboring, animate the Race.

Let cynic drollards fling the easy jeer
At him who by mysterious Fate's uplift
Received anointment true, when chose to steer,
Watchful, enduring, staunch from year to year,
The Ship of Freedom's Hope from anxious drift.
He is no paragon of virtues mild,
No meek Academy's precisian child;
Hot indignation gives him tones that ring
As steely mallet battering iron thing, —
But, oh, his strokes befit a Man of men!
And long may we desire his like again.
Go to the lions — safe thou shalt return —
No martyr soul in thee confronts their frown —
'T is for thy homebound ship that we shall yearn ;
Ephesian beasts may then again discern
God's hammer smashing their defences down.

130

TRANSLATIONS

GASTIBELZAH
GASTIBELZAH

FROM THE FRENCH OF VICTOR HUGO
(Guitare)

GASTIBELZAH who bore the carabine

Was wont to sing:
** Did any of you people know Sabine

Who are listening ?
Dance, villagers, and sing, dusk settles nigh

Phalou again.
The wind that blows across the mountain sky

Will craze my brain.

"Does any one remember fair Sabine,

My senora ?
Her mother was the wrinkled maugrabine

Of Antigra,
Who from the tower screamed down her owlish cry

At evening's wane.
The wind that blows across the mountain sky

Will craze my brain.

"Dancing and singing! All such pleasant things

We ought to prize.
Sabine was young, and happiness had springs

In her clear eyes.
They'd make you think. [Old beggar, catch! I shy

You coppers twain.]
The wind that blows across the mountain sky

Will craze my brain.

"Truly, the Queen herself would beauty lack

Beside Sabine,

Crossing Toledo's bridge in bodice black
At fall of e'en;

'33

GASTIBELZAH

Beads of the time of Charlemagne supply

Her necklet skein.
The wind that blows across the mountain sky

Will craze my brain.

"The King, on seeing her so lovely, said —

'O nephew dear,
To win one kiss, one ringlet of her head,

One smile — right here,
Don Ruiz, Prince, I'd put my kingdoms by,

Peru and Spain!'
The wind that blows across the mountain sky

Will craze my brain.

"I know not if I loved that lady, though

I know full well,
Poor dog, to gain one loving look, I'd go

And gladly dwell
Ten mortal years a galley slave to lie

With ball and chain.
The wind that blows across the mountain sky

Will craze my brain.

"One summer day, when all was life and gleam

And tenderness,
She and her sister played about the stream

In half undress —
The girlish foot, the knee — I could descry

Each tiny vein.
The wind that blows across the mountain sky

Will craze my brain.

"When I, of old the herdsman of this place,

Beheld the maid,
I deemed I saw sweet Cleopatra's grace,

Who once, Jt is said,
Led Caesar, Emperor of Germany,
Her haltered swain.
'34

GASTIBELZAH

The wind that blows across the mountain sky
Will craze my brain.

"Dance, villagers, and sing — night glooms above —

Sabine, one day,
Sold all her spotless beauty of a dove,

Cast love away,
For golden rings, for gawds, she took the tie

Of Count Saldagne.
The wind that blows across the mountain sky

Will craze my brain.

"On this old bench I beg you let me lean,

I 'm tired sore • —
Well, then — she fled with Count Saldagne — I Ve seen

Her nevermore.
She took the road I know not where, to fly

Beyond Cerdagne.
The wind that blows across the mountain sky

Will craze my brain.

"I saw her pass my hut, and that was all,

One moment brief,
But now I see her every hour, and fall

To wearier grief —
Idle, my dirk hung up, with dreaming eye,

I roam the plain.
The wind that blows across the mountain sky

Has crazed my brain."

135

O CANADA, MON PAYS, MES AMOURS
O CANADA, MON PAYS, MES AMOURS

FROM THE FRENCH OF SIR GEORGE ETIENNE CARTIER

No Land so fair as one's own Land,"
Is what the good old adage says;
By that and custom, too, I stand
To sing to-day my country's praise.
The stranger sees with envious eyes
St. Lawrence' tide majestic roll,
Gazing, the proud Canadian cries,
O Canada, my Land, my Soul!

What purling brooks by meadows wide
In myriads thrid our fertile plains ;
How rise aloft the hills of pride
We see afar in ranging chains;
Chutes, rapids, valleys, forest brakes —
Where can more noble scenes unroll,
Who fail to love thy limpid lakes ?
0 Canada, my Land, my Soul !

Each country boasts its ladies fair
(I quite believe with reason, too),
But our Canadian girls, I swear,
In charm can be surpassed by few.
So cheerful they, and so sincere,
Yet, of the French coquettish role
They've just enough to make them dear, —
O Canada, my Land, my Soul!

Canadians, sons of merry sires,
They love the laugh, are gay and free,
Warm glow their hospitable fires,
Quick, brave and mild and mannerly;
136

O CANADA, MON PAYS, MES AMOURS

To Country ever staunchly leal,
Due freedom is our patriot goal,
Our watchword still the peace, the weal
Of Canada, our Land, our Soul ! 1

1 Carder's third and fourth verses have been here transposed.

137

TO BRITTANY

TO BRITTANY

FROM THE FRENCH OF W. CHAPMAN

I NEVER trod thy cliffs' aspiring height,
Nor saw thy pines their golden balsam store,
Nor watched thy balanced shallops winging white,
Yet, Breton land, I love thee evermore.

My love is strong as thy old oaks at core,

Toward them my heart is often taking flight,

Because we hold, throughout our land, a right

In that pure blood which through thy veins doth pour.

Yes, thee I love with ancient memories —

Thy reeds, thy heaths where Druid work endures,

Thy storied people and thy shore-beat seas.

And when returning May with balm allures,

I dream the murmurous evening's eastern breeze

Brings airs of perfume vaguely from thy moors.

1 Mr. W. Chapman, the French-Canadian poet, is son to an English father
and a French mother. He was crowned by the Academy of France for his noble
volume Les Aspirations. Mr. Chapman, to whom both English and French are
mother-tongues, has graciously approved this and the following translations from
his verses.

138

MOTHER AND CHILD
MOTHER AND CHILD

(OLD FRANCE AND NEW)
W. CHAPMAN

FROM old America our fathers, wending
Over strange seas to solitudes unknown,
Wrought centuries Homeric ere the ending
On Abram's Plains beheld them overthrown.

By famine weakened and by numbers stricken,
Vainly they called to Louis' deafened ears;
Wantons alone could that base Wanton quicken,
And our last hope went down in blood and tears.

Conquered ? Oh, yes — the victors find us loyal
To oaths recorded, — but our hearts go free,
They yearn across the deep with love as royal
As ever heroes gave, O France, to thee.

Despite neglect the true-born child must cherish
Ever the mother, though she walked astray;
The duty of his soul can never perish,
Nor cease from hope to make her glad some day.

Never by force the filial bond is riven : —
Because thy bosom to our lips did thrill,
Because thy blood throughout our veins is driven,
Because that Thou art France we love thee still.

Little it matter if neglect or distance
Hide us from her, as ocean fogs immense;
Ever her forehead's glorious persistence
Sublimely lifts a radiance intense.

139

MOTHER AND CHILD

It lightens round the World a beamy pleasure.
And, 'spite fierce thunderclaps that ominous roll
From dark events, we hear the racy measure
Of her fine humors freshening Man's soul.

More sweetly fall her accents than the murmur
Of wakening birds saluting morning clear,
Her charming tones could come to us no firmer
Were the beloved lips against our ear.

Ever she glowed aloft, a brilliant vision
Enchanting Europe, even when Fates unkind
And Teuton victors voiced a vain derision,
Deeming her star eternally declined.

Though then the blind and shame-forgetting neighbor

Spat on her brow, insulting all her woe,

We saw her rise portending over Tabor

In splendor clearer than her Past could show.

Thou art, O France, to us the fertile Mother,
From whom the World an endless thirst allays;
Thou art the eye, more piercing than all other,
Scanning through mists of Time Man's coming days ;

The Head that guides The Future's ship to haven;
The Hand that turns the mighty volume's page,
Whereon The Ideal's characters are graven
To inspire the human soul from Age to Age.

Behold, an hundred years have long been ended
Since vanquished France her weeping child forsook ;
To Manhood's strength the babe has far ascended,
His origin august beams in his look.

Wealthy and proud and free, by hardy training
In iron contests conquering adverse Fate,

140

MOTHER AND CHILD

Fighting enormous forests, slowly gaining,
To Progress all his energies vibrate.

Superbly laboring, Founder and Creator,

Soldier, Apostle, valorous Pioneer,

From Arctic solitudes to thronged Equator

His furrowing keels plough down the arduous year.

Unsullied gleams his path when back he glances,
He eyes the morning, brave his youthful stride,
On trails of living light his course advances ;
Henceforth the Child may claim the Mother's pride.

141

TO MY TWO MOTHERS
TO MY TWO MOTHERS

W. CHAPMAN
On his First Visit to France

MOTHER, my book I carry, before 't is wholly done,

To the mound where thou dost tarry beneath the grass and

sun;

Mother, I bring devotion; a bird sings clear to-day;
Dost thou feel, in my step, emotion of the perfume of the

May?

Mother, dost thou in slumbers my accents comprehend ?
Before I give my numbers to the Heights I would ascend,
I come to thee, to render the verses that I wreathe, —
Surely you listen tender, surely you see me breathe.

Mother, remove a minute the shroud that hides thy face,
The beams that shone within it illumed my path with grace ;
Unclose thine eyes ; thy finger may search my written sheaves,
Thy touch, where'er it linger, find naught that stains the
leaves.

Though strong with all my spirit my verse hath been out-
poured,

No Innocent need fear it, for I have feared the Lord ;
My work was sometimes written with midnight tapers by,
But nearly all was litten from the great blue shining sky.

In solitude I labored a book austere and chaste,

For Christ I wrought unneighbored, His truth my spirit

braced,

Ever thy soul was ringing in mine a holy sound,
That fashioned all my singing in probity profound.

142

TO MY TWO MOTHERS

I sing for Art all purely, I sing for holy fanes,
Though lost in deafness surely an evil time remains;
I sing the notes supernal our history awoke,
My chants of deeds eternal the ancestors evoke.

I boast with pride the glories that deck our native earth, —
Thou, artist soul, thy stories so taught me from my birth;
I boast th* imperial mazes where shadowy forests rise,
And sing what pureness gazes from Winter's sparkling eyes.

Vanquished and victors, fairly I deal to each their meed;
Smiles I profess but rarely, and many tears I plead,
To aid of souls in trouble my lyric music starts,
And often I knock double upon the doors of hearts.

If in my poems truly I set what pleaseth thee,

Then, mother, kiss them duly, — yea, stoop to blessing

me,

That they may live forever, and tell to future days
How I adore thee ever, Oh, mother of my praise !

II

And thou, my mother nation, hear'st thou my accents bless,
Across the Sea's elation that springtime airs caress ? —
I come to tread the flowers of thy enchanting ways,
And quaff the sparkling showers of Art thy fountains raise.

France that I ever cherish, whose name my heart reveres,
Remote my voice might perish, failing to reach thine

ears;

I cross the barrier ocean, a thrall to thy renown.
Bearing my book's devotion, to lay the tribute down.

In worship have I striven to celebrate thy pride,
Exalt the triumphs given to spread thy fame world-wide,
The holy works enacted thy forceful zeal to prove,
For Jesus' sake exacted, and human nature's love.

TO MY TWO MOTHERS

I lack the lute all golden thy bards, O France, possess,
Their speech sonorous, olden, of piercing tenderness ; —
Indulge my rustic chaunting, upon my knees I crave,
Forgive me all that's wanting, and all that pleaseth save.

My singing is the singing that trembles all sincere
From artless worship ringing in holy places dear;
It is the singing river, it is the singing breeze,
It is the songbirds' quiver to the Maker of the trees.

If gold be gleaming surely within my mass of ore,
I might not work it purely though I wrought forevermore,
And the humble poet merits nothing, save that he has sung
With the passion he inherits for the glory of thy tongue.

In my pages, if thou readest, there is proof shall glad thy

heart,
That the children whom thou breedest, though by oceans set

apart,

While thy vital sap preserving in a world so far from thee,
O my France, are never swerving from thy sacred memory.

Despite the victors' ruling, and despite the blow of Fate,
Mother, we make no puling, and our patient hearts are great ;
By the green St. Lawrence River, with the English flag above,
Oh, forever and forever thy children give thee love.

144

AUTUMN SONG
AUTUMN SONG

ACHILLE FRECHETTE

AWAY, ye vain numberless shadows, unsplendid,
Unperfumed, uncolored, mid which my life wended !
Now the gloom of my dream is illumed by her beauty,

Her heart-stirring beauty.

'Neath murky gray skies trailed my heavy-foot hours
On into the bleakness where evening lowers;
To my travail she came with the cheer of her joyance,

Her spirit and joyance.

Fruits fallen, nests vacant, and meadows in stubble,
My path ever hardened by cold airs above;
Oh, the long arid days I went lonely in trouble,
Till the thirst of my heart was allayed by her love,

The wine of her love.

Late flowers, breathe fragrance! Oh, branches rejoicing
With birds that again come alighting in bliss.
Dear creatures, their anthems a thousand times voicing
My joy that she blesses my lips with her kiss,

Her lips and her kiss!

TO CANADA

TO CANADA1

FROM THE SCLAVONIC

0 FREE and fresh-home Canada ! Can we,
Born far o'er-seas, call thee our country dear ?

1 know not whence nor how that right may be
Gained through but sharing blessings year by year.

We were not reared within thy broad domains,
Our parents' graves and corpses lie afar ;
They did not fall for Freedom on thy plains,
Nor we win Victory beneath thy star.

Yet have we Liberty from sea to sea;
Frankly and true you gave us Manhood's share,
We who, like wandering birds, flew hopefully
To gather grain upon thy acres fair.

We swarmed from ancient worlds by wrong opprest,
Many as ants, to scatter on thy land,
Each to the place you gave, aided and blest
And freed from fear of Kings and Nobles grand.

And are you not, O Canada, our own ?
Nay, we are still but holders of thy soil, —
We have not earned by sacrifice and groan
The right to boast the country where we toil.

But, Canada, our hearts are thine till death,
Our children shall be free to call thee theirs,
Their own dear land where, gladly drawing breath,
Their parents found safe homes, and left strong heirs

1 The original is by Michael Gowda, a Galician of Edmonton, Alberta, who
furnished an English prose translation here versified. " Fresh-home " is Mr. Gow-
da's own happy adjective.

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TO CANADA

Of homes, and native freedom, and the heart
To live and strive and die, if need there be,
In standing manfully by honor's part •
To guard the country that has made us free.

They shall as brothers be to all the rest,

Yet proud to own the blood from which they sprang,

True to their Fathers' creed, and His behest,

For whom the bells of yester Christmas rang.

CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
U . S . A

O

Q

Ul

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