BOUGHT wrTH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF 1891 ij.I .L:^.^h_ha„, ^fe].n. Cornell University Library PR 9195.25.G24 Canadian poets and poetry; 3 1924 006 558 039 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924006558039 CANADIAN POETS AND POETRY CANADIAN POETS AND POETRY Chosen and Edited by JOHN W. GARVIN. B. A., Editor of ' The Collected Poena of Isabella Valancy Ctoaafotd ' NEW YORK FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY PUBLISHERS S Copyright Canada, 1916 McClelland, goodchild & stewart, limited Toronto PRINTED IN CANADA Editor's Foreword ALMOST simultaneously with the Great War, has come a renaissance of Poetry, which is significant of that law of balance by which the heart turns instinctively from the terror and confusion of devastating human emotion, to the purity of a clearer and serener air. Poetry, at its height, implies beauty and the driving force of passion. It implies also the austerity and emotional restraint which means spiritual strength, and it is, primarily, to the inherent strength of this Art which faces and pictures the truth in nature and human nature, that the people have turned in times past and will turn in times to come. This volume contains brief but incliisive records of fifty men and women to whom song has come first. Many of their poems are indigenous to the soil, — vitally, healthfully Can- adian; others are tinged with the legendary and mythical lore of older lands ; but all are of Canada, inasmuch as the writers have lived in this country, and have been influenced by its history and atmosphere at a formative period of their lives. Among them, one ventures to think, there are world voices. A recent reading of the published verse of Bliss Carman, has convinced me that he must soon be more widely recog- nized as a poet of preeminent genius. He is greater than some of more extended fame for the reason that his poetry expresses a nobler and more comprehensive philosophy of life and being. Bliss Carman has achieved more greatly than many others of this generation, because he has realized more fully than they that the Infinite Poet is constsmtly and eternally seeking media for expression, and that the function of a finite poet is to steadily improve the instrument, to keep it expectantly in tune, and to record the masterpieces. It seems strange to look back upon the time — thirty-three years ago — when a successful Ontario educator felt justified in the statement that Canada had no national literature worthy of the name, and never would have until the country became an independent nation, — with no shackling colonial ties. At the very moment that such a declaration and prophecy was made, Roberts had begun his brilliant career as a writer, [5] Editor's Foreword Isabella Valancy Crawford was preparing for publication Old Spookses' Pass, Malcolm's Katie, and Other Poems, Charles Mair was thinking out the construction of his great drama, Tecumseh, and Lampman, Campbell, the two Scotts, Seranus and Bliss Carman were ambitiously fingering the chords. And to-day Canadians have no doubt of their national independence, are prouder than ever of their integral position in the British Empire, and have a school of verse, characterized by freshness, spontaneity, originality of theme and good artistry, that would reflect distinction on the literary genius of any civilized people. The criticism that "most of the poetry of our day seems to have buried itself in obscurity," is not applicable to the verse of Canada. Even though much of it is highly imagina- tive and descriptive and sometimes profoundly reflective, the work of Canadian poets is exceptionally free of obscurity, or carelessness in artistic utterance. Love of Nature has been their chief source of inspiration; but themes based on love of humanity and man's kinship with the Infinite Life, have steadily gained of late in number and potency, and the Great War must necessarily arouse a more intense interest in human and divine relationships. About thirty of the articles in this volume, — revised and im- proved for book publication — ^have appeared during the last three years in the Public Health Journal, of Toronto. My thanks are due to the poets and the critics who have so graciously facilitated the preparation of this volume, and to the following owners of copyrights : the living poets includ- ed; Mrs. W. H. Drummond; McClelland, Goodchild & Stewart, Toronto ; J. M. Dent & Sons, Toronto ; S. B. Gimdy, Toronto ; The Globe Printing Company, Toronto ; The Metho- dist Book and Publishing House, Toronto ; Mitchell Kennedy, New York; Small, Maynard & Company, Boston; The Mus- son Book Company, Toronto; Sherman, French & Company, Boston; Little, Brown & Co., Boston; G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London; The Copp, Clark Co., Limited, Toronto; Morang & Co., Toronto; Canadian Magazine; Windsor Magazine; Atlantic Monthly; Metropolitan Maga- zine ; University Magazine and Poetry. Toronto, Canada, ^ November U,. 9,6. MAu^J^.,,,^,^ Contents PAGE Editor's Foreword . . . . 5 Charles Sangster . . . .9 Charles Mair . . . .19 Isabella Valancy Crawford . . .33 Charles G. D. Roberts ... 47 Archibald Lampman . . . .61 Frederick George Scott . . .75 Wilfred Campbell . . . .87 George Frederick Cameron . . . 101 Bliss Carman . . . .109 S. Frances Harrison . . . 123 Duncan Campbell Scott .... 133 E. Pauline Johnson .... 145 E. W. Thomson . . . .157 Ethelwyn Wetherald . . .167 William Henry Drummond . . .177 Jean Blewett . . . .189 Arthur Wentworth Hamilton Eaton . . 197 Helena Coleman .... 205 Thomas O'Hagan . . . .213 Elizabeth Roberts MacDonald . . 221 Albert D. Watson . . . .227 Isabel Ecclestone Mackay . . 237 Tom Mclnnes ..... 247 Helen M. Merrill . . .259 [71 Contents PAGE Dr. J. D. Logan . . . .265 Annie Campbell Huestis . . . 273 Alan Sullivan . . . , .281 Alma Frances McCollum . . . 289 Peter McArthur . . . .295 Marjorie L. C. Pickthall . . .305 Arthur Stringer . . . .313 Katherine Hale . ... . 323 Robert Norwood .... 331 Marian Osborne .... 341 Albert E. S. Smythe . . ' . . .347 L. M. Montgomery .... 353 Robert W. Service . . . .359 Florence Randal Livesay . . . 371 Theodore Goodridge Roberts . . . 377 Grace Blackburn .... 383 George A. Mackenzie .... 389 Gertude Bartlett . , . . .395 William E. Marshall . . . .399 Norah M. Holland . . . .407 Father Bollard . . . .413 Laura E. McCully . . . .421 Lloyd Roberts . . . . " . 429 Beatrice Redpath .... 437 Alfred Gordon . . . . .443 Virna Sheard . . . .451 J. Edgar Middleton . . . .459 Arthur S. Bourinot .... 463 Index ..... 467 CANADIAN POETS Charles Sangster To him belongs the honour of being the first poet who made appreciative use of Canadian subjects in his poetical work. . . . Though many defects may be found in his first volume, indicating undue haste in preparation and over-con- fidence on the part of the author, yet fine rhythm and spirit are often met with This volume established his posi- tion as a poet of no common power, which was freely accorded him by writers in Britain, in the United States and in Canada. The lyric to 'The Isles in the St. Lawrence' is much admired, and also 'The Rapid' The second volume is not open to the same objections. The poems are more highly finished and show greater skill and care in the poetic art. Mr. Sangster is at his best, perhaps, in his martial pieces, such as 'Brock,' 'Wolfe,' 'Song for Canada,' etc He had a passionate love for nature; but his grand, theme was love — the noblest of themes. — ARCHIBAI.D MacMurchy, M.A., LL.D. [9] 10 Charles Sangster CHARLES SANGSTER was bom at the Navy Yard, Point Frederick, Kingston, Ontario, on the 16th of July, 1822. He was the son of a joiner in the British Navy, and the grandson of a United Empire Loyalist, a Scotch soldier who had fought in the American Revolution. Charles was but two years old when his father died; and when he was but fifteen years of age he retired from school to assist his mother in providing for the family. He found work, first, in the naval laboratory at Fort Henry ; and, second, in a subordinate position in the Ordnance Office, Kingston, which he held for several years. It was during this period that he began to contribute both prose and verse to the public journals. In 1849, he was appointed editor of the Courier in Amherstburg, and went there to reside ; but, the following year, resigned and returned to Kingston, where he joined the staff of the Whig. Subse- quently, in 1864, the Daily News of the same city engaged his services. It was during his journalistic career in the 'Limestone City' that he accomplished his best Hterary work. His first volume, The St. Lawrence and the Saguenay, and Other Poems, appeared in 1856, published by subscription; and his second, Hesperus, and Other Poems and Lyrics, in 1860. When forty-six years of age he accepted a position in the Post-Office Department at Ottawa, where his poetic energy and ambition succumbed, apparently, to the incessant drudgery and to the hampering cares of ill-paid employment. Sangster was a poet born, but his literary genius was handi- capped by his elementary education and limited reading'. For his opportunities, he achieved notably. He died in 1893. Sonnet 1SAT within the temple of her heart, And watched the living Soul as it passed through, Arrayed in pearly vestments, white and pure. The calm, immortal presence made me start. It searched through all the chambers of her mind With one mild glance of love, and smiled to view The fastnesses of feeling, strong, secure, And safe from all surprise. It sits enshrined Charles Sangster H And offers incense in her heart, as on An altar sacred unto God. The dawn Of an imperishable love passed through The lattice of my senses, and I, too, Did offer incense in that solemn place — A woman's heart made pure and sanctified by grace. Lyric to the Isles HERE the spirit of Beauty keepeth Jubilee for evermore; Here the voice of Gladness leapeth. Echoing from shore to shore. O'er the hidden watery valley. O'er each buried wood and glade. Dances our delighted galley. Through the sunlight and the shade; Dances o'er the granite cells, Where the soul of Beauty dwells ; Here the flowers are ever springing, While the summer breezes blow; Here the Hours are ever clinging, Loitering before they go; Playing round each beauteous islet. Loath to leave the sunny shore, Where, upon her couch of violet. Beauty sits for evermore; Sits and smiles by day and night, Hand in hand with pure Delight. Here the spirit of Beauty dwelleth In each palpitating tree, In each amber wave that welleth From its home beneath the sea; In the moss upon the granite In each calm, secluded bay, With the zephyr trains that fan it With their sweet breaths all the. day — On the waters, on the shore, Beauty dwelleth evermore! 12 Charles Sangster The Soldiers of the Plough NO maiden dream, nor fancy theme. Brown Labour's muse would sing; Her stately mien and russet sheen Demand a stronger wing. Long ages since, the sage, the prince. The man of lordly brow. All honour gave that army brave. The Soldiers of the Plough. Kind Heaven speed the plough, And bless the hands that guide it! God gives the seed — The bread we need, Man's labour must provide it. In every land, the toiling hand Is blest as it deserves; Not so the race who, in disgrace. From honest labour swerves. From fairest bowers bring rarest flowers To deck the swarthy brow Of him whose toil improves the soil, — The Soldier of the Plough. Kind Heaven speed the plough, And bless the hands that guide it! God gives the seed — The bread we need, Man's labour must provide it. Blest is his lot, in hall or cot. Who lives as Nature wills, Who pours his com from Ceres' horn, And quaffs his native rills; No breeze that sweeps trade's stormy deeps Can touch his golden prow. Their foes are few, their lives are true. The Soldiers of the Plough. Kind Heaven speed the plough. And bless the hands that guide it ! God gives the seed — The bread we need, Man's labour must provide it. Charles Sangster 13 Harvest Hymn GOD of the Harvest, Thou, whose sun Has ripened all the golden grain. We bless Thee for Thy bounteous store. The cup of Plenty running o'er. The sunshine and the rain! The year laughs out for very joy, Its silver treble echoing Like a sweet anthem through the woods. Till mellowed by the solitudes It folds its glossy wing. But our united voices blend From day to day unweariedly; Sure as the sun rolls up the morn. Or twilight from the eve is born. Our song ascends to Thee. Where'er the various-tinted woods, In all their autumn splendour dressed. Impart their gold and purple dyes To distant hills and farthest skies Along the crimson west: Across the smooth, extended plain, By rushing stream and broad lagoon, On shady height and sunny dale, Wherever scuds the balmy gale Or gleams the autumn moon: From inland seas of yellow grain, Where cheerful Labour, heaven-blest. With willing hands and keen-edged scythe. And accents musically blythe, Reveals its lordly crest: From clover-fields and meadows wide. Where moves the richly-laden wain To barns well-stored with new-made hay, Or where the flail at early day Rolls out the ripened grain: 1* Charles Sangster From meads and pastures on the hills And in the mountain valleys deep. Alive with beeves and sweet-breathed kine Of famous Ayr or Devon's line And shepherd-guarded sheep: The spirits of the golden year, From crystal caves and grottoes dim, From forest depths and mossy sward, Myriad-tongued, with one accord Peal forth their harvest hymn. I The Rapid ALL, peacefully gliding, The waters dividing. The indolent batteau moved slowly along, The rowers, light-hearted. From sorrow long parted. Beguiled the dull moments with laughter and song : 'Hurrah for the rapid that merrily, merrily Gambols and leaps on its tortuous way! Soon we will enter it, cheerily, cheerily, Pleased with its freshness, and wet with its spray.' More swiftly careering, The wild rapid nearing. They dash down the stream like a terrified steed ; The surges delight them. No terrors affright them. Their voices keep pace with the quickening speed : 'Hurrah for the rapid that merrily, merrily Shivers its arrows against us in play! Now we have entered it, cheerily, cheerily. Our spirits as light as its feathery spray.' Fast downward they're dashing, Each fearless eye flashing. Though danger awaits them on every side. Yon rock — see it frowning! They strike — they are drowning! Charles Sangster 15 But downward they speed with the merciless tide; No voice cheers the rapid, that angrily, angrily Shivers their bark in its maddening play; Gaily they entered it— heedlessly, recklessly, Mingling their lives with its treacherous spray! The Wine of Song WITHIN Fancy's halls I sit and quaflf Rich draughts of the wine of Song, And I drink and drink To the very brink Of delirium wild and strong. Till I lose all sense of the outer world And see not the human throng. The lyral diords of each rising thought Are swept by a hand unseen, And I glide and glide , With my music bride. Where few spiritless souls have been; And I soar afar on wings of sound With my fair JEolian queen. Deep, deeper still, from the springs of Thought I qua£f till the fount is dry, And I climb and climb To a height sublime Up the stars of some lyric sky. Where I seem to rise upon airs that melt Into song as they pass by. Millennial rounds of bliss I live. Withdrawn from my cumb'rous clay. As I sweep and sweep Through infinite deep On deep of that starry spray; Myself a sound on its world-wide round, A tone on its spheral way. And wheresoe'er through the wondrous space My soul wings its noiseless flight. 16 Charles Sangster On their astral rounds Float divinest sounds, Unseen, save by spirit-sight. Obeying some wise, eternal law. As fixed as the law of light. But, oh, when my cup of dainty bliss Is drained of the wine of Song, How I fall and fall At the sober call Of the body that waiteth long To hurry me back to its cares terrene, And earth's spiritless human throng! Brock ONE voice, one people, one in heart And soul and feeling and desire. Re-light the smouldering martial fire And sound the mute trumpet! Strike the lyre! The hero dead cannot expire: The dead still play their part. Raise high the monumental stone! A nation's fealty is theirs. And we are the rejoicing heirs. The honoured sons of sires whose cares We take upon us unawares As freely as our own. We boast not of the victory. But render homage, deep and just. To his — to their — immortal dust. Who proved so worthy of their trust; No lofty pile nor sculptured bust Can herald their degree. No tongue can blazon forth their fame — The cheers that stir the sacred hill Are but mere promptings of the will That conquered them, that conquers still; And generations yet shall thrill At Brock's remembered name. Charles Sangster 17 Some souls are the Hesperides Heaven sends to gtiard the golden age, Illumining the historic page With record of their pilgrimage. True martyr, hero, poet, sage, — And he was one of these. Each in his lofty sphere, sublime. Sits crowned above the common throng: Wrestling with some pythonic wrong In prayer, in thunders, thought or song, Briareus-limbed, they sweep along, The Typhons of the time. The Plains of Abraham I STOOD upon the Plain, That had trembled when the slain. Hurled their proud defiant curses at the battle-hearted foe. When the steed dashed right and left Through the bloody gaps he cleft. When the bridle-rein was broken, and the rider was laid low. What busy feet had trod Upon the very sod Where I marshalled the battalions of my fancy to my aid! And I saw the combat dire. Heard the quick, incessant fire, And the cannons' echoes startling the reverberating glade. I saw them one and all, The banners of the Gaul In the thickest of the contest, round the resolute Montcalm; The well-attended Wolfe, Emerging from the gulf Of the battle's fiery furnace, like the swelling of a psalm. I heard the chorus dire. That jarred along the lyre On which the hymn of battle rung, like surgings of the wave When the storm, at blackest night. 18 Charles Sangster Wakes the ocean in affright. As it shouts its mighty pibroch o'er some shipwrecked vessel's grave. I saw the broad claymore Flash from its scabbard, o'er The ranks that quailed and shuddered at the close and fierce attack ; When Victory gave the word, Then Scotland drew the sword. And with arm that never faltered drove the brave defenders back. I saw two great chiefs die. Their last breaths like the sigh Of the zepher-sprite that wantons on the rosy lips of morn; No envy-poisoned darts. No rancour in their hearts. To unfit them for their triumph over death's impending scorn. And as I thought and gazed. My soul, exultant, praised The Power to whom each mighty act and victory are due, For the saint-like Peace that smiled Like a heaven-gifted child, And for the air of quietude that steeped the distant view. The sun looked down with pride, And scattered far and wide His beams of whitest glory till they flooded all the Plain; The hills their veils withdrew, Of white, and purplish blue. And reposed all green and smiling 'neath the shower of golden rain. Ob, rare, divinest life Of Peace, compared with Strife! Yours is the truest splendour, and the most enduring fame; All the glory ever reaped Where the fiends of battle leaped, Is harsh discord to the music of your undertoned acclaim. Charles Mair Charles Mair is the first of our poets of the nature sehool. He might in many senses be called the first Can- adian poet, as his first z'olunie z^'as pnblished in 1868, one year foUoiving Confederation. 'Dreamland' zvas a small volume of one hundred and fifty pages, printed at the Citizen Printing House in Oftazva. The author zvas then in his thirtieth \car. The thirty-three poems eonstitute the first attempt to deal zvith Canadian nature, in the manner of Keats and the other classic poets, and many of them in theme and treatment are similar to the z'erse of Lainpman and Roberts And there are stroiig evidences in Mair's zvork that he influ- enced these poets to a great extent. — A\'ilfre;d Campbell, in the Ottawa 'Journal.' Charles Mair and Isabella Valancx Cmzvford, zvhose best zvork zvas zvritten in the early 80's of last century, zvere the first to raise the standard of Canadian poetry to great)iess, and it is doubtful if their zi'ork has since been out- classed by that of an\ successor. — 'Public Health Tournal' [19], 20 Charles Mair AS Tecumseh — a drama, native to the soil, and still without a successful rival — was published in 1886, and as the same author, by the publication in 1868 of Dreamland and Other Poems, originated our nature school of verse, it seems clear that the poetical work of Charles Mair has a significance in Canadian literature, not yet fully recognized. Charles Mair, son of the late James Mair, a native of Scot- land, one of the pioneers of the old square timber trade in the Ottawa valley, and Margaret (Holmes) Mair, was born in Lanark, Ontario, September, 1838. He was educated at the Perth Grammar School and at Queen's University, King- ston. In 1867, he returned to Queen's College and studied medicine. In the summer of 1868, he was called to Ottawa by the Hon. William McDougall, Minister of Public Works, to prepare a precis of available records in the Parliamentary Library, pertaining to the Hudson's Bay Company's territories and tenure. The following autumn, he was appointed pay- master of the first expedition sent to the North-West by the Canadian Government, its object being to open up an immi- gration route via the Lake of the Woods, and was requested to describe in the press, the prairie country and its inducement to settlers. His correspondence to the Toronto Globe and the Montreal Gazette was widely copied and was potent in in- fluencing western immigration. In Winnipeg, Sept. 8th, 1869, he married Elizabeth Louise, daughter of the late Augustus Mackenney, Amherstburg, Ont., and a niece of Sir John C. Schultz, K.C.M.G. During the first Riel rebellion, 1869-70, Mr. Mair was im- prisoned by the rebels, and until he escaped, his life was in serious danger, but his greatest distress was caused by the loss of valuable manuscripts which he had taken with him to the West, to revise and prepare for publication, and which his memory was unable to restore. This loss and discouragement doubtless had its effect, for his next publication did not appear until 1886. In the mean- time he was engaged in the fur trade at Portage la Prairie and later at Prince Albert until 1883, when he returned to Ontario and resided at Windsor. It was during the next two years that he had leisure to write his great drama. Charles Mair 21 In 1885, when the second Riel rebellion broke out, Mr. Mair promptly enlisted and served as quartermaster in the Governor General's Body Guard, commanded by Col. G. T. Denison. Afterwards he removed to Kelowna, B.C., of which he was one of the founders. Subsequently he joined the Immigra- tion Service at Winnipeg, and several years later, took charge of the Lethbridge Immigration Office and Agency. Thence was removed to Coutts on the Boundary, and was afterwards transferred as relieving officer to Fort Steele, B.C., where he now resides. The Last Bison, an original and virile poem of gripping interest, was written in 1890. In 1901, his collected poems, Tecumseh, a drama, and Canadian Poems, was published; and in 1908, there appeared in prose, his Through the Macken- zie Basin, an important work giving an account of the great Peace River Treaty of 1899, with the Indians of the North, who ceded a territory 800 miles by 400 in length and breadth. Mr. Mair was English Secretary to the Scrip Commission and gave a favourable account of the vast region, since con- firmed by the extensive immigration into that country. The Last Bison EIGHT years have fled since, in the wilderness, I drew the rein to rest my comrade there — My supple, clean-limbed pony of the plains. He was a runner of pure Indian blood. Yet in his eye still gleamed the desert's fire, And form and action both bespoke the Barb. A wondrous creature is the Indian's horse; Degenerate now, but from the 'Centaurs' drawn — The apparitions which dissolved with fear Montezuma's plumed Children of the Sun, And throned rough Cortez in his realm of gold. A gentle vale, with rippling aspens clad. Yet open to the breeze, invited rest. So there I lay, and watched the sun's fierce beams Reverberate in wreathed ethereal flame; Or gazed upon the leaves which buzzed o'erhead, Like tiny wings in simulated flight. 2 22 Charles Mair Within the vale a lakelet, lashed with flowers, Lay like a liquid eye among the hills. Revealing in its depths the fulgent light Of snowy cloud-land and cerulean skies. And rising, falling, fading far around. The homeless and unfurrowed prairies spread In solitude and idleness eterne. And all was silent save the rustling leaf. The gadding insect, or the grebe's lone cry. Or where Saskatchewan, with turbid moan. Deep-sunken in the plain, his torrent poured. Here Loneliness possessed her realm supreme. Her prairies all about her, undeflowered, Pjilsing beneath the summer sun, and sweet With virgin air and waters undefiled. Inviolate still! Bright solitudes, with power To charm the spirit-bruised, where ways are foul. Into forgetfulness of chuckling wrong And all the weary clangour of the world. Yet, Sorrow, too, had here its kindred place. As o'er my spirit swept the sense of change. Here sympathy could sigh o'er man's decay ; For here, but yesterday, the warrior dwelt Whose faded nation had for ages held. In fealty to Nature, these domains. Around me were the relics of his race: The grassy circlets where his village stood. Well-ruled by custom's immemorial law. Along these slopes his happy offspring roved In days gone by, and dusky mothers plied Their summer tasks, or loitered in the shade. Here the magician howled his demons up, And here the lodge of council had its seat. Once resonant with oratory wild. All vanished! perished in the swelling sea And stayless tide of an enroaching power Whose civil fiat, man-devouring still. Will leave, at last, no wilding on the earth To wonder at or love! Charles Mair 23 With them had fled The bison-breed which overflowed the plains, And, undiminished, fed uncounted tribes. Its vestiges were here — its wallows, paths, And skulls and shining ribs and vertebrae: Gray bones of monarchs from the herds, perchance. Descended, by De Vaca first beheld, Or Coronada, in mad quest of gold. Here hosts had had their home; here had they roamed. Endless and infinite — vast herds which seemed Exhaustless as the sea. All vanished now ! Of that wild tumult not a hoof remained To scour the countless paths where myriads trod. Long had I lain 'twixt dreams and waking, thus, Musing on change and mutability. And endless evanescence, when a burst Of sudden roaring filled the vale with sound. Perplexed and startled, to my feet I sprang. And in amazement from my covert gazed. For, presently, into the valley came A mighty bison, which, with stately tread And gleaming eyes, descended to the shore. Spell-bound I stood. Was this a living form, Or but an image by the fancy drawn? But no — he breathed! and from a wound blood flowed, And trickled with the frothing from his lips. Uneasily he gazed, yet saw me not. Haply concealed; then, with a roar so loud That all the echoes rent their valley-horns. He stood and listened'; but no voice replied! Deeply he drank, then lashed his quivering flanks. And roared again, and hearkened, but no sound, No tongue congenial answered to his call — He was the last survivor of his clan! Huge was his frame! the famed Burdash, so grown To that enormous bulk whose presence filled The very vale with awe. His shining horns Gleamed black amidst his fell of floating hair— His neck and shoulders, of the lion's build. 24 Charles Mair Were framed to toss the world. Now stood he there And stared, with head uplifted, at the skies, Slow-jaelding to his deep and mortal wound. He seemed to pour his mighty spirit out As thus he gazed, till my own spirit burned, And teeming fancy, charmed and overwrought By all the wildering glamour of the scene, Gave to that glorious attitude a voice, And, rapt, endowed the noble beast with song. The Song Here me, ye smokeless skies and grass-green earth, Since by your sufferance still I breathe and live! Through you fond Nature gave me birth, And food and freedom — all she had to give. Enough! I grew, and with my kindred ranged Their realm stupendous, changeless and unchanged, Save by the toil of nations primitive. Who throve on us, and loved our life-stream's roar, And lived beside its wave, and camped upon its shore. They loved us, and they wasted not. They slew, With pious hand, but for their daily need; Not wantonly, but as the due Of stem necessity which Life doth breed. Yea, even as earth gave us herbage meet, So yielded We, in turn, our substance sweet To quit the claims of hunger, not of greed. So stood it with us that what either did Could not be on the earth foregone, nor Heaven forbid. And, so companioned in the blameless strife Enjoined upon all creatures, small and great. Our ways were venial, and our life Ended in fair fulfilment of our -fate. No gold to them by sordid hands was passed; No greedy herdsman housed us from the blast; Ours was the liberty of regions rife In winter's snow, in summer's fruits and flowers — Ours were the virgin prairies, and their rapture ours I Charles Mair 25 So fared it with us both; yea, thus it stood In all our wanderings from place to place, Until the red man mixed his blood With paler currents. Then arose a race — The reckless hunters of the plains — who vied In wanton slaughter for the tongue and hide, To satisfy vain ends and longings base. This grew; and yet we flourished, and our name Prospered until the pale destroyer's concourse came. Then fell a double terror on the plains, The swift inspreading of destruction dire — Strange men, who ravaged our domains On every hand, and ringed us round with fire; Pale enemies who slew with equal mirth The harmless or the hurtful things of earth, In dead fruition of their mad desire: The ministers of mischief and of might. Who yearn for havoc as the world's supreme delight. So waned the myriads which had waxed before When subject to the simple needs of men. As yields to eating seas the shore. So yielded our vast multitude, and then — It scattered! Meagre bands, in wild dismay. Were parted and, for shelter, fled away To barren wastes, to mountain gorge and glen. A respite brief from stern pursuit and care. For still the spoiler sought, and still he slew us there. Hear me, thou grass-green earth, ye smokeless skies. Since by your sufferance still I breathe and live! The charity which man denies Ye still would tender to the fugitive! I feel your mercy in my veins — at len^h My heart revives, and strengthens withj your strength- Too late, too late, the courage ye would^ive ! Naught can avail these wounds, this failing breath. This frame which feels, at last, the wily touch of death. Here must the last of all his kindred fall; Yet, midst these gathering shadows, ere I die — 26 Charles Mair Responsive to an inward call, My spirit fain would rise and prophesy. I see our spoilers build their cities great Upon our plains — I see their rich estate: The centuries in dim procession fly! Long ages roll, and then at length is bared The time when they who spared not are no longer spared. Once more my vision sweeps the prairies wide, But now no peopled cities greet the sight; All perished, now, their pomp and pride: In solitude the wild wind takes delight. Naught but the vacant wilderness is seen. And grassy mounds, where cities once had been. The earth smiles as of yore, the skies are bright, Wild cattle graze and bellow on the plain. And savage nations roam o'er native wilds again. The burden ceased, and now, with head bowed down. The bison smelt, then grinned into the air. An awful anguish seized his giant frame. Cold shudderings and indrawn gaspings deep — The spasms of illimitable pain. One stride he took, and sank upon his knees. Glared stern defiance where I stood revealed. Then swayed to earth, and, with convulsive groan. Turned heavily upon his side, and died. From 'Tecumseh' LEFROY. This region is as lavish of its flowers As heaven of its primrose blooms by night. This is the arum which within its root Folds life and death; and this the prince's pine, Fadeless as love and truth — ^the fairest form That ever sun-shower washed with sudden rain. This golden cradle is the moccasin flower. Wherein the Indian hunter sees his hound; And this dark chalice is the pitcher-plant, Stored with the water of forgetfulness. Whoever drinks of it, whose heart is pure. Charles Mair 27 Will sleep for aye 'neath foodful asphodel And dream of endless love. I need it not. I am awake, and yet I dream of love. It is the hour of meeting, when the sun Takes level glances at these mighty woods. And lena has never failed till now To meet me here. What keeps her? Can it be The Prophet? Ah, that villain has a thought, Undreamt of by his simple followers. Dark in his soul as midnight! If — but no — He fears her though he hates. What shall I do? Rehearse to listening woods, or ask these oaks What thoughts they have, what knowledge of the past? They dwarf me with their greatness, but shall come A meaner and a mightier than they. And cut them down. Yet rather would I dwell With them, with wildness and its stealthy forms — Yea, rather with wild men, wild beasts and birds. Than in the sordid town that here may rise. For here I am a part of nature's self. And not .divorced from her like men who plod The weary streets of care in search of gain. And here I feel the friendship of the earth: Not the soft cloying tenderness of hand Which fain would satiate the hungry soul With household honey combs and parloured sweets, But the strong friendship of primeval things — The rugged kindness of a giant heart. And love that lasts. I have a poem made Which doth concern earth's injured majesty — Be audience, ye still untroubled stems! (Recites) There was a time on this fair continent When all things throve in spacious peacefulness. The prosperous forests unmolested stood. For where the stalwart oak grew there it lived Long ages, and -then died among its kind. 28 Charles Mair The hoary pines — those ancients of the earth — Brimful of legends of the early world, Stood thick on their own mountains unsubdued. And all things else illumined by the sun, Inland or by the lifted wave, had rest. The passionate or calm pageants of the skies No artist drew; but in the auburn west Innumerable faces of fair cloud Vanished in silent darkness with the day. The prairie realm — vast ocean's paraphrase — Rich in wild grasses numberless, and flowers Unnamed save in mute nature's inventory. No civilized barbarian trenched for gain. And all that flowed was sweet and uncorrupt. The rivers and their tributary streams, Undammed, wound on forever, and gave up Their lonely torrents to weird g^lfs of sea. And ocean wastes unshadowed by a sail. And all the wild life of this western world Knew not the fear of man; yet in those woods. And by those plenteous streams and mighty lakes. And on stupendous steppes of peerless plain, And in the rocky gloom of canyons deep. Screened by the stony ribs of mountains hoar Which steeped their snowy peaks in purging cloud. And down the continent where tropic suns Wanned to her very heart the mother earth. And in the congealed north where silence' self Ached with intensity of stubborn frost. There lived a soul more wild than barbarous: A tameless soul — the sunburnt savage free — Free, and untainted by the greed of gain: Great nature's man content with nature's food. But hark! I hear her footsteps in the leaves — And so my poem ends. — Scene II, Act I. Charles Mair 29 Tecumseh to General Harrison Tecumsbh. . . . Once all this mighty continent was ours, And the Great Spirit made it for our use. He knew no boundaries, so had we peace In the vast shelter of His handiwork. And, happy here, we cared not whence we came. We brought no evils thence — no treasured hate. No greed of gold, no quarrels over God; And so our broils, to narrow issues joined. Were soon composed, and touched the ground of peace. Our very ailments, rising from the earth. And not from any foul abuse in us. Drew back, and let age ripen to death's hand. Thus flowed our lives until your people came. Till from the East our matchless misery came! Since then our tale is crowded with your crimes. With broken faith, with plunder of reserves — The sacred remnants of our wide domain — With tamp'rings, and delirious feasts of fire. The fruit of your thrice-cursed stills of death Which make our good men bad, our bad men worse, Ay, blind them till they grope in open day And stumble into miserable graves ! Oh, it is piteous, for none will hear! There is no hand to help, no heart to feel. No tongue to plead for us in all your land. But every hand aims death, and every heart. Ulcered with hate, resents our presence here; And every tongue cries for our children's land To expiate their crime of being bom. Oh, we have ever yielded in the past. But we shall yield no more I Those plains are ours ! Those forests are our birth-right and our home! Let not the Long-Knife build one cabin there — Or fire from it will spread to every roof. To compass you, and light your souls to death! —Scene IV, Act II. 30 Charles Mair Enter General Brock and Lefroy Brock. You may be right, Lefroy, but, for my part, I stand by old tradition and the past. My father's God is wise enough for me. And wise enough this gray world's wisest men. L,EFR0Y. I tell you. Brock, The world is wiser than its wisest men. And shall outlive the wisdom of its gods. Made after man's own liking. The crippled throne No longer shelters the uneasy king. And outworn sceptres and Imperial crowns Now grow fantastic as an idiot's dream. These perish with the kingly pastime, war. And war's blind tool, the monster. Ignorance, Both hateful in themselves, but this the worst. One tyrant will remain — one impious fiend Whose name is Gtold — our earliest, latest foe. Him must the earth destroy, ere man can rise, Rightly self-made, to his high destiny. Purged of his grossest faults: humane and kind; Co-equal with his fellows and as free. Brock. Lefroy, such thoughts let loose would wreck the world. The kingly function is the soul of state. The crown the emblem of authority. And loyalty the symbol of all faith. Omitting these, man's government decays — His family falls into revolt and ruin. But let us drop this bootless argument. And tell me more of those unrivalled wastes You and Tecumseh visited. Lbfroy. We left The silent forest, and, day after day, Great prairies swept beyond our aching sight Into the measureless West; uncharted realms, Voiceless and calm, save when tempestuous wind Rolled the rank herbage into billows vast. And rushing tides which never found a shore. And tender clouds, and veils of morning mist. Charles Mair 3i Cast flying shadows, chased by flying light, Into interminable wildernesses. Flushed with fresh blooms, deep perfumed by the rose, And murmurous with flower-fed bird and bee. The deep-gTooved bison-paths like furrows lay. Turned by the cloven hoofs of thundering herds Primeval, and still travelled as of yore. And gloomy valleys opened at our feet. Shagged with dusk cypresses and hoary pine; The sunless gorges, rummaged by the wolf, Which through long reaches of the prairie wound. Then melted slowly into upland vales. Lingering, far-stretched amongst the spreading hills. Brock. What charming solitudes! And life was there? Lefrgy. Yes, life was there, inexplicable life, Still wasted by inexorable death ! There had the stately stag his battle-field — Dying for mastery among his hinds. There vainly sprung the affrighted antelope, Beset by glittering eyes and hurrying feet. The dancing grouse, at their insensate sport, Heard not the stealthy footstep of the fox ; The gopher on his little earthwork stood. With folded arms, unconscious of the fate That wheeled in narrowing circles overhead ; And the poor mouse, on heedless nibbling bent. Marked not the silent coiling of the snake. At length we heard a deep and solemn sound — Erupted moanings of the troubled earth Trembling beneath innumerable feet. A growing uproar blending in our ears, With noise tumultuous as ocean's surge, Of bellowings, fierce breath and battle shock, And ardour of unconquerable herds. A multitude whose trampling shook the plains, With discord of harsh sound and rumblings deep, As if the swift revolving earth had struck, And from some adamantine peak recoiled, Jarring. At length we topped a high-browed hill — The last arid loftiest of a file of such — 32 Charles Mair And, lo, before us lay the tameless stock. Slow wending to the northward like a cloud! A multitude in motion, dark and dense — Far as eye could reach, and farther still. In countless myriads stretched for many a league. Brock. You fire me with the picture ! What a scene ! LEFROY. Nation on nation was invillaged there, Skirting the flanks of that imbanded host; With chieftains of strange speech and port of war. Who, battled-armed, in weather-brawny bulk, Roamed fierce and free in huge and wild content. These gave Tecumseh greetings fair and kind. Knowing the purpose havened in his soul. And he, too, joined the chase as few men dare: For I have seen him, leaping from his horse. Mount a careering bull in foaming flight. Urge it to fury o'er its burden strange, Yet cling tenacious, with a grip of steel, Then, by a knife-plunge, fetch it to its knees In mid career and pangs of speedy death. Brock. You rave, Lefroy, or saw this in a dream! Le^roy. No, no; 'tis true — I saw him do it, Brock! Then would he seek the old, and with his spoils Restore them to the bounty of their youth. Cheering the crippled lodge with plenteous feasts. And warmth of glossy robes, as soft as down. Till withered cheeks ran o'er with feeble smiles. And tongues, long silent, babbled of their prime. Brock. This warrior's fabric is of perfect parts! A worthy champion of his race — he heaps Such giant obligations on our heads As will outweigh repayment. It is late, And rest must preface war's hot work to-morrow. Else would I talk till morn. How still the night! Here Peace has let her silvery tresses down And falls asleep beside the lapping wave. —Scene VI, Act IV. Isabella Valancy Crawford Let us to the zcorl: of this diz'iiiely doicered Isabella — this angelic iiieiidicaiit, crai'iiig nothing of life but its finer gifts — this blessed gypsy of Canadian zvoods and streams. What a royal life she led! No pose to take, no reputation to sustain, no tendency to routine thinking or lassitude of the imaginative faculty to be struggled zvith .... not a single syllable out-breathing the 'vulgar luxury of despair.' Happy, happv poet! She, like every other genius, found in the ecstasy of expression at the full height of her nature a compensation that turned all outzvard trials into details not zvorth speaking of She is purely a genius, not a craftszvoman. and a genius zvho has patience enongli to be an artist. She has in abundant measure that pozcer of youth zjuhich persists in poets of every age — that capacity of seein,g things for the first time, and zvith the rose and pearl of dazvn upon them. , . . . — EthElywn Wettierai,d in her Introduction to 'The Collected Poems.' [33j 34: Isabella Valancy Crawford ISABELLA VALANCY CRAWFORD, one of the great- lest of women poets, was born of cultured parents, — Stephen Dennis Crawford, M.D., and Sydney Scott — in Dublin, Ireland, on Christmas day, 1850. In 1858, the family emigrated to Upper Canada and settled at Paisley, on the Saugeen river. Of these pioneer days in Bruce county, Maud Wheeler Wilson writes : The village was but just struggling out of the embrace of the forest, and it was here that the little Isabella, who had developed into a shy and studious child, blue-eyed and with a beautiful profile, beheld the practical results of those harbingers of civilization — the axe, the plough and the hammer — whose work she afterward depicted in Malcolm's Katie. . . Their children's education was conducted by both Dr. and Mrs. Crawford. The girls were carefully grounded in Latin, as well as in the English branches. They spoke French readily and were conversant with the good literature of the day, Isabella especially being an omnivorous reader, fondest of history and of verse, and claiming Dante as her favourite poet. Good fortune did not accompany the Crawfords to the New World. In a few years, disease had taken nine of the twelve children, and a ■ small medical practice had reduced the family to semi-poverty. In 1864, the remaining members moved to the village of Lakefield, the southern entrance to the beautiful Kawartha Lakes, ,in the county of Peterborough, and lived there about eight year^. They then moved to the town of Peterborough, where the Doctor continued the prac- tice of his profession, until his demise in 1875. Prior to her sudden and premature death from heart failure, on February 12th, 1887, Miss Crawford and her rriother had lived for nearly a decade in the city of Toronto,- — most of the time in humble lodgings over a small corner grocery store on King St. Here this brilliant writer strove with tireless pen, to earn sufficient for their support. A small quarterly allow- ance was sent them regularly by Dr. John Irwin Crawford, of the Royal Navy, to whom his grateful niece dedicated her book of verse, Old Spookses' Pass, which she published at a financial loss in 1884. In 1905, the editor of this volume, with the knowledge and consent of her brother, Mr. Stephen Crawford, collected, edited and published Miss Crawford's best poems, in a volume of over three hundred pages, together with a comprehensive and critical Introduction by Miss Wetherald. Isabella Valancy Crawford 35 Songs for the Soldiers IF songs be sung let minstrels strike their harps To large and joyous strains, all thunder-winged To beat along vast shores. Ay, let their notes Wild into eagles soaring toward the sun. And voiced like bugles bursting through the dawn When armies leap to life! Give them such breasts As hold immortal fires, and they shall fly, Swept with our little sphere through all the change That waits a whirling world. Joy's an immortal ; She hath a fiery fibre in her flesh That will not droop or die; so let her chant The paeans of the dead, where holy Grief Hath, trembling, thrust the feeble mist aside That veils her dead, and in the wondrous clasp Of re-possession ceases to be Grief. Joy's ample voice shall still roll over all. And chronicle the heroes to young hearts Who knew them not There's glory on the sword That keeps its scabbard-sleep, unless the foe Beat at the wall, then freely leaps to light And thrusts to keep the sacred towers of Home And the dear lines that map the nation out upon the world. His Mother !N the first dawn she lifted from her bed The holy silver of her noble head. And listened, listened, listened for his tread. 'Too soon, too soon!' she murmured, 'Yet I'll keep My vigil longer — thou, O tender Sleep, Art but the joy of those who wake and weep! 'Joy's self hath keen, wide eyes. O flesh of mine, And mine own blood and- bone, the very wine Of my aged heart, I see thy dear eyes shine! 'I hear thy tread ; thy light, loved footsteps run Along the way, eager for that 'Well done!' We'll weep and kiss to thee, my soldier son! v 36 Isabella Valancy Crawford 'Blest mother I — he lives ! Yet had he died Blest were I still, — I sent him on the tide Of my full heart to save his nation's pride!' 'O God, if that I tremble so to-day, Bowed with such blessings that I cannot pray By speech — a mother prays, dear Lord, alway 'In some far fibre of her trembling mind! I'll up — I thought I heard a bugle bind Its silver with the silver of the wind.' His Wife and Baby IN the lone place of the leaves, Where they touch the hanging eaves, There sprang a spray of joyous song that sounded sweet and sturdy ; And the baby in the bed Raised the shining of his head. And pulled the mother's lids apart to wake and watch the birdie. She kissed lip-dimples sweet. The red soles of his feet. The waving palms that patted hers as wind-blown blossoms wander ; He twined her tresses silk Round his neck as white as milk — 'Now, baby, say what birdie sings upon his green spray yonder.' 'He sings a plenty things — Just watch him wash his wings! He says Papa will march to-day with drums home through the city. Here, birdie, here's my cup. You drink the milk all up; I'll kiss you, birdie, now you're washed like baby clean and pretty.' She rose; she sought the skies With the twin joys of her eyes; She sent the strong dove of her soul up through the dawhing's glory; Isabella Valancy Crawford 37 She kissed upon her hand The glowing golden band That bound the fine scroll of her life and clasped her simple story. His Sweetheart SYLVIA'S lattices were dark- Roses made them narrow. In the dawn there came a Spark, Armed with an arrow: Blithe he burst by dewy spray, Winged by bud and blossom. All undaunted urged his way Straight to Sylvia's bosom. 'Sylvia ! Sylvia ! Sylvia !' he Like a bee kept humming, 'Wake, my sweeting'; waken thee. For thy Soldier's coming!' Sylvia sleeping in the dawn. Dreams that Cupid's trill is Roses singing on the lawn, Courting crested lilies. Sylvia smiles and Sylvia sleeps, Sylvia weeps and slumbers; Cupid to her pink ear creeps, Pipes his pretty numbers. Sylvia dreams that bugles play. Hears a martial drumming; Sylvia springs to meet the day With her Soldier coming. Happy Sylvia, on thee wait All the gracious graces ! Venus mild her cestus plait Round thy lawns and laces! Flora fling a flower most "fair, Hope a rainbow lend thee! All the nymphs to Cupid dear On this day befriend thee! 'Sylvia! Sylvia! Sylvia!' hear 38 Isabella Valancy Crawford How he keeps a-humming. Laughing in her jewelled ear, 'Sweet, thy Soldier's coming!' From ' Malcolm's Katie ' OIvIGHT canoe, where dost thou glide? Below thee gleams no silvered tide, But concave heaven's chiefest pride. Above thee burns Eve's rosy bar; Below thee throbs her darling star; Deep 'neath thy keel her round worlds are. Above, below — O sweet surprise To gladden happy lover's eyes! No earth, no wave — all jewelled skies. There came a morn the Moon of Falling Leaves With her twin silver blades had only hung Above the low set cedars of the swamp For one brief quarter, when the Sun arose Lusty with light and full of summer heat, And, pointing with his arrows at the blue Closed wigwam curtains of the sleeping Moon, Laughed with the noise of arching cataracts. And with the dove-like cooing of the woods. And with the shrill cry of the diving loon. And with the wash of saltless rounded seas, And mocked the white Moon of the Falling Leaves: "Esa! esa! shame upon you. Pale Face! Shame upon you. Moon of Evil Witches! Have you killed the happy, laughing Summer? Have you slain the mother of the flowers With your icy spells of might and magic? Have you laid her dead within my arms? Wrapped her, mocking, in a rainbow blanket? Drowned her in the frost-mist of your anger? She is gone a little way before me; Gone an arrow's flight beyond my vision. Isabella Valancy Crawford 39 She will turn again and come to meet me With the ghosts of all the stricken flowers, In a blue smoke in her naked forests. She will linger, kissing all the branches; She will linger, touching all the places, Bare and naked, with her golden fingers. Saying, 'Sleep and dream of me, my children; Dream of me, the mystic Indian Summer, — I who, slain by the cold Moon of Terror, Can return across the path of Spirits, Bearing still my heart of love and fire. Looking with my eyes of warmth and splendour, Whispering lowly through your sleep of sunshine. I, the laughing Summer, am not turned Into dry dust, whirling on the prairies. Into red clay, crushed beneath the snowdrifts. I am still the mother of sweet flowers Growing but an arrow's flight beyond you In the Happy Hunting- Ground — the quiver Of great Manitou, where all the arrows He has shot from His great bow of Power, With its clear, bright singing cord of Wisdom, Are re-gathered, plumed again and brightened, And shot out, re-barbed with Love and Wisdom; Always shot, and evermore returning. Sleep, my children, smiling in your heart-seeds At the spirit words of Indian Summer.' Thus, O Moon of Falling Leaves, I mock you! Have you slain my gold-eyed squaw, the Summer?" The mighty Morn strode laughing up the land. And Max, the lab'rer and the lover, stood Within the forest's edge beside a tree — The mossy king of all the woody tribes — Whose clattering branches rattled, shuddering. As the bright axe cleaved moon-like through the air. Waking the strange thunders, rousiiig echoes linked. From the full lion-throated roar to sighs Stealing on dove-wings through the distant aisles. Swift fell the axe, swift followed roar on roar, 3 *0 Isabella Valancy Crawford Till the bare woodland bellowed in its rage As the first-slain slow toppled to his fall. ' 'O King of Desolation, art thou dead?' Cried Max, and laughing, heart and lips, leaped on The vast prone trunk. 'And have I slain a king? Above his ashes will I build my house; No slave beneath its pillars, but— a king!' Max wrought alone but for a half-breed lad With tough, lithe sinews, and deep Indian eyes Lit with a Gallic sparkle. Max the lover found The lab'rer's arms grow mightier day by day, More iron-welded, as he slew the trees ; And with the constant yearning of his heart Toward little Kate, part of a world away, His young soul grew and showed a virile front, Full-muscled and large-statured like his flesh. Soon the great heaps of brush were builded high. And, like a victor, Max made pause to clear His battle-field high strewn with tangled dead. Then roared the crackling mountains, and their fires Met in high heaven, clasping flame with flame ; The thin winds swept a cosmos of red sparks Across the bleak midnight sky; and the sun Walked pale behind the resinous black smoke. And Max cared little for the blotted sun. And nothing for the startled, outshone stars; For love, once set within a lover's breast, Has its own sun, its own peculiar sky. All one great daffodil, on which do lie The sun, the moon, the stars, all seen at once And never setting, but all shining straight Into the faces of the trinity — The one beloved, the lover, and sweet love. O Love builds on the azure sea, And Love builds on the golden sand. And Love builds on the rose-winged cloud. And sometimes Love builds on the land! Isabella Valancy Crawford *i O if Love build on sparkling sea, And if Love build on golden strand, And if Love build on rosy cloud. To Love these are the solid land! O Love will build his lily walls. And Love his pearly roof will rear On cloud, or land, or mist, or sea — Love's solid land is everywhere! From his far wigwam sprang the strong North Wind And rushed with war-cry down the steep ravines, And wrestled with the giants of the woods; And with his ice-club beat the swelling crests Of the deep watercourses into death; And with his chill foot froze the whirling leaves Of dun and gold and fire in icy banks; And smote the tall reeds to the hardened earth. And sent his whistling arrows o'er the plains. Scattering the lingering herds; and sudden paused. When he had frozen all the running streams, And hunted with his war-cry all the things That breathed about the woods, or roamed the bleak, Bare prairies swelling to the mournful sky. "White squaw!" he shouted, troubled in his soul, "I slew the dead, unplumed before; wrestled With naked chiefs scalped of their leafy plumes ; I bound sick rivers in cold thongs of death. And shot my arrows over swooning plains, Bright with the paint of death, and lean and bare. And all the braves of my loud tribe will mock And point at me when our great chief, the Sun, Relights his council fire in the Moon Of Budding Leaves: 'Ugh, ugh! he is a brave! He fights with squaws and takes the scalps of babes*' And the least wind will blow his calumet, Filled with the breath of smallest flowers, across The war-paint on my face, and pointing with His small, bright pipe, that never moved a spear *2 Isabella Valancy Crawford Of bearded rice, cry, 'Ugh! he slays the dead!' O my white squaw, come from thy wigwam grey. Spread thy white blanket on the twice-slain dead, And hide them ere the waking of the Sun !" High grew the snow beneath the low-hung sky. And all was silent in the wilderness; In trance of stillness Nature heard her God Rebuilding her spent fires, and veiled her face While the Great Worker brooded o'er his Work. 'Bite deep and wide, O Axe, the tree! What doth thy bold voice promise me?' 'I promise thee all joyous things That furnish forth the lives of kings; 'For every silver ringing blow Cities and palaces shall grow.' 'Bite deep and wide, O Axe, the tree! Tell wider prophecies to me.' 'When rust hath gnawed me deep and red, A Nation strong shall lift his head. 'His crown the very heavens shall smite, ^ons shall build him in his might.' 'Bite deep and wide, O Axe, the tree! Bright Seer, help on thy prophecy!' Max smote the snow-weighed tree and lightly laughed, 'See, friend,' he cried to one that looked and smiled, 'My axe and I, we do immortal tasks; We build up nations — this my axe and I.' Who curseth Sorrow knows her not at all. Dark matrix she, from which the human soul Has its last birth; whence it, with misty thews Close knitted in her blackness, issues out Strong for immortal toil up such great heights As crown o'er crown rise through Eternity. Without the loud, deep clamour of her wail. The iron of her hands, the biting brine Isabella Valancy Crawford ^3 Of her black tears, the sonl, but lightly built Of indeterminate spirit, like a mist Would lapse to chaos in soft, gilded dreams. As mists fade in the gazing of the sun. Sorrow, dark mother of the soul, arise! Be crowned with spheres where thy blest children dwell. Who, but for thee, were not. No lesser seat Be thine, thou Helper of the Universe, Than planet on planet piled — thou instrument Close clasped within the great Creative Hand! From 'The Helot' WHO may quench the god-born fire Pulsing at the soul's deep root ? Tyrant, grind it in the mire, Lo, it vivifies the brute! Stings the chain-embruted clay. Senseless to his yoke-bound shame; Goads him on to rend and slay, Knowing not the spurring flame! Tyrant, changeless stand the gods, Nor their calm might yielded thee; Not beneath thy chains and rods Dies man's god-gift. Liberty! Bruteward lash thy Helots, hold Brain and soul and clay in gyves, Coin their blood and sweat in gold. Build thy cities on their lives, — Comes a day the spark divine Answers to the gods who gave; Fierce the hot flames pant and shine In the bruised breast of the slave. Changeless stand the gods! — nor he Knows he answers their behest. Feels the might of their decree In the blind rage of his breast. Tyrant, tremble when ye tread Down the servile Helot clods ! ** Isabella Valancy Crawford Under despot heel is bred The white ang«r of the gods. Through the shackle-cankered dust, Through the gyved soul, foul and dark. Force they, changeless gods and just, Up the bright, eternal spark. Till, like lightnings vast and fierce. On the land its terror smites ; Till its flames the tyrant pierce. Till the dust the despot bites. The Mother's Soul WHEN the moon was homed the mother died, And the child pulled at her hand and knee, And he rubbed her cheek and loudly cried : 'O mother, arise, give bread to me !' But the pine tree bent its head. And the wind at the door-post said : 'O child, thy mother is dead!' The sun set his loom to weave the day; The frost bit sharp like a silent cur ; The child by her pillow paused in his play : 'Mother, build up the sweet fire of fir !' But the fir tree shook its cones, And loud cried the pitiful stones: 'Wolf Death has thy mother's bones!' They bore the mother out on her bier ; Their tears made warm her breast and shroud ; The smiling child at her head stood near; And the long, white tapers shook and bowed. And said with their tongues of gold. To the ice lumps of the grave mold : 'How heavy are ye and cold!' They buried the mother; to the feast They flocked with the beaks of unclean crows. The wind came up from the red-eyed east And bore in its arms the chill, soft snows. They said to each other: 'Sere Isabella Valancy Crawford 45 Are the hearts the mother held dear ; Forgotten, her babe plays here !' The child with the tender snowflakes played, And the wind on its fingers twined his hair ; And still by the tall, brown grave he stayed, Alone in the churchyard lean and bare. The sods on the high grave cried To the mother's white breast inside : 'Lie still ; in thy deep rest bide !' Her breast lay still like a long-chilled stone, Her soul was out on the bleak, grey day ; She saw her child by the grave alone. With the sods and snow and wind at play. Said the sharp lips of the rush, 'Red as thy roses, O bush. With anger the dead can blush !' A butterfly to the child's breast flew,* Fluttered its wings on his sweet, round cheek. Danced by his fingers, small, cold and blue. The sun strode down past the mountain peak. The butterfly whispered low To the child: 'Babe, follow me; know. Cold is the earth here below.' The butterfly flew; followed the child, Lured by the snowy torch of its wings; The wind sighed after them soft and wild Till the stars wedded night with golden rings ; :' Till the frost upreared its head, And the ground to it groaned and said: 'The feet of the child are lead !' The child's head drooped to the brown, sere mold. On the crackling cones his white breast lay ; The butterfly touched the locks of gold. The soul of the child sprang from its clay. The moon to the pine tree stole, *In Eastern Europe the soul of the deceased is said to hover, in the shape of a bird or butterfly, close to the body until after the burial. *6 Isabella Valancy Crawford And silver-lipped, said to its bole: 'How strong is the mother's soul!' The wings of the butterfly grew out To the mother's arms, long, soft and white ; She folded them warm her babe about, She kissed his lips into berries bright. She warmed his soul on her breast; And the east called out to the west: 'Now the mother's soul will rest!' Under the roof where the burial feast Was heavy with meat and red with wine. Each crossed himself as out of the east A strange wind swept over oak and pine. The trees to the home-roof said: ' 'Tis but the airy rush and tread Of angels greeting thy dead.' The Rose THE Rose was given to man for this: He, sudden seeing it in later years. Should swift remember Love's first lingering kiss And Grief's last lingering tears; Or, being blind, should feel its yearning soul Knit all its piercing perfume round his own, Till he should see on memory's ample scroll All roses he had known; Or, being hard, perchance his finger-tips Careless might touch the satin of its cup. And he should feel a dead babe's budding lips To his lips lifted up; Or, being deaf and smitten with its star, Should, on a sudden, almost hear a lark Rush singing up — the nightingale afar Sing through the dew-bright dark; Or, sorrow-lost in paths that round and round Circle old graves, its keen and vital breath Should call to him within the yew's bleak bound Of Life, and not of Death. Charles G. D. Roberts Mr, Roberts has tried a great I'ariety of tones and themes ill the eoursc of his poetic eareer; no poet so many, that I knozv of. But the deepest thing in his poetic passion and e.v- perience is his poetry of nature description. Its basis is. in general, a pure ccstheticism, for though it may occasionally be mingled ivith some fanciful train of thought or have appended to it a Words-worthian moral, its value lies zvholly in the gleaming and glancing surface zvhich it brings before the reader's eye. This impressionistic nature poetry is the best part of his old Keatsian heritage for one thing, and it is part perhaps of his best days also, the days he describes in 'Tantramar Revisited,' long youthful days spent on the coast or amongst the farmsteads of Neiv Brunswick, zvlien he strove hardest to catch and. to shape into some nezv line the Z'agiie, evasive, elemental beauty of nature. The pozvcr zvhich he acquired then has never deserted him amongst all the transformations of spirit and literary ideals zvhich he has experienced. — Pro?. James Cappon, M.A. [47] . , . . 4^ Charles G. D. Eoberts THE Roberts family of Fredericton, New Brunswick, is Canada's most distinguished literary family. They are the sons, the daughter, and the grandsons of the late Rev. George Goodridge Roberts, M.A., LL.D., Rector of Fredericton and Canon of Christ Church Cathedral, and Emma Wetmore Bliss, daughter of the late Hon. G. P. Bliss, Attor- ney-General of New Brunswick. Charles George Douglas Roberts, the eldest son, was born at Douglas, York County, N.B., January 10th, 1860. He was educated at the Fredericton Collegiate School, and at the University of New Brunswick (B.A., 1879, with honours in Mental and Moral Science, and Political Economy; M.A. in 1881; LL.D., honorary, in 1906). In his twenty-first year, he married Miss Mary I. Fenety, daughter of the late George E. Fenety, Queen's Printer of N.B. In 1883-4, Roberts was editor of The Week, Toronto, Ontario ; in 1885-8, Professor of English and French Litera- ture in King's College, Windsor, Nova Scotia; in 1888-95, Professor of English and Economics in the same College; in 1897-8, associate editor of The Illustrated American, New York. Since then, untrammelled by academic or editorial duties, he has devoted himself to the writing and publishing of many books, his fame steadily extending. Before the close of the 19th century, he had written and published seven books of verse of notable quality; but in 1901 he issued a volume of poems selected from these, containing all that he wished to preserve, and of which the first poem is his imperishable threnody, 'Ave !' No other writer known to me has more intimately associated his mind and spirit with every object and phase of nature. His poetic descriptions are vividly real, and exquisite in beauty of expression, whilst his animal stories in felicitous literary English, in accuracy of particulars, in intensity of dramatic interest, are beyond criticism. Dr. Roberts enlisted in September, 1914, as a trooper in the Legion of Frontiersmen. Since then he has been promoted to a Captaincy in the King's Liverpool Regiment. For some months he has been training cadets, etc., in England and Wales. Captain Roberts' family, — wife, daughter and sons — are living in Ottawa, Canada. Charles G. D. Boberts ^9 IN the original copy, the following poems were included in full in the next twelve pages, in this order: 'The Solitary Woodsman,' 'Kinship,' 'The Succour of Gluscap,' 'Two Spheres,' 'Earth's Complines,' 'Introductory,' 'The Flight of the Geese,' 'The Furrow,' 'The Sower,' 'The Mowing,' 'Where the Cattle Come to Drink,' 'The Pumpkins in the Corn' and 'A Nocturne of Consecration.' Captain Roberts cabled from England his consent, but we have been unable to procure from his Boston publisher, who claims ownership of copyright, permission for their inclusion. However, we are fortunate in being able to give the reader a number of this popular author's more recent poems, and copious extracts from the scholarly, comprehensive and thorough critique on Roberts and the Influences of His Time which was published in 1905, by James Cappon, M.A., Pro- fessor of English Language and Literature, Queen's Uni- versity. Since the biographical data on the preceding page were printed, the Editor has secured this interesting extract from a letter written by Roberts, in May, 1907: For the first fourteen years of my life — a formative period which influenced my future more than any other — I lived in the village of Westcock, below Sackville, in Westmoreland county at the mouth of the Tantramar river. There my home was the old Westcock Parsonage, of which I have given a very minute and precise description in chapter III o-f my latest novel, The Heart That Knows. The opening chapter describes the local scenery and those wonderful Tantramar marshes in particular. My father and mother are studied in the characters of the Rev. G. G. Goodridge and Mrs. Goodridge. In February, 1904, The National Monthly published a special article by Arthur Stringer on Charles G. D. Roberts, "The Father of Canadian Poetry." This title has been fre- quently accorded him since and it is deserved, if it be under- stood to mean that Roberts influenced more than any other writer the remarkable group of poets who were born in the years, 61-2, of last century, and many of their successors. But the evidence is conclusive that Charles Mair and Isabella Valancy Crawford preceded him in the writing and publishing of great verse, whether in the interpretation and description of nature or of human life. 50 Charles G. D. Eoberts Cambrai and Mame BEFORE our trenches at Cambrai We saw their columns cringe away. We saw their masses melt and reel Before our line of leaping steel. A handful to their storming hordes, We scourged them with the scourge of swords, And still, the more we slew, the more Came up for every slain a score. Between the hedges and the town The cursing squadrons we rode down ; To stay them we outpoured our blood Between the beetfields and the wood. In that red hell of shrieking shell Unfaltering our gimners fell ; They fell, or ere that day was done. Beside the last unshattered gun. But still we held them, like a wall ' On which the breakers vainly fall — Till came the word, and we obeyed, Reluctant, bleeding, undismayed. Our feet, astonished, learned retreat ; Our souls rejected still defeat; Unbroken still, a lion at bay, We drew back grimly from Cambrai. In blood and sweat, with slaughter spent. They thought us beaten as we went, Till suddenly we turned, and smote The shout of triumph in their throat. At last, at last we turned and stood — And Marne's fair water ran with blood; We stood by trench and steel and gun. For now the indignant flight was done. Charles G. D. Boberts si We ploughed their shaken ranks with fire, We trod their masses into mire; Our sabres drove through their retreat As drives the whirlwind through young wheat. At last, at last we drove them back Along their drenched and smoking track; We hurled them back, in blood and flame, The reeking ways by which they came. By cumbered road and desperate ford How fled their shamed and harassed horde ! Shout, Sons of Freemen, for the day When Marne so well avenged Cambrai ! — Westminster Gazette. Wayfarer of Earth UP, heart of mine, Thou wayfarer of Earth! Of seed divine. Be mindful of thy birth. Though the flesh faint Through long-endured constraint Of nights and days. Lift up thy praise To Life, that set thee in such strenuous ways. And left thee not To drowse and rot In some thick-perfumed and luxurious plot. Strong, strong is Earth, With vigour for thy feet, To make thy wayfaring Tireless and fleet. And good is Earth — But Earth not all thy good, O thou with seed of suns And star-fire in thy blood. And though thou feel The slow clog of the hours Leaden upon thy heel. 52 Charles G. P. Boberts Put forth thy powers. Thine the deep sky, The unpreempted blue, The haste of storm. The hush of dew. Thine, thine the free Exalt of star and tree, The reinless run Of wind and sun, The vagrance of the sea ! — The Craftsman. Monition A FAINT wind, blowing from World's End, Made strange the city street, A strange sound mingled in the fall Of the familiar feet. Something unseen whirled with the leaves To tap on door and sill. Something unknown went whispering by Even when the wind was still. And men looked up with startled eyes. And hurried on their way. As if they had been called, and told How brief their day. — Century. At the Gates of Spring WITH April here. And first thin green on the awakening bough. What wonderful things and dear, My tired heart to cheer. At last appear ! Colours of dream afloat on cloud and tree. So far, so clear, A spell, a mystery; And joys that thrill and sing. New come on mating wing. The wistfulness and ardour of the spring — And Thou ! — The Smart Set. Charles G. D. Boberts 53 All Night the Lone Cicada ALL night the lone cicada Kept shrilling through the rain — A voice of joy undaunted By un forgotten pain. Down from the wind-blown branches Rang out the high refrain, By tumult undisheartened, By storm assailed in vain. To looming vasts of mountain And shadowy deeps of plain, The ephemeral, brave defiance Adventured not in vain. Till to the faltering spirit And to the weary brain, From loss and fear and failure. My joy returned again. — Century. Hilltop Song WHEN the lights come out in the cottages Along the shores at eve. And across the darkening water The last pale colours leave ; And up from the rock-ridged pasture slopes The sheep-bell tinklings steal, And the folds are shut, and the shepherds Turn to their quiet meal ; And even here, on the un fenced height. No journeying wind goes by, But the earth-sweet smells and the home-sweet sounds Mount, like prayer, to the sky; Then from the door of my opened heart Old blindness and pride are driven. Till I know how high is the humble. The dear earth how close to heaven. — McClure's Magazine. 54 Charles G. D. Koberts O Earth, Sufficing all our Needs O EARTH, sufficing all our needs, O you With room for body and for spirit, too, How patient while your children vex their souls Devising alien heavens beyond your blue! Dear dwelling of the immortal and unseen, How obstinate in my blindness have I been. Not comprehending what your tender calls, Veiled promises and reassurance, mean! Not far and cold the way that they have gone, Who thro' your sundering darkness have withdrawn : Almost within our hand-reach they remain Who pass beyond the sequence of the dawn. Not far and strange the heavens, but very near. Your children's hearts unknowingly hold dear. At times we almost catch the door swung wide — An unforgotten voice almost we hear. I am the heir of heaven — and you are just. You, you alone I know, and you I trust. Tho' I seek God beyond the farthest star. Here shall I find Him, in your deathless dust. — The Craftsman. Extracts from Professor Cappon's Critique Early Poems — The School of Keats It is natural for a young poet to begin by following some estab- lished tradition in his art, and Roberts started with one of the highest The direct influence of Keats had almost ceased to be felt in English, jjoetry when the Canadian poet revived it in its purest form for his countrymen. His early poems hardly disguise the fact that they are imitations of Keats, and belong to that new world of Arcadia which the English poet had created. That poetic world which Crabbe and Wordsworth, with their naturalism, thought they had banished; that land where the departed gods and heroes of Hellas still live, where the steps of Pan are still heard in the forest, and Thetis glides with silvery feet over the waves, had been revived for us by the poet of Charles G. D. Eoberts 55 Endymion, and its green bowers had allured a good many poetic aspirants into them, amongst whom Roberts may be counted as the latest, perhaps the last. For the poetry of to-day is looking for its material in another region where the forms of life are more robust and actual and the atmosphere more electrical than they are in the old legendary world of Arcadia. From a philosophic point of view, there was nothing very complete in Keats' reconstruction of the Greek mythology. But he gave it all that poetry needs to make a new world of, a new sky, a new earth and new seas enchanting as those of fairyland; he filled its landscape with green wealth and aerial minstrelsy and every harmonious form of beauty in shape or sound or colour. But, more than all, he created the language in which alone this new world could be fitly described, a new language of idyllic description, a language of the subtlest, impression- istic power which could render the shapes of things seen in this dreamland with a visionary distinctness altogether unique. Its move- ment and cadence, too, were unique, natural as those of a man talking to himself, yet quaint and captivating as voices from the cave of the Sibyl : 'Twas a lay More subtle-cadenced, more forest wild Than Dryope's lone lulling of her child; And nothing since has floated on the air So mournful strange. If Southey had been able to discover a similar language for his Domdaniels and Padalons his grandiose epics would not be where they now are, but that would be saying that Southey had a poetic genius which he had not. The line of Keats was a marvellous creation, and made him the indispensable master for all the idyllic poets who came after him. He had the master's secret of making everything which he touched new. His ApoUos and Naiads had nothing to do with the fossilized mythology of the eighteenth century poets ; you never thought of comparing them; you never thought of his "le^den-eyed despairs" in connection with the deliberate personifications of Collins or Gray, no more than you thought of the stiff framework of the eighteenth century couplet in reading his fluent verse. Of course there was something in his style which remains inimitable and his own. The imaginative felicity of his phrase, the passionate simplicity of his cry, the entire naturalness of his movement, no one could repeat these. But there was also something which could be more or less easily imitated, and this became the possession of a whole school and even part of the universal language of ppetry. That large, elusive epithet, that new reach of synecdoche, those novel compounds, that richly blazoned phrase in general, with delicate luxury and efflorescence, were readily appropriated by the aesthetic schools of poetry. Phrases like "argent revelry," "warm-cloistered hours," "tall oaks branch-charmed by the earnest stars," set the mould for a new 56 Charles G. D. Roberts and finely sensuous impressionism in descriptive poetry. The critics of Blackwood and the Quarterly might sniff at first at the new poesy as the sickly affectation of the Cockney School, but it could not long be neglected by young poets seeking to learn the secrets of colour and rhythm in their art. The youthful Tennyson quietly drew some of his finest threads for his own loom, and Rossetti, with the whole aesthetic school, shows everywhere the influence of Keats' line. To most of them he was more even than Shelley, for he taught them more, though the other, with the star-domed grandeur of his universe, and his Titanic passion and conflict, might be the greater inspiration to them. William Rossetti says of his famous brother that he "truly preferred" Keats to Shelley, "though not without some compunctious visitings now and then." As to Wordsworth's influence, it is not surprising that there is little or no trace of it in the early work of Roberts, though it was just the time when the reputation of the sage and singer of Rydal Mount was in its second bloom with the public, owing mainly to the fine and discriminating criticism of Arnold. But the young poets of the aesthetic school disliked Wordsworth. They hated the plain texture of his style and its want of colour. It might, however, have been well for Roberts if he had come under the influence of Wordsworth's simplicity and candour at this formative period of his life. But, for better or worse, the school of Keats was that in which Mr. Roberts received his training. He simply lives at this period in that green world of neo-classical idyllism which Keats had created. The style of the master, his colour, his rhythmical movement, his manner of treating his subject, are reproduced with the interesting but somewhat deceptive similitude which a copy always gives of a great original . in the stanzas of the Ariadne almost every epithet and every verb recall something which is familiar to us in the manner of the master: [Part of the "Ode to Drowsihood" is here quoted.] That poetry is steeped in the rich Tyrian dye of Keats' fancy, and the luxury of sense impression which is so marked in the work of the master is the too exclusive quality of the disciple's. For after all there is an ethical element in the poetry of Keats which Roberts does not reproduce so well, an insistence on the spirituality and the healthful- ness of beauty which runs through all the work of the English poet and gives its special flavour, to many of his finest passages. It is the ascetic element needed to complete the chord in Keats, without which his poetry would be rather overpowering in its sensuous richness. Every one knows the opening lines of Endymion, and the fine outburst in The Ode to a Grecian Urn: Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes play on; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared, Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone. Charles G. D. Eoberts 57 Poetry of Nature — Tantramar Revisited The training which Roberts received in the school of Keats was mainly that of a nature poet. The underlying reality in the neo-classical idyll was its beautiful, if rather fanciful, treatment of nature, which was based, just as that of the ancient idyll had been, on a free selection of all fine pastoral images untrammeled by conditions of climate or locality. The poet might revel in any combination of scenery which his imagination suggested as long as he could give the whole the harmony which here took the place of reality. The oceans might be as serene and the Arcadian hunting ranges as wild as he liked : With muffled roarings through the clouded night. And heavy splashings through the misty pools. Of course he had chosen the school because it gave a splendid form to his own natural instincts as a poet. His real power, his original impulse towards poetry, lies nearly altogether in the region of nature description, and it was a short and natural step for him to take from the fanciful delineations of Nature in Orion and Actceon to the description of actual Canadian scenes. But it involved in his case a decided change in the forms of poetic composition. The grand frame- work of epic and idyllic narrative which he could use w^en he had that shadowy Arcadian mythology to fill it with the shapes of life, was laid aside . . It was a change which had already taken place very generally in the poetry of our time, as part of that return to nature and simplicity of form which had begun with Wordsworth. Our new singers seem no longer willing to support the weight of those grand forms of stanzaic verse which the great poets of the Italian Renaissance and all those who followed their traditions loved so well. The sonnet, with its well-established paces, is about the only great traditional form in use now. It is a kind of light lyrical and descriptive verse which is the most characteristic form of Roberts' productivity at this period : [Quotations from "Birch and Paddle" and from "Aylesford Lake" follow.^ The Solitary Woodsman, a little idyll of Canadian life which haunts the mind after you have read it, as true poetry will, may be noticed here, although it was published at a later time in The Book of the Native (1897). The Woodsman represents nearly all that Roberts has given us in the way of human portraiture, and even his personality, it must be admitted, is of the faintest. But there is a beautiful simplicity and naturalness about the poem: [Four stanzas quoted here.] It needed only a touch more to make that solitary woodsman as universal and popular a portrait as Longfellow's Village Blacksmith, a touch more of personal detail and moral characterization. A con- templative delicacy of feeling for nature is the chief characteristic of the poems of this class and they are best when they remain simply descriptive. . . . 4 58 Charles G. D. Eoberts Amongst all these varieties of the Canadian idyll, the one which leaves the strongest impression on the mind of originality in tone and treatment is Tantramar Revisited. Here Roberts' classical taste in style again asserted itself, though in the not very pure form of the modern hexameter. Longfellow had given the measure popular cur- rency on this continent in his Evangeline, and Mathew Arnold had lately been directing the attention of literary circles to its possibilities. Both he and the poet Clough had done something to rescue it from the monotonous softness of Longfellow's movement and give it more strength and variety. Roberts, who has never quite lost his first love for the grand style, was quick to profit by the lesson, and uses this high but somewhat artificial form as a mould in which to pour his tenderest memories of the scenes familiar to his youth on the coast of New Brunswick. There is no direct picture of life in the poem, not a single human figure, but the landscape is powerfully painted in large, distant, softened traits, the true colour of elegiac reminiscence. Of direct elegiac reflection the poet has been sparing, perhaps wisely, but what there is has a sincerity which shows how deeply he felt his subject. [Twenty-eight lines of quotation follow.] In spite of the exotic character of the verse, which after all is a bar to the highest qualities of expression, something of the visionary eye and depth of feeling with which the poet looks on those scenes of his boyhood gets into every line. The poem is a true whole also and speaks in a subtle way to the heart. Perhaps he has lavished the resources of his style a little too freely on that description of the empty net reels. Its luxuriance is rather overpowering. . . . Songs of the Common Day — A Sonnet Sequence . . It was a happy inspiration which made him think of putting his poetic impressions of Canadian pastoral life and scenery to- gether in the form of a sonnet sequence. . . . The Sonnet Sequence is a poetic form which unites a certain harmony of effect with entire independence in the treatment of each member of the series. It is a succession of short efforts with a con- tinuity of aim which is capable of producing in the end something of the effect of a great whole. It has the authority of great literary traditions from Petrarch to Wordsworth and it seems to be nearly the only grard form of composition which the poetry of to-day can attempt with success. In this form then Mr. Roberts describes for us the general aspects of life and nature as one might see them at some Canadian farmstead, near the coast of New Brunswick, I suppose, — spring pastures and summer pools, burnt lands and clearings, fir forests and the winter stillness of the woods, mingled with descriptions of the common occupations of farm life, milking time and mowing, the potato harvest, bringing home the cattle and the like, all in a kind of sequence from spring sowing to midwinter thaw. Charles G. D. Boberts 59 The poet. I need hardly say, finds a splendid field here for the impressionistic glance and vision. Look at this description of a Sep- tember afternoon : [Quotation from "In September."] Or at this, from the sonnet Where the Cattle Come to Drink: [Second quatrain of the octave quoted.] If these passages were found in Wordsworth, say in the series of sonnets on the Duddon, they would be quoted by everyone as fine and subtle renderings of the moods of nature. Another striking example of Roberts' gift in this direction is to be found in the last sonnet of the series, The Flight of the Geese. I shall quote it in full: The purest might find fault with the strong lyrism of that sonnet and with inelegances like that thrice repeated overflow from two final words of the same structure, but it is a splendid piece of imaginative impressionism and a fine example of Roberts' power of style in this field. Many of these sonnets have a luxuriance of style and fancy, particularly in the direction of what Ruskin has called the Pathetic Fallacy, which is perhaps excessive for this poetic form with its small compass; but some of them also show a new plainness of style and treatment indicating that realistic influences from Wordsworth are beginning to work on Roberts. Sometimes there is even a kind of roughness in the manner of giving details, as in the following from The Potato Hari'est: [The sestet quoted in full.] The Furrow and In an Old Barn are also, in part at least, examples of this closer, more reaHstic treatment. Here, too, I may notice The Sower, the poet's popular masterpiece, which hits the golden mean between austerity and luxuriance of style: [The Sower is given in full.] The selection and treatment of materials in that sonnet are perfect. It is equally free from unleavened realism of detail and from impres- sionistic finery, from those overfeathered shafts of phrase which hang so heavy on the thought in sonnets like The Summer Pool and A Vesper Sonnet. The traits are select, harmonious and firmly drawn, with a wise economy of stroke. The manner in which the eye is con- ducted from the solitary field to the distant horizon, where lies that world of men for whom the sower works, and then concentrated again on the scene of the sower's labour and his movements, is a good illustration of the simplicity and naturalness of a perfect piece of art. The closing thought is noble and true to the subject, reflecting itself powerfully back on the previous details in a way which gives them new significance. Technically Mr. Roberts' sonnets generally show something of the structural freedom and something also of the looseness of conception which are characteristic of American sonnets. The rhyme system as 60 Charles G. D. Eoberts a rule is the pure Petrarchan, but as often as not he entirely disregards the division of thought in the two quatrains of the octave. Sometimes the poise and counterpoise of thought between the octave and sestet is strongly marked, the first containing the descriptive part and the second the moral which the poet appends to it. At other times the division is but faintly felt, though it often exists in a form which is virtually a new type of sonnet structure. In this type the octave gives the general outline of a landscape and is followed by a sestet which gives a more particular description of some characteristic or significant object in it. This is the structural character of The Herring Weir, The Oat Threshing, The Sower, The Flight of the Geese, and other sonnets. In this way the old function of the sestet in summing up or pointing the significance of the octave is revived in a new form, and when the object thus selected for particular treatment is significant enough, and its connection with the description in the octave evident and inevitable, this arrangement makes an excellent type of sonnet. It is part of the perfection of The Sower that the connection between the landscape described in the octave and the object described in the sestet is of this natural, inevitable kind. But The Sower perhaps, owes something of the selectness and harmony of its details to the fact that the subject is one which has been worked over by more than one great mind in the sister arts of painting and engraving. It is a curious example of the relation which may occasionally exist between poetry and the other fine arts, and Roberts may be counted fortunate in having furnished a perfect literary expression for a conception on which Diirer and Millet had laboured. On the whole this sonnet sequence may be considered as the most important poetic work Mr. Roberts has so far produced. It represents in its highest form what is most original in him, that in which his experience is deeper than that of other men. It gives the fairest scope, too, for that impressionistic painting of nature in which he is a master. The general tone of these sonnets is that of a pensive melancholy such as arises naturally enough from the contemplation of quiet pastoral morns and eves. Grey Corot-like pictures they mostly are, often a little huddled and indistinct or indeterminate in their outlines but delicately tinted and suffused with a true Canadian atmosphere of light and space and wide, pale, clear horizons. It is an atmosphere which keeps the colour tone of the landscape low, or at least cool, with nothing of tropical luxuriance about it, the bloom of the golden- rod, of the clover, the buttercups and the great purple patches of fire- weed in the woods being tempered by the cold clear lustre of a northern sky and the pale verdure of the marshes. The general features of nature in eastern Canada are faithfully reflected in these sonnets, sometimes in exquisite bits of verse. . . . Archibald Lampman Lampman is Canada's greatest nature poet It is to the exquisite felicity of his nature poems that lie owes his reputation both in this country and abroad Never zi'as there a more genuine lover of nature for her own sake. He zvas not under the spell alone of her sublimer aspects. Indeed, the mountains he had never seen, and the sea but rarely, and in later life. He loved nature as Thoreau loved her — in all her moods. The very thorns and burs zvere dear to him, and it zvas this gentle sympathy zvhich he felt for the unobtrusive beauties zvhich zve too commonly fail to sec, or, seeing, fail to understand that imparted to his poetry its peculiar charm // landscape is, as has been said, 'a state of the soul,' no other Canadian poet has so adequatelv rendered the spiritual significance zvhich nature gains from the reflection of human emotions His message to his generation is the promise of consolation zvhich nature accords to her devotees. — Prof'. Peliiam Kdgar, Ph.D., in the 'Globe Magazine.' [61] 62 Archibald. Lampman ARCHIBALD LAMPMAN, the beloved poet, was bora on Sunday morning, Nov. 17th, 1861, in the village of Morpeth, Ont., where his father, the Rev. Archibald Lampman, was rector of Trinity Church. He was of Dutch descent, and the father of each of his parents -was a United Empire Loyalist. Lampman dedicated his third volume of verse, Alcyone, as follows : "To the memory of my father, himself a poet, who first instructed me in the art of verse" ; and we are told by his biographer that there had been poets and scientists on his mother's side of the house. When Archibald had entered his sixth year, the family left Morpeth, resided for a time at Perrytown, near Port Hope, and in October, 1867, moved to Gore's Landing, a small community on the shore of Rice Lake. Here, in the midst of beautiful surroundings, they dvvelt for seven years, the most impressionable years of the poet's life. Unfortunately, in November, 1868, the boy was stricken with rheumatic fever, induced by a damp rectory. He suffered acutely for months, and in consequence was lame for four years. It was probably due to this illness that in youth and in manhood he never enjoyed robust health. The future poet was educated at home until nearly nine years of age, when he entered the school of a notable school- master, Mr. F. W. Barron, M.A., of Cambridge, formerly Principal of Upper Canada College. Here he was thoroughly grounded in Latin and Greek. When thirteen years old, he attended the Cobourg Collegiate Institute for a year, and then went to Trinity College School, Port Hope, to prepare for attendance at Trinity College, Toronto. During his two years in Port Hope, he was noted as a prize-winner. In September, 1879, he entered Trinity College, Toronto, where, by the help of scholarships won, he completed his course, graduating with honours in classics in 1882. After graduation, he taught for a few months in the Orangeville High School, and then accepted permanent employment in the Post-Office Depart- ment at Ottawa. In 1887, Lampman married Maud, the youngest daughter of Dr. Edward Playter, of Toronto, and during their twelve Archibald Lampman ^^ years of happiness, several children were born to them. In 1888, our poet published his first book of verse, Among the Millet, which extended his fame and encouraged him to greater effort. Five years later was issued his second book. Lyrics of Earth, which won for him additional laurels. His third, Alcyone, was on the press when he was stricken by the brief illness which resulted in his death, two days later, on the 10th of February, 1899. Archibald Lampman was slight of form and of middle height. He was quiet and undemonstrative in manner, but had a fascinating personality. Sincerity and high ideals char- acterized his life and work. In 1900, his three books, with additional poems, and with an excellent memoir from the pen of Mr. Duncan Campbell Scott, were published in one large volume of nearly five hun- dred pages, — his enduring monument. April in the Hills TO-DAY the world is wide and fair With sunny fields of lucid air. And waters dancing everywhere; The snow is almost gone; The noon is builded high with light. And over heaven's liquid height, In steady fleets serene and white. The happy clouds go on. The channels run, the bare earth steams. And every hollow rings and gleams With jetting falls and dashing streams; The rivers burst and fill; The fields are full of little lakes. And when the romping wind awakes The water ruffles blue and shakes, And the pines roar on the hill. The crows go by, a noisy throng ; About the meadows all day long. The shore-lark drops his brittle song; And up the leafless tree 64 ArcMbald Lampman The nut-hatch runs, and nods, and clings ; The bluebird dips with flashing wings. The robin flutes, the sparrow sings, And the swallows float and flee. I break the spirit's cloudy bands, A wanderer in enchanted lands, I feel the sun upon my hands; And far from care and strife The broad earth bids me forth. I rise With lifted brow and upward eyes. I bathe my spirit in blue skies, And taste the springs of life. I feel the tumult of new birth; I waken with the wakening earth; I match the bluebird in her mirth ; And wild with wind and sun, A treasurer of immortal days, I roam the glorious world with praise, The hillsides and the woodland ways, Till earth and I are one. The Truth FRIEND, though thy soul should burn thee, yet be still Thoughts were not meant for strife, nor tongues for swords. He that sees clear is gentlest of his words. And that's not truth that hath the heart to kill. The whole world's thought shall not one truth fulfil. Dull in our age, and passionate in youth, No mind of man hath found the perfect truth. Nor shalt thou find it ; therefore, friend, be still. Watch and be still, nor hearken to the fool, The babbler of consistency and rule: Wisest is he, who, never quite secure. Changes his thoughts for better day by day : To-morrow some new light will shine, be sure. And thou shalt see thy thought another way. Archibald Lampman 65 Morning on the Lievre FAR above us where a jay Screams his matins to the day, Capped with gold and amethyst, Like a vapour from the forge Of a giant somewhere hid. Out of hearing of the clang Of his hammer, skirts of mist Slowly up the woody gorge Lift and hang. Softly as a cloud we go. Sky above and sky below, Down the river; and the dip Of the paddles scarcely breaks. With the little silvery drip Of the water as it shakes From the blades, the crystal deep Of the silence of the morn. Of the forest yet asleep ; And the river reaches borne In a mirror, purple gray. Sheer away To the misty line of light, Where the forest and the stream In the shadow meet and plight. Like a dream. From amid a stretch of reeds. Where the lazy river sucks All the water as it bleeds From a little curling creek. And the muskrats peer and sneak In around the sunken wrecks Of a tree that swept the skies Long ago, On a sudden seven ducks With a splashy rustle rise. Stretching out their seven necks. ^^ Archibald Lampman One before, and two behind, And the others all arow. And as steady as* the wind With a swivelling whistle go. Through the purple shadow led, Till we only hear their whir In behind a rocky spur. Just ahead. Heat FROM plains that reel to southward, dim, The road runs by me white and bare; Up the steep hill it seems to swim Beyond, and melt into the glare. Upward half-way, or it may be Nearer the summit, slowly steals A hay-cart, moving dustily With idly clacking wheels. By his cart's side the wagoner Is slouching slowly at his ease. Half-hidden in the windless blur Of white dust puffing to his knees. This wagon on the height above, Prom sky to sky on either hand. Is the sole thing that seems to move In all the heat-held land. Beyond me in the fields the sun Soaks in the grass and hath his will; I count the marguerites one by one; Even the buttercups are still. On the brook yonder not a breath Disturbs the spider or the midge. The water-bugs draw close beneath The cool gloom of the bridge. Where the far elm-tree shadows flood Dark patches in the burning grass. The cows, each with her peaceful cud. Lie waiting for the heat to pass. Archibald Lampman ^7 From somewhere on the slope near by Into the pale depth of the noon A wandering thrush slides leisurely His thin revolving tune. In intervals of dreams I hear The cricket from the droughty ground; The grasshoppers spin into mine ear A small innumerable sound. I lift mine eyes sometimes to gaze : The burning sky-line blinds my sight: The woods far off are blue with haze : The hills are drenched in light. And yet to me not this or that Is always sharp or always sweet; In the sloped shadow of my hat I lean at rest, and drain the heat; Nay more, I think some blessed power Hath brought me wandering idly here: In the full furnace of this hour My thoughts grow keen and clear. A January Morning THE glittering roofs are still with frost; each worn Black chimney builds into the quiet sky Its curling pile to crumble silently. Far out to the westward on the edge of morn. The slender misty city towers up-borne Glimmer faint rose against the pallid blue ; And yonder on those northern hills, the hue Of amethyst, hang fleeces dull as horn. And here behind me come the woodmen's sleighs With shouts and clamorous squeakings ; might and main Up the steep slope the horses stamp and strain. Urged on by hoarse-tongued drivers — cheeks ablaze, Iced beards and frozen eyelids — team by team, With frost-fringed flanks, and nostrils jetting steam. 68 Archibald Lampman After Rain FOR three whole days across the sky, In sullen packs that loomed and broke, With flying fringes dim as smoke, The columns of the rain went by ; At every hour the wind awoke; The darkness passed upon the plain; The great drops rattled at the pane. Now piped the wind, or far aloof Fell to a sough remote and dull; And all night long" with rush and lull The rain kept drumming on the roof: I heard till ear and sense were full The clash or silence of the leaves. The gurgle in the creaking eaves. But when the fourth day came — at noon. The darkness and the rain were by; The sunward roofs were steaming dry; And all the world was flecked and strewn With shadows from a fleecy sky. The haymakers were forth and gone, And every rillet laughed and shone. Then, too, on me that loved so well The world, despairing in her hlight. Uplifted with her least delight. On me, as on the earth, there fell New happiness of mirth and might; I strode the valleys pied and still; I climbed upon the breezy hill. I watched the gray hawk wheel and drop. Sole shadow on the shining world; I saw the mountains clothed and curled. With forest ruffling to the top; I saw the river's length unfurled. Pale silver down the fruited plain, Grown great and stately with the rain. Archibald Lampman 69 Through miles of shadow and soft heat, Where field and fallow, fence and tree, Were all one world of greenery, I heard the robin ringing sweet, The sparrow piping silverly. The thrushes at the forest's hem; And as I went I sang with them. Winter Evening TO-NIGHT the very horses springing by Toss gold from whitened nostrils. In a dream The streets that narrow to the westward gleam Like rows of golden palaces; and high From all the crowded chimneys tower and die A thousand aureoles. Down in the west The brimming plains beneath the sunset rest, One burning sea of gold. Soon, soon shall fly The glorious vision, and the hours shall feel A mightier master; soon from height to height, With silence and the sharp unpitying stars, Stern creeping frosts, and winds that touch like steel. Out of the depth beyond the eastern bars. Glittering and still shall come the awful night. In March THE sun falls warm: the southern winds awake: The air seethes upwards with a steamy shiver : Each dip of the road is now a crystal lake. And every rut a little dancing river. Through great soft clouds that sunder overhead The deep sky breaks as pearly blue as summer: Out of a cleft beside the river's bed Flaps the black cro\J, the first demure newcomer. The last seared drifts are eating fast away With glassy tinkle into glittering laces: Dogs lie asleep, and little children play With tops and marbles in the sun-bare places ; And I that stroll with many a thoughtful pause Almost forget that winter ever was. 70 Archibald Lampman The Railway Station THE darkness brings no quiet here, the light No waking: ever on my blinded brain The flare of lights, the rush, and cry, and strain, The engine's scream, the hiss and thunder smite: I see the hurrying crowds, the clasp, the flight. Faces that touch, eyes that are dim with pain. I see the hoarse wheels turn, and the great train Move labouring out into the bourneless night. So many souls within its dim recesses, So many bright, so many mournful eyes : Mine eyes that watch grow fixed with dreams and gniesses; What threads of life, what hidden histories. What sweet or passionate dreams and dark distresses, What unknown thoughts, what various agonies! War BY the Nile, the sacred river, I can see the captive hordes. Strain beneath the lash and quiver At the long papyrus cords. While in granite rapt and solemn, Rising over roof and column, Amen-hotep dreams, or Ramses, Lord of Lords. I can hear the trumpets waken For a victory old and far — Carchemish or Kadesh taken — I can see the conqueror's car Bearing down some Hittite valley. Where the bowmen break and sally, Sargina or Esarhaddon, Grim with war! From the mountain streams that sweeten Indus, to the Spanish foam, I can feel the broad earth beaten By the serried tramp of Rome; Archibald Lampman 7i Through whatever foes environ Onward with the might of iron — Veni, vidi; veni vici — Crashing home! I can see the kings grow pallid With astonished fear and hate, As the hosts of Amr or Khaled On their cities fall like fate; Like the heat-wind from its prison In the desert burst and risen — La ilaha illah 'llahu — God is great! I can hear the iron rattle, I can see the arrows sting In some far-oflf northern battle. Where the long swords sweep and swing; I can hear the scalds declaiming, I can see their eyeballs flaming. Gathered in a frenzied circle Round the king. I can hear the horn of Uri Roaring in the hills enorm; Kindled at its brazen fury, I can see the clansmen form; In the dawn in misty masses. Pouring from the silent passes Over Granson or Morgarten Like the storm. On the lurid anvil ringing To some slow fantastic plan, I can hear the sword-smith singing In the heart of old Japan — Till the cunning blade grows tragic With his malice and his magic — Tenka tairan! Tenka tairan! War to man! Where a northern river charges From a wild and moonlit glade. 72 Archibald Lampman From the murky forest marges, Round a broken palisade, I can see the red men leaping. See the sword of Daulac sweeping. And the ghostly forms of heroes Fall and fade. I can feel the modern thunder Of the cannon beat and blaze. When the lines of men go under On your proudest battle-days ; Through the roar I hear the lifting Of the bloody chorus drifting Round the burning mill at Valmy — Marseillaise ! I can see the ocean rippled With the driving shot like rain. While the hulls are crushed and crippled, And the guns are piled with slain; O'er the blackened broad sea-meadow Drifts a tall and titan shadow. And the cannon of Trafalgar Startle Spain. Still the tides of fight are booming. And the barren blood is spilt; Still the banners are up-looming. And the hands are on the hilt; But the old world waxes wiser, From behind the bolted visor It descries at last the horror And the guilt. Yet the eyes are dim, nor wholly Open to the golden gleam, And the brute surrenders slowly To the godhead and the dream. From his cage of bar and girder. Still at moments mad with murder. Leaps the tiger, and his demon Rules supreme. Archibald Lampman ''^ One more war with fire and famine Gathers — I can hear its cries — And the years of might and Mammon Perish in a world's demise; When the strength of man is shattered, And the powers of earth are scattered, From beneath the ghastly ruin Peace shall rise! April Night HOW deep the April night is in its noon, The hopeful, solemn, many-murmured night ! The earth lies hushed with expectation; bright Above the world's dark border burns the moon. Yellow and large; from forest floorways, strewn With flowers, and fields that tingle with new birth, The moist smell of the unimprisoned earth Come up, a sigh, a haunting promise. Soon, Ah, soon, the teeming triumph! At my feet The river with its stately sweep and wheel Moves on slow-motioned, luminous, gray like steel. From fields far off whose watery hollows gleam, Aye with blown throats that make the long hours sweet, The sleepless toads are murmuring in their dreams. The Largest Life I 1LIE upon my bed and hear and see. The moon is rising through the glistening trees ; And momently a great and sombre breeze, With a vast voice returning fitfully. Comes like a deep-toned grief, and stirs in me. Somehow, by some inexplicable art, A sense of my soul's strangeness, and its part In the dark march of human destiny. What am I, then, and what are they that pass Yonder, and love and laugh, and mourn and weep? What shall they know of me, or I, alas! '^* ArcMbald Lampman Of them? Little. At times, as if from sleep, We waken to this yearning passionate mood. And tremble at our spiritual solitude. II Nay, never once to feel we are alone. While the great human heart around us lies : To make the smile on other lips our own. To live upon the light in others' eyes : To breathe without a doubt the limped air Of that most perfect love that knows no pain: To say — I love you — only, and not care Whether the love come back to us again : Divinest self-forgetfulness, at first A task, and then a tonic, then a need; To greet with open hands the best and worst, And only for another's wound to bleed: This is to see the beauty that God meant. Wrapped round with life, ineffably content. Ill There is a beauty at the goal of life, A beauty growing since the world began. Through every age and race, through lapse and strife Till the great human soul complete her span. Beneath the waves of storm that lash and burn. The currents of blind passion that appall. To listen and keep watch till we discern The tide of sovereign truth that guides it all; So" to address our spirits to the height. And so attune them to the valiant whole. That the great light be clearer for our light. And the great soul the stronger for our soul: To have done this is to have lived, though fame Remember us with no familiar name. Frederick George Scott Frederick Gc(ir;^c Scolt's poetry has /'ullozeed three or four leell-de fined lines of tliou^^ht. lie has reflected in turn the academic subjects of a library, the majesty of nature, the tender loi'e of his felloienicn. and the "cnsion and enthusiasm of an Imperialist. His ■loork in any one field 'ieould attract attention: taken in mass it marks him as a sturdy, dcz'clop- ing interpreter of his country and of his times. IVhether he zeritcs of 'Samson' and 'Thorf of the 'Little Rii'crf or lehethcr lie expands his soul in a 'Hymn of Empire,' his lines arc marked b\ imagination, melody, sympathy and often zeisf- fulncss. Liz'in.i:; on the edge of the shadoie-fleekcd Lauren- tians, he constantly drazes inspiration from them, and more than any other has made articulate their lonely beauties. His pastoral relations leith a city flock give colour and tenderness to not a feio of his poems of human relationships. His ar- dent loi'e of the Umpire gives rein to his restless, roi'iug thoughts and has finally drazun him to the battle-front as a chaplain. . . — AI. O. Hammond, of 'The Glol^e," Toronto. [751 '^6 Frederick George Scott FREDERICK GEORGE SCOTT, "The Poet of the Laur- entians," has this supreme gift as a writer: the art of expressing noble, beautiful and often profound thoughts, in simple, appropriate words which all who read can under- stand. His poems uplift the spirit and enrich the heart. He was born in Montreal, April 7th, 1861, son of the late Dr. William Edward Scott, for nearly forty years Professor of Anatomy, in McGill University, and Elizabeth Sproston. Both parents were of EngHsh birth. He was educated at the Montreal High School, at Bishop's College, Lennoxville (B.A., 1881; M.A., 1884; D.C.Iy., hon- orary, 1902), and at King's College, London, England. Ordained deacon, 1884, and priest, 1886, his subsequent cler- ical career is indicated by the following : curate at Coggeshall, Essex, England, 1886-7; Rector of Drummondville, P.Q., 1887-96; curate, St. Mathews, Quebec, 1896-9, and then Rec- tor; Canon, Holy Trinity Cathedral, Quebec, 1906, and ever since; Provincial Superior, Confraternity of the Blessed Sac- rament. As an author. Canon Scott has won distinction by these publications: The Soul's Quest, and Other Poems, 1888; Blton Haslewood, 1892; My Lattice, and Other Poems, 1894; The Unnamed Lake, and Other Poems, 1897 ; Poems Old and New, 1900; The Hymn of Empire, and Other Poems, 1906; The Key of Life, a Mystery Play, 1907; Collected Poems, 1910. At a special meeting of the Royal Society of Canada, — of which he was elected a Fellow in 1900, — held during the Quebec Tercentenary, he read an ode, Canada, written for the occasion. His marriage to Amy, eldest daughter of the late George Brooks, of Barnet, England, took place in April, 1887. Of this union there are six children living, five boys and one girl. The two eldest sons are practising lawyers in Montreal. This hero-poet at the Front — he is Major and Senior Chap- lain of the 1st Canadian Division — is more than an eminent writer of verse and an impressive preacher, he is as the Mon- treal Star has said : A man of liberal culture and wide sympathies, a patriot whose heart has thrilled with the truth of the larger life, political, social and religious, a man of strong courage born of reverent unquestioning faith. Frederick George Scott '^'^ The Feud 1HEAR a cry from the Sansard cave, O mother, will no one hearken? A cry of the lost, will no one save? A cry of the dead, though the oceans rave, And the scream of a gull as he wheels o'er a grave, While the shadows darken and darken.' 'Oh, hush thee, child, for the night is wet. And the cloud-caves split asunder. With lightning in a jagged fret, Like the gleam of a salmon in the net. When the rocks are rich in the red sunset. And the stream rolls down in thunder.' 'Mother, O mother, a pain at my heart, A pang like the pang of dying.' 'Oh, hush thee, child, for the wild birds dart Up and down, and close and part. Wheeling round where the black cliffs start. And the foam at their feet is flying.' 'O mother, a strife like the black clouds' strife. And a peace that cometh after.' 'Hush, child, for peace is the end of life. And the heart of a maiden finds peace as a wife. But the sky and the, cliffs and the ocean are rife With the storm and thunder's laughter.' 'Come in, my sons, come in and rest. For the shadows darken and darken, And your sister is pale as the white swan's breast, And her eyes are fixed and her lips are pressed In the death of a name ye might have guessed. Had ye twain been here to hearken.' 'Hush, mother, a corpse lies on the sand. And the spray is round it driven, It lies on its face, and one white hand Points through the mist on the belt of strand To where the cliffs of Sansard stand. And the ocean's strength is riven.' 6 78 Frederick Greorge Scott 'Was it God, my sons, who laid him there? Or the sea that left him sleeping?' 'Nay, mother, our dirks where his heart was bare. As swift as the rain through the teeth of the air; And the foam-fingers play in the Saxon's hair. While the tides are round him creeping.' 'Oh, curses on you, hand and head. Like the rains in this wild weather. The g^ilt of blood is swift and dread. Your sister's face is cold and dead. Ye may not part whom God would wed And love hath knit together.' Samson PLUNGED in night, I sit alone Eyeless on this dungeon stone. Naked, shaggy, and unkempt, Dreaming dreams no soul hath dreamt. Rats and vermin round my feet Play unharmed, companions sweet; Spiders weave me overhead Silken curtains for my bed. Day by day the mould I smell Of this fungus-blistered cell; Nightly in my haunted sleep O'er my face the lizards creep. Gyves of iron scrape and burn Wrists and ankles when I turn, And my collared neck is raw With the teeth of brass that gnaw. God of Israel, canst Thou see All my fierce captivity? Do Thy sinews feel my pains? Hearest Thou the clanking chains? Thou who madest me so fair. Strong and buoyant as the air, Tall and noble as a tree, With the passions of the sea, Frederick George Scott '^9 Swift as horse upon my feet, Fierce as lion in my heat, Rending, like a wisp of hay, All that dared withstand my way, Canst Thou see me through the gloom Of this subterranean tomb, — Blinded tiger in his den. Once the lord and prince of men? Clay was I; the potter Thou With Thy thuihb-nail smooth'dst my brow, RoU'dst the spittle-moistened sands Into limbs between Thy hands. Thou didst pour into my blood Fury of the fire and flood. And upon the boundless skies Thou didst first unclose my eyes. And my breath of life was flame, God-like from the source it came, Whirling round like furious wind. Thoughts upgathered in the mind. Strong Thou mad'st me, till at length All my weakness was my strength ; Tortured am I, blind and wrecked, For a faulty architect. From the woman at my side. Was I woman-like to hide What she asked me, as if fear Could my iron heart come near? Nay, I scorned and scorn again Cowards who their tongues restrain ; Cared I no more for Thy laws Than a wind of scattered straws. When the earth quaked at my name And my blood was all aflame, Who was I to he, and cheat Her who clung about my feet? 80 Frederick George Scott From Thy open nostrils blow Wind and tempest, rain and snow; Dost Thou curse them on their course, For the fury of their force? Tortured am I, wracked and bowed. But the soul within is proud; Dungeon fetters cannot still Forces of the tameless will. Israel's God, come down and see All my fierce captivity; I^et Thy sinews feel my pains. With Thy fingers lift my chains, Then, with thunder loud and wild, Comfort Thou Thy rebel child. And with lightning split in twain Loveless heart and sightless brain. Give me splendour in my death — Not this sickening dungeon breath. Creeping down my blood like slime. Till it wastes me in my prime. Give me back for one blind hour, Half my former rage and power, And some giant crisis send. Meet to prove a hero's end. Then, O God, Thy mercy show — Crush him in the overthrow At whose life they scorn and point. By its greatness out of joint. Dawn THE immortal spirit hath no bars To circumscribe its dwelling place; My soul hath pastured with the stars Upon the meadow-lands of space. My mind and ear at times have caught. From realms beyond our mortal reach. Frederick Greorge Scott 8i The utterance of Eternal Thought Of which all nature is the speech. And high above the seas and lands, On peaks just tipped with morning light, My dauntless spirit mutely stands With eagle wings outspread for flight. The River WHY hurry, little river. Why hurry to the sea? There is nothing there to do But to sink into the blue And all forgotten be. There is nothing on that shore But the tides for evermore. And the faint and far-off line Where the winds across the brine For ever, ever roam And never find a home. Why hurry, little river. From the mountains and the mead. Where the graceful elms are sleeping And the quiet cattle feed? The loving shadows cool The deep and restful pool; And every tribute stream Brings its own sweet woodland dream Of the mighty woods that sleep Where the sighs of earth are deep. And the silent skies look down On the savage mountain's frown. Oh, linger, little river, Your banks are all so fair. Each morning is a hymn of praise. Each evening is a prayer. All day the sunbeams glitter On your shallows and your bars, And at night the dear God stills you With the music of the stars. 82 Frederick George Scott The Storm OGRIP the earth, ye forest trees, Grip well the earth to-night. The Storm-God rides across the seas To greet the morning light. All clouds that wander through the skies Are tangled in his net. The frightened stars have shut their eyes, The breakers fume and fret. The birds that cheer the woods all day Now tremble in their nests. The giant branches round them sway. The wild wind never rests. The squirrel and the cunning fox Have hurried to their holes. Far off, like distant earthquake shocks. The muffled thunder rolls. In scores of hidden woodland dells. Where no rough winds can harm, The timid wild-flowers toss their bells In reasonless alarm. Only the mountains rear their forms, Silent and grim and bold; To them the voices of the storms Are as a tale re-told. They saw the stars in heaven hung, They heard the great Sea's birth. They know the ancient pain that wrung The entrails of the Earth. Sprung from great Nature's royal lines. They share her deep repose, — Their rugged shoulders robed in pines. Their foreheads crowned with snows. But now there comes a lightning flash, And now on hill and plain The charging clouds in fury dash. And blind the world with rain. Frederick George Scott ^3 In the Winter Woods WINTER forests mutely standing Naked on your bed of snow, Wide your knotted arms expanding To the biting winds that blow, Nought ye heed of storm or stress, Stubborn, silent, passionless. Buried is each woodland treasure. Gone the leaves and mossy rills, Gone the birds that filled with pleasure All the valleys and the hills; Ye alone of all that host Stand like soldiers at your post. (jrand old trees, the words ye mutter, Nodding in the frosty wind. Wake some thoughts I cannot utter. But which haunt the heart and mind, With a meaning, strange and deep. As of visions seen in sleep. Something in my inmost thinking Tells me I am one with you. For a subtle bond is linking Nature's offspring through and through, And your spirit like a flood Stirs the pulses of my blood. While I linger here and listen To the crackling boughs above. Hung with icicles that glisten As if kindling into love, Human heart and soul unite With your majesty and might. Horizontal, rich with glory. Through the boughs the red sun's rays Clothe you as some grand life-story Robes an aged man with praise, When, before his setting sun, Men recount what he has done. 8* Frederick George Scott But the light is swiftly fading, And the wind is icy cold. And a mist the moon is shading, PalHd in the western gold; In the night-winds still ye nod. Sentinels of Nature's God. Now with laggard steps returning To the world from whence I came, Leave I all the great West burning With the day that died in flame, And the stars, with silver ray, Light me on my homeward way. The Unnamed Lake IT sleeps among the thousand hills Where no man ever trod. And only nature's music fills The silences of God. Great mountains to.wer above its shore, Green rushes fringe its brim, t And o'er its breast for evermore The wanton breezes skim. Dark clouds that intercept the sun Go there in Spring to weep, And there, when Autumn days are done, White mists lie down to sleep. Sunrise and sunset crown with- gold The pinks of ageless stone. Her winds have thundered from of old And storms have set their throne. No echoes of the world afar Disturb it night or day, The sun and shadow, moon and star Pass and repass for aye. 'Twas in the grey of early dawn. When first the lake we spied. And fragments of a cloud were drawn Half down the mountain side. Frederick George Scott 85 Along the shore a heron flew, And from a speck on high, That hovered in the deepening blue. We heard the fish-hawk's cry. Among the cloud-capt solitudes, No sound the silence broke, Save when, in whispers down the woods. The guardian mountains spoke. Through tangled brush and dewy brake. Returning whence we came. We passed in silence, and the lake We left without a name. The Burden of Time BEFORE the seas and mountains were brought forth, I reigned. I hung the universe in space, I capped earth'g poles with ice to South and North, And set the moving tides their bounds and place. I smoothed the granite mountains with my hand. My fingers gave the continents their form; I rent the heavens and loosed upon the land The fury of the whirlwind and the storm. I stretched the dark sea like a nether sky Fronting the stars between the ice-clad zones; I gave the deep his thunder; the Most High Knows well the voice that shakes His mountain thrones. I trod the ocean caverns black as night. And silent as the bounds of outer space, And where great peaks rose darkly towards the light I planted life to root and grow apace. Then through a stillness deeper than the grave's, The coral spires rose slowly one by one, Until the white shafts pierced the upper waves And shone like silver in the tropic sun. I ploughed with glaciers down the mountain glen, And graved the iron shore with stream and tide; 86 Frederick George Scott I gave the bird her nest, the lion his den. The snake long jungle-grass wherein to hide. In lonely gorge and over hill and plain, I sowed the giant forests of the world; The great earth like a human heart in pain Has quivered with the meteors I have hurled. I plunged whole continents beneath the deep. And left them sepulchred a million years; I called, and lo, the drowned lands rose from sleep. Sundering the waters of the hemispheres. I am the lord and arbiter of man — I hold and crush between my finger-tips Wild hordes that drive the desert caravan, Great nations that go down to sea in ships. In sovereign scorn I tread the races down. As each its puny destiny fulfils. On plain and island, or where huge cliffs frown. Wrapt in the deep thought of the ancient hills. The wild sea searches vainly round the land For those proud fleets my arm has swept away ; Vainly the wind along the desert sand Calls the great names of kings who once held sway. Yea, Nineveh and Babylon the great Are fallen — like ripe ears at harvest-tide; I set my heel upon their pomp and state. The people's serfdom and the monarch's pride. One doom waits all — art, speech, law, gods, and men, Forests and mountains, stars and shining sun, — The hand that made them shall unmake again, I curse them and they wither one by one. Waste altars, tombs, dead cities where men trod. Shall roll through space upon the darkened globe. Till I myself be overthrown, and God Cast off creation like an outworn robe. Wilfred Campbell // IS just because Campbell has akvays made man and the larger, greater interests of man, the prevailing note of his poetic zvork, and is doiiig it more than ever before, that he is to be placed in the very front of our Canadian singers The majesty and grandeur of natxire appeals to the poet, but there is alzvays attached thereto the larger human interest. . . . His exquisite nature poems are as zvorthy of being read as any that IVordsworth wrote 'The Bereavement of the Fields,' the beautiful tribute to the memory of Archibald Lampman, worthily takes its place beside the other greater elegies of the English language. In technique and melody it ranks very high The well known poem, 'The Mother,' has justly been praised as one of the finest poems in all English literature. — Prof. L. E. Horning, M.A., Ph.D., in 'Globe Magazine.' Elis poetrv not only touches the deepest thought and feeling of humanity, but goes into the sacred and tragic places, where the great dramatic moments of life arc known. — Toronto 'Saturday Night.' [871 88 Wilfred Campbell WILFRED CAMPBELL, one of the most distinguished of our native writers, is a poet and novehst by in- herited right. Through his father, the Rev. Thomas Swaniston Campbell, a descendant of the first Lord Campbell, of the House of Argyll, he is of the same stock as the poet, Thomas Campbell, and as the novelist, Henry Fielding. His maternal grandfather was the late Major Francis Wright of the Royal Horse Guards. He was born in Berlin, Ontario, June 1st, 1861, and was educated at the local High School, at University College, Tor- onto, and at Cambridge, Massachusetts. The honorary de- gree, LL.D., was conferred on him, in 1906, by the University of Aberdeen. He was married in 1884 to Mary Louisa, only child of the late David Mark Dibble, M.D., of Woodstock, Ontario. Dr. Campbell was ordained a clergyman of the Episcopal Church in 1885, and undertook parish work in New England. Three years later he returned to Canada and became Rector of St. Stephen, New Brunswick. In 1891, he retired from the ministry to devote his life chiefly to literary effort, and entered the civil service at Ottawa. For some years he has been associated with Dr. Doughty in the Dominion Archives Bureau. In 1905, the best of Campbell's lyrics and sonnets were published in a substantial volume entitled. The Collected Poems of Wilfred Campbell. At the same time appeared The Col- lected Poems of Isabella Valancy Crawford, and such a notable coincidence aroused much interest in Canadian literary circles. There is another coincidence of singular interest pertaining to these poets: each has written a remarkable poem on an identical theme, — the soul of a mother returning from the grave for her child^ In 1908, Campbell's Poetical Tragedies: "Mordred," "Dau- lac," "Morning" and "Hildebrand," were issued in a hand- some volume, and his Sagas of Vaster Britain, a notable selection of his verse, in 1914. The historical novels of this author, Ian of the Orcades (1906) and A Beautiful Rebel (1909), should be more widely read, and several other volumes of historical importance. Indeed his literary achievements are being added to yearly with a will and energy indomitable and purposeful. Wilfred CampbeU §9 England ENGLAND, England, England, Girdled by ocean and skies. And the power of a world, and the heart of a race, And a hope that never dies. England, England, England, Wherever a true heart beats. Wherever the rivers of commerce flow. Wherever the bugles of conquest blow. Wherever the glories of liberty grow, 'Tis the name that the world repeats. And ye, who dwell in the shadow Of the century-sculptured piles, Where sleep our century-honoured dead. Whilst the great world thunders overhead. And far out, miles on miles, Beyond the smoke of the mighty town, The blue Thames dimples and smiles; Not yours alone the glory of old. Of the splendid thousand years, Of Britain's might and Britain's right And the brunt of British spears. Not yours alone, for the great world round. Ready to dare and do, Scot and Celt and Norman and Dane, With the Northman's sinew and heart and brain. And the Northman's courage for blessing or bane. Are England's heroes too. North and south and east and west. Wherever their triumphs be. Their glory goes home to the ocean-girt isle. Where the heather blooms and the roses smile. With the green isle under her lee. And if ever the smoke of an alien gun Should threaten her iron repose. Shoulder to shoulder against the world, Face to face with her foes, 90 Wilfred Campbell Scot, and Celt and Saxon are one Where the glory of England goes. And we of the newer and vaster West, Where the great war-banners are furled, And commerce hurries her teeming hosts, And the cannon are silent along our coasts, Saxon and Gaul, Canadians claim A part in the glory and pride and aim Of the Empire that girdles the world. England, England, England, Wherever the daring heart By Arctic floe or torrid strand Thy heroes play their part; For as long as conquest holds the earth. Or commerce sweeps the sea. By orient jungle or western plain Will the Saxon spirit be: And whatever the people that dwell beneath. Or whatever the alien tongue, Over the freedom and peace of the world Is the flag of England flung, Till the last great freedom is found. And the last great truth be taught. Till the last great deed be done, And the last great battle is fought; Till the last great fighter is slain in the last great fight, And the war- wolf is dead in his den — England, breeder of hope and valour and might. Iron mother of men. Yea, England, England, England, Till honour and valour are dead, Till the world's great cannons rust. Till the world's great hopes are dust. Till faith and freedom be fled. Till wisdom and justice have passed To sleep with those who sleep in the many-chambered vast, Till glory and knowledge are charnelled dust in dust. To all that is best in the world's unrest. Wilfred Campbell 91 In heart and mind you are wed. While out from the Indian jungle To the far Canadian snows, Over the East and over the West, Over the worst and over the best. The flag of the world to its winds unfurled, The blood-red ensign blows. The Children of the Foam OUT forever and forever, Where our tresses glint and shiver On the icy moonlit air; Come we from a land of gloaming, Children lost, forever homing, Never, never reaching there; Ride we, ride we, ever faster. Driven by our demon master. The wild wind in his despair. Ride we, ride we, ever home. Wan, white children of the foam. In the wild October dawning, When the heaven's angry awning Leans to lakeward, bleak and drear; And along the black, wet ledges. Under icy, caverned edges. Breaks the lake in maddened fear; And the woods in shore are moaning; Then you hear our weird intoning. Mad, late children of the year; Ride we, ride we, ever home, Lost, white children of the foam. All grey day, the black sky under, Where the beaches moan and thunder. Where the breakers spume and comb, You may hear our riding, riding. You may hear our voices chiding, Under glimmer, under gloam; Like a far-ofif infant wailing. 92 Wilfred Campbell You may hear our hailing, hailing, For the voices of our home; Ride we, ride we, ever home, Haunted children of the foam. And at midnight, when the glimmer Of the moon grows dank and dimmer, Then we lift our gleaming eyes ; Then you see our white arms tossing. Our wan breasts the moon embossing, Under gloom of lake and skies; You may hear our mournful chanting, And our voices haunting, haunting. Through the night's mad melodies; Riding, riding, ever home, Wild, white children of the foam. There, forever and forever, Will no demon-hate dissever Peace and sleep and rest and dream: There is neither fear nor fret there When the tired children get there. Only dews and pallid beam Fall in gentle peace and sadness Over long surcease of madness. From hushed skies that gleam and gleam. In the longed-for, sought-for home Of the children of the foam. There the streets are hushed and restful. And of dreams is every breast full. With the sleep that tired eyes wear; There the city hath long quiet From the madness and the riot, From the failing hearts of care; Balm of peacefulness ingliding, Dream we through our riding, riding. As we homeward, homeward fare; Riding, riding, ever home, Wild, white children of the foam. Wilfred Campbell 93 Under pallid moonlight beaming, Under stars of midnight gleaming, And the ebon arch of night; Round the rosy edge of morning. You may hear our distant horning, You may mark our phantom flight; Riding, riding, ever faster, Driven by our demon master, Under darkness, under light; Ride we, ride we, ever home. Wild, white children of the foam. The Dreamers THEY lingered on the middle heights Betwixt the brown earth and the heaven; They whispered, 'We are not the night's. But pallid children of the even.' They muttered, 'We are not the day's, For the old struggle and endeavour, The rugged and unquiet ways Are dead and driven past for ever.' They dreamed upon the cricket's tune, The winds that stirred the withered grasses : But never saw the blood-red moon That lit the spectre mountain-passes. They sat and marked the brooklet steal In smoke-mist o'er its silvered surges: But marked not, with its peal on peal. The storm that swept the granite gorges. They dreamed the shimmer and the shade. And sought in pools for haunted faces: Nor heard again the cannonade In dreams from earth's old battle-places. They spake, 'The ages all are dead, The strife, the struggle, and the glory; We are the silences that wed Betwixt the story and the story. 94 Wilfred Campbell 'We are the little winds that moan Between the woodlands and the meadows; We are the ghosted leaves, wind-blown Across the gust-light and the shadows.' Then came a soul across those lands Whose face was all one glad, rapt wonder. And spake: 'The skies are ribbed with bands Of fire, and heaven all racked with thunder. 'Climb up and see the glory spread, High over cliff and 'scarpment yawning: The night is past, the dark is dead, Behold the triumph of the dawning!' Then laughed they with a wistful scorn, 'You are a ghost, a long-dead vision; You passed by ages ere was bom This twilight of the days elysian. 'There is no hope, there is no strife. But only haunted hearts that hunger About a dead, scarce-dreamed-of life. Old ages when the earth was younger.' Then came by one in mad distress, 'Haste, haste below, where strong arms weaken, The fighting ones grow less and less! Great cities of the world are taken ! 'Dread evil rolls by like a flood. Men's bones beneath his surges whiten, Go where the ages mark in blood The footsteps that their days enlighten.' Still they but heard, discordant mirth, The thin winds through the dead stalks rattle. While out from far-off haunts of earth There smote the mighty sound of battle. Now there was heard an awful cry. Despair that rended heaven asunder, White pauses when a cause would die. Where love was lost and souls went under, Wilfred Campbell 95 The while these feebly dreamed and talked Betwixt the brown earth and the heaven, Faint ghosts of men who breathed and walked, But deader than the dead ones even. And out there on the middlfe height They sought in pools for haunted faces. Nor heard the cry across the night That swept from earth's dread battle-places. Stella Flammarum An Ode to Halley's Comet STRANGE wanderer out of the deeps. Whence, journeying, come you? From what far, unsunned sleeps Did fate foredoom you. Returning for ever again. Through the surgings of man, A flaming, awesome portent of dread Down the centuries' span? Riddle! from the dark unwrung By all earth's sages; — God's fiery torch from His hand outflung. To flame through the ages; Thou Satan of planets eterne, 'Mid angry path. Chained, in circlings vast, to burn Out ancient wrath. By what dread hand first loosed From fires eternal ? With majesties dire infused Of force supernal, Takest thy headlong way O'er the highways of space? O wonderful, blossoming flower of fear On the sky's far face! What secret of destiny's will In thy wild burning? 96 Wilfred Campbell What portent dire of humanity's ill In thy returning? Or art thou brand of love In masking of bale? And bringest thou ever some mystical surcease For all who wail? Perchance, O Visitor dread, Thou hast thine appointed Task, thou bolt of the vast outsped! With God's anointed, Performest some endless toil In the universe wide, Feeding or cursing some infinite need Where the vast worlds ride. Once, only once, thy face Will I view in this breathing; Just for a space thy majesty trace 'Mid earth's mad seething; Ere I go hence to my place, As thou to thy -deeps. Thou flambent core of a universe dread, - Where all else sleeps. But thou and man's spirit are one, Thou poet! thou flaming Soul of the dauntless sun, Past all reclaiming! One in that red unrest. That yearning, that surge, That mounting surf of the infinite dream. O'er eternity's verge. The Mother I IT was April, blossoming spring, - They buried me, when the birds did sing; Earth, in clammy wedging earth. They banked my bed with a black, damp girth. Wilfred Campbell 97 Under the damp and under the mould, I kenned my breasts were clammy and cold. Out from the red beams, slanting and bright, I kenned my cheeks were sunken and white. I was a dream, and the world was a dream, And yet I kenned all things that seem. I was a dream, and the world was a dream, But you cannot bury a red sunbeam. For though in the under-grave's doom-night I lay all silent and stark and white. Yet over my head I seemed to know The murmurous moods of wind and snow. The snows that wasted, the winds that blew, The rays that slanted, the clouds that drew The water-ghosts up from lakes below. And the little flower-souls in earth that grow. Under earth, in the grave's stark night, I felt the stars and the moon's pale light. I felt the winds of ocean and land That whispered the blossoms soft and bland. Though they had buried me dark and low, My soul with the season's seemed to grow. II From throes of pain they buried me low. For death had finished a mother's woe. But under the sod, in the grave's dread doom, I dreamed of my baby in glimmer and gloom. I dreamed of my babe, and I kenned that his rest Was broken in wailings on my dead breast. I dreamed that a rose-leaf hand did cling; Oh, you cannot bury a mother in spring! 98 Wilfred Campbell When the winds are soft and the blossoms are red She could not sleep in her cold earth-bed. I dreamed of my babe for a day and a night, And then I rose in my grave-clothes white. I rose like a flower from my damp earth-bed To the world of sorrowing overhead. Men would have called me a thing of harm, But dreams of my babe made me rosy and warm. I felt my breasts swell under my shroud; No star shone white, no winds were loud; But I stole me past the graveyard wall, For the voice of my baby seemed to call; And I kenned me a voice, though my lips were dumb : Hush, baby, hush! for mother is come. I passed the streets to my husband's home; The chamber stairs in a dream I clomb; I heard the sound of each sleeper's breath, Light waves that break on the shores of death. I listened a space at my chamber door. Then stole like a moon-ray over its floor. My babe was asleep on a stranger's arm, 'O baby, my baby, the grave is so warm, 'Though dark and so deep, for mother is there ! O come with me from the pain and care! 'O come with me from the anguish of earth. Where the bed is banked with a blossoming girth, 'Where the pillow is soft and the rest is long, And mother will croon you a slumber-song — 'A slumber-song that will charm your eyes To a sleep that never in earth-song lies! 'The loves of earth your being can spare. But never the grave, for mother is there.' Wilfred Campbell 99 I nestled him soft to my throbbing breast, And stole me back to my long, long rest. And here I lie with him under the stars, Dead to earth, its peace and its wars ; Dead to its hates, its hopes, and its harms. So long as he cradles up soft in my arms. And heaven may open its shimmering doors. And saints make music on pearly floors. And hell may yawn to its infinite sea. But they never can take my baby from me. For so much a part of my soul he hath grown That God doth know of it high on His throne. And here I lie with him under the flowers That sun-winds rock through the billowy hours, With the night-airs that steal from the murmuring sea, Bringing sweet peace to my baby and me. The Last Prayer MASTER of life, the day is done ; My sun of life is sinking low; I watch the hours slip one by one And hark the night-wind and the snow. And must Thou shut the morning out. And dim the eye that loved to see; Silence the melody and rout. And seal the joys of earth for me? And must Thou banish all the hope, The large horizon's eagle-swim. The splendour of the far-off slope That ran about the world's great rim, , That rose with morning's crimson rays And grew to noonday's gloried dome. Melting to even's purple haze When all the hopes of earth went home? 100 Wilfred Campbell Yea, Master of this ruined house. The mortgage closed, outruns the lease; Long since is hushed the gay carouse. And now the windowed lights must cease. The doors all barred, the shutters up. Dismantled, empty, wall and floor, And now for one grim eve to sup With Death, the bailiff, at the door. Yea, I will take the gloomward road Where fast the Arctic nights set in. To reach the bourne of that abode Which Thou hast kept for all my kin. And all life's splendid joys forego. Walled in with night and senseless stone, If at the last my heart might know Through all the dark one joy alone. Yea, Thou mayst quench the latest spark Of life's weird day's expectancy. Roll down the thunders of the dark And close the light of life for me; Melt all the splendid blue above And let these magic wonders die. If Thou wilt only leave me. Love, And Love's heart-brother, Memory. Though all the hopes of every race Crumbled in one red crucible, And melted, mingled into space. Yet, Master, Thou wert merciful. George Frederick Cameron It seems strange to me that you have not thought of using any of the zvork of the late Mr. Cameron of Kingston, zvho zvas most certainly the poet of most genuine and fervid poetic energy that this country has yet produced. There are half a dozen things of his that I would not give for all that the rest of us have written. I can get a better effect upon people by reading them some of Cameron's poems, than those of any other Canadian writer; and that I have always found is the true test // / zvere making a selection, I would put them in this order: — The poem without title, 'Standing on Tiptoe; 'The Way Of The World,' 'I Am Young,' 'What Matters It,' 'To The West Wind,' 'An Anszver,' 'Wisdom,' 'Amor Finis,' 'In After Days.' .... That first poem I would include in any selection of English masterpieces hozvever restricted; and the second one, 'Standing On Tiptoe,' is almost as fine. — Archibald Lampman, in letters to a Canadian an- thologist, 1892. [101] ^0^ George Frederick Cameron GEORGE FREDERICK CAMERON was born at New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, September 24th, 1854, — the eld- est son of James Grant Cameron and Jessie Sutherland. He was educated at the local High School, where he read Virgil and Cicero in the original and devoted much time to poetry, and at the Boston University of Law. His family had moved to Boston in 1869. After graduation he entered a law office, but gave considerable attention to literary work, con- tributing to a number of journals. In 1882, he entered Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, and the following year had the distinction to win the prize for the best original poem. In March, 1883, Mr. Cameron became editor of the King- ston News, and in the following August, married Ella, the eldest daughter of Mr. Billings Amey, of Millhaven. He con- tinued in his editorial position until a few weeks before his untimely death from heart failure, September 17th, 1885. For two years he had suffered much from insomnia. His young wife and their daughter survived him. In 1887, Charles J. Cameron, M.A., edited and published a volume of his brother's poems, of about 300 pages, entitled Lyrics on Freedom, Love and Death, and which, he says in his Preface, "represents about one fourth of his life work." The unique interest attaching to such a spontaneous and emphatic expression of opinion by Lampman, has induced the editor to quote the poems only that he mentioned and to record no other critical judgment. H, me ! the mighty love that I have borne lTo thee, sweet song! A perilous gift was it My mother gave me that September morn When sorrow, song, and life were at one altar lit. A gift more perilous than the priest's : his lore Is all of books and to his books extends ; And what they see and know he knows — no more, And with their knowing all his knowing ends. A gift more perilous than the painter's : he In his divinest moments only sees The inhumanities of colour, we Feel each and all the inhumanities. A! George Frederick Cameron i^* Standing on Tiptoe TANDING on tiptoe ever since my youth '^Striving to grasp the future just above, 1 hold at length the only future— Truth, And Truth is Love. I feel as one who being awhile confined Sees drop to dust about him all his bars : — The clay grows less, and, leaving it, the mind Dwells with the stars. The Way of the World WE sneer and we laugh with the lip — the most of us do it, Whenever a brother goes down like a weed with the tide ; We point with the finger and say — Oh, we knew it ! we knew it! But, see ! we are better than he was, and we will abide. He walked in the way of his will — the way of desire, In the Appian way of his will without ever a bend; He walked in it long, but it led him at last to the mire, — But we who are stronger will stand and endure to the end. His thoughts were all visions — all fabulous visions of flowers. Of bird and of song and of soul which is only a song; His eyes looked all at the stars in the firmament, ours Were fixed on the earth at our feet, so we stand and are strong. He hated the sight and the sound and the sob of the city; He sought for his peace in the wood and the musical wave ; He fell, and we pity him never, and why should we pity — Yea, why should we mourn for him — we who still stand, who are brave? Thus speak we and think not, we censure unheeding, unknow- ing,— Unkindly and blindly we utter the words of the brain ; We see not the goal of our brother, we see but his going. And sneer at his fall if he fall, and laugh at his pain. 104 George Frederick Cameron Ah, me! the sight of the sod on the coffin lid, And the sound, and the sob, and the sigh of it as it falls! Ah, me ! the beautiful face forever hid By four wild walls! You hold it a matter for self-gratulation and praise To have thrust to the dust to have trod on a heart that was true, — To have ruined it there in the beauty and bloom of its days? Very well ! There is somewhere a Nemesis waiting for you. I Am Young I AM young, and men Who long ago have passed their prime Would fain have what I have again, — Youth, and it may be — time. To gain these, and make Life's end what it may not be now, Monarchs of thought and song would shake The laurels from their brow. And each king of earth, Whose life we deem a holiday. For this would give his kingship's worth Most joyously away! What Matters It? WHAT reck we of the creeds of men? — We see them — we shall see again. What reck we of the tempest's shock? What reck we where our anchor lock? On golden marl or mould — In salt-sea flower or riven rock — What matter — so it hold? What matters it the spot we fill On Earth's green sod when all is said? — When feet and hands and heart are still And all our pulses quieted? When hate or love can kill nor thrill, — When we are done with life and dead? George Frederick Cameron 105 So we be haunted night nor day By any sin that we have sinned, What matter where we dream away The ages? — In the isles of Ind, In Tybee, Cuba, or Cathay, Or in some world of winter wind? It may be I would wish to sleep Beneath the wan, white stars of June, And hear the southern breezes creep Between me and the mellow moon; But so I do not wake to weep At any night or any moon. And so the generous gods allow Repose and peace from evil dreams. It matters little where or how My couch is spread: — by moving streams. Or on some eminent mountain's brow Kist by the morn's or sunset's beams. For we shall rest; the brain that planned. That thought or wrought or well or ill. At gaze like Joshua's moon shall stand. Not working any work or will. While eye and lip and heart and hand Shall all be still— shall all be still! To the West Wind WEST wind, come from the west land Fair and far! Come from the fields of the best land Upon our star! Come, and go to my sister Over the sea: Tell her how much I have missed her. Tell her for me! Odours of lilies and roses — Set them astir; Cull them from gardens and closes, — Give them to her! 106 George Frederick Cameron Say I have loved her, and love her: Say that I prize Few on the earth here above her, Few in the skies ! Bring her, if worth the bringing, A brother's kiss: Should she ask for a song of his singing, Give her this ! An Answer t/'^AN it be good to die?' you question, friend; ^^'Can it be good to die, and move along Still circling round and round, unknowing end, Still circling round and round amid the throng Of golden orbs attended by their moons — To catch the intonation of their song As on they flash, and scatter nights, and noons, To worlds like ours, where things like us belong?' To me 'tis idle saying, 'He is dead.' Or, 'Now he sleepeth and shall wake no more; The little flickering, fluttering life is fled, Forever fled, and all that was is o'er.' I have a faith — that life and death are one, That each depends upon the self-same thread, And that the seen and unseen rivers run To one calm sea, from one clear fountain head. I have a faith — that man's most potent mind May cross the willow-shaded stream nor sink; I have a faith — when he has left behind His earthly vesture on the river's brink. When all his little fears are torn away, His soul may beat a pathway through the tide. And, disencumbered of its coward-clay. Emerge immortal on the sunnier side. So, say : — It must be good to die, my friend ! It must be good and more than good, I deem; 'Tis all the replication I may send— For deeper swimming seek a deeper stream. Greorge Frederick Cameron 107 It must be good or reason is a cheat, It must be good or life is all a lie, It must be good and more then living sweet, It must be good — or man would never die. Wisdom WISDOM immortal from immortal Jove Shadows more beauty with her virgin brows Than is between the pleasant breasts of Love Who makes at will and breaks her random vows, And hath a name all earthly names above: The noblest are her offspring; she controls The times and seasons — yea, all things that are — The heads and hands of men, their hearts and souls, And all that moves upon our itiother star, And all that pauses twixt the peaceful poles. Nor is she dark and distant, coy and cold, — But all in all to all who seek her shrine In utter truth, like to that king of old Who wooed and won — ^yet by no right divine. Amoris Finis AND now I go with the departing sun: My day is dead and all my work is done. No more for me the pleasant moon shall rise To show the splendour in my dear one's eyes; No more the stars shall see us meet; we part Without a hope, or hope of hope, at heart; For Love lies dead, and at his altar, lo. Stands in his room, self-crowned and crested, — Woe! In After Days I WILL accomplish that and this. And make myself a thorn to Things — Lords, councillors and tyrant kings — Who sit upon their thrones and kiss The rod of Fortune; and are crowned The sovereign masters of the earth To scatter blight and death and dearth Wherever mortal man is found. 108 George Frederick Cameron I will do this and that, and break The backbone of their large conceit, And loose the sandals from their feet. And show 'tis holy ground they shake. So sang I in my earlier days, Ere I had learned to look abroad And see that more than monarchs trod Upon the form I fain would raise. Ere I, in looking toward the land That broke a triple diadem, That grasped at Freedom's garment hem. Had seen her, sword and torch in hand, A freedom- fool : ere I had grown To know that Love is freedom's strength — France taught the world that truth at length !- And Peace her chief foundation stone. Since then, I temper so my song That it may never speak for blood; May never say that ill is good; Or say that right may spring from wrong: Yet am what I have ever been — A friend of Freedom, staunch and true, Who hate a tyrant, be he — you — A people, — sultan, czar, or queen ! And then the Freedom-haters came And questioned of my former song, If now I held it right, or wrong: And still my answer was the same: — The good still moveth towards the good: The ill still moveth towards the ill: But who affirmeth that we will Not form a nobler brotherhood When communists, fanaties, those Who howl their 'vives" to Freedom's name And yet betray her unto shame. Are dead and coffined with her foes. Bliss Carman Carman is before everything else a nature poet, but he is not a nature poet alone Carman's genius has its limits — it rarely, and scarcely ever zvith success, displays it- self in themes dealing with the social life of man — but zvithin its own compass its strength and versatility are undeniable. The imagination of the poet, zvliich n'ould seem extremely sen- sitive to the influence of his environment, is ivide-reaching and full of colour; his fancy is line and delicate; his diction is cul- tured and 'magical' ; and he possesses a gift of melodious versi- fication such as perhaps no other transatlantic writer, zvith the exception of Poe, has as yet exhibited. Canadian in his youth- ful gaiety and love of adventure, Nezv England in his practical idealism and freedom from dogma, and more Latin than anything else in his passionate love of the beautiful, Bliss Carman is not only a singer of zvhom the Dominion has every reason to be proud, but one of the most original and captiva- ting poets of the present century. — H. D. C. Lee,, Docteur De L'Universite De Rennes, in Bliss Carman: A Study in Can- adian Poetry. 1912. [100] 110 Bliss Carman BLISS CARMAN 'has the rare and vital individuahty of genius.' He was brought up in the beautiful valley of the St. John river, New Brunswick, and as in the case of his distinguished cousin, Charles G. D. Roberts, his early quest of beauty intensified later into a craving. He has ever felt his kinship with the trees, the flowers, and the furtive wild things, and has regarded himself and every other mani- festation of the Infinite Spirit, as a vagrant seeking to attain 'to perfection. For him 'God lurks as potency in all things.' After pointing out that Carman's philosophic thought had probably been influenced more by Robert Browning than by anyone else. Dr. L,ee sums up his later philosophy in these three principles : L,ove is the Lord of Life, the revealer of the purpose of creation. This divine energy can only be transmitted to the soul through the media of the senses and in proportion as the senses are perfect. The ideals awakened in the soul by Love can only be adequately realized with the help of reason. William Bliss Carman, of United Empire Loyalist descent, was born at Fredericton, N.B., April 15th, 1861, — son of William Carman, a barrister, at one time a prominent Gov- ernment official, and Sophia Bliss, an elder sister of the mother of Roberts. He was tutored at home prior to entering the Collegiate School, in Fredericton, where he came under the influence of a cultured man of letters and an ardent lover of open-air life, — Dr. George R. Parkin. To this educationist of world-wide repute, Carman has gratefully acknowledged his debt, in a dedicatory preface to The Kinship of Nature. In 1878, he won the School medal for Greek and Latin, and passed into the University of New Brunswick (B. A., and Gold Medalist, 1881; M.A., 1884; LL.D., honorary, 1906). He had taken high honours in both classics and mathematics, and in the academic year, 1882-3, he pursued these subjects, together with philosophy, in a postgraduate course at the Uni- versity of Edinburgh. Returning to Canada, he had difficulty, apparently, in choosing a profession, as he successively taught school, studied law, and practised civil engineering, before, in 1886, he resolved to take postgraduate work in Harvard Uni- versity. From 1890 to 1892, he was on the editorial staff of the Bliss Carman m Independent, New York, and later was similarly connected with Current Literature. He was one of the founders of the Chap-Book. But tiring of the editorial chair, he soon became an independent man of letters. Since he first attracted wide attention with his Low Tide on Grand Pre (1893), Carman has published many books of poems of rare quality, and four volumes of illuminating essays. April Airs, daintily issued by Small, Maynard and Company, Boston, in the spring of 1916, contains his latest lyrics. They are exquisite indeed, with deep, rich tones and great beauty of expression. Earth Voices I I HEARD the spring wind whisper Above the brushwood fire, 'The world is made forever Of transport and desire. T am the breath of being. The primal urge of things; I am the whirl of star dust, I am the lift of wings. 'I am the splendid impulse That comes before the thought. The joy and exaltation Wherein the life is caught. 'Across the sleeping furrows I call the buried seed. And blade and bud and blossom Awaken at my need. 'Within the dying ashes I blow the sacred spark, And make the hearts of lovers To leap against the dark.' n I heard the spring light whisper Above the dancing stream. 112 Bliss Carman 'The world is made forever In likeness of a dream. 'I am the law of planets, I am the guide of man; The evening and the morning Are fashioned to my plan. 'I tint the dawn with crimson, I tinge the sea with blue ; My track is in the desert. My trail is in the dew. 'I paint the hills with colour, And in my magic dome I light the star of evening To steer the traveller home. 'Within the house of being, I feed the lamp of truth With tales of ancient wisdom And prophecies of youth.' Ill I heard the spring rain murmur Above the roadside flower, 'The world is made forever In melody and power. 'I keep the rhythmic measure That marks the steps of time. And all my toil is fashioned To symmetry and rhyme. 'I plough the unfilled upland, I ripe the seeding grass. And fill the leafy forest With music as I pass. *I hew the raw rough granite To loveliness of line, And when my work is finished. Behold, it is divine! Bliss Carman ^^^ 'I am the master-builder In whom the ages trust. I lift the lost perfection To blossom from the. dust.' IV Thien Earth to them made answer, As with a slow refrain Born of the blended voices Of wind and sun and rain, 'This is the law of being That links the threefold chain: The life we give to beauty Returns to us again.' A Mountain Gateway I KNOW a vale where I would go one day, When June comes back and all the world once more Is glad with summer. Deep in shade it lies A mighty cleft between the bosoming hills, A cool dim gateway to the mountains' heart. On either side the wooded slopes come down. Hemlock and beech and chestnut. Here and there Through the deep forest laurel spreads and gleams, Pink-white as Daphne in her loveliness. Among the sunlit shadows I can see That still perfection from the world withdrawn. As if the wood-gods had arrested there Immortal beauty in her breathless flight. The road winds in from the broad river-lands, Luring the happy traveller turn by turn Up to the lofty mountains of the sky. And as he marches with uplifted face. Far overhead against the arching blue Gray ledges overhang from dizzy heights. Scarred by a thousand winters and untamed. And where the road runs in the valley's foot, Through the dark woods a mountain stream comes down. n't Bliss Carman Singing and dancing all its youth away Among the boulders and the shallow runs, Where sunbeams pierce and mossy tree trunks hang Drenched all day long with murmuring sound and spray. There light of heart and footfree, I would go Up to my home among the lasting hills. Nearing the day's end, I would leave the road. Turn to the left and take the steeper trail That climbs among the hemlocks, and at last In my own cabin doorway sit me down, Companioned in that leafy solitude By the wood ghosts of twilight and of peace. While evening passes to absolve the day And leave the tranquil mountains to the stars. And in that sweet seclusion L should hear, Among the cool-leafed beeches in the dusk. The calm-voiced thrushes at their twilight hymn. So undistraught, so rapturous, so pure. They well might be, in wisdom and in joy, The seraphs singing at the birth of time The unworn ritual of eternal things. Garden Shadows THEN the dawn winds whisper To the standing corn, And the rose of morning From the dark is born, All my shadowy garden Seems to grow aware Of a fragrant presence, Half expected there. In the golden shimmer Of the burning noon, When the birds are silent And the poppies swoon. Once more I behold her Smile and turn her face. With its infinite regard. Its immortal grace. w; Bliss Carmaii H^ When the twilight silvers Every nodding flower. When the new moon hallows The first evening hour. Is it not her footfall Down the garden walks, Where the drowsy blossoms Slumber on their stalks? In the starry quiet, When the soul is free, And a vernal message Stirs the lilac tree, Surely I have felt her Pass and brush my cheek. With the eloquence of love That does not need to speak! The Tent of Noon BEHOL,D, now, where the pageant of the high June Halts in the glowing noon! The trailing shadows rest on plain and hill; The bannered hosts are still. While over forest crown and mountain head The azure tent is spread. The song is hushed in every woodland throat; Moveless the lilies float; Even the ancient ever-murmuring sea Sighs only fitfully; The cattle drowse in the field-corner's shade; Peace on the world is laid. It is the hour when Nature's caravan, That bears the pilgrim Man Across the desert of uncharted time To his far hope sublime. Rests in the green oasis of the year. As if the end drew near. Ah, traveller, hast thou naught of thanks or praise For these fleet halcyon days? — 7 ii'S Bliss Carman No courage to uplift thee from despair Born with the breath of prayer? Then turn thee to the lilied field once more! God stands in His tent door. Spring's Saraband OVER the hills of April With soft winds hand in hand, Impassionate and dreamy-eyed, Spring leads her saraband. Her garments float and gather And swirl along the plain, Her headgear is the golden sun, Her cloak the silver rain. With colour and with music, With perfumes and with pomp. By meadowland and upland, Through pasture, wood, and swamp. With promise and enchantment Leading her mystic mime. She comes to lure the world anew With joy as old as time. Quick lifts the marshy chorus To transport, trill on trill; There's not a rod of stony ground Unanswering on the hill. The brooks and little rivers Dance down their wild ravines. And children in the city squares Keep time, to tambourines. The blue bird in the orchard Is lyrical for her, The starling with his meadow pipe Sets all the wood astir. The hooded white spring-beauties Are curtsying in the breeze. The blue hepaticas are out Under the chestnut trees. Bliss Carman i^'^ The maple buds make glamour Vibernum waves its bloom. The daffodils and tulips Are risen from the tomb. The lances of narcissus Have pierced the wintry mold; The commonplace seems paradise To veils of greening" gold. O hark, hear thou the summons, Put every grief away. When all the motley masques of earth Are glad upon a day. Alack, that any mortal Should less than gladness bring Into the choral joy that sounds The saraband of spring! Low Tide on Grand-Pre THE sun goes down, and over all These barren reaches by the tide Such unelusive glories fall, I almost dream they yet will bide Until the coming of the tide. And yet I know that not for us, By any ecstasy of dream. He lingers to keep luminous A little while the grievous stream. Which frets, uncomforted of dream — A grievous stream, that to and fro, Athrough the fields of Acadie Goes wandering, as if to know Why one beloved face should be So long from home and Acadie. Was it a year or lives ago We took the grasses in our hands. And caught the summer flying low Over the waving meadow lands. And held it there between our hands? 118 Bliss Carman The while the river at our feet — A drowsy inland meadow stream— At set of sun the after-heat Made running gold, and in the gleam We freed our birch upon the stream. There down along the elms at dusk We lifted dripping blade to drift, Through twilight scented fine like musk, Where night and gloom awhile uplift, Nor sunder soul and soul adrift. And that we took into our hands — Spirit of life or subtler thing — Breathed on us there, and loosed the bands Of death,' and taught us, whispering, The secret of some wonder-thing. Then all your face grew light, and seemed To hold the shadow of the sun ; The evening faltered, and I deemed That time was ripe, and years had done Their wheeling underneath the sun. So all desire and all regret. And fear and memory, were naught; One to remember or forget The keen delight our hands had caught; Morrow and yesterday were naught. The night has fallen, and the tide. . . Now and again comes drifting home. Across these aching barrens wide, A sigh like driven wind or foam: In grief the flood is bursting home. Threnody for a Poet NOT in the ancient abbey. Nor in the city ground. Not in the lonely mountains. Nor in the blue profound, Lay him to rest when his time is come And the smiling mortal lips are dumb ; Bliss Carman ^^ But here in the decent quiet Under the whispering pines, Where the dogwood breaks in blossom And the peaceful sunlight shines, Where wild birds sing and ferns unfold, When spring comes back in her green and gold. And when that mortal likeness Has been dissolved by fire. Say not above the ashes, 'Here ends a man's desire.' For every year when the bluebirds sing, He shall be part of the lyric spring. Then dreamful-hearted lovers Shall hear in wind and rain The cadence of his music, The rhythm of his refrain, For he was a blade of the April sod That bowed and blew with the whisper of God. At the Making of Man F'IRST all the host of Raphael In liveries of, gold, Lifted the chorus on whose rhythm The spinning spheres are rolled, — The Seraphs of the morning calm Whose hearts are never cold. He shall be bom a spirit, Part of the soul that yearns, The core of vital gladness That suffers and discerns. The stir that breaks the budding sheath When the green spring returns, — The gist of power and patience Hid in the plasmic clay. The calm behind the senses. The passionate essay To make his wise and lovely dream Immortal on a day. 120 Bliss Carman The soft Aprilian ardours That warm the waiting loam Shall whisper in his pulses To bid him overcome, And he shall learn the wonder-cry Beneath the azure dome. And though all-dying nature Should teach him to deplore, The ruddy fires of autumn Shall lure him but the more To pass from joy to stronger joy. As through an open door. He shall have hope and honour, Proud trust and courage stark, To hold him to his purpose Through the unlighted dark. And love that sees the moon's, full orb In the first silver arc. And he shall live by kindness And the heart's certitude, Which moves without misgiving In ways not understood. Sure only of the vast event, — The large and simple good. Then Gabriel's host in silver gear And vesture twilight blue, The spirits of immortal mind. The warders of the true, Took up the theme that gives the world Significance anew. He shall be born to reason, And have the primal need To understand and follow Wherever truth may lead, — To grow in wisdom like a tree Unfolding from a seed. Bliss Carman ^^l A watcher by the sheepfolds, With wonder in his eyes, He shall behold the seasons, And mark the planets rise, Till all the marching firmament Shall rouse his vast surmise. Beyond the sweep of vision. Or utmost reach of sound, This cunning fire-maker, This tiller of the ground, Shall learn the secrets of the suns And fathom the profound. For -he must prove all being, Sane, beauteous, benign. And at the heart of nature Discover the divine, — Himself the type and symbol Of the eternal trine. He shall perceive the kindling Of knowledge, far and dim. As of the fire that brightens Below the dark sea-rim. When ray by ray the splendid sun Floats to the world's wide brim. And out of primal instinct, The lore of lair and den, He shall emerge to question How, wherefore, whence, and when, Till the last frontier of the truth Shall lie within his ken. Then Michael's scarlet-suited host Took up the word and sang; As though a trumpet had been loosed In heaven, the arches rang; For these were they who feel the thrill Of beauty like a pang. 122 Bliss Carman He shall be framed and balanced For loveliness and power, Lithe as the supple creatures, And coloured as a flower, Sustained by the all-feeding earth. Nurtured by wind and shower. To stand within the vortex Where surging forces play, A poised and pliant figure Immutable as they. Till time and space and energy Surrender- to his sway. He shall be free to journey Over the teeming earth. An insatiable seeker, A wanderer from his birth, Clothed in the fragile veil of sense. With fortitude for girth. His hands shall have dominion Of all created things. To fashion in the likeness Of his imaginings, To make his will and thought survive Unto a thousand springs. The world shall be his province, The princedom of his skill; The tides shall wear his harness. The winds obey his will; Till neither flood, nor fire, nor frost. Shall work to do him ill. A creature fit to carry The pure creative fire, Whatever truth inform him. Whatever good inspire. He shall make lovely in all things To the end of his desire. S. Frances Harrison (Sera)ius ) Nature has done much for Mrs. Harrison, in giving her a quick and ready zvit, a profoundly sympathetic nature, an un- usual power of entering into the thoughts and sentiments of others, besides a very higli poetic endowment It is necessary to mention that Mrs. Harrison is of British stock, and a native of Toronto. ]]'e do not mean that there are not abundant evidences of this origin in her writings; but those who rise from the perusal of her principal volume of poems will find it difficult to bcJiez'e that she has no Gallic strain in her constitution. It may perhaps be sufficient explanation for this phenomenon, the delicate perception of every shade of French thought and feeling, that the young artist was re- moved to Lozuer Canada zdien only a girl of fifteen, and there became conscious of all the rich material which lay around her, ready to be zcorked up into living pictures Five pages from 'Pine, Rose and Fleur De Lis' are included in Stedman's splendid 'Victorian Anthology,' a high and just tri- bute from the foremost critic of America. — Rev. William Clark, D.C.L., in 'The Magazine of Poetry,' 1896. 11231 124 S. Frances Harrison S FRANCES HARRISON is one of our greater poets • whose work has not yet had the recognition in Can- ada it merits. For unique originality and interest, her pen pictures, in villanelle form, of French-Canadian character and life, stand in almost as distinctive a class as Dr. Drum- mond's habitant poems, and like the latter they were produced from first-hand knowledge. Susie Frances Riley was born in Toronto, February 24th, 1859, and is of Irish-Canadian extraction, her father being the late John Byron Riley, for many years proprieter of the 'Revere House,' King St. West. She was educated in a pri- vate school, for girls, and later, for two years, in Montreal. In her twerity-first year, she married Mr. J. W. F. Harrison, of Bristol, England, a professional musician, at that time or- ganist of St. George's Church, Montreal. In those days, and later, Mrs. Harrison was well known as a professional pianist and vocalist, and indeed her proficiency as a musician has since had expression in compositions of worth. In 1883, while liv- ing in Ottawa, where her husband was musical director of the Ottawa Ladies College and organist and choirmaster of Christ Church Cathedral, she wrote and composed a Song of Welcome for the initial public appearance of the Marquis of Lansdowne ; and she has since composed many songs, and an entire opera, words and music. ■-._,. In 1887, Mr. and Mrs. Harrison moved to Toronto, where the former had become organist and choirmaster of the. Church of St. Simon, the Apostle. It was about this time that 'Seranus' began her literary career in earnest, and since then her contributions have appeared in many of the leading periodicals and journals. The following are her book. pub- lications: Crowded Out and Other Sketches, 1886; Can- adian Birthday Book, 1887; Pine, Rose and Pleur De Lis, 1891 ; The Barest of Bourg-Marie, a novel, 1898 ; In Northern Skies and Other Poems, 1912; and Ringfield, a novel, 1914. Crowded Out and Other Sketches has special significance, as 'it was in point of time the first attempt to put Muskoka, and the feeling and landscape of I^ower Canada, before our people in an artistic way.' Mr. and Mrs. Harrison have a son and a daughter. S. Frances Harrison 125 From ' Down the River ' Gatineau Point A HALF-BREED, slim, and sallow of face, Alphonse lies full length on his raft, The hardy son of a hybrid race. Lithe and long, with the Indian grace. Versed in the varied Indian craft, A half-breed, slim, and sallow of face, He nurses within mad currents that chase — The swift, the sluggish — a foreigti graft. This hardy son of a hybrid race. What southern airs, what snows embrace Within his breast — soft airs that waft The half-breed — slim, and sallow of face. Far from the Gatineau's foaming base! And what strong potion hath he quaffed. This hardy son of a hybrid race, That upon this sun-baked blistered place He sleeps, with his hand on the burning haft, A Metis — slim and sallow of face. The hardy son of a hybrid race! The Voyageur LIKE the swarthy son of some tropic shore He sleeps, with his olive bosom bared. He sleeps — in his earrings of brassy ore. Like a tawny tiger whom hot hours bore. When all night long he has growled and glared At the swarthy son of some tropic shore, Like a fierce-eyed blossom with heart of gore That too long in the sun-flushed fields has flared, He sleeps' — in his earrings of brassy ore. And his scarlet sash that he gaily wore To tempt Madelon — who his heart has snared, Like the swarthy son of some tropic shore. 126 s. Frances Harrison That dusky form might a queen adore — Prenes garde, Madelon, for a season spared, He sleeps — in his earrings of brassy ore. For a season only. What may be in store For Madelon ? She who has never cared ! Like the swarthy son of some tropic shore He sleeps — in his earrings of brassy ore. Danger WELL! Let him sleep! Time enough to awake When sunset ushers a kind release, When cooling shadows the raft overtake. For Madelon's heart will never break For Alphonse, but for Verrier, fils, So — let him sleep! Time enough to awake When Verrier, dressed for Madelon's sake In his best, is up the river a piece, When cooling shadows the raft overtake. A Carmen — she — whose eyelashes make Havoc with all — old Boucher's niece — So — let him sleep! Time enough to awake, For a desperate thing is a bad heart-ache, And one that may not entirely cease When cooling shadows the raft overtake. H they met, who knows — a spring, a shake, A jack-knife, deadly as Malay crease — Hush! Let him sleep! Time enough to awake When cooling shadows the raft overtake. Les Chantiers FOR know, my girl, there is always the axe Ready at hand in this latitude, And how it stings and bites and hacks When Alphonse the sturdy trees attacks! So fear, child, to cross him, or play the prude. For know, my girl, there is always the axe. S. Frances Harrison 127 See ! It shines even now as his hands relax Their grip with a dread desire imbued, And how it stings and bites and hacks, And how it rips and cuts and cracks — Perhaps — in his brain as the foe is pursued! For know, my girl, there is always the axe. The giant boles in the forest tracks Stagger, soul-smitten, when afar it is viewed, And how it stings and bites and hacks! Then how, Madelon, should its fearful thwacks A slender lad like your own elude? For know, my girl, there is always the axe, And how it stings! and bites! and hacks! Petite Ste. Rosalie FATHER Couture loves a fricassee. Served with a sip of home-made wine, He is the Cure, so jolly and free. And lives in Petite Ste. Rosalie. On Easter Sunday when one must dine. Father Couture loves a fricassee. No sterii ascetic, no stoic is he. Preaching a rigid right divine. He is the Cure, so jolly and free, That while he maintains his dignity. When Lent is past and the weather is fine. Father Couture loves a fricassee. He kills his chicken himself — on dit, And who is there dare the deed malign? He is the Cure, so jolly and free. Open and courteous, fond of a fee. The village deity, bland and benign. Father Couture loves a fricassee, He's a sensible Cure, so jolly and free! 128 g. Frances Harrison St. Jean B'ptiste '•"piS the day of the blessed St. Jean B'ptiste, ■!• And the streets are full of the folk awaiting The favourite French-Canadian feast. One knows by the bells which have never ceased, Since early morn reverberating, 'Tis the day of the blessed St. Jean B'ptiste. Welcome it! Joyeux, the portly priest! Welcome it! Nun at your iron grating! The favourite French-Canadian feast. Welcome it! Antoine, one of the least Of the earth's meek little ones, meditating On the day of the blessed St. Jean B'ptiste, And the jostling crowd that has swift increased Behind him, before him, celebrating The favourite French-Canadian feast. He is clothed in the skin of some savage beast. Who cares if he be near suffocating? 'Tis the day of the blessed St. Jean B'ptiste, The favourite French-Canadian feast. II Poor little Antoine! He does not mind. It is all for the Church, for a grand good cause, The nuns are so sweet and the priests so kind. The martyr spirit is fast enshrined In the tiny form that the ox-cart draws. Poor little Antoine, he does not mind. Poor little soul, for the cords that bind Are stronger than ardour for fame or applause — The nuns are so sweet and the priests so kind. And after the fete a feast is designed — Locusts and honey are both in the clause — Brave little Antoine! He does not mind The heat, nor the hungry demon twined Around his vitals that tears and gnaws. The nuns are so sweet and the priests so kind. S. Frances Harrison 129 The dust is flying. The streets are lined With the panting crowd that prays for a pause. Poor little Antoine! He does not mind! The nuns are so sweet and the priests so kind. Catharine Plouffe THIS grey-haired spinster, Catharine Plouffe — Observe her, a contrast to convent chits. At her spinning wheel, in the room in the roof. Yet there are those who believe that the hoof Of a horse is nightly heard as she knits — This grey-haired spinster, Catharine Plouffe — Stockings of fabulous warp and woof. And that old Benedict's black pipe she permits At her spinning wheel, in the room in the roof. For thirty years. So the gossip. A proof Of her constant heart? Nay. No one twits This grey-haired spinster, Catharine Plouffe; The neighbours respect her, but hold aloof. Admiring her back as she steadily sits At her spinning wheel, in her room in the roof. Will they ever marry?" Just ask her. Pouf! She would like you to know she's not lost her wits — This grey-haired spinster, Catharine Plouffe, At her spinning wheel, in her room in the roof. Benedict Brosse HALE, and though sixty, without a stoop, What does old Benedict want with a wife? Can he not make his own pea soup? Better than most men — never droop In the August noons when storms are rife? Hale, and though sixty, without a stoop. Supreme in the barn, the kitchen, the coop. Can he not use both broom and knife? Can he not make his own pea soup? Yet Widow Gouin in command of the troop Of gossips, can tell of the spinsters' strife. Hale, and though sixty, without a stoop, 130 s. Frances Harrison There's a dozen would jump through the golden hoop, For he's rich, and hardy for his time of life, — Can he not make his own pea soup? But Benedict's wise and the village group He ignores, while he smokes and plays on his fife. Hale, and though sixty, without a stoop, Can he not make his own pea soup? n As for Catharine — now, she's a woman of sense, Though hard to win, so Benedict thinks, Though hard to please and near with the pence. Down to the Widow Rose Archambault's fence Her property runs and Benedict winks — As for Catharine — now, she's a woman of sense. At times he has wished to drop all pretense And ask her — she's fond of a bunch of pinks, Though hard to please and near with the pence, But he never progresses — the best evidence That from medias res our Benedict shrinks. As for Catharine — ^now, she's a woman of sense, A woman of rarest intelligence; She manages well, is as close as the Sphinx, Though hard to please and near with the pence. Still, that is a virtue at St. Clements. Look at Rose Archambault, the improvident minx ! As for Catharine — now, she's a woman of sense, Though hard to please and near with the pence. In March HERE on the wide waste lands. Take — child — these trembling hands. Though my life be as blank and waste. My days as surely ungraced By glimmer of green on the rim Of a sunless wilderness dim. As the wet fields barren and brown. As the fork of each sterile limb Shorn of its lustrous crown. S. Frances Harrison 131 See — how vacant and flat The landscape — empty and dull, Scared by an ominous lull Into a trance — we have sat This hour on the edge of a broken, a grey snake-fence. And nothing that lives has flown, Or crept, or leapt, or been blown To our feet or past our faces — So desolate, child — ^the place is! It strikes, does it not, a chill. Like that other upon the hill, We felt one bleak October? See — the grey woods still sober Ere it be wild with glee. With growth, with an ecstasy, A fruition born of desire. The marigold's yellow fire Doth not yet in the sun burn to leap, to aspire; Its myriad spotted spears No erythronium rears ; We cannot see Anemone, Or heart-lobed brown hepatica; There doth not fly. Low under sky, One kingfisher — dipping and darting From reedy shallows where reds are starting. Pale pink tips that shall burst into bloom. Not in one night's mid-April gloom. But inch by inch, till ripening tint. And feathery plume and emerald glint Proclaim the waters are open. All this will come. The panting hum Of the life that will stir. Glance and glide, and whistle and whir. Chatter and crow, and perch and pry. Crawl and leap and dart and fly. Things of feather and things of fur. 132 S. Frances Harrison Under the blue of an April sky. Shall speak, the dumb, Shall leap, the numb, All this will come, It never misses. Failure, yet — Never was set In the sure spring's calendar, Wherefore — Pet — Give me one of your springtime kisses! While you plant some hope in my cold man's breast- Ah! How welcome the strange flower-guest — Water it softly with maiden tears, Go to it early — and late — with fears; Guard it, and watch it, and give it time For the holy dews to moisten the rime — Make of it some green gracious thing. Such as the heavens shall make of the spring ! The trees and the houses are darkling, ,No lamps yet are sparkling Along the ravine; A wild wind rises, the waters are fretting. No moon nor star in the sky can be seen. But if I can bring her with thinking The thoughts that are linking Her life unto mine : Then blow wild wind! And chafe, proud river! At least a Star in my heart shall shine. Had I not met her, great had been my loss, Had I not loved her, pain I had been spared. So this life goes, and lovers bear the cross. Burden borne willingly, if only it be shared. Had I not met her. Song had passed me by, Had I not loved her, Fame had been more sure. So this life goes, we laugh, and then we sigh. While we believe 'tis blessed to endure. Duncan Campbell Scott He is above everything a poet of climate and atmosphere, employing zcith a nimble, graphic touch the clear, pure, trans- parent colours of a richly-furnished palette. He leaves un- recorded no single phase in the pageant of the northern year, from the odorous heat of June to the ice-bound silence of December. His zvork abounds in magically luminous phrases and stanzas Mr. Scott is particularly happy in the phrases suggested to him by the songs of birds Though it must not be understood that his talent is merely descriptive. There is a philosophic and also a romantic strain in it There is scarcely a poem of Mr. Scott's from zvhicli one could not cull some memorable descriptive passage .-Jj a rule Mr. Scott's ivorkmanslnp is careful and highly finished. He is before everything a colour- ist. He paints in lines of a peculiar and vivid translucency. But be is also a metrist of no mean skill, and an imaginative thinker of no common capacity.— WhiUAU Archer, in 'Poets of the Younger Generation.' (133] 134 Duncan Campbell Scott SINCE the publication, in 1910, of this critique by William Archer, the distinguished English critic, observers of the poetry of Duncan Campbell Scott have found it steadily growing in imaginative and philosophic as well as in human qualities. His latest work. Lines in Memory of Bdmund Morris, a poem of nearly three hundred lines, published for private distribution, is so original, tender and beautiful that it is destined to live among the best in Canadian literature. Mr. Scott was born in Ottawa, Canada, August 2nd, 1862, and was educated in the public schools of his native city, and at Stanstead Wesleyan Academy. He is of English and Scot- tish origin, son of the late Rev. William Scott of the Methodist ministry and Janet McCallum. In 1894, he was married to Miss Belle W. Botsford, a well- known violinist, daughter of Mr. George W. Botsford, of Greenfield, Massachusetts. In 1880, Mr. Scott entered the Canadian Civil Service at Ottawa, in the Department of Indian Affairs, and ever since has been an official of this Department. Repeated promotion rewarded his industry and efficiency until, in 1913, he be- came Deputy Superintendent General. This appointment, in his youth, has been fortunate, in another sense, for his associa- tions with the Redmen have inspired and coloured a number of his most original poems. The following are the names and dates of Mr. Scott's most notable publications: The Magic House and Other Poems, 1893; In the Village of Viger, 1896; Labour and the Angel, 1898; New World Lyrics and Ballads, 1905; John Graves Simcoe, 1905, "Makers of Canada" series, edited by him and Prof. Pelham Edgar, Ph.D. ; Via Borealis, 1906, Wm. Tyrrell & Co., Toronto; Lines in Memory of Edmund Morris, 1915; and Lundy's Lane and Other Poems, 1916, McClelland, Good- child and Stewart, Toronto. In 1903, he was elected Vice-President of the Canadian Society of Authors, and in 1911, Honorary Secretary of the Royal Society of Canada. In the Christmas Globe contest of 1908, Mr. Scott won with "The Battle of Lundy's Lane," the prize of one hundred dollars, offered for the best poem on a Canadian historical theme. Duncan Campbell Scott 135 At the Cedars YOU had two girls — Baptiste — One is Virginie — Hold hard— Baptiste! Listen to me. The whole drive was jammed In that bend at the Cedars, The rapids were dammed With the logs tight rammed And crammed; you might know The Devil had clinched them below. We worked three days — not a budge, 'She's as tight as a wedge, on the ledge,' Says our foreman; 'Mon Dieu! boys, look here, We must get this thing clear.' He cursed at the men And we went for it then; With our cant-dogs arow. We just gave he-yo-ho; When she gave a big shove From above. The gang yelled and tore For the shore. The logs gave a grind Like a wolf's jaws behind, And as quick as a flash With a shove and a crash. They were down in a mash. But I and ten more. All but Isaac Dufour, Were ashore. He leaped on a log in the front of the rush, And shot out from the bind While the jam roared behind; As he floated along 136 Duncan Campbell Scott He balanced his pole And tossed us a song. But just as we cheered. Up darted a log from the bottom, Leaped thirty feet square and fair, And came down on his own. He went up like a block With the shock, And when he was there In the air. Kissed his hand to the land; When he dropped My heart stopped. For the first logs had caught him And crushed him; When he rose in his place There was blood on his face. There were some girls, Baptiste, Picking berries on the hillside. Where the river curls, Baptiste, You know — on the still side. One was down by the water. She saw Isaac Fall back. She did not scream, Baptiste, She launched her canoe; It did seem, Baptiste, That she wanted to die too. For before you could think The birch cracked like a shell In that rush of hell, And I saw them both sink — Baptiste ! — He had two girls. One is Virginie, What God calls the other Is not known to me. Duncan Campbell Scott 137 The Forgers IN the smithy it began : Lefs make something for a man! Hear the bellows belch and roar, Splashing light on roof and floor: From their nest the feathery sparks Fly like little golden larks: Hear each forger's taunting yell. Tell— tell— tell— tell— Tell us what we make, my master! Hear the tenor hammers sound, Ring-a-round, ring-a-round ; Hear the treble hammers sing, Ding-a-ring, ding-a-ring ; Hear the forger's taunting yell. Tell— tell— tell— tell! Though the guess be right or wrong You must wear it all life long! How it glows as it grows, Ding-a-ring-a-derry-down, Into something — is't a crown? Hear them half in death with laughter. Shaking soot from roof and rafter; Tell— tell— tell— tell— Ding-a-ring, ding-a-ring, See them round the royal thing, See it fade to ruby rose. As it glows and grows. Guess, they shout, for worse or better: Not a crown! Is't a fetter? Hear them shout demonic mirth: Here's a guesser something worth; Make it solid, round, and Une, Fashioned- on a cunning plan, For the riddle-reader Man; Ho — ho — ho — ho ! Hear the bellows heave and blow: 138 Duncan Campbell Scott Heat dries up their tears of mirth; Let the marvel come to birth. Though his guess be right or wrong He must wear it — all life long! Sullen flakes of golden fire Fawn about the dimming choir, They're a dusky pack of thieves Shaking rubies from their sleeves, Hear them wield their vaunting yell, Tell— tell— tell— tell ! Forging faster — ^taunting faster — Guess, my master — Guess, my master! Grows the enigmatic thing! Ruddy joyance — Deep disaster? Ding-a-ring, ding-a-ring, Ding-a-ring^a-derry-down ! Is't a fetter — Is't a crown? The Voice and the Dusk THE slender moon and one pale star, A rose leaf and a silver bee From some god's garden blown afar. Go down the gold deep tranquilly. Within the south there rolls and grows A mighty town with tower and spire, From a cloud bastion masked with rose The lightning flashes diamond fire. The purple martin darts about The purlieus of the iris fen; The king-bird rushes up and out, He screams and whirls and screams again. A thrush is hidden in a maze Of cedar buds and tamarac bloom. He throws his rapid flexile phrase, A flash of emeralds in the gloom. A voice is singing from the hill A happy love of long ago; Duncan Campbell Scott 139 Ah! tender voice, be still, be still, ' 'Tis sometimes better not to know.' The rapture from the amber height Floats tremblingly along the plain, Where in the reeds with fairy light The lingering fireflies gleam again. Buried in dingles more remote. Or drifted from some ferny rise. The swooning of the golden throat Drops in the mellow dusk and dies. A soft wind passes lightly drawn, A wave leaps silverly and stirs The rustling sedge, and then is gone Down the black cavern in the firs. The Sea by the Wood i DWELL in the sea that is wild and deep, But afar in a shadow still, I can see the trees that gather and sleep In the wood upon the hill. The deeps are green as an emerald's face, The caves are crystal calm. But I wish the sea were a little trace Of moisture in God's palm. The waves are weary of hiding pearls. Are aweary of smothering gold. They would all be air that sweeps and swirls In the branches manifold. They are weary of laving the seaman's eyes With their passion prayer unsaid. They are weary of sobs and the sudden sighs And movements of the dead. All the sea is haunted with human lips Ashen and sere and gray. You can hear the sails of the sunken ships Stir and shiver and sway 1*0 Duncan Campbell Scott In the weary solitude; If mine were the will of God, the main Should melt away in the rustling wood Like a mist that follows the rain. But I dwell in the sea that is wild and deep And afar in the shadow still, I can see the trees that gather and sleep In the wood upon the hill. The Wood by the Sea I DWELL in the wood that is dark and kind But afar off tolls the main. Afar, far off I hear the wind. And the roving of the rain. The shade is dark as a palmer's hood, The air with balm is bland: But I wish the trees that breathe in the wood Were ashes in Gk)d's hand. The pines are weary of holding nests, Are aweary of casting shade; Wearily smoulder the resin crests In the pungent gloom of the glade. Weary are all the birds of sleep, The nests are weary of wings. The whole wood yearns to the swaying deep, The mother of restful things. The wood is very old and still. So still when the dead cones fall. Near in the vale or away on the hill. You can hear them one and all. And their falling wearies me; If mine were the will of God, — oh, then The wood should tramp to the sounding sea. Like a marching army of men! But I dwell in the wood that is dark and kind, Afar off tolls the main; Afar, far off I hear the wind And the roving of the rain. Duncan Campbell Scott 1*1 The Builder WHEN the deep cunning architect Had the great minster planned, They worked in faith for twice two hundred years And reared the building grand; War came and famine and they did not falter, But held his line, ' And filled the space divine With carvings meet for the soul's eye; And not alone the chantry and thereby The snowy altar, But in every part They carved the minster after his own heart. And made the humblest places fair, Even the dimmest cloister-way and stair, With vineyard tendrils, With ocean-seeming shells. With filmy weeds from sea. With bell-flowers delicate and bells. All done minute with excellent tracery. Come, O my soul. And let me build thee like the minster fair, Deep based and large as air. And full of hidden graces wrought In faith and infinite thought, Till all thy dimmest ways. Shall gleam with little vines and fruits of praise. So that one day The consummate Architect Who planned the souls that we are set to build. May pause and say: How curiously wrought is this! The builder followed well My thought. My chart. And worked for Me, not for the world's wild heart ; Here are the outward virtues true ! But see how all the inner parts are filled With singular bliss : Set it aside I shall come here again at eventide. 142 Duncan Campbell Scott The Half-Breed Girl SHE is free of the trap and the paddle, The portage and the trail, But something behind her savage life Shines like a fragile veil. Her dreams are undiscovered, Shadows trouble her breast, When the time for resting cometh Then least is she at rest. Oft in the morns of winter, When she visits the rabbit snares. An appearance floats in the crystal air Beyond the balsam firs. Oft in the summer mornings When she strips the nets of fish, The smell of the dripping net-twine Gives to her heart a wish. But she cannot learn the meaning Of the shadows in her soul, The lights that break and gather, The clouds that part and roll. The reek of rock-built cities, Where her fathers dwelt of yore. The gleam of loch and shealing. The mist on the moor. Frail traces of kindred kindness. Of feud by hill and strand. The heritage of an age-long life In a legendary land. She wakes in the stifling wigwam. Where the air is heavy and wild. She fears for something or nothing With the heart of a frightened child. She sees the stars turn slowly Past the tangle of the poles, Duncan Campbell Scott 1*3 Through the smoke of the dying embers. Like the eyes of dead souls. Her heart is shaken with longing For the strange, still years, For what she knows and knows not. For the wells of ancient tears. A voice calls from the rapids. Deep, careless and free, A voice that is larger than her' life Or than her death shall be. She covers her face with her blanket, Her fierce soul hates her breath, As it cries with a sudden passion For life or death. From 'Lines in Memory of Eldmund Morris' HERE Morris, on the plains that we have loved, Think of the death of Akoose, fleet of foot. Who, in his prime, a herd of antelope From sunrise, without rest, a hundred miles Drove through rank prairie, loping like a wolf, Tired them and slew them, ere the sun went down. Akoose, in his old age, blind from the smoke Of tepees and the sharp snow light, alone With his great grandchildren, withered and spent, Crept in the warm sun along a rope Stretched for his guidance. Once when sharp autumn Made membranes of thin ice upon the sloughs, He caught a pony on a quick return Of prowess, and, all his instincts cleared and quickened. He mounted, sensed the north and bore away To the Last Mountain Lake where in his youth He shot the sand-hill-cranes with his flint arrows. And for these hours in all the varied pomp Of pagan fancy and free dreams of foray And crude adventure, he ranged on entranced, Until the sun blazed level with the prairie, Then paused, faltered and slid from off his pony. 14* Duncan Campbell Scott In a little bluff of poplars, hid in the bracken, He lay down; the populace of leaves In the lithe poplars whispered together and trembled, Fluttered before a sunset of gold smoke, With interspaces, green as sea water. And calm as the deep water of the sea. There Akoose lay, silent amid the bracken. Gathered at last with the Algonquin Chieftains. Then the tenebrous sunset was blown out, And all the smoky gold turned into cloud wrack. Akoose slept forever amid the poplars. Swathed by the wind from the far-off Red Deer Where dinosaurs sleep, clamped in their rocky tombs. Who shall count the time that lies between The sleep of Akoose iand the dinosaurs? Innumerable time, that yet is like the breath Of the long wind that creeps upon the prairie And dies away with the shadows at sundown. What we may think, who brood upon the theme. Is, when the old world, tired of spinning, has fallen Asleep, and all the forms, that carried the fire Of life, are cold upon her marble heart — Like ashes on the altar — just as she stops. That something will escape of soul or essence, — The sum of life, to kindle otherwhere : Just as the fruit of a high sunny garden. Grown mellow with autumnal sun and rain. Shrivelled with ripeness, splits to the rich heart. And looses a gold kernel to the mould, So the old world, hanging long in the sun, And deep enriched with effort and with love. Shall, in the motions of maturity. Wither and part, and the kernel of it all Escape, a lovely wraith of spirit, to latitudes Where the appearance, throated like a bird. Winged with fire and bodied all with passion. Shall flame with presage, not of tears, but joy. E. Pauline Johnson (Tekahioinvake) Since 1889, I have been following her career zuitli a glow of admiration and sympathy. I have been delighted to Hud that this success of hers had no damaging effect upon the' grand simplicity of her nature. Up to tlie day of her death her passionate sy)npathy zvith the aborigines of Canada ncirr flagged Her death is not only a great loss to those zvho kneiv and loved her: it is a great loss to Canadian literature and to the Canadian nation. I must thinly that she zvill hold a memorable place among poets in znrtue of her descent and also in znrtue of the zvorii she has left behind, small as tJic quantity of that zcork is. I beliez'e that Canada will, in future times, cherish Jier memory more and more, for of all Canadian poets she Zi'as the most distinctly a daughter of the soil, inasmucli as she inherited tlie blood of the great primeval race nozu so rapidly vanisiiing, and of the greater race that has supplanted it. — Theodore Watts-Dunton. [145] 146 E. Pauline Johnson EMILY PAULINE JOHNSON (Tekahionwake) was born at 'Chiefswood' on her father's estate, in the Reserve near Brantford, Ontario, in 1862. She was the young- est of four children, and early showed a marked tendency towards the reading- and the writing of rhymes. Her father was the late G. H. M. Johnson (Onwanonsys- hon), Head Chief of the Six Nations Indians, and a descen- dant of one of the fifty noble families of Hiawatha's Con- federation, founded four centuries ago. Her mother was Emily S. Howells, of Bristol, England. Pauline's education in school lore was meagre, — a nursery governess for two years, attendance at an Indian day school, near her home, for three years, and two finishing years at the Brantford Central School — ^but her education in the School of Nature was extensive, and that with her voracious reading— of poetry particularly — and retentive memory, richly stored her naturally keen mind. As a poet and recitalist. Miss Johnson won her first distinc- tion of note in 1892, when she took .part, in Toronto, in an unique entertainment of Canadian literature, read or recited by the authors themselves. Miss Johnson's contribution was 'A Cry From an Indian Wife,' which presented the Redman's view of the North-West Rebellion, and won for the author the only encore of the evening. The next day the Toronto press so eulogized her performance and spread her fame, that another entertainment was quickly arranged for, to be given, two weeks later, entirely by herself. Her best known poem, 'The Song My Paddle Sings,' was written for this occasion. There followed a series of recitals throughout Canada, in the hope that their financial success would be such as to enable the poet to go to England and submit her poems to a London publisher. In two years this object was attained, and The White Wampum appeared. It was received with enthusiasm by the critics and the public generally. Pauline Johnson had 'arrived,' and as a poet and entertainer she was henceforth in demand in the British Isles, as well as in Canada and the United States. In 1903, her second book of verse, Canadian Born, was published and the entire edition was sold out within a year. E. Pauline Johnson i*'^ Miss Johnson continued her recitals for sixteen years, when failing health compelled her to retire. She located in Van- couver, B.C., where she lived until her death in 1913. An edition of collected verse, entitled Flint and Feather, with an introduction by the English critic, the late Theodore Watts-Dunton, was published in 1912. Besides this notable volume which has run into several editions, she has left behind Legends of Vancouver, issued in 1911, and a series of enter- taining tales for boys. Canadians have long been proud of Pauline Johnson, and as the years pass, their love of her and their pride in her achievement will continue to increase. The editor of this vol- ume met her on the train while she was en route for England, in 1906; and her beauty and charm of person, her delight- ful conversation, her warmth of heart and sympathetic interest in others, have persisted in his memory with a steadfast radiance. In the Shadows I AM sailing to the leeward, Where the current runs to seaward Soft and slow. Where the sleeping river grasses Brush my paddle as it passes To and fro. On the shore the heat is shaking All the golden sands awaking In the cove; And the quaint sandpiper, winging O'er the shallows, ceases singing When I move. On the water's idle pillow Sleeps the overhanging willow. Green and cool; Where the rushes lift their burnished Oval heads from out the tarnished Emerald pool. 1*8 E. Pauline Jolmson Where the very silence slumbers, Water liUes grow in numbers, Pure and pale; All the morning" they have rested. Amber crowned, and pearly crested. Fair and frail. Here, impossible romances. Indefinable sweet fancies, Cluster round; But they do not mar the sweetness Of this still September fleetness With a sound. I can scarce discern the meeting Of the shore and stream retreating, So remote; For the laggard river, dozing. Only wakes from its reposing Where I float. Where the river mists are rising. All the foliage baptizing With their spray; There the sun gleams far and faintly. With a shadow soft and saintly. In its ray. And the perfume of some burning Far-off brushwood, ever turning To exhale All its smoky fragrance dying, In the arms of evening lying. Where I sail. My canoe is growing lazy. In the atmosphere so hazy. While I dream; Half in slumber I am guiding. Eastward indistinctly gliding Down the stream. E. Pauline Johnson 1^9 As Red Men Die CAPTIVE! Is there a hell to him like this? A taunt more galling than the Huron's hiss? He — proud and scornful, he — who laughed at law, He — scion of the deadly Iroquois, He — the bloodthirsty, he — the Mohawk chief. He — who despises pain and sneers at grief, Here in the hated Huron's vicious clutch. That even captive he disdains to touch! Captive! But never conquered; Mohawk brave Stoops not to be to any man a slave; Least, to the puny tribe his soul abhors. The tribe whose wig^vams sprinkle Simcoe's shores. With scowling brow he stands and courage high. Watching with haughty and defiant eye His captors, as they counsel o'er his fate, Or strive his boldness to intimidate. Then flung they unto him the choice: 'Wilt thou Walk o'er the bed of fire that waits thee now — Walk with uncovered fe6t upon the coals. Until thou reach the ghostly Land of Souls, And, with thy Mohawk death-song please our ear? Or wilt thou with the women rest thee here?' His eyes flash like an eagle's, and his hands Clench at the insult. Like a god he stands. 'Prepare the fire!' he scornfully demands. He knoweth not that this same jeering band Will bite the dust — will lick the Mohawk's hand; Will kneel and cower at the Mohawk's feet; Will shrink when Mohawk war drums wildly beat. His death will be avenged with hideous hate By Iroquois, swift to annihilate His vile detested captors, that now flaunt Their war clubs in his face with sneer and taunt, Not thinking, soon that reeking, red and raw. Their scalps will deck the belts of Iroquois. 150 E. Pauline Johnson The path of coals outstretches, white with heat, A forest fir's length — ready for his feet. Unflinching as a rock he steps along The burning mass, and sings his wild war song; Sings, as he sang when once he used to roam Throughout the forests of his southern home, Where, down the Genesee, the water roars, Where gentle Mohawk purls between its shores, Songs, that of exploit and of prowess tell; Songs of the Iroquois invincible. Up the long trail of fire he boasting goes. Dancing a war dance to defy his foes. His flesh is scorched, his muscles burn and shrink. But still he dances to death's awful brink. The eagle plume that crests his haughty head Will never droop until his heart be dead. Slower and slower yet his footstep swings, Wilder and wilder still his death-song rings. Fiercer and fiercer through the forest bounds His voice that leaps to Happier Hunting Grounds. One savage yell — Then loyal to his race. He bends to death — ^but never to disgrace. The Song My Paddle Sings WEST wind, blow from your prairie nest. Blow from the mountains, blow from the west. The sail is idle, the sailor too ; wind of the west, we wait for you! Blow, blow, 1 have wooed you so, But never a favour you bestow. You rock your cradle the hills between. But scorn to notice my white lateen. I stow the sail, unship the mast; I wooed you long but my wooing's past; My paddle will lull you into rest. E. Pauline Jolinson i^^ O drowsy wind of the drowsy west, Sleep, Sleep, By your mountain steep. Or down where the prairie grasses sweep! Now fold in slumber your laggard wings, For soft is the song my paddle sings. August is laughing across the sky, Laughing while paddle, canoe and I, Drift, drift, Where the hills uplift On either side of the current swift. The river rolls in its rocky bed; My paddle is plying its way ahead; Dip, dip. While the waters flip In foam as over their breast we slip. And oh, the river runs swifter now, The eddies circle about my bow! Swirl, swirl! How the ripples curl In many a dangerous pool awhirl! And forward far the rapids roar. Fretting their margin for evermore. Dash, dash. With a mighty crash. They seethe, and boil, and bound, and splash. Be strong, O paddle ! be brave, canoe ! The reckless waves you must plunge into. Reel, reel, On your trembling keel, — But never a fear my craft will feel. We've raced the rapid, we're far ahead; The river slips through its silent bed. Sway, sway. As the bubbles spray And fall in tinkling tunes away. 152 E. Pauline Johnson And up on the hills against the sky, A fir tree rocking its lullaby, Swings, swings, Its emerald wings. Swelling the song that my paddle sings. The Lost Lagoon IT is dusk on the Lost Lagoon, And we two dreaming the dusk away. Beneath the drift of a twilight grey. Beneath the drowse of an ending day. And the curve of a golden moon. It is dark in the Lost Lagoon, And gone are the depths of haunting blue. The grouping gulls, and the old canoe. The singing firs, and the dusk and — ^you. And gone is the golden moon. lure of the Lost Lagoon! — 1 dream to-night that my paddle blurs The purple shade where the seaweed stits, I hear the call of the singing firs In the hush of the golden moon. The Pilot of the Plains tpALSE,' they said, 'thy Pale-face lover, from the land of r waking morn; Rise and wed thy Redskin wooer, nobler warrior ne'er was bom; Cease thy watching, cease thy dreaming, Show the white thine Indian scorn.' Thus they taunted her, declaring, 'He remembers naught of thee: Likely some white maid he wooeth, far beyond the inland sea.' But she answered ever kindly, 'He will come again to me,' Till the dusk of Indian summer crept athwart the western skies ; But a deeper dusk was burning in her dark and dreaming eyes. E. Pauline Jolinson 153 As she scanned the rolling prairie, . Where the foothills fall and rise. Till the autumn came and vanished, till the season of the rains, Till the western world lay fettered in midwinter's crystal chains. Still she listened for his coming, Still she watched the distant plains. Then a night with norland tempest, nor'land snows a-swirl- ing fast. Out upon the pathless prairie came the Pale-face through the blast. Calling, calling, 'Yakonwita, I am coming, love, at last.' Hovered night above, about him, dark its wings and cold and dread ; Never unto trail or tepee were his straying footsteps led ; Till benumbed, he sank, and pillowed On the drifting snows his head, Saying, 'O my Yakonwita, call me, call me, be my guide To the lodge beyond the prairie — for I vowed ere winter died I would come again, beloved; I would claim my Indian bride!' 'Yakonwita, Yakonwita,' O the dreariness that strains Through the voice that calling, quivers, till a whisper but remains ! 'Yakonwita, Yakonwita, I am lost upon the plains!' But the Silent Spirit hushed him, lulled him as he cried anew, 'Save me, save me, O beloved, I am Pale, but I am true! Yakonwita, Yakonwita, I am dying, love, for you !' " Leagues afar, across the prairie, she had risen from her bed, Roused her kinsmen from their slumber: 'He has come to- night,' she said. 'I can hear him calling, calling, But his voice is as the dead. 9 15* E. Pauline Johnson Listen !' and they s^te all silent, w^ile the tempest louder grew, And a spirit-voice called faintly, 'I am dying, love, for you.' Then they wailed, 'O Yakonwita, He was Pale, but he was true!' Wrapped she then her ermine round her, stepped without the tepee door. Saying, 'I must follow, follow, though he call for evermore, Yakonwita, Yakonwita,' And they never saw her more. Late, at night, say Indian hunters, when the starlight clouds or wanes, Far away they see a maiden, misty as the autumn rains. Guiding with her lamp of moonlight Hunters lost upon the plains. The Songster MUSIC, music with throb and swing, Of a plaintive note, and long; 'Tis a note no human throat could sing, No harp with its dulcet golden string, — Nor lute, nor lyre with liquid ring. Is sweet as the robin's song. He sings for love of the season When the days grow warm and long. For the beautiful God-sent reason That his breast was born for song. Calling, calling so fresh and clear. Through the song-sweet days of May ; Warbling there, and whistling here. He swells his voice on the drinking ear. On the great, wide, pulsing atmosphere Till his music drowns the day. He sings for love of the season When the days grow warm and long, For the beautiful God-sent reason That his breast was born for song. E. Pauline Johnson 1^5 The Riders of the Plains (The Royal North-West Mounted Police) WHO is it lacks the knowledge? Who are the curs that dare To whine and sneer that they do not fear the whelps in the Lion's lair? But we of the North will answer, while life in the North remains, Let the curs beware lest the whelps they dare are the Riders of the Plains; For these are the kind whose muscle makes the power of the Lion's jaw. And they keep the peace of our people and the honour of British law. A women has painted a picture, — 'tis a neat little bit of art The critics aver, and it roused up for her the love of the big British heart. 'Tis a sketch of an English bulldog that tigers would scarce attack ; And round and about and beneath him is painted the Union Jack, With its blaze of colour, and courage, its daring in every fold. And underneath is the title, 'What we have we'll hold.' 'Tis a picture plain as a mirror, but the reflex it contains Is the counterpart of the life and heart of the Riders of the Plains ; For like to that flag and that motto, and the power of that bulldog's jaw. They keep the peace of our people and the honour of British law. These are the fearless fighters, whose life in the open lies, Who never fail on the prairie trail 'neath the Territorial skies. Who have laughed in the face of the bullets and the edge of the rebels' steel, Who have set their ban on the lawless man with his crime be- neath their heel; These are the men who battle the blizzards, the suns, the rains, 156 E. Pauline Jolmson These are the famed that the North has named, 'The Riders of the Plains,' And theirs is the might and the meaning and the strength of the bulldog's jaw. While they keep the peace of the people and the honour of British law. These are the men of action, who need not the world's renown, For their valour is known to England's throne as a gem in the British crown; These are the men who face the front, with courage the world may scan. The men who are feared by the felon, but are loved by the honest man; These are the marrow, the pith, the cream, the best that the blood contains. Who have cast their days in the valiant ways of the Riders of the Plains ; And theirs is the kind whose muscle makes the power of old England's jaw, And they keep the peace of her people and the honour of British law. Then down with the cur that questions, — let him slink to his craven den. For he daren't deny our hot reply as to 'who are our mounted men.' He shall honour them east and westward, he shall honour them south and north. He shall bare his head to that coat of red wherever that red rides forth. 'Tis well that he knows the fibre that the great North- West contains. The North- West pride in her men that ride on the Territorial plains, — For such as these ai'e the muscles and the teeth in the Lion's jaw. And they keep the peace of our people and the honour of British law. E. W. Thomson The name of E- IV. Thomson is a household word among Canadian literary men, and stands for a skilled craftsman in both prose and verse The dramatic and thought- ful pozver of his stanzas, his finished workmanship, the gentle- ness and breadth of his love for humanity, all stamp his work as that of an artist of zvhom Canadians have good reason to be proud, and of the first rank of our litterateurs. — W. D. LighT- HALL, F.R.S.L., in 'The Witness.' Here is a poet, manly, fresh, independent, a democratic lover of man He has technique, but can hide it and get an effect of life and originality thereby. He has heart and brains and imagination. He is daringly vernacular in his speech, which is all the better, for it reminds us that the proper idiom of poetry is drawn from the people, not the drawing-room. He is a realist, not in diction alone, but in his liking for plain realities and persons. But he is equally an idealist, because he sees the beauty which hides in common things, and believes in the spirit which aspires from clod to star. — Prop. Ricii.xrd E. Burton, Ph.D., in 'The Bellman.' [157] "' 158 E. W. Thomson EDWARD WILLIAM THOMSON was born in Toronto township, county of Peel, Ontario, February 12th, 1849. His father was William Thomson, grandson of Archibald Thomson, the first settler in Scarboro. His grandfather Edward William Thomson, was present at the taking of De- troit, and served with distinction under Brock at Queenston Heights ; and was afterwards well known in Upper Canada as Col. E. W. Thomson of the Legislative Council, and as the one successful opponent of William Lyon Mackenzie in an election for the Legislature. The mother of the present E. W. Thomson was Margaret Hamilton Foley, sister of the Hon. M. H. Foley, twice Postmaster-General of the united Canadas. The future poet was educated at the Brantford Grammar School, and at the Trinity College Grammar School at Weston ; but when about fourteen years of age, he was sent to an uncle and aunt in Philadelphia and given a position in a wholesale mercantile house as 'office junior.' Finding this employment very uncongenial, he enlisted in the Union army, in October, 1864, as a trooper in the 3rd Pennsylvania Cavalry. This corps was engaged twice at Hatcher's Run, and was with Grant when he took Petersburgh. Discharged in August, 1865, he returned to the parental home at Chippewa, Ontario. In June, 1866, when the Fenians raided Upper Canada, young Thomson promptly enlisted in the Queen's Own, and was in action at the Ridgeway fight. The following year he entered the profession of Civil Engineering, and in 1872 was regis- tered a Provincial Land Surveyor. He practised his profes- sion until December, 1878, when at the invitation of the Hon, George Brown, he joined the staff of The Globe, Toronto, as an editorial writer. Four years later the Manitoba boom attracted him, and he practised surveying for two or three years in Winnipeg. In 1885, he rejoined The Globe staff, but retired again in 1891, because of his opposition to the Liberal policy of Unrestricted Reciprocity. Shortly afterwards he was invited to join the staff of the Youth's Companion. He accepted and remained for eleven years. Since 1903, he has lived in Ottawa, employed as a newspaper correspondent and engaged in literary work. The Many-Mdn- sioned House and Other Poems was issued in 1909. His poems, like his short stories, are lucid, vital, original. E. W. Thomson 1^9 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, 'T is a Blackfoot heart with a white man's fear. And all skill forgot that could help him here.' Por the Mission Priest had bent my will Prom 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 yain. In the Lodge lay my father, grim in the smoke. His eyes pierced mine as the gray dawn broke. 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?' Prom the Mission School they sent forth me To the gaunt, wild life of the dark tepee; 160 E. W. Thomson 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. 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 Talew 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, E. W. Thomson I6i A Biackfoot 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. 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 trembHng 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 buflfalo 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. 162 E. W. Thomson Gashed side and arm and painted breast, Praying The Manitou might trance No more the buifalo from their quest. 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, E. W. Thomson 163 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 shalt 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 I, 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? 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; 164 E. W. Thomson 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 lifted 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. 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 Odours 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. E. W. Thomson 165 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 O'er the graves that stretch so wide. Steady crows go labouring 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, 166 E. W. Thomson And corn wave fall 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 ilush, 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! 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. From ' Peter Ottawa ' 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 labour's waste Count all the cost of passion's headlong haste. And then you'll 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. Ethelwyn Wetherald 'The Last Robin' is an attractive volume, shozviiig in the cover design the songster most closely associated ivith the spring, 2vhose ecstatic chant so nearly assimilates the poet's mvn gift of overflowing, uplifting melody The salient quality of Miss JVetherald's zvork is its freshness of feeling, a perennial freshness, renezvable as spring. This has a setting of harmonious form, for the poet's ear is delicately attuned to the value of words, both as to the sound and the meaning Dealing for the most part with the familiar objects of nature and of life, she remains the poet, as zvell in the level regions of her subjects as in the elevated. . Noiv and again she has attained the supreme ele- vation, as in her lovely poems, 'Earth's Silences', 'The Patient Earth' , 'The Wind of Death' and 'The Little Noon The sonnets are an important part of the volume, and, to some minds, will represent the most important part. Miss Wether- aid's sonnets are fiozving in expression, and harmonious in thought; some are beautiful. — Pharos, in 'The Globe.' [167] 168 Ethel wyn Wether aid AGNES ETHELWYN WETHERALD was born of Eng- lish-Quaker parents at Rockwood, Ontario, April 26th, 1857. Her father was the late Rev. William Wetherald, who founded the Rockwood Academy about the middle of the last century, and was its principal for some years. He was a lover of good English, spoken and written, and his talented daughter has owed much to his careful teaching. He was the teacher whom the late James J. Hill, the railway magnate, had held in such grateful remembrance. Additional education was received by Miss Wetherald at the Friends' Boarding School, Union Springs, N.Y., and at Pickering College. Miss Wetherald began the writing of poetry later in life than most poets and her first book of verse. The House of the Trees and Other Poems, did not appear until 1895. This book at once gave her high rank among women poets. Prior to this, she had collaborated with G. Mercer Adam in writing' and publishing a novel, An Algonquin Maiden, and had conducted the Woman's Department in The Globe, Toronto, under the nom de plume, 'Bel Thistlewaite.' In 1902, appeared her second volume of verse, Tangled in Stars, and, in 1904, her third volume, The Radiant Road. In the autumn of 1907, a collection of Miss Wetherald's best poems was issued, entitled, The Last Robin: Lyrics and Sonnets. It was warmly welcomed generally, by review- ers and lovers of poetry. The many exquisite gems therein so appealed to Earl Grey, the then Governor-General of Can- ada, that he wrote a personal letter of appreciation to the author, and purchased twenty-five copies of the first edition for distribution among his friends. For years Miss Wetherald has resided on the homestead farm, near the village of Fenwick, in Pelham Township, Wel- land county, Ontario, and there in the midst of a large orchard and other rural charms, has dreamed, and visioned, and sung, pouring out her soul in rare, sweet songs, with the naturalness of a bird. And like a bird she has a nest in a large willow tree, cunningly contrived by a nature-loving brother, where her muse broods contentedly, intei twining her spirit with every aspect of the beautiful environment. Ethelwyn Wetherald 169 The House of the Trees OPE your dcx>rs and take me in, Spirit of the wood ; Wash me clean of dust and din, Clothe me in your mood. Take me from the noisy light To the sunless peace, Where at midday standeth Night, Signing Toil's release. All your dusky twilight stores To my senses give; Take me in and lock the doors. Show me how to live. Lift your leafy roof for me. Part your yielding walls. Let me wander lingeringly Through your scented halls. Ope your doors and take me in. Spirit of the wood; Take me — make me next of kin To your leafy brood. The Screech-Owl HEARING the strange night-piercing sound Of woe that strove to sing, I followed where it hid, and found A small soft-throated thing, A feathered handful of gray grief. Perched by the year's last leaf. And heeding not that in the sky The lamps of peace were lit. It sent abroad that sobbing cry, And sad hearts echoed it. O hush, poor grief, so gray^ so wild, God still is with His child! 170 Ethelwyn Wetherald My Orders MY orders are to fight; Then if I bleed, or fail, Or strongly win, what matters it? God only doth prevail. The servant craveth naught Except to serve with might. I was not told to win or lose,— r- My orders are to fight. If One Might Live IF one might live ten years among the leaves, Ten — only ten — of all a life's long day, Who would not choose a childhood 'neath the eaves Low-sloping to some slender footpath way? With the young grass about his childish feet. And the young lambs within his ungrown arms. And every steamlet side a pleasure seat Within the wide day's treasure-house of charms. To learn to speak while young birds learned to sing. To learn to run e'en as they learned to fly; With unworn heart against the breast of spring. To watch the moments smile as they went by. Enroofed with apple buds afar to roam. Or clover-cradled on the murmurous sod. To drowse within the blessed fields of home. So near to earth — so very near to God. How could it matter — all the after strife. The heat, the haste, the inward hurt, the strain, When the young loveliness and sweet of life Came flood-like back again and yet again? When best begins it liveth through the worst; O happy soul, beloved of Memory, Whose youth was joined to beauty as at first The morning stars were wed to harmony! Ethelwyu Wetherald iTi Legacies UNTO my friends I give my thoug'hts, Unto my God my soul, Unto my foe I leave my love — These are of life the whole. Nay, there is something — a trifle — left; Who shall receive this dower? See, Earth Mother, a handful of dust — Turn it into a flower. The Hay Field WITH slender arms outstretching in the sun The gi-ass lies dead; The wind walks tenderly and stirs not one Frail fallen head. Of baby creepings through the April day Where, streamlets wend. Of child-like dancing on the breeze of May, This is the end. No more these tiny forms are bathed in dew, No more they reach To hold with leaves that shade them from the blue A whispered speech. No more they part their arms and wreathe them close Again, to shield Some love-full little nest — a dainty house Hid in a field. For them no more the splendour of the storm, The fair delights Of moon and star-shine, glimmering faint and warm On summer nights. Their httle Hves they yield in summer death, And frequently Across the field bereaved their dying breath Is brought to me. 172 Ethelwyn Wetherald The Followers ONE day I caught up with my angel, she Who calls me bell-like from a sky-touched tower. 'Twas in my roof-room, at the stillest hour Of a still, sunless day, when suddenly A flood of deep unreasoned ecstasy Lifted my heart,, that had begun to cower, And wrapped it in a flame of living power. My leader said, 'Arise and follow me.' Then as I followed gladly I beheld How all men baffled, burdened, crossed or curst. Clutch at an angel's hem, if near or far; One not-to-be-resisted voice, deep-belled, Speaks to them, and of those we call the worst, Lo, each poor blackened brow strains to a Star ! The Wind of Death THE wind of death, that softly blows The last warm petal from the rose, The last dry leaf from oiif the tree, To-night has come to breathe on me. There was a time I learned to hate As weaker mortals learn to love ; The passion held me fixed as fate, Burned in my veins early and late; But now a wind falls from above — The wind of death, that silently Enshroudeth friend and enemy. There was a time my soul was thrilled By keen ambition's v/hip and spur; My master forced me where he willed. And with his power my life was filled; But now the old-time pulses stir How faintly in the wind of death. That bloweth lightly as a breath. Ethelwyn Wetherald 173 And once, but once, at Love's dear feet I yielded strength and life and heart ; His look turned bitter into sweet. His smile made all the world complete; The wind blows loves like leaves apart — The wind of death, that tenderly Is blowing 'twixt my love and me. wind of death, that darkly blows Each separate ship of human woes Far out on a mysterious sea, 1 turn, I turn my face to thee! The Indigo Bird WHEN I see. High on the tip-top twig of a tree, Something blue by the breezes stirred. But so far up that the blue is blurred, So far up no green leaf flies 'Twixt its blue and the blue of the skies, Then I know, ere a note be heard. That is naught but the Indigo bird. Blue on the branch and blue in the sky. And naught between but the breezes high, And naught so blue by the breezes stirred As the deep, deep blue of the Indigo bird. When I hear A song like a bird laugh, blithe and clear. As though of some airy jest he had heard The last and the most delightful word; A laugh as fresh in the August haze As it was in the full-voiced April days; Then I know that my heart is stirred By the laugh-like song of the Indigo bird. Joy on the branch and joy in the sky, And naught between but the breezes high ; And naught so glad on the breezes heard As the gay, gay note of the Indigo bird. 174 Ethelwyn Wetlierald At Waking WHEN I shall go to sleep and wake again At dawning in another world than this. What will atone to me for all I miss? The light melodious footsteps of the rain, The press of leaves against my window-pane, The sunset wistfulness and morning bliss, The moon's enchantment, and the twilight kiss Of winds that wander with me through the lane. Will not my soul remember evermore The earthly winter's hunger for the spring, The wet sweet cheek of April, and the rush Of roses through the summer's open door; The feelings that the scented woodlands bring At evening with the singing of the thrush ? The Song Spanow's Nest HERE where tumultuous vines Shadow the porch at the west, Leaf with tendril entwines Under a song sparrow's nest. She in her pendulous nook Sways with the warm wind tide, I with a pen or a book Rock, as soft at her side. Comrades with nothing to say. Neither of us intrudes. But through the lingering day Each of us sits and broods. Not upon hate and fear, Not upon grief or doubt. Not upon spite or sneer. These we could never hatch out. She broods on wonderful things: Quickening life that belongs To a heart and a voice and wings. But — I'm not so sure of my songs! Ethelwyn Wetherald 1^5 Then in the summer night, When I awake with a start, I think of the nest at the height — The leafy height of my heart; I think of the mother love. Of the patient wings close furled, Of the sky that broods above. Of the Love that broods on the world. Earth's Silences HOW dear to hearts by hurtful noises scarred The stillness of the many-leaved trees, The quiet of green hills, the million-starred Tranquility of night, the endless seas Of silence in deep wilds, where nature broods In large, serene, uninterrupted moods. Oh, but to work as orchards work — ^bring forth Pink bloom, green bud, red fruit and yellow leaf, As noiselessly as gold proclaims its worth, Or as the pale blade turns to russet sheaf, Or splendid sun goes down the glowing west. Still as forgotten memories in the breast. How without panting effort, painful word. Comes the enchanting miracle of snow, Making a sleeping ocean. None have heard Its waves, its surf, its foam, its overflow; For unto every heart, all hot and wild, It seems to say, 'Oh, hush thee ! hush, my child !' Mother and Child SAW a mother holding Her play-worn baby son. Her pliant arms enfolding The drooping little one. Her lips were made of sweetness. And sweet the eyes above; With infantile completeness He yielded to her love. I 176 Ethelwyn Wetherald And I who saw the heaving Of breast to dimpling cheek, Have felt, within, the weaving Of thoughts I cannot speak; Have felt myself the nestling. All strengthless, love-enisled; Have felt myself the mother , Abrood above her child. Prodigal Yet MUCK of the sty, reek of the trough. Blackened my brow where all might see, Yet while I was a great way off My Father ran with compassion for me. He put on my hand a ring of gold, (There's no escape from a ring, they say) He put on my neck a chain to hold My passionate spirit from breaking away. He put on my feet the shoes that miss No chance to tread in the narrow path ; He pressed on my lips the burning kiss That scorches deeper than fires of wrath. He filled my body with meat and wine, He flooded my heart with love's white light; Yet deep in the mire, with sensual swine, I long — God help me ! — to wallow to-night. Muck of the sty, reek of the trough. Blacken my soul where none may see. Father, I yet am a long way off — Come quickly. Lord ! Have compassion on me ! Pluck THANK God for pluck — unknown to slaves — The self ne'er of its Self bereft. Who, when the right arm's shattered, waves The good flag with the left. William Henry Drummond In the great family of modern poets, of v.'hich lie is undoubt- edly a member, Dr. Drummond takes the same place that i\.'ouId be aecorded in the family of artists to the master of 'genre': that is to say, he depicts -anth rare fidelity and affec- tion a certain type, makes it completely his ozvn and then- presents us zcitli the finished picture. The habitant on his little farm, the voyageur on zvild river zvays and the coureurs de bois are all immortalized in songs that for humour, pathos and picturesqiieness it zvould be hard to excel. They are in- herently native to the only section of Canada that can conscien- tionslv be called 'quaint,' and zvill alzvays remain among our valuable historic and human documents. — Katherini; Hale. / incline to think Drummond zvas never a bookish man. . . . He zi'as plainly the kind of man to be fascinated by an\ novel phase of the zi'ild and vagabondish .... his eye zcas ever alert for racial idiosyncrasy Among the poets of the British Empire, lie holds a place unique. — Nkii. Muxro. in his Appreciation of Dniinmond. (177J 178 William Henry Drummond DR. WILLIAM HENRY DRUMMOND, the poet of the habitant, was born in the village of Mohill, County Leitrim, Ireland, on the 13th of April, 1854. Shortly afterwards, his father, an officer in the Royal Irish Constabu- lary, moved to the village of Tawley, on the Bay of Donegal. It was in this village that the future poet's education began. While he was still a boy, the family emigrated to Canada, where the father in a few months died, leaving but limited means for the support of his wife and children. William Henry soon found it necessary to leave school, to earn what he could to help provide for the family. Having learned telegraphy, he was employed at Borde a Ploufife, a small village on the Riviere des Prairies, near Montreal. It was here that he first observed the speech and the customs of the habitant, whom, with the kindliest intent, he has so faithfully portrayed. In time, the family exchequer permitted him to attend the High School in Montreal, later, McGill University, and finally. Bishop's College, where he graduated in medicine in 1884 Dr. Drummond practised his profession for four years in the district about Brome, and then returned to the City of Mon- treal, where he continued to reside until his lamented death in 1907. In 1894, he married Miss May Harvey, of Savannah la Mar, Jamaica. In Mrs. Drummond's memoir of her husband, she relates that he read with many misgiving's, one of his earliest poems, 'Le Vieux Temps,' at a dinner of the Shakespeare Club, of Montreal, and further says : This was the beginning of a long series of triumphs of a like nature, triumphs which owed little to elocutionary art, much to the natural gift of a voice rare alike in strength, quality and variety of tone, but, most of all to the fact that the characters he delineated were not mere creations of a vivid imagination. They were portraits tenderly drawn by the master hand of a true artist, and one who knew and loved the originals. The Habitant and other French-Canadian Poems was pub- lished in 1898, and the popularity of the book was such as to bring the poet fame, and a substantial income in royalties. It was followed by Johnnie Courteau and other Poems in 1901 ; by Phil-o'-Rum's Canoe and Madeleine Vercheres in 1903; William Henry Druminoiid 179 and by The Voyageur and other Poems in 1905. His unpub- lished poems were edited and issued with the afore-mentioned memoir, by his wife, in 1909; and, in 1912, a complete and beautiful edition of his works, in one volume, was published by G. T. Putnam's Sons, of New York. For several years he was Professor of Medical Jurisprudence in his Alma Mater. In 1902, the University of Toronto con- ferred on him the degree of LL.D. Subsequently he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature of England, and, later, of the Royal Society of Canada. Much of the last two years of his life. Dr. Drummond spent in the Cobalt district, where he had mining interests. There he was stricken with cerebral hemorrhage and died in the morning of April 6th, 1907. Probably no other Canadian poet has been so widely mourned. The Wreck of the 'Julie Plante' A Legend of Lac St. Pierre ON wan dark night on Lac St. Pierre, De win' she blow, blow, blow. An' de crew of de wood scow Julie Plante Got scar't an' run below — For de win' she blow lak hurricane, Bimeby she blow some more, An' de scow bus' up on Lac St. Pierre Wan arpent from de shore. De captinne walk on de fronte deck. An' walk de hin' deck too— He call de crew from up de hole. He call de cook also. De cook she's name was Rosie, . She come from Montreal, Was chambre maid on lumber barge. On de Grande Lachine Canal. De win' she blow from nor'-eas'-wes', De sout' win' she blow too, Wen Rosie cry, 'Mon cher captinne, Mon cher, w'at I shall do?' ■ 180 William Henry Drumniond Den de captinne t'row de beeg ankerre, But still de scow she dreef, De crew he can't pass on de shore, Becos he los' hees skeef. De night was dark lak wan black cat, De wave run high an' fas'. Wen de captinne tak' de Rosie girl An' tie her to de mas'. Den he also tak' de life preserve, An' jomp oflf on de lak'. An' say, 'Good-bye, ma Rosie dear, I do drown for your sak'.' Nex' morning very early 'Bout ha'f pas' two-t'ree-four — De captinne — scow — an' de poor Rosie Was corpses on de shore, For de win' she blow lak hurricane, Bimeby she blow some more, An' de scow bus' up on Lac St. Pierre, Wan arpent from de shore. Moral Now all good wood scow sailor man, Tak' warning by dat storm. An' go an' marry some nice French girl An' leev on wan beeg farm. -De win' can blow lak hurricane. An' s'pose she blow some more. You can't get drown on Lac St. Pierre So long you stay on shore. Little Bateese YOU bad leetle boy, not moche you care How busy you're kipin' your poor gran'pere Tryin' to stop you ev'ry day Chasin' de hen aroun' de hay — W'y don't you geev' dem a chance to lay? Leetle Bateese ! William Henry Drmmnond i^i Off on de fiel' you foUer de plough Den w'en you're tire you scare de cow Sickin' de dog till dey jomp de wall So de milk ain't good for not'ing at all — An' you're only five an' a half dis fall, Leetle Bateese ! Too sleepy for sayin' de prayer to-night? Never min', I s'pose it'll be all right Say dem to-morrow — ah! dere he go! Fas' asleep in a minute or so — And he'll stay lak dat till de rooster crow, Leetle Bateese ! Den wake us up right away toute suite Lookin' for somet'ing more to eat, Makin' me t'ink of dem long leg crane Soon as dey swaller, dey start again, I wonder your stomach don't get no pain, Leetle Bateese! But see heem now lyin' dere in bed. Look at de arm onderneat' hees head; If he grow lak dat till he's twenty year I bet he'll be stronger dan Louis Cyr An' beat all de voyageurs leevin' here, Leetle Bateese! Jus' feel de muscle along hees back. Won't geev' heem moche bodder for carry pack On de long portage, any size canoe, Dere's not many t'ing dat boy won't do. For he's got double-joint on hees body too, Leetle Bateese! But leetle Bateese! please don't forget We rader you're stayin' de small boy yet. So chase de chicken an' mak' dem scare. An' do w'at you lak wit' your old gran'pere For w'en you're beeg feller he won't be dere — Leetle Bateese! 182 William Henry Drummond Johnnie Courteau JOHNNIE COURTEAU of de mountain, Johnnie Courteau of de hill, Dat was de boy can shoot de gun, Dat was de boy can jomp an' run, An' it's not very oflen you ketch heem still, Johnnie Courteau! Ax dem along de reaver, Ax dem along de shore, Who was de mos' bes' fightin' man From Managance to Shaw-in-i-gan, De place w'ere de great beeg rapide roar? Johnnie Courteau! Sam' t'ing on ev'ry shaintee Up on de Mekinac, Who was de man can walk de log, Wen w'ole of de reever she's black wit' fog, An' carry de beeges' load on hees back? Johnnie Courteau! On de rapide you want to see heem If de raf she's swingin' roun'. An' he's yellin', 'Hooraw, Bateese! good man!' W'y de oar come double on hees han' W'en he's makin' dat raf go flyin' down, Johnnie Courteau! An' Tete de Boule chief can tole you De feller w'at save hees life, W'en big moose ketch heem up a tree, Who's shootin' dat moose on de head, sapree! An' den run off wit' hees Injun wife? Johnnie Courteau! An' he only have pike pole wit' heem On Lac a la Tortue W'en he meet de bear comin' down de hill. But de bear very soon is get hees fill ! An' he sole dat skin for ten dollar too, Johnnie Courteau! William Henry Drummond ^'^ Oh, he never was scare for no'tinff Lak de ole coureurs de bois. But w'en he's gettin' hees winter pay De bes' t'ing sure is kip out de way, For he's goin' right off on de Hip Hooraw! Johnnie Courteau! Den puUin' hees sash aroun' heem He dance on hees botte sauvage An' shout, 'All aboar' if you want to fight !' Wall ! you never can see de finer sight W'en he go lak dat on de w'ole village! Johnnie Courteau! But Johnnie Courteau get marry On Philomene Beaurepaire, She's nice leetle girl was run de school On w'at you call parish of Sainte Ursule An' he see her off on de pique-nique dere, Johnnie Courteau! Den somet'ing come over Johnnie W'en he marry on Philomene, For he stay on de farm de w'ole year roun', He chop de wood an' he plough de groun' An' he's quieter feller was never seen, Johnnie Courteau! An' ev'ry wan feel astonish. From La Tuque to Shaw-in-i-gan, W'en day hear de news was goin' aroun', Along on de reever up an' down. How wan leetle woman boss dat beeg man, Johnnie Courteau! He never come out on de evening No matter de hard we try, 'Cos he stay on de kitchen an' sing hees song, 'A la claire fontaine, M'en allant promener, J'ai trouve I'eau si belle Que je m'y suis baigner! 184 William Henry Dnmmiond L,ui y'a longtemps que je t'aime Jamais je ne t'oublierai.' Rockin' de cradle de w'ole night long Till baby's asleep oii de sweet bimeby, Johnnie Courteau! An' de house, wall! I wish you see it, De place she's so nice an' clean, Mus' wipe your foot on de outside door, You're dead man sure if you spit on de floor, An' he never say not'ing on Philomene, Johnnie Courteau! An' Philomene watch de monee An' put it all safe away On very good place; I dunno w'ere. But anyhow nobody see it dere. So she's buyin' new farm de noder day. Madams Courteau! De Nice Leetle Canadienne YOU can pass on de worl' w'erever you lak, Tak' de steamboat for go Angleterre, Tak' car on de State, an' den you come back. An' go all de place, I don't care — Ma frien', dat's a fack, I know you will say, Wen you come on dis contree again, Dere's no girl can touch, w'at we see ev'ry day, De nice leetle Canadienne. Don't matter how poor dat girl she may be, Her dress is so neat an' so clean, Mos' ev'rywan t'ink it was mak' on Paree, An' she wear it, wall! jus' lak de Queen. Den come for fin' out she is mak' it herse'f. For she ain't got moche monee for spen'. But all de sam' tarn, she was never get lef, Dat nice leetle Canadienne. Wen 'un vrai Canayen' is mak' it mariee, You t'ink he go leev on beeg flat William Henry Drummond 185 An' bodder hese'f all de tam, night an' day, Wit' housemaid, an' cook, an' all dat? Not moche, ma dear frien', he tak' de maison, Cos' only nine dollar or ten, Were he leev lak blood rooster, an' save de I'argent, Wit' hees nice leetle Canadienne. I marry ma famme w'en I'm jus' twenty year. An' now we got fine familee, Dat skip roun' de place lak leetle small deer. No smarter crowd you never see — An' I t'ink as I watch dem all chasin' about, Four boy an' six girl, she mak' ten, Dat's help mebbe kip it, de stock from run out, Of de nice leetle Canadienne. O she's quick, an' she's smart, an' got plaintee heart. If you know correc' way go about. An' if you don' know, she soon tole you so. Den tak' de firs' chance an' get out ; But if she love you, I spik it for true. She will mak' it more beautiful den. An' sun on de sky can't shine lak de eye Of dat nice leetle Canadienne. Madeleine Vercheres I'VE told you many a tale, my child, of the old heroic days Of Indian wars and massacres, of villages ablaze With savage torch, from Ville Marie to the Mission of Trois Rivieres But never have I told you yet, of Madeleine Vercheres. Summer had come with its blossoms, and gaily the robin sang And deep in the forest arches the axe of the woodman rang. Again in the waving meadows, the sun-browned farmers met And out on the green St. Lawrence, the fisherman spread his net. And so through the pleasant season, till the days of October came When children wrought with their parents, and even the old and lame 186 William Henry Drummond With tottering frames and footsteps, their feeble labours lent At the gathering of the harvest, le bon Dieu himself had sent. For news there was none of battle, from the forts on the Richelieu To the gates of the ancient city, where the flag of King Louis flew, All peaceful the skies hung over the seigneurie of Vercheres, Like the calm that so often cometh, ere the hurricane rends the air. And never a thought of dariger had the Seigneur sailing away. To join the soldiers of Carignan, where down at Quebec they lay, But smiled on his little daughter, the maiden Madeleine, And a necklet of jewels promised her, when home he should come again. And ever -the days passed swiftly, and careless the workmen grew For the months they seemed a hundred, since the last war-bugle blew. Ah! little they dreamt on their pillows, the farmers of Ver- cheres, That the wolves of the southern forest had scented the harvest fair. Like ravens they quickly gather, like tigers they watch their prey. Poor people! with hearts so happy, they sang as they toiled away. Till the murderous eyeballs glistened, and the tomahawk leaped out And the banks of the green St. Lawrence echoed the savage shout. 'O mother of Christ have pity,' shrieked the women in despair 'This is no time for praying,' cried the young Madeleine Vercheres, 'Aux armesl.aux armes! les Iroquois! quick to your arms and guns. Fight for your God and country and the lives of the innocent ones.' William Henry Drummond 1^7 And she sped like a deer of the mountain, when beagles press close behind And the feet that would follow after, must be swift as the prairie wind. Alas ! for the men and women, and little ones that day For the road it was long and weary, and the fort it was far away. But the fawn had outstripped the hunters, and the palisades drew near, And soon from the inner gateway the war-bugle rang out clear ; Gallant and clear it sounded, with never a note of despair, 'Twas a soldier of France's challenge, from the young Made- leine Vercheres. 'And this is my little garrison, my brothers Louis and Paul ? With soldiers two — and a cripple ? may the Virgin pray for us all. But we've powder and guns in plenty, and we'll fight to the latest breath And if need be for God and country, die a brave soldier's death. Load all the carabines quickly, and whenever you sight the foe Fire from the upper turret, and the loopholes down below. Keep up the fire, brave soldiers, though the fight may be fierce and long And they'll think our little garrison is more than a hundred strong.' So spake the maiden Madeleine, and she roused the Norman blood That seemed for a moment sleeping, and sent it like a flood Through every heart around her, and they fought the red Iroquois As fought in the old time battles, the soldiers of Carignan. And they say the black clouds gathered, and a tempest swept the sky And the roar of the thunder mingled with the forest tiger's cry, But still the garrison fought on, while the lightning's jagged spear 188 William Henry Dnunmond Tore a hole in the night's dark curtain, and showed them a foeman near. And the sun rose up in the morning, and the colour of blood was he, Gazing down from the heavens on the little comp3,ny. 'Behold! my friends!' cried the maiden, "tis a warning lest we forget, Though the night saw us do our duty, our work is not finished yet.' And six days followed each other, and feeble her limbs became Yet the maid never sought her pillow, and the flash of the carabines' flame Illumined the powder-smoked faces, aye, even when hope seem- ed gone And she only smiled on her comrades, and told them to fight, fight on. And she blew a blast on the bugle, and lo! from the forest black, Merrily, merrily ringing, an answer came pealing back. Oh! pleasant and sweet it sounded, borne on the morning air. For it heralded fifty soldiers, with gallant De la Monniere. And when he beheld the maiden, the soldier of Carignan, And looked on the little garrison that fought the red Iroquois And held their own in the battle, for six long weary days. He stood for a moment speechless, and marvelled at woman's ways. Then he beckoned the men behind him and steadily they advance. And, with carabines uplifted, the veterans of France Saluted the brave young Captain so timidly standing there And they fired a volley in honour of Madeleine Vercheres. And this, my dear, is the story of the maiden Madeleine. God grant that we in Canada may never see again Such cruel wars and massacres, in waking or in dream, As our fathers and mothers saw, my child, in the days of the old regime. Jean Blewelt Mrs Blewett is a ivoinaii's poet. She deals -n'ith homely sub- jects ill a homely way. She does not attempt ivild flights of rhapsody or deep philosophical problems. It is an everyday sort of poetry, simple in theme and treatment, unpretentious, domestic, kindly, humorous and natural Perhaps it is because of this very simplicity of theme and treatment that Mrs. Blewett's zvritings, both in prose and poetry, are so popular among a very large class of the Canadian public. . . . In sentiment and in morals her poems are ivhole- some and, to use a feminine adjective, 'szveef Mrs. Blezvett is perhaps the most conspicuous c.vample in Canada of the class of zvriters zvho try to bring the plain people into touch zvith the highest ideals that are frequently most effectively taught in verse. Her lessons are of self- denial, and of the pozver of loz'c to mould men and zvomeu. — 'Globe Magazine.' ris9] 190 Jean Blewett JEAN BLEWETT was born at Scotia, Lake Erie, Ontario, November 4th, 1872. Her parents, John and Janet (Macln- tyre) McKishnie, were both natives of Argyllshire. She was educated at the local public school and at the St. Thomas Colle- giate Institute. In 1889 she married Mr. Bassett Blewett, a native of Cornwall, England. Through her mother she is related to Duncan Ban Mac- Intyre, the famous Gaelic poet. While still in her teens, Mrs. Blewett's poems, short stories and articles in the public press and in magazines began to attract attention; and, in 1890, she published a novel, Out of the Depths. Heart SongSj a collection of her verse, appeared in 1897, and at once became popular ; and The Cornflower and Other Poems, issued in 1906, increased the author's fame and popularity. One of her poems, 'Spring' captured the prize of six hundred dollars, offered for the best poem on this trite subject, by the Chicago Times-Herald. In 1915, Mary Josephine Trotter contributed an interesting article on Jean Blewett to Bverywoman's World, from which is quoted : A BARD OF THE COMMON THINGS Jean Blewett has neither refused to grow up, nor has she re- quired to 'think back' to experience joy as quick as childhood's in the springing blade and the spreading leaf, and also in the realm of human nature. All this I know from her voice and her expression as she showed me the view from the window in her bedroom, in which she has been a prisoner since November. Prisoner? The word is not a propos exactly. Not even the pangs of physical suffering have been able to bind the imagination of a woman profoundly in love with life and able to put her passion into writing. For months Mrs. Blewett has been busy on a novel, having for its setting the Peace River country in which wild and romantic district she camped with her husband and son for weeks last summer. She was married early — at sixteen — and the first verses she ever wrote and for which she was paid by Frank Leslie's Monthly, were a lullaby to her own baby. . Jean Blewett is one of a literary family. Her brother, Mr. Arch- ibald McKishnie, is frequently a contributor to Canadian publications, and a younger sister is winning success as a journalist in Detroit, Michigan. For years Mrs. Blewett has been a special writer for the Globe and other household publications, so that her name has become familiar to a very large and appreciative public. She delights to write of 'the common things,' would rather be sympathetic than startling. Jean Blewett i^i Chore Time WHEN I'm at gran'dad's on the farm, I hear along 'bout six o'clock, Just when I'm feelin' snug an' warm, 'Ho, Bobby, come and feed your stock.' I jump and get into my clothes; It's dark as pitch, an' shivers run All up my back. Now, I suppose Not many boys would think this fun. But when we get out to the barn The greedy pigs begin to squeal. An' I throw in the yellow corn, A bushel basket to the meal. Then I begin to warm right up, I whistle 'Yankee Doodle' through. An' wrastle with the collie pup — And sometimes gran'dad whistles too. The cow-shed door, it makes a din Each time we swing it open wide; I run an' flash the lantern in. There stand the shorthorns side by side. Their breathin' makes a sort of cloud Above their heads — there's no frost here. 'My beauties,' gran'dad says out loud, 'You'll get your breakfasts, never fear.' When up I climb into the loft To fill their racks with clover hay, Their eyes, all sleepy like and soft, A heap of nice things seem to say. The red ox shakes his curly head, An' turns on me a solemn face; I know he's awful glad his shed Is such a warm and smelly place. An' last of all the stable big. With harness hanging on each door, — Jean Blewett I always want to dance a jig On that old musty, dusty floor. It seems so good to be alive, An' tendin' to the sturdy grays. The sorrels, and old Prince, — that's five — An' Lightfoot with her coaxing ways. My gran' dad tells me she is mine, An' I'm that proud! I braid her mane. An' smooth her sides until they shine. An' do my best to make her vain. When we have measured oats for all. Have slapped the grays upon the flanks. An' tried to pat the sorrels tall. An' heard them whinny out their thanks, We know it's breakfast time, and go Out past the yellow stacks of straw. Across the creek that used to flow. But won't flow now until a thaw. Behind the trees the sky is pink. The snow drifts by in fat white flakes. My gran'dad says: 'Well, Bob, I think There comes a smell of buckwheat cakes.' For He Was Scotch, and So Was She THEY -were a couple well content With what they earned and what they spent, Cared not a whit for style's decree — For he was Scotch, and so was she. And oh, they loved to talk of Burns — Dear blithesome, tender Bobby Burns! They never wearied of his song. He never sang a note too strong. One little fault could neither see — For he was Scotch, and so was she. They loved to read of men who stood And gave for country life and blood, Jean Blewett 193 Who held their faith so grand a thing They scorned to yield, it to a king. Ah, proud of such they well might be — For he was Scotch, and so was she. From neighbours' broils they kept away; No liking for such things had they, And oh, each had a canny mind. And could be deaf, and dumb, and blind. With words or pence was neither free — For he was Scotch, and so was she. I would not have you think this pair Went on in weather always fair, For well you know in married life Will come, sometimes, the jar and strife; They couldn't always just agree — For he was Scotch, and so was she. But near of heart they ever kept. Until at close of life they slept; Just this to say when all was past. They loved each other to the last. They're loving yet, in heaven, maybe — For he was Scotch, and so was she. The Passage Crv SOUL on God's high seas ! the way is strange and long, J Yet fling your pennons out, and spread your canvas strong ; For though to mortal eyes so small a craft you seem. The highest star in heaven doth lend you guiding gleam. O soul on God's high seas! look to your course with care. Fear most when winds are kind and skies are blue and fair. Your helm must sway at touch of no hand save your own — The soul that sails on God's high seas must sail alone. O soul on God's high seas! sail on with steady aim. Unmoved by wind of praise, untouched by seas of blame. Beyond the lonely ways, beyond the guiding star, There stretches out the strand and golden harbour bar. 11 i»* Jean Blewett Quebec QUEBEC, the gray old city on the hill, Lies with a golden glory on her head, Dreaming throughout this hour so fair, so still. Of other days and her beloved dead. The doves are nesting in the cannons grim. The flowers bloom where once did run a tide Of crimson when the moon rose pale and dim Above a field of battle stretching wide. Methinks within her wakes a mighty glow Of pride in ancient times, her stirring past. The strife, the valour of the long ago Feels at her heart-strings. Strong and tall, and vast She lies, touched with the sunset's golden grace, A wondrous softness on her gray old face. What Time the Morning Stars Arise ' [Lieutenant Reginald Warneford, while patrolling the skies over Belgium in his aeroplane at 3 o'clock in the morning of June 7th, 1915, destroyed a German armed Zeppelin, containing twenty-eight men. The young aviator won instant fame by his heroic act. He received the Victoria Cross from King George and the Legion of Honour from France.] ABOVE him spreads the purple sky. Beneath him spreads the ether sea, And everywhere about him lie Dim ports of space, and mystery. Ho, lonely Admiral of the Fleet! What of the night? What of the night? 'Methinks I hear,' he says, 'the beat Of great wings rising for the flight.' Ho, Admiral neighbouring with the stars Above the old world's stress and din ! With Jupiter and lordly Mars — 'Ah, yonder sweeps a Zeppelin! 'A bird with menace in its breath, A thing of peril, spoil and strife, Jean Blewett ^95 The little children done to death, The helpless old bereft of life. 'The moan of stricken motherhood, The cowardice beyond our ken, The cruelty that fires the blood, And shocks the souls of honest men. 'These call for vengeance — ^mine the chase.' He guides his craft — elate and strong. Up, up, through purple seas of space. While in his heart there grows a song. 'Ho, little ship of mine that soars Twixt earth and sky, be ours to-day To free our harassed seas and shores Of yonder evil bird of prey !' The gallant venture is his own, No friend to caution, pray, or aid, But strong is he who fights alone, Of loss and failure unafraid. He rises higher, higher still, Till poised above the startled foe — It is a fight to stir and thrill And set the dullest breast aglow. Old Britain hath her battles won On fields that are a nation's pride. And oh the deeds of daring done Upon her waters deep and wide! But warfare waged on solid land, Or on the sea, can scarce compare With this engagement, fierce, yet grand, This duel to the death in air. He wins! he wins in sea of space! Why prate we now of other wars Since he has won his name and place By deathless valour 'mong the stars? No more that Zeppelin will mock, No more will sound her song of hate ; 196 Jean Blewett With bursting bomb, and fire, and shock. She hurtles downward to her fate. A touch of rose in eastern skies, A little breeze that calls and sings. Look yonder where our hero flies, Like homing bird on eager wings. He sees the white mists softly curl. He sees the moon drift pale and wan. Sees Venus climb the stairs of pearl To hold her court of Love at dawn. The Usurer FATE says, and flaunts her stores of gold, 'I'll loan you happiness untold. What is it you desire of me?' A perfect hour in which to be In love with life, and glad, and good, The bliss of being understood. Amid life's cares a little space To feast your eyes upon a face, The whispered word, the love-filled tone. The warmth of lips that meet your own, To-day of Fate you borrow; In hunger of the heart, and pain. In loneliness, and longing vain. You pay the debt to-morrow! Prince, let grim Fate take what she will Of treasures rare, of joys that thrill. Enact the cruel usurer's part. Leave empty arms and hungry heart. Take what she can of love and trust, Take all life's gladness, if she must. Take meeting smile and parting kiss — The benediction and the bliss. What then? The fairest thing of all Is ours, O Prince, beyond recall — Not even Fate would dare to seize Our store of golden memories. Arthur Wentworth Hamilton Eaton These verses are direct, imstraiiied, natural, and alzvays simple in form and motive. There is much easv melody, much tend:eriiess of mood, much faithful and effective des- cription. In the 'Acadian Legends' Mr. Eaton niav be said to revive that pleasant art that has long been in disuse, the art of telling a not very striking story in verse, and adding an evasive grace zvJiich persuades one that the tale ivas zvorth telling. The 'Lyrics' are human and wholesome, almost with- out c.vception, and improve on close acquaintance. — Charles G. D. Roberts, in 'St. John Progress.' Mr. Eaton's 'Acadian Legends' are characterised bv melo- dy, pathos, a strong feeling for nature, and refined taste. The spirit of Evangeline's country has been absorbed by the poet, zvho celebrates the Gaspereau and all the region round about with a tender melancholy fitted to the scene and its associations. He has caught the old world atmosphere which surrounds and melloz^'s that beautiful land, and has given to his Z'erse a softness and repose zvhich are in perfect keeping zvith the subject. — 'New York Tribune.' [197] 196 Arthur Wentworth Hamiltou Eaton ARTHUR WENTWORTH HAMILTON EATON, M.A., D.C.L., poet, priest, educator and historian, was bom at Kentville, Nova Scotia, the eldest son of WilHam Eaton, a descendant of a Puritan family and at one time Inspector of Schools for his county, and Anna Augusta Willoughby Hamilton, of New England Puritan stock. His higher education was received at Dalhousie College, Halifax, and at Harvard University where he graduated in arts with the class of 1880. [Of this class, Theodore Roose- velt was a member.] The honorary degree, D.C.L., was conferred on him in 1905, by King's College University, in recognition of his literary achievements and hig'h scholastic attainments. Ordained deacon of the Protestant Episcopal Church, in 1884, and priest the next year, he was, for a time, incumbent of the parish of Chestnut Hill, Boston. In 1888, Dr. Eaton's first notable work. The Heart of the Creeds: Historical Religion in the Light of Modern Thought, was published. This was followed, in 1889, by his first book of verse, Acadian Legends and Lyrics, so favourably review- ed by the critics. His third publication. The Church of Eng- land in Nova Scotia, and the Tory Clergy of the Revolution, a permanently valuable historical work, was issued in 1891. His historical researches have resulted also in a number of authoritative genealogical and family monographs, in the His- tor\' of King's County, N.S.: Heart of the Acadian Land, and in an important History of Halifax. Nova Scotia, now being published in instalments, in 'Americana.' Two other volumes of verse appeared in 1905, — Acadian Ballads, and De Soto's Last Dream, and Poems of the Christian Year — and, in 1907, was published The Lotus of the Nile and Other Poems. As Professor of English Literature, for years, in a New York college. Dr. Eaton gained a wide reputation as an educator. Dr. Eaton has made an enviable record as a Canadian litterateur. His Legends and Ballads must continue to hold their distinctive place in Canadian verse, whilst his historical wi"itings must ever increase in value and importance. Arthur Wentworth Hamilton Eaton 1^9 The Phantom Light of the Baie des Chaleurs ♦ T"" IS the laughter of pines that swing and sway A Where the breeze from the land meets the breeze from the bay; 'Tis the silvery foam of the silver tide In ripples that reach to the forest side; 'Tis the fisherman's boat, in a track of sheen Plying through tangled seaweed green, O'er the Baie des Chaleurs. Who has not heard of the phantom light That over the moaning waves, at night, Dances and drifts in endless play, Close to the shore, then far away. Fierce as the flame in sunset skies, Cold as the winter light that lies On the Baie des Chaleurs. They tell us that many a year ago. From lands where the palm and the olive grow, Where vines with their purple clusters creep Over the hillsides gray and steep, A knight in his doublet, slashed with gold. Famed, in that chivalrous time of old, For valorous deeds and courage rare. Sailed with a princess wondrous fair To the Baie des Chaleurs. That a pirate crew from some isle of the sea, A murderous band as e'er could be, With a shadowy sail, and a flag of night, That flaunted and flew in heaven's sight. Swept in the wake of the lovers there. And sank the ship and its freight so fair In the Baie des Chaleurs. Strange is the tale that the fishermen tell,— They say that a ball of fire fell Straight from the sky, with crash and roar, Lighting the bay from shore to shore; That the ship, with a shudder and a groan, Sank through the waves to the caverns lone Of the Baie des Chaleurs. 200 Arthur Wentworth Hamilton Eaton That was the last of the pirate crew; But many a night a black flag flew From the mast of a spectre vessel, sailed By a spectre band that wept and wailed For the wreck they had wrought on the sea, on the land, For the innocent blood they had spilt on the sand Of the Baie des Chaleurs. This is the tale of the phantom light That fills the mariner's heart, at night. With dread as it gleams o'er his path on the bay. Now by the shore, then far away, Fierce as the flame in sunset skies, Cold as the winter moon that lies On the Baie des Chaleurs. The Lotus of the Nile PROUD, languid lily of the sacred Nile, 'Tis strange to see thee on our western wave, Far from those sandy shores that mile on mile. Papyrus-plumed, stretch silent as the grave. O'er limpid pool, and wide, palm-sheltered bay, And round deep-dreaming isles, thy leaves expand, Where Alexandrian barges plough their way. Full-freighted, to the ancient Theban land. On Kamak's lofty columns thou wert seen. And spacious Luxor's temple-palace walls. Each royal Pharaoh's emeralded queen Chose thee to deck her glittering banquet halls ; Yet thou art blossoming on this fairy lake As regally, amidst these common things. As on the shores where Nile's brown ripples break, As in the ivory halls of Egypt's kings. Thy grace meets every passer's curious eyes. But he whose thought has ranged through faiths of old Gazing at thee feels lofty temples rise About him, sees long lines of priests, white-stoled. That chant strange music as they slowly pace Dim-columned aisles; hears trembling overhead Echoes that lose themselves in that vast space. Of Egypt's solemn ritual for the dead. Arthur Wentworth Hamilton Eaton 201 Ay, deeper thoughts than these, though undefined. Start in the reflective soul at sight of thee, For this majestic orient faith enshrined Man's yearning hope of immortality. And thou didst symbolize the deathless power That under all decaying forms lies hid. The old world worshipped thee, O Lotus flower. Then carved its sphinx and reared its pyramid ! I Watch the Ships I WATCH the ships by town and lea With sails full set glide out to sea, Till by the distant lighthouse rock The breakers beat with roar and shock. And crisp foam whitening all the decks; While deep below lie ocean's wrecks, What careth she! I stand beside the beaten quay And look while laden ships from sea Come proudly home upon the tide Like conquering kings, at eventide; Or from fierce fights with wintry gales Steal harbourward with tattered sails, O cruel sea! I pass the ancient moss-grown pier Where men have waited year by year For ships that ne'er again shall glide By town and lea on favouring tide, Strong ships that struggled till the gales Of winter hid their shrouds and sails In, ocean drear. With sails full set young spirits glide From harbour, on a sea untried, > To breast the waves and bear the shocks Beyond the guarded lighthouse rocks. To strive with tempests many a year; Strong souls, indeed, if they can bear Life's wind and tide! I watch beside the beaten quay The surf bring back all joyously w: 202 Arthur Wentworth Hamilton Eaton To anchor by the sheltered shore Some laden deep with precious ore, Or spices won from perfumed sands Of rich, luxuriant tropic lands, — O kindly sea! But some come back on wintry gales With broken spars and shattered sails And fling to shore a feeble rope; While many a loving heart in hope Waits on for ships that nevermore Shall anchor by a friendly shore, O sad, sad sea! L'ile Sainte Croix The first French Settlement in America was made here in 1604. ^ITH tangled brushwood overgrown, And here and there a lofty pine, Around whose form strange creepers twine, And crags that mock the wild sea's moan. And little bays where no ships come, Though many a white sail passes by, And many a drifting cloud on high Looks down and shames the sleeping foam, Unconscious on the waves it lies. While midst the golden reeds and sedge That, southward, Une the water's edge, The thrush sings her shrill melodies. No human dwelling now is seen Upon its rude, unfertile slopes. Though many a summer traveller gropes F6r ruins midst the tangled green. And seeks upon the northern shore The graves of that adventurous band That followed to the Acadian land Champlain, De Monts, and Poutrincourt. There stood the ancient fort that sent Fierce cannon echoes through the wold. There waved the Bourbon flag that told The mastery of a continent; Arthur Wentworth Hamilton Eaton 203 There through the pines the echoing wail Of ghostly winds was heard at eve, And hoarse, deep sounds like those that heave The breasts of stricken warriors pale. There Huguenots and cassocked priests, And noble-bom and sons of toil, , Together worked the barren soil, And shared each other's frugal feasts, And dreamed beneath the yellow moon Of golden reapings that should be. Conjuring from the sailless sea A glad, prophetic harvest-tune. Till stealthy winter through the reeds Crept, crystal-footed, to the shore. And to the little hamlet bore His hidden freight of deathly seeds. Spring came at last, and o'er the waves The welcome sail of Pontgrave, But half the number silent lay, Death's pale first-fruits, in western graves. Sing on, wild sea, your sad refrain For all the gallant sons of France, Whose songs and sufferings enhance The witchery of the western main. Keep kindly watch before the strand Where lie in hidden mounds, secure. The men De Monts and Poutrincourt First led to the Acadian land. By the Bridge WITH subtlest mimicry of wave and tide. Of ocean storm, and current setting free. Here by the bridge the river deep and wide. Swaying the reeds along its muddy marge, Speeds to the wharf the dusky coaling-barge And dreams itself a commerce-quickening sea. Wide sedge-rimmed meadows westward meet the eye. Brown, silty, sere, where driftwood from the mills Is thrown, as Spring's full flood Sweeps by, 204 Arthur Wentworth Hamilton Eaton And weeds grow rank as on the wild salt-marsh, And lonely cries of sea-gulls, loud and harsh, Pierce evening's silence to the echoing hills. The scene, with all its varied, voiceless moods, My eyes have looked upon so many years That like my mother's songs, or the deep woods In whose mysterious shade I used to play. Weaving sweet fancies all the summer day. It has strange power to waken joy or tears. I love the lights that fringe the farther shore. Great golden fireflies by a silver mere; Mysterious torches they, that o'er and o'er Recall to mind the dear souls gone, not set Cold-gleaming crystals in God's coronet, But gems that light our way with ruddy cheer. Sometimes inverted in the wave they seem Like orient palace-roofs and towers aflame With rubies, or those sapphire walls that gleam Amidst the visions of the holy Seer, Who by the blue ^gean, with vision clear. Saw splendours in the heavens he might not name. When all the river lies encloaked in mist So far away those trembling orbs of light They symbol memories fair that still persist, With glow or glimmer, of the shrouded years Before we left, for laughter, cries and tears. That world serene where souls are born in light. I cannot watch unmoved the sunset here. When swift volcanic fires of liquid gold Alight on hills of purple haze appear. And clouds, deep-crimsoned in the day's decline. Like snowy festal-garments splashed with wine, Lie careless, resting fleecy fold on fold. So deep the meanings in these changing moods Of earth and heaven, that I who reverent stand Before a flower, and in the sombre woods Hear speech that silences the common creeds, Stand lost in wonder, like a man who reads Immortal prophecies none can understand. Helena Coleman The poet's claim to fame depends very largely on his or her mastery of outward form or technique, on skill in phrasiiig, in emphasis and in sonority of verse. Measured by such canons of taste, TC't' haz'e no hesitation in saying that Miss Coleman's style singles her out at once from the latter-day lamp-poetry magazine z'ersifiers. Her command of rhythm is very pleasing, and because of her love of Latinized English, reaches a certain degree of opidence ivhich cannot fail to give any lover of cad- ence great delight. Yet in spite of her love for colour and sonority our new poet is at all times eminently clear Miss Coleman has much in common ivith Mathezv Arnold. Just as he did, she kuozvs hozv to combine concrcteness of colour, zvith a certain noble sitnplicity and restraint of style, and like Arnold, she likes best of all to devote her thought to the deep things of the soul She knozvs life in its sadness, gladness and beauty, and sings of it in relation to Nature and to God. — Prof. W. T. Allison, M.A., Ph.D., in the 'Canadian Magazine.' [2051 206 Helena Coleman AS Miss Coleman's poems appeared for years in the Atlan- tic Monthly and other periodicals, under a nom de plume, a few intimate friends only knew the real name and personality of the author, prior to 1906. In that year appeared her Songs and Sonnets, pubHshed under the auspices of the Tennyson Club, Toronto. It was recognized at once that Canada had a new poet of distinctive merit ; and the first edition was soon followed by a second. The critics invariably ranked the forty-four sonnets in the book as work of high quality, — spontaneous, rhythmic, noble ; and indeed this form of verse seems to suit most ade- quately the finer instincts of her genius. The lyrics quoted are also beautiful. A daughter of the Rev. Francis Coleman, a Methodist clergyman, and his wife, Emmeline Maria Adams, she is a descendant through her mother of John Quincy Adams, sixth President of the United States, and the reputed author of the "Monroe Doctrine." She is the only sister of the well-known g'eologist, Prof. A. P. Coleman, Ph.D., F.R.S. ]\Iiss Coleman is a Canadian by birth and education and a resident of Toronto. She travels quite extensively — was in Germany when the Great War began — but in the summer months is found most frequently at Pinehurst, her lovely island and cottage in the Thousand Islands, where the fresh air and the beauty of nature renew her health and inspiration ; and where, as a gracious hostess, she entertains congenial friends. More Lovely Grows the Earth MORE lovely grows the earth as we grow old, i\Iore tenderness is in the dawning spring. More bi'onze upon the blackbird's burnished wing ; And richer is the autumn cloth-of-gold ; A deeper meaning, too, the years, unfold, Until to waiting hearts, each living thing For very love its, bounty seems to bring, Intreating .us with beauty to behold. Or' is it that with years we grow. more wise And reverent to the mystery profound — Helena Coleman 207 Withheld from careless or indifferent eyes — That broods in simple thing's the world around, More conscious of the Love that glorifies The common ways and makes them holy ground? To a Bluebell I WATCH thy little bells of blue, So delicate of form and hue. And when I see them swing and sway I listen for the chimes to play; But dull has grown the mortal ear, And I can never, never hear The dainty tunes, but only guess Their music from thy loveliness. Dost thou announce the day new-born. And ring the changes of the morn. And summon for an early mass The little peoples of the grass, That they may give fresh meed of praise For sun and rain and summer days? Dost thou the moon's late rising tell, And sound at eve a curfew bell? When drowsy bees go loitering, And butterflies are on the wing. Dost beat the merry music out. And swell the rhythm of the rout? Dost ever some faint message sound For all the wee folk of the ground, Of those far mysteries that lie Beyond their ken in earth and sky? Keep thou thy silence, fairy bell. Thou art no less a miracle; No less a rapture thou dost bring Because we cannot hear thee ring; For they who give attentive ear Must catch thy silvery cadence clear. And know a joy no language tells. When in the heart there sings and swells The music of thy magic bells. 208 Helena Coleman Indian Summer OF all Earth's varied, lovely moods, The loveliest is when she broods Among her dreaming solitudes On Indian Summer days; When on the hill the aster pales. And Summer's stress of passion fails. And Autumn looks through misty veils Along her leafy ways. How deep the tenderness that yearns Within the silent wood that turns From green to gold, and slowly burns As by some inward fire ! How dear the sense that all things wild Have been at last by love beguiled To join one chorus, reconciled In satisfied desire! The changing hillside, wrapped in dreams With softest opalescent gleams, Like some ethereal vision seems. Outlined against the sky ; The fields that gave the harvest gold — Afar before our eyes unrolled In purple distance, fold on fold — Lovely and tranquil lie. We linger by the crimson vine. Steeped to the heart with fragrant wine. And where the rowan-berries shine, And gentians lift their blue ; We stay to hear the wind that grieves Among the oak's crisp russet leaves. And watch the moving light, that weaves Quaint patterns, peering through. The fires that in the maples glow. The rapture that the beeches know. The smoke-wraiths drifting to and fro. Each season more endears; Helena Coleman 209 Vague longings in the heart arise, A dimming mist comes to the eyes That is not sadness, though it lies Close to the place of tears. We share the ecstasy profound That broods in everything around, And by the wilderness are crowned — Its silent worship know. O when our Indian Summer days Divide the parting of the ways. May we, too, linger here in praise Awhile before we go! Prairie Winds I LOVE all things that God has made That show His ordered care and might, But most, I think, I love the wind That blows at night. It holds so much of mystery, Like that in mine own restless heart — Brother to me and well-beloved, O Wind, thou art! Across these unresisting plains It sweeps at times with force sublime. And always like the wraith it seems Of happier clime. For in the South its home has been, A sun-kissed, warm and fertile land, Where Nature pours her treasure from Unstinting hand. Through fields of rustling corn it came And acres broad of bearded wheat, Past hillsides clad with evergreen And orchards sweet. It rifled scent from clover fields Where harvesters have been at work, 210 Helena Coleman And ruffled little running brooks Where mosses lurk. It bears the note of piping frogs, The stir of tender, untried wings — Of lowing kine, and homely sounds Of barnyard things. O barren land! what dost thou dream Beneath these surging winds that bear The echoes of a life which thou Canst never share? Dost thou not long to break thy calm — To know that living, sweet unrest? And feel the tread of busy feet Upon thy breast? To hear thy children's laughter voiced In myriad tongues, and know that when Their day is done within thy breast They'll sleep again? silent land ! the winds that blow Within men's hearts and fan the fire Of hidden hopes and show the soul Its own desire. Have come to me from distant shores And borne in broken whisperings A tale that thrilled me like a tide From rising springs. The full-pressed wine of life my lips Have never tasted, yet is known, My heart, though held in bondage, leaps To claim its own. 1 know my lawful heritage, Although I stand on alien ground; I know what kingship is, although I go uncrowned. Helena Coleman 211 At night when inner tempests blow, And sleep forsakes my weary eye, I love to hear the wind without Go storming by. It speaks my own wild native tongue And gives me courage to withstand, As if a comrade came to me And took my hand. I love all things that God has made In earth or sea or heavens bright. But most I love the prairie winds That blow at niglit. Enlargement AROUND us unaware the solemn night Had hung its shadowy mantle, while we sought To find each other by the roads of thought; I felt thy orbit nearing, and a light Streamed suddenly across my inner sight, Effulgent, incommunicable, fraught With some constraining tenderness that caught My quickened spirit to its utmost height. And lo! I saw as with the eyes of two. In that swift moment when thy soul touched mine, The walls of being widened, and I drew Near to the portal of a nameless shrine, A sudden blinding rapture pierced me through. And in that instant earth became divine. Day and Night WHEN in the affluent splendour of the day. To heaven's cloudless blue I Uft my eyes. Thrilled with the beauty that around me lies, My heart goes up on wings of ecstasy; But when Orion and the Milky Way Reveal the story of the midnight skies, And all the starry hosts of space arise — Mutely I bow in reverence to pray. 212 Helena Coleman And so with life; the daylight of success Rounds earth and pleasure to a perfect sphere, But in the night of trial and distress The quickened soul to vaster realms draws near, And o'er the borders of our consciousness Foretokens of the Infinite appear. Beyond the Violet Rays BEYOND the violet rays we do not know What colours lie, what fields of light abound, Or what undreamed effulgence may surround Our dreaming consciousness above, below; Nor is it far that finite sense can go Along the subtle passages of sound, The finer tonal waves are too profound For mortal ears to catch their ebb and flow. But there are moments when upon us steal Monitions of far wider realms that lie Beyond our spirit borders, and we feel That fine, ethereal joys we cannot name. In some vast orbit circling, sweeping by, Touch us in passing as with wings of flame. As Day Begins to Wane ENCOMPASSED by a thousand nameless fears, I see life's little day begin to wane. And hear the well-loved voices call in vain Across the narrowing margin of my years ; And as the Valley of the Shadow nears. Such yearning tides of tenderness and pain Sweep over me that I can scarce restrain The gathering flood of ineffectual tears. Yet there are moments when the shadows bring No sense of parting or approaching night. But, rather, all my soul seems broadening Before the dawn of unimagined light — As if within the heart a folded wing Were making ready for a wider flight. Thomas O'Hagan Of the merits of the poems it is only necessary to say that while most of the poetry of our day seems to have buried itself in obscurity, Mr. O'Hagan's poems come freely from the thought and imagination .... and can be under- stood by any person of intelligence, who is fond of poetry and believes that it springs from the heart .... and the best wishes of all -will be that the immortality zvhich we all so ardentlx crave, may crozcn his efforts to endozv mankind with szvectest and purest sentiments. — Hon. Justice LonglEy, D.C.L., LL.D. Tenderness, piety, friendship, filial affection, love that con- quers death and lasts beyond the grave, the call of the 'Settle- ment,' loyalty to the college that has been the poet's Alma Mater: all these zve have in Dr. O'Hagan's volume, 'In the Heart of the Meadow,' and not often in recent years have they been more poetically or more gracefully phrased. — P. J. Lennox, Litt.D., Washington, D.C. [213] 214 Thomas O'Hagan THOMAS O'HAGAN, the youngest son of John and Brid- get (O'Reilly) O'Hagan, natives of County Kerry, Ire- land, was born in "the Gore of Toronto,' on the 6th of March, 1855, and was a babe in arins, when his parents, three brothers, a sister and himself, moved into the wilderness of the county of Bruce, Ontario. They located in the township of Elderslie, three miles from the village of Paisley. The other settlers were mostly Highland Scotch, and Thomas as a lad learned to speak quite fluently not only the Gaelic tongue of his neighbours, but also the Keltic Irish, which was spoken freely by his parents. He attended the public school of the settlement where the teachers were Scotch, and where he applied himself with such diligence and ability that he won a Second Class Teacher's Certificate at the early age of sixteen. Few Canadians have devoted so much time to academic study as Dr. O'Hagan. After graduating from St. Michael's College, a prize winner in Latin and EngHsh, he entered the Ottawa University and graduated B.A., in 1882, with honours in English, Latin, French and German. Three years later the same University conferred on him the degree of M.A. In 1889, he received the degree of Ph.D. from Syracuse Llni- versity ; and in subsequent years took postgraduate work at Cornell, Columbia, Chicago, Louvain, Grenoble and Fribourg Universities. In September, 1914, Laval University, ^Montreal, conferred on him the honorary degree of Litt.D. During his )'oung manhood he taught for some years in Separate Schools and High Schools of Ontario. Dr. O'Hagan is widely known as a scholarly and popular lecturer on many hterary themes. Recently (1910-13), he was Chief Editor and Director of the Nezv World, Chicago, but is now resident in Toronto. The following is a list of Dr. O'Hagan's books of verse : A Gate of Flowers, 1887; /;; Dreamland and Other Poems, 1893; Songs of the Settlement, 1899; In the heart of the Meadow, 1914; and Songs of Heroic Days, 1916. He has also published several volumes of interesting and instructive essays: Studies in Poetry; Canadian Essays; Essays Literary, Critical and Historical; Chats by the Fireside; and, in 1916, Essays of Catholic Life. Thomas O'Hagan 215 An Idyl of the Farm O THERE'S joy in every sphere of life from cottage unto throne, But the sweetest smiles of nature beam upon the farm alone ; And in memory I go back to the days of long ago, When the teamster shouted 'Haw, Buck!' 'Gee!' 'G'langl' and 'Whoa !' I see out in the logging-field the heroes of our land, With their strong and sturdy faces, each with handspike in his hand ; With shoulders strong as Hercules, they feared no giant foe, As the teamster shouted 'Haw, Buck!' 'Gee!' 'G'lang!' and 'Whoa!' The logging-bees are over, and the woodlands all are cleared, The face that then was young and fair is silvered o'er with beard ; The handspike now holds not the place it did long years ago, When the teamster shouted 'Haw, Buck!' 'Gee!' 'G'lang!' and 'Whoa!' On meadow land and orchard field there rests a glory round, Sweet as the memory of the dead that haunts some holy ground ; And yet there's wanting to my heart some joy of long ago. When the teamster shouted 'Haw, Buck!' 'Gee!' 'G'lang!' and 'Whoa!' Demosthenes had silvery tongue, and Cicero knew Greek, The Gracchi brothers loved old Rome and always helped the weak; But there's not a Grecian hero, nor Roman high or low, Whose heart spake braver patriot words than 'Gee!' 'G'lang!' and 'Whoa!' They wore no coat of armour, the boys in twilight days — They sang no classic music, but the old 'Come all ye' lays ; For armed with axe and handspike, each giant tree their foe. They rallied to the battle-cry of 'Gee!' 'G'lang!' and 'Whoa!' 12 216 Thomas O'Hagan And so they smote the forest down, and rolled the logs in heaps. And brought our country to the front in mighty strides and leaps ; And left upon the altar of each home wherein you go, Some fragrance of the flowers that bloom through 'Gee!' 'G'lang!' and 'Whoa!' The Old Brindle Cow OF all old memories that cluster round my heart. With their root in my boyhood days. The quaintest is linked to the old brindle cow With sly and mysterious ways. She'd linger round the lot near the old potato patch, A sentinel by night and by day, Watching for the hour when all eyes were, asleep. To start on her predatory way. The old brush fence she would scorn in her course, With turnips and cabbage just beyond. And com that was blooming through the halo of the night — What a banquet so choice and so fond ! But when the stars of morn were paling in the sky The old brindle cow would take the cue, And dressing up her line she'd retreat beyond the fence, For the old cow knew just what to do. What breed did you say? Why the very best blood That could flow in a democratic cow ; No herd-book could tell of the glory in her horns Or whence came her pedigree or how: She was Jersey in her milk and Durham in her build, And Ayrshire when she happened in a row, But when it came to storming the old 'slash' fence She was simply the old brindle cow. It seems but a day since I drove her to the gate To yield up her rich and creamy prize; For her theft at midnight hour she would yield a double dower. With peace of conscience lurking in her eyes. Thomas O'Hagan 217 But she's gone — disappeared with the ripened years of time, Whose memories my heart enthrall e'en now; And I never hear a bell tinkling through the forest dell But I think of that old brindle cow. The Dance at McDougall's IN a little log house near the rim of the forest With its windows of sunlight, its threshold of stone. Lived Donald McDougall, the quaintest of Scotchmen, And Janet his wife, in their shanty, alone: By day the birds sang them a chorus of welcome. At night they saw Scotland again in their dreams; They toiled full of hope 'mid the sunshine of friendship, Their hearts leaping onward like troutlets in streams. In the little log home of McDougall's. At evening the boys and the girls would all gather To dance and to court 'neath McDougall's roof tree; They were wild as the tide that rushes up Solway When lashed by the tempests that sweep the dark sea: There Malcolm and Flora and Angus and Katie With laughter-timed paces came tripping along, And Pat, whose gay heart had been nursed in Old Erin, Would link each Scotch reel with a good Irish song, Down at the dance at McDougall's. For the night was as day at McDougall's log shanty, The blaze on the hearth shed its halo around. While the feet that tripped lightly the reel 'TuUagorum,' Pattered each measure with 'ooch!' and with bound; No 'Lancers' nor 'Jerseys' were danced at McDougall's, Nor the latest waltz-step found a place on the floor. But reels and strathspeys and the liveliest hornpipes Shook the room to its centre from fireplace to door. In the little log house at McDougall's. Gone now is the light in McDougall's log shanty, The blaze on the hearth long has sunk into gloom. And Donald and Janet who dreamed of 'Auld Scotia' Are dreaming of Heaven in the dust of the tomb. 218 Thomas O'Hagan While the boys and the girls — the 'balachs' and 'calahs' — Who toiled during day and danced through the night, Live again in bright dreams of Memory's morning When their hearts beat to music of life, love and light, Down at the dance at McDougall's. The Song My Mother Sings O SWEET unto my heart is the song my mother sings As eventide is brooding on its dark and noiseless wings ; Every note is charged with memory — every memory bright with rays Of the golden hours of promise in the lap of childhood's days ; The orchard blooms anew and each blossom scents the way. And I feel again the breath of eve among the new-mown hay ; While through the halls of memory in happy notes there rings All the life-joy of the past in the song my mother sings. I have listened to the dreamy notes of Chopin and of Liszt, As they dripped and drooped about my heart and filled my eyes with mist; I have wept strong tears of pathos 'neatb the spell of Verdi's power, As I heard the tenor voice of grief from out the donjon tower ; And Gounod's oratorios are full of notes sublime That stir the heart with rapture through the sacred pulse of time; But all the music of the past and the wealth that memory brings Seem as nothing when I listen to the song my mother sings. It's a song of love and triumph, it's a song of toil and care ; It is filled with chords of pathos and it's set in notes of prayer ; It is bright with dreams and visions of the days that are to be, And as strong in faith's devotion as the heart-beat of the sea ; It is linked in mystic measure to sweet voices from above, And is starred with ripest blessing through a mother's sacred love ; Oh, sweet and strong and tender are the memories that it brings, As I list in joy and rapture to the song my mother sings. Thomas O'Hagan 219 Ripened Fruit I KNOW not what my heart hath lost; I cannot strike the chords of old ; The breath that charmed my morning life Hath chilled each leaf within the wold. The swallows twitter in the sky, But bare the nest within the eaves; The fledglings of my care are gone, And left me but the rustling leaves. And yet, I know my life hath strength, And firmer hope and sweeter prayer, For leaves that murmur on the ground Have now for me a double care. I see in them the hope of spring. That erst did plan the autumn day ; I see in them each gift of man Grow strong in years, then turn to clay. Not all is lost — the fruit remains That ripened through the simimer's ray; The nurslings of the nest are gone, Yet hear we still their warbling lay. The glory of the summer sky May change to tints of autumn hue; But faith that sheds its amber light Will lend our heaven a tender blue. O altar of eternal youth ! O faith that beckons from afar. Give to our lives a blossomed fruit — Give to our morns an evening star ! The Bugle Call DO you hear the call of our Mother From over the sea, from over the sea? The call to her children in every land; To her sons on Afric's far-stretched veldt; To her dark-skinned children on India's shore. Whose souls are nourished on Aryan lore; To her sons of the Northland where frosty stars 220 Thomas O'Hagan Glitter and shine like a helmet of Mars; Do you hear the call of our Mother? Do you hear the call of our Mother From over the sea, from over the sea ? The call to Australia's legions strong, That move with the might and stealth of a wave ; To the men of the camp and men of the field, Whose courage has taught them never to yield; To the men whose counsel has saved the State And thwarted the plans of impending fate ; Do you hear the call of our Mother? Do you hear the call of our Mother From over the sea, from over the sea? To the little cot on the wind-swept hill ; To the lordly hall in the city street; To her sons who toil in 'the forest deep Or bind the sheaves where the reapers reap ; To her children scattered far East and West ; To her sons who joy in her Freedom Blest; Do you hear the call of our Mother? The Chrism of Kings IN the mom of the world, at the day break of time, When kingdoms were few and empires unknown, God searched for a Ruler to sceptre the land. And gather the harvest from the seed He had sown. He found a young shepherd boy watching his flock Where the mountains looked down on deep meadows of green ; He hailed the young shepherd boy king of the land And anointed his brow with a Chrism unseen. He placed in his frail hands the sceptre of power. And taught his young heart all the wisdom of love ; He gave him the vision of prophet and priest,- And dowered him with counsel and light from above. But alas ! came a day when the shepherd forgot And heaped on his realm all the woes that war brings, And bartering his purple for the greed of his heart He lost both the sceptre and Chrism of Kings. Elizabeth Roberts MacDonald Tlie old Rectory of Fredcrictoii. N.B., has been aptly called 'A Nest of Singing Birds,' for it zvas there that the four brothers and one sister of the famous Roberts' family zvere fledglings ; it zvas there they tried their eager zvings in many flights of imagination, and piped their nezv and tuneful songs. Elisabeth Roberts zvas horn in the Rectory of Westcock, N.B., February 17th, 1864, and zvas educated at the Collegiate School, Fredericton, and at the Nezv Brunszvick University. She taught for a time in the School for the Blind, Halifax, N.S. Poems of hers have appeared in the 'Century,' the 'In- dependent,' 'Outing' and other prominent magazines, and in 1906, her book, 'Dream Verses and Others,' zvas published. She has the instinctive knozvledge and love of nature and the exquisite fancy and touch, so characteristic of this family. Mrs. MacDonald is the author also of 'Our Little Canadian Cousin,' a popular child's story, and has written many charm- ing essays and short stories. — The Editor. [221] 222 Elizabeth Boberts MacDonaid MRS. C. F. FRASER has written beautifully in Bast and West of the old Fredericton Rectory and its happy, bril- liant inmates, of which I quote: The gift in which so many have thus happily participated is in great degree a matter of happy inheritance. 'Dear Rector Roberts' — for so, irrespective of creed, a whole town styled him — was a culti- vated, scholarly gentleman of old English descent. So devoted was he to his chosen work of service to others, so companionable was he with all his helpful goodness, so constant was he to his vision of the ideal, that it was truly said of him when he was laid to rest, that his whole life had been a veritable path of light. The maiden name of his widow, Emma Wetmore Bliss, is suggestive of a fine loyalist stock which has given scholars, lawyers and judges to succeeding generations. Wise, gracious, purposeful, ambitious always for the best efforts of her children, and patient as only mothers can be, she entered as wholly as did her husband into the literary pursuits of her gifted offspring. Of winter evenings the favourite gathering place was about the great centre table in the sitting-room, where the young people were wont to read aloud for each other's amusement or edification the rhymes or stories which the day had called forth. Spirited discussions frequently arose, but the utmost good humour prevailed and final deci- sions on most questions were sought and accepted from the father's store of wit and erudition, or from the quiet mother seemingly so fully occupied with the contents of her great mending basket. Bright brains sharpened bright brains, and thus, all unconsciously, the in- formal gathering gave a training which no school or carefully planned course of study could have achieved In summer weather the great old-fashioned garden, haunt of all fragrant and time-for- gotten flowers, was the favourite meeting place. There, in and about the hammocks, with their cousin, Bliss Carman, extending his great length on the turf below, and shaggy Nestor, wisest and most under- standing of household dogs, wandering about from one to another for a friendly word or pat, and a score of half-tamed wild birds fluttering and twittering in the trees above, the young people did indeed see visions and dream dreams. It is of this scented garden that Elizabeth, the sister, who though too fragile to companion her stirring brothers in the active sports in which they delighted, and yet their leader when the elysian pastures were to be attained, sings so beautifully in her book. Dream Verses and Others. Staff Sergeant S. A. R. MacDonald, husband of EHzabeth Roberts, is in charge of the Dispensary of the Canadian Special Hospital at Ramsgate, England. Of this marriage, the eldest of two sons, Cuthbert Goodridge, is already contributing to magazines. Elizabeth Koberts MacDonald 223 IN the original copy, the following poems from Dream Verses and Others were included by consent of the author: 'Voices/ 'The Spell of the Forest/ 'The House Among the Firs/ 'The Fire of the Frost/ 'White Magic/ 'The Signal- Smokes' and 'Dreamhurst/ But as permission to use them could not be procured from her Boston pubUsher, Mrs. Mac- Donald kindly sent us these new poems for insertion: The Whispering Poplars I HEAR the whispering poplars In the hollow by my door; They sound like fairy waters Beside a magic shore, They sound like long-lost secrets Of <:hildhood's golden lore, — The murmuriiig, nodding poplars In the hollow by my door. All night they talk together Beneath the silent sky; The mountains crouch beyond them, The blue lake sleeps near by, — But still the silver, sibilant Small voices laugh and sigh. Talking all night together Beneath the silent sky. Flood-Tide WHEN the sea sobs by lonely shores, Bleak shores, with shattered boulders strown. When the dark wind my soul implores And claims me for its own, — How weak, how frail the bars that part This hour from unforgotten years; The dykes of time are down; my heart Is swept with love and tears. 224 Elizabeth Boberts MacDonald Mountain-Ash ALL the hills are dark, Sombre clouds afloat; Sunlight, not a spark, Birdsong, not a note; Only, through the blight, Facing winter's night, Flaunts the mountain-ash Scarlet berries bright. Like a flame of love, Like a lilt of song Lifted sheer above Cares that press and throng. Through the darkling day, — Scarlet set in grey — Splendid mountain-ash Gleams along the way. March Wind THE dark Spring storm swept up From some forgotten shore, The rain beat on my window The same tune o'er and o'er. And the wind, the maker of poets. Sobbed at my door. 'Give me thy heart,' he cried, 'To blow from sea to sea. To fill with lonely fear, To taunt with bitter glee; Give me thy heart; I'll give My song to thee.' Now nay, but Love forbid ! What comes my heart must bear. But forth on sorrow's trail In truth it shall not fare, Nor would I learn the song Hope may not share. Elizabeth Boberts MacDonald 225 But all night long the wind Sobbed, and would not forget Its burden of by-gone years, Sadness, and vain regret, — O longing heart, what goal For thee is set? Harvest RICH days there are when wisdom, love, and dream L,eave their high heaven and close beside us keep. With comrade-steps, from dawn to happy sleep; When golden lights on paths familiar gleam. And life's strong river leaps, a singing stream, Through countless wonders toward a mystic deep ; When every field has gold for thought to reap. And faint and far life's wintry troubles seem. This wheat of gladness garner, oh my heart; With songs of gladness bring the harvest home And under sheltering eaves its bounty store, — Then, when the snows drift deep about your door And grey wolf-winds through desolate woodlands roam. To all who need, the magic hoard impart. Reassurance NOW lucent splendours, amethyst and gold And clearest emerald, flood the western sky. Though all day long dark clouds were heaped on high And angry winds went racing, icy-cold; But calm has come with sunset, and behold Where late the pageantry of storm went by. What dream-bright majesties of colour lie Across the solemn depths of space unrolled. All beautiful things the heart of man can dream. Deep joy unfaltering, love fulfilled that fears No parting evermore nor any tears. Youth's dear desires like beacon-lights that gleam, — When sunset's luminous miracle appears How sure, how close those heights of gladness seem ! 226 Elizabeth Koberts MacDonald The Shepherd AMONG the hills of night my thoughts Go wandering lost and lorn; No rest they find, or gleam of light To solace them till morn; Stumbling they fare, and know not where Safe pasturage to win; O Shepherd Sleep, across the steep Go out and call them in ! An errant flock, they follow far By bitter pools of tears, L,ured on by Memory's lonely voice And tracked by stealthy fears; But wanderings cease, doubt sinks in peace. If once the fold they win ; O Shepherd Sleep, across the steep Go out and call them in! A Madrigal SPRING went by with laughter Down the greening hills. Singing lyric snatches, Crowned with daffodils ; Now, by breath of roses As the soft day closes Know that April's promise June fulfills. Youth goes by with gladness Faery woodlands through. Led by starry visions. Fed with honey-dew; Life, who dost forever Urge the high endeavor. Grant that all the dreaming Time brings true! Albert D. Watson There is no rhetorical aping of a style above his degree, but the honest and genuine expression in language always dignified, frequently distinguished, and at times most felicitous of thoughts, zvhich, to a large extent didactic, are yet illumined with the creative power of life itself 'His word was a zi'hite light,' he says, in speaking of 'The Crusader,' in a line zvhich may be the most eloquent in the book, and it may be applied to Dr. Watson's oivn zvork. His word is a zvhite light, and its purity is lacking neither in zvarmth nor strength. . . But the greater part of the volume is given to a group of biographical sketches in monologue form, entitled 'The Immortals' inhere twenty-six of the great ones of earth who have appealed to Dr. Watson's imagination and sympa- thies, are made to summarize their life and times by a flash- like glimpse. That there is really notable zvork here is un- questionable, and the catholic sympathies of the poet are evi- dent in the zvidely varying subjects chosen. — Albert E. Stafford, in the 'Sunda}' World,' Toronto. [227] 228 Albert D. Watson POETIC genius is necessarily innate — it cannot be acquired. But given the genius, assiduous effort can greatly develop the beauty, strength and music of its expression. This can be seen clearly by a comparison of Dr. Albert D., Watson's first and second books of verse. The Wing of the Wild-Bird was published in 1908, and while it contains a few poems of merit, the work as a whole is not notable. Five years later appeared his Love and the Universe, the Immortals and Other Poems, a book of such value that it placed him at once among the greater poets of Canada. Albert Durrant Watson, M.D. ; L.R.C.P.(Edin.) was born in Dixie, county of Peel, Ontario, the 8th of January, 1859, — the youngest son of the late William Youle and Mary A. (Aldred) Watson. His maternal grandfather fought in Wel- lington's cavalry in the Peninsula and at Waterloo. Dr. Watson was educated at the Toronto Normal School, and at Victoria and Edinburgh Universities, and for more than thirty years has practised his profession in the city of Tor- onto. During this period, he has found time also for much public service in connection with important official positions, and is now President of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, and Treasurer of the Social Service Department of the Methodist Church. In September, 1885, Dr. Watson was married to Sarah, a daughter of the late Samuel Clare, of Toronto. Mrs. Watson is interested in sculpture and has developed artistically in clay-modelling. Two prose works of merit have added to the reputation of this author, — The Sovereignty of Ideals, published in 1904, and The Sovereignty of Character: Lessons from the Life of lesus, in 1906. The latter, one of the noblest of readable books, was republished in 1914, in London, England. A third prose work. Three Comrades of Jesus, will be issued before the close of 1916. His national hymn, written, in 1915, for the melody, 'O Canada' together with five other selections from his sacred poems, are included in the new Methodist Hymnal. Dr. and Mrs. Watson have three sons and two daughters. One son is in the Imperial Transport Service, — aircraft de- fence. Albert D. Watson 229 Dream- Valley 1KN0W a vale where the oriole swings Her nest to the breeze and the sky, The iris opens her petal wing's And a brooklet ripples by; In the far blue is a cloud-drift, And the witch-tree dresses, With a rare charm in the warm light, Her long dream-tresses. But yestermorn — or was it a dream? When daisies were drinking the dew, I wandered down by the little stream. And who was there but you? Though nature smiled with the old joy To the boldest comer. It was your voice and the wild-bird's Were the soul of summer. When bowed with the toils of many years, I would rest, if it be Love's will. In a vale where the bird songs to my ears Come floating across the hill. With the sweet breath of the June air And the purple clover, And the lone dream of the old love, And the blue skies over. From ' Love and the Universe ' THE voiceless symphony of moor and highland, The rainbow on the mist, The white moon-shield above the slumber-island. The mirror-lake, star-kist, The life of budding leaf and spray and branches, The dew upon the sod, The roar of downward-rushing avalanches. Are eloquent of God. My eye sweeps far-extended plains of vision And golden seas of light; 230 Albert D. Watson Upon my ear fall cadences elysian, Like music in the night; But all the glories to my sense appealing Can no such raptures win As come with majesty and joy of healing From love and light within. How shall the Universe its own creation, Life of its life, destroy? How bring to nothingness of desolation The soul of its own joy? The echo of itself, not merely fashioned Of clay, God's outer part, But fibre of His being, love-impassioned. The glory of His heart! Drive on, then. Winds of God, drive on forever Across the shoreless sea; The soul's a boundless deep, exhausted never By full discovery. The atmosphere and storms, the roll of ocean, The paths by planets trod. Are time-expressions of a Soul's emotion, Are will and thought of God. In storm or calm, that soundless ocean sweeping Is still the sailor's goal; The destiny of every man is leaping To birth in his own soul. Breeze and Billow A FAIR blue sky, A far blue sea, Breeze o'er the billows blowing! The deeps of night o'er the waters free. With mute appeal to the soul of me In billows and breezes flowing; The stars that watch While sunbeams sleep, Breeze o'er the billows blowing! Albert D. Watson 231 The soft-winged zephyrs that move the deep And rock my barque in a dreamy sweep; The moonlight softly glowing; The glint of wave, The gleam of star, Breeze o'er the billows blowing! The surf-line music on beach and bar, The voice of nature near and far, The night into morning growing; And I afloat With canvas free, Breeze o'er the billowsi blowing! At one with the heart of eternity, The fair blue sky and the far blue sea, — And the breeze o'er the billows blowing. The Comet SPECTRAL, mysterious, flame-like thing Cleaving the western night. Waking from chrysalis-dream to fling Out of thy spirit's long chastening Far-flashing streams of light. Tell us thy thought of the things that are; How doth the morning sing? What hast thou seen in the worlds afar? Tell us thy dream, O thou silvery star. Bird with the white-flame wing. A^/hat though the glow of thy fading ray Dim and elusive seem. Constant thou art to the sun's bright sway Faithful and true in thy tireless way. True in thy spectral gleam. Rising anew from thine ancient pyre. Vapour and dust thy frame, Still art thou Psyche, the soul's desire, Wingless, save when from reefs of fire Mounting in shaft of flame. 232 Albert D. Watson The Sacrament THE World was builded out of flame and storm. The oak, blast-beaten on the hills, stands forth, Stalwar