II
The lady watched the serpent and the crow
For days, then came a little naked lad,
And smote the serpent with a spear he had;
Then stooped and caught the coil, and straining slow,
Took the lithe weight upon his shoulder, so,
And tugged, but could not move the ponderous thing,
Then flushing red with rage, his spear did fling,
And cut the gladiolus at one blow.
Then back he swung his flaming weapon high,
And smote the snake and called a magic name;
Then the whole garden vanished utterly,
And through a mist the lightning went and came,
And flooded all the caverns of the sky,
A rosy gulf of unimprisoned flame.
THE RIVER TOWN
There’s a town where shadows run
In the sparkle and the blue,
By the river and the sun
Swept and flooded thro’ and thro’.
There the sailor trolls a song,
There the sea-gull dips her wing,
There the wind is clear and strong,
There the waters break and swing.
But at night with leaden sweep
Come the clouds along the flood,
Lifting in the vaulted deep
Pinions of a giant brood.
Charging by the slip, the whole
River rushes black and sheer,
There the great fish heave and roll
In the gloom beyond the pier.
All the lonely hollow town
Towers above the windy quay,
And the ancient tide goes down
With its secret to the sea.
OFF THE ISLE AUX COUDRES
The moon, Capella, and the Pleiades
Silver the river’s grey uncertain floor;
Only a heron haunts the grassy shore;
A fox barks sharply in the cedar trees;
Then comes the lift and lull of plangent seas,
Swaying the light marish grasses more and more
Until they float, and the slow tide brims o’er,
And then a rivulet runs along the breeze.
O night! thou art so beautiful, so strange, so sad;
I feel that sense of scope and ancientness,
Of all the mighty empires thou hast had
Dreaming of power beneath thy palace dome,
Of how thou art untouched by their distress,
Supreme above this dreaming land, my home.
AT LES EBOULEMENTS
TO M. E. S.
The bay is set with ashy sails,
With purple shades that fade and flee,
And curling by in silver wales,
The tide is straining from the sea.
The grassy points are slowly drowned,
The water laps and over-rolls,
The wicker pêche; with shallow sound
A light wave labours on the shoals.
The crows are feeding in the foam,
They rise in crowds tumultuously,
‘Come home,’ they cry, ‘come home, come home,
And leave the marshes to the sea.’
ABOVE ST. IRÉNÉE
I rested on the breezy height,
In cooler shade and clearer air,
Beneath a maple tree;
Below, the mighty river took
Its sparkling shade and sheeny light
Down to the sombre sea,
And clustered by the leaping brook,
The roofs of white St. Irénée.
The sapphire hills on either hand
Broke down upon the silver tide,
The river ran in streams,
In streams of mingled azure-grey,
With here a broken purple band,
And whorls of drab, and beams
Of shattered silver light astray,
Where far away the south shore gleams.
I walked a mile along the height
Between the flowers upon the road,
Asters and golden-rod;
And in the gardens pinks and stocks,
And gaudy poppies shaking light,
And daisies blooming near the sod,
And lowly pansies set in flocks,
With purple monkshood overawed.
And there I saw a little child
Between the tossing golden-rod,
Coming along to me;
She was a tender little thing,
So fragile-sweet, so Mary-mild,
I thought her name Marie;
No other name methought could cling
To any one so fair as she.
And when we came at last to meet,
I spoke a simple word to her,
‘Where are you going, Marie?’
She answered and she did not smile,
But oh! her voice,—her voice so sweet,
‘Down to St. Irénée,’
And so passed on to walk her mile,
And left the lonely road to me.
And as the night came on apace,
With stars above the darkened hills,
I heard perpetually,
Chiming along the falling hours,
On the deep dusk that mellow phrase,
‘Down to St. Irénée:’
It seemed as if the stars and flowers
Should all go there with me.
WRITTEN IN A COPY OF ARCHIBALD
LAMPMAN’S POEMS
When April moved in maiden guise
Hiding her sweet inviolate eyes,
You saw about the hazel roots,
Beyond the ruddy osier shoots,
The violets rise.
At even, in the lower woods,
Amid the cedarn solitudes,
You heard afar amid the hush
The argent utterance of the thrush
In slower interludes.
When bees above in arboured rooms
Were busy in the basswood blooms,
You drowsed within the sombre drone,
Dreaming, and deemed yourself alone,
Harboured in glooms.
The singing of the sentient bees
Brought wisdom for perplexities;
They taught you all the murmured lore
Of seas around an ancient shore,
Of streams and trees.
You saw the web of life unrolled,
Fold and inweave, weave and unfold,
Crimson and azure strand on strand,
From some great gulf in vision-land,
Deep and untold.
And as the soft clouds opal-gray
Against the confines of the day
Seem lighter for the depth of skies,
So, lighter for your saddened eyes,
Your fair thoughts stray.
I pluck a bunch before the spring,
Of field-flowers reflowering,
Upon a fell that fancy weaves,
A memory lingers in their leaves
Of songs you sing.
You must have rested here sometime,
When thought was high and words in chime,
Your seed thoughts left for sun and showers
Have blossomed into pleasant flowers,
Instead of rhyme.
And so I bring them back to you,
These pensile buds of tender hue,
Of crimson, pink and purple sheen,
Of yellow deep, and delicate green,
Of white and blue.
OFF RIVIÈRE DU LOUP
O ship incoming from the sea
With all your cloudy tower of sail,
Dashing the water to the lee,
And leaning grandly to the gale;
The sunset pageant in the west
Has filled your canvas curves with rose,
And jewelled every toppling crest
That crashes into silver snows!
You know the joy of coming home,
After long leagues to France or Spain;
You feel the clear Canadian foam
And the gulf water heave again.
Between these sombre purple hills
That cool the sunset’s molten bars,
You will go on as the wind wills,
Beneath the river’s roof of stars.
You will toss onward toward the lights
That spangle over the lonely pier,
By hamlets glimmering on the heights,
By level islands black and clear.
You will go on beyond the tide,
Through brimming plains of olive sedge,
Through paler shallows light and wide,
The rapids piled along the ledge.
At evening off some reedy bay
You will swing slowly on your chain,
And catch the scent of dewy hay,
Soft blowing from the pleasant plain.
AT THE CEDARS
TO W. W. C.
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
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.
THE END OF THE DAY
I hear the bells at eventide
Peal slowly one by one,
Near and far off they break and glide,
Across the stream float faintly beautiful
The antiphonal bells of Hull;
The day is done, done, done,
The day is done.
The dew has gathered in the flowers,
Lake tears from some unconscious deep:
The swallows whirl around the towers,
The light runs out beyond the long cloud bars,
And leaves the single stars;
’Tis time for sleep, sleep, sleep,
’Tis time for sleep.
The hermit thrush begins again,—
Timorous eremite—
That song of risen tears and pain,
As if the one he loved was far away:
‘Alas! another day—’
‘And now Good Night, Good Night,’
‘Good Night.’
THE REED-PLAYER
TO B. C.
By a dim shore where water darkening
Took the last light of spring,
I went beyond the tumult, hearkening
For some diviner thing.
Where the bats flew from the black elms like leaves,
Over the ebon pool
Brooded the bittern’s cry, as one that grieves
Lands ancient, bountiful.
I saw the fireflies shine below the wood,
Above the shallows dank,
As Uriel from some great altitude,
The planets rank on rank.
And now unseen along the shrouded mead
One went under the hill;
He blew a cadence on his mellow reed,
That trembled and was still.
It seemed as if a line of amber fire
Had shot the gathered dusk,
As if had blown a wind from ancient Tyre
Laden with myrrh and musk.
He gave his luring note amid the fern;
Its enigmatic fall
Haunted the hollow dusk with golden turn
And argent interval.
I could not know the message that he bore,
The springs of life from me
Hidden; his incommunicable lore
As much a mystery.
And as I followed far the magic player
He passed the maple wood,
And when I passed the stars had risen there,
And there was solitude.
A FLOCK OF SHEEP
TO C. G. D. R.
Over the field the bright air clings and tingles,
In the gold sunset while the red wind swoops;
Upon the nibbled knolls and from the dingles,
The sheep are gathering in frightened groups.
From the wide field the laggards bleat and follow,
A drover hurls his cry and hooting laugh;
And one young swain, too glad to whoop or hollo,
Is singing wildly as he whirls his staff.
Now crowding into little groups and eddies
They swirl about and charge and try to pass;
The sheep-dog yelps and heads them off and steadies
And rounds and moulds them in a seething mass.
They stand a moment with their heads uplifted
Till the wise dog barks loudly on the flank,
They all at once roll over and are drifted
Down the small hill toward the river bank.
Covered with rusty marks and purple blotches
Around the fallen bars they flow and leap;
The wary dog stands by and keenly watches
As if he knew the name of every sheep.
Now down the road the nimble sound decreases,
The drovers cry, the dog delays and whines,
And now with twinkling feet and glimmering fleeces
They round and vanish past the dusky pines.
The drove is gone, the ruddy wind grows colder,
The singing youth puts up the heavy bars,
Beyond the pines he sees the crimson smoulder,
And catches in his eyes the early stars.
A PORTRAIT
All her hair is softly set,
Like a misty coronet,
Massing darkly on her brow,
Like the pines above the snow;
And her eyebrows lightly drawn,
Slender clouds above the dawn,
Or like ferns above her eyes,
Ferns and pools in Paradise.
Her sweet mouth is like a flower,
Like a poppy full of power,
Shaken light and crimson stain,
Pressed together by the rain,
Glowing liquid in the sun,
When the rain is done.
When she moves, her motionings
Seem to shadow hidden wings;
So the cuckoo going to light
Takes a little further flight,
Fluttering onward, poised there,
Half in grass and half in air.
When she speaks, her girlish voice
Makes a very pleasant noise,
Like a brook that hums along
Under leaves an undersong:
When she sings, her voice is clear,
Like the waters swerving sheer,
In the sunlight magical,
Down a ringing fall.
Here her spirit came to dwell
From the passionate Israfel;
One of those great songs of his
Rounded to a soul like this;
And when she seems so strange at even,
He must be singing in the heaven;
When she wears that charméd smile,
Listening, listening all the while,
She is stirred with kindred things,
Starry fire and sweeping wings,
And the seraph’s sobbing strings.
AT THE LATTICE
Good-night, Marie, I kiss thine eyes,
A tender touch on either lid;
They cover, as a cloud, the skies
Where like a star your soul lies hid.
My love is like a fire that flows,
This touch will leave a tiny scar,
I’ll claim you by it for my rose,
My rose, my own, where’er you are.
And when you bind your hair, and when
You lie within your silken nest,
This kiss will visit you again,
You will not rest, my love, you will not rest.