IV
After the flood on Tantramar
The fisher-folk flocked in from far.
They stopped the breach; they healed the scar.
Once more the marsh grew green.
But at the marsh’s inmost edge,
Where a tall fringe of flag and sedge
Catches a climbing hawthorn hedge,
A lonely hulk is seen.
It lies forgotten of all tides,
The grass grows round its bleaching sides,
An endless inland peace abides
About its mouldering age.
But in the cot-door on the height
An old man sits with fading sight,
And memories of one cruel night
Are all his heritage.
And at her spinning-wheel within
The mother’s hands forget to spin,—
So weary all her days have been
Since Margery went away.
—— Tantramar! Tantramar!
Until that sorrow fades afar,
Thy plains where birds and blossoms are
Laugh not their ancient way!
THE VALLEY OF THE WINDING WATER
The valley of the winding water
Wears the same light it wore of old,
Still o’er the purple peaks the portals
Of distance and desire unfold.
Still break the fields of opening June
To emerald in their ancient way.
The sapphire of the summer heaven
Is infinite, as yesterday.
My eyes are on the greening earth,
The exultant bobolinks wild awing;
And yet, of all this kindly gladness,
My heart beholds not anything.
For in a still room far away,
With mourners round her silent head,
Blind to the quenchless tears, the anguish—
I see, to-day, a woman dead.
MARSYAS
A little grey hill-glade, close-turfed, withdrawn
Beyond resort or heed of trafficking feet,
Ringed round with slim trunks of the mountain ash.
Through the slim trunks and scarlet bunches flash—
Beneath the clear chill glitterings of the dawn dawn—
Far off, the crests, where down the rosy shore
The Pontic surges beat.
The plains lie dim below. The thin airs wash
The circuit of the autumn-coloured hills,
And this high glade, whereon
The satyr pipes, who soon shall pipe no more.
He sits against the beech-tree’s mighty bole,—
He leans, and with persuasive breathing fills
The happy shadows of the slant-set lawn.
The goat-feet fold beneath a gnarlèd root;
And sweet, and sweet the note that steals and thrills
From slender stops of that shy flute.
Then to the goat-feet comes the wide-eyed fawn
Hearkening; the rabbits fringe the glade, and lay
Their long ears to the sound;
In the pale boughs the partridge gather round,
And quaint hern from the sea-green river reeds;
The wild ram halts upon a rocky horn
O’erhanging; and, unmindful of his prey,
The leopard steals with narrowed lids to lay
His spotted length along the ground.
The thin airs wash, the thin clouds wander by,
And those hushed listeners move not. All the morn
He pipes, soft-swaying, and with half-shut eye,
In rapt content of utterance,—
nor heeds
The young God standing in his branchy place,
The languor on his lips, and in his face,
Divinely inaccessible, the scorn.
THE FORTRESS
While raves the midnight storm,
And roars the rain upon the windy roof,
Heart held to heart and all the world aloof,
We laugh secure and warm.
This chamber of our bliss
Might seem a fortress by a haunted main,
Which shouting hosts embattled charge in vain,
Powerless to mar our kiss.
O life, O storm of years,
Our walls are built against your shattering siege;
Our dwelling is with Love, our sovereign liege,
And fenced from change and tears.
SEVERANCE
The tide falls, and the night falls,
And the wind blows in from the sea,
And the bell on the bar it calls and calls,
And the wild hawk cries from his tree.
The late crane calls to his fellows gone
In long flight over the sea,
And my heart with the crane flies on and on,
Seeking its rest and thee
O Love, the tide returns to the strand,
And the crane flies back oversea,
But he brings not my heart from his far-off land,
For he brings not thee to me.
EPITAPH FOR A SAILOR BURIED ASHORE
He who but yesterday would roam
Careless as clouds and currents range,
In homeless wandering most at home,
Inhabiter of change;
Who wooed the west to win the east,
And named the stars of North and South,
And felt the zest of Freedom’s feast
Familiar in his mouth;
Who found a faith in stranger-speech,
And fellowship in foreign hands,
And had within his eager reach
The relish of all lands—
How circumscribed a plot of earth
Keeps now his restless footsteps still,
Whose wish was wide as ocean’s girth,
Whose will the water’s will!
THE SILVER THAW
There came a day of showers
Upon the shrinking snow;
The south wind sighed of flowers,
The softening skies hung low.
Midwinter for a space
Foreshadowing April’s face,
The white world caught the fancy,
And would not let it go.
In reawakened courses
The brooks rejoiced the land;
We dreamed the Spring’s shy forces
Were gathering close at hand.
The dripping buds were stirred,
As if the sap had heard
The long-desired persuasion
Of April’s soft command.
But antic Time had cheated
With hope’s elusive gleam;
The phantom Spring, defeated,
Fled down the ways of dream.
And in the night the reign
Of winter came again,
With frost upon the forest
And stillness on the stream.
When morn in rose and crocus
Came up the bitter sky,
Celestial beams awoke us
To wondering ecstasy.
The wizard Winter’s spell
Had wrought so passing well,
That earth was bathed in glory,
As if God’s smile were nigh.
The silvered saplings, bending,
Flashed in a rain of gems;
The statelier trees, attending,
Blazed in their diadems.
White fire and amethyst
All common things had kissed,
And chrysolites and sapphires
Adorned the bramble-stems.
In crystalline confusion
All beauty came to birth;
It was a kind illusion
To comfort waiting earth—
To bid the buds forget
The Spring so distant yet,
And hearts no more remember
The iron season’s dearth.
THE LILY OF THE VALLEY
Did Winter, letting fall in vain regret
A tear among the tender leaves of May,
Embalm the tribute, lest she might forget,
In this elect, imperishable way?
Or did the virgin Spring sweet vigil keep
In the white radiance of the midnight hour,
And whisper to the unwondering ear of Sleep
Some shy desire that turned into a flower?
THE NIGHT-HAWK
When frogs make merry the pools of May,
And sweet, oh sweet,
Through the twilight dim
Is the vesper hymn
Their myriad mellow pipes repeat
As the rose-dusk dies away.
Then hark, the night-hawk!
(For now is the elfin hour.)
With melting skies o’er him,
All summer before him,
His wild brown mate to adore him,
By the spell of his power
He summons the apples in flower.
In the high pale heaven he flits and calls;
Then swift, oh swift,
On sounding wing
That hums like a string,
To the quiet glades where the gnat-clouds drift
And the night-moths flicker, he falls.
Then hark, the night-hawk!
(For now is the elfin hour.)
With melting skies o’er him,
All summer before him,
His wild brown mate to adore him,
By the spell of his power
He summons the apples in flower.
THE HERMIT-THRUSH
Over the tops of the trees,
And over the shallow stream,
The shepherd of sunset frees
The amber phantoms of dream.
The time is the time of vision;
The hour is the hour of calm;
Hark! On the stillness Elysian
Breaks how divine a psalm!
Oh, clear in the sphere of the air,
Clear, clear, tender and far,
Our aspiration of prayer
Unto eve’s clear star!
O singer serene, secure!
From thy throat of silver and dew
What transport lonely and pure,
Unchanging, endlessly new,—
An unremembrance of mirth,
And a contemplation of tears,
As if the musing of earth
Communed with the dreams of the years!
Oh, clear in the sphere of the air,
Clear, clear, tender and far,
Our aspiration of prayer
Unto eve’s clear star!
O cloistral ecstatic! thy cell
In the cool green aisles of the leaves
Is the shrine of a power by whose spell
Whoso hears aspires and believes!
O hermit of evening! thine hour
Is the sacrament of desire,
When love hath a heavenlier flower,
And passion a holier fire!
Oh, clear in the sphere of the air,
Clear, clear, tender and far,
Our aspiration of prayer
Unto eve’s clear star!
THE WILD-ROSE THICKET
Where humming flies frequent, and where
Pink petals open to the air,
The wild-rose thicket seems to be
The summer in epitome.
Amid its gold-green coverts meet
The late dew and the noonday heat;
Around it, to the sea-rim harsh,
The patient levels of the marsh;
And o’er it the pale heavens bent,
Half sufferance and half content.
MY TREES
At evening, when the winds are still,
And wide the yellowing landscape glows,
My firwoods on the lonely hill
Are crowned with sun and loud with crows.
Their flocks throng down the open sky
From far salt flats and sedgy seas;
Then dusk and dewfall quench the cry,—
So calm a home is in my trees.
At morning, when the young wind swings
The green slim tops and branches high,
Out puffs a noisy whirl of wings,
Dispersing up the empty sky.
In this dear refuge no roof stops
The skyward pinion winnowing through.
My trees shut out the world;—their tops
Are open to the infinite blue.
THE HAWKBIT
How sweetly on the Autumn scene,
When haws are red amid the green,
The hawkbit shines with face of cheer,
The favourite of the faltering year!
When days grow short and nights grow cold
How fairly gleams its eye of gold,
On pastured field and grassy hill,
Along the roadside and the rill!
It seems the spirit of a flower,
This offspring of the Autumn hour,
Wandering back to earth to bring
Some kindly afterthought of Spring.
A dandelion’s ghost might so
Amid Elysian meadows blow,
Become more fragile and more fine
Breathing the atmosphere divine.
GREY ROCKS AND GREYER SEA
Grey rocks, and greyer sea,
And surf along the shore—
And in my heart a name
My lips shall speak no more.
The high and lonely hills
Endure the darkening year—
And in my heart endure
A memory and a tear.
Across the tide a sail
That tosses, and is gone—
And in my heart the kiss
That longing dreams upon.
Grey rocks, and greyer sea,
And surf along the shore—
And in my heart the face
That I shall see no more.
A SONG OF CHEER
The winds are up with wakening day
And tumult in the tree;
Across the cool and open sky
White clouds are streaming free;
The new light breaks o’er flood and field
Clear like an echoing horn,
While in loud flight the crows are blown
Athwart the sapphire morn.
What tho’ the maple’s scarlet flame
Declares the summer done,
Tho’ finch and starling voyage south
To win a softer sun,
What tho’ the withered leaf whirls by
To strew the purpling stream,—
Stretched are the world’s glad veins with strength,
Despair is grown a dream!
The acres of the golden rod
Are glorious on the hills.
Tho storm and loss approach, the year’s
High heart upleaps and thrills.
Dearest, the cheer, the brave delight,
Are given to shame regret,
That when the long frost falls, our hearts
Be glad, and not forget!
A SONG OF GROWTH
In the heart of a man
Is a thought upfurled,
Reached its full span
It shakes the world,
And to one high thought
Is a whole race wrought.
Not with vain noise
The great work grows,
Nor with foolish voice,
But in repose,—
Not in the rush
But in the hush.
From the cogent lash
Of the cloud-herd wind
The low clouds dash,
Blown headlong, blind;
But beyond, the great blue
Looks moveless through.
O’er the loud world sweep
The scourge and the rod;
But in deep beyond deep
Is the stillness of God;—
At the Fountains of Life
No cry, no strife.
TO G. B. R.
How merry sings the aftermath,
With crickets fifing in the dew!
The home-sweet sounds, the scene, the hour,
I consecrate to you.
All this you knew and loved with me;
All this in our delight had part;
And now—though us earth sees no more
As comrades, heart to heart—
This kindly strength of open fields,
This faith of eve, this calm of air,
They lift my spirit close to you
In memory and prayer.
THE BIRD’S SONG, THE SUN, AND THE WIND
The bird’s song, the sun, and the wind—
The wind that rushes, the sun that is still,
The song of the bird that sings alone,
And wide light washing the lonely hill!
The Spring’s coming, the buds and the brooks—
The brooks that clamour, the buds in the rain,
The coming of Spring that comes unprayed for,
And eyes that welcome it not for pain!
OH, PURPLE HANG THE PODS
Oh, purple hang the pods
On the green locust-tree,
And yellow turn the sods
On a grave that’s dear to me!
And blue, softly blue,
The hollow Autumn sky,
With its birds flying through
To where the sun-lands lie!
In the sun-lands they’ll bide
While Winter’s on the tree;—
And oh that I might hide
The grave that’s dear to me!
BRINGING HOME THE COWS
When potatoes were in blossom,
When the new hay filled the mows,
Sweet the paths we trod together,
Bringing home the cows.
What a purple kissed the pasture,
Kissed and blessed the alder-boughs,
As we wandered slow at sundown,
Bringing home the cows!
How the far-off hills were gilded
With the light that dream allows,
As we built our hopes beyond them,
Bringing home the cows!
How our eyes were bright with visions,
What a meaning wreathed our brows,
As we watched the cranes, and lingered,
Bringing home the cows!
Past the years, and through the distance,
Throbs the memory of our vows,
Oh that we again were children
Bringing home the cows!
THE KEEPERS OF THE PASS
[When the Iroquois were moving in overwhelming force to obliterate the infant town of Montreal, Adam Daulac and a small band of comrades, binding themselves by oath not to return alive, went forth to meet the enemy in a distant pass between the Ottawa river and the hills. There they died to a man, but not till they had slain so many of the savages that the invading force was shattered and compelled to withdraw.]
Now heap the branchy barriers up.
No more for us shall burn
The pine-logs on the happy hearth,
For we shall not return.
We’ve come to our last camping-ground.
Set axe to fir and tamarack.
The foe is here, the end is near,
And we shall not turn back.
In vain for us the town shall wait,
The home-dear faces yearn,
The watchers on the steeple watch,—
For we shall not return.
For them we’re come to these hard straits,
To save from flame and wrack
The little city built far off;
And we shall not turn back.
Now beat the yelling butchers down.
Let musket blaze, and axe-edge burn.
Set hand to hand, lay brand to brand,
But we shall not return.
For every man of us that falls
Their hordes a score shall lack.
Close in about the Lily Flag!
No man of us goes back.
For us no morrow’s dawn shall break.
Our sons and wives shall learn
Some day from lips of flying scout
Why we might not return.
A dream of children’s laughter comes
Across the battle’s slack,
A vision of familiar streets,—
But we shall not go back.
Up roars the painted storm once more.
Long rest we soon shall earn.
Henceforth the city safe may sleep,
But we shall not return.
And when our last has fallen in blood
Between these waters black,
Their tribe shall no more lust for war,—
For we shall not turn back.
In vain for us the town shall wait,
The home-dear faces yearn,
The watchers in the steeple watch,
For we shall not return.
NEW YEAR’S EVE
(AFTER THE FRENCH OF FRÉCHETTE)
Ye night winds shaking the weighted boughs
Of snow-blanched hemlock and frosted fir,
While crackles sharply the thin crust under
The passing feet of the wayfarer;
Ye night cries pulsing in long-drawn waves
Where beats the bitter tide to its flood;
A tumult of pain, a rumour of sorrow,
Troubling the starred night’s tranquil mood;
Ye shudderings where, like a great beast bound,
The forest strains to its depths remote;
Be still and hark! From the high gray tower
The great bell sobs in its brazen throat.
A strange voice out of the pallid heaven,
Twelve sobs it utters, and stops. Midnight!
’Tis the ominous Hail! and the stern Farewell!
Of Past and Present in passing flight.
This moment, herald of hope and doom,
That cries in our ears and then is gone,
Has marked for us in the awful volume
One step toward the infinite dark—or dawn!
A year is gone, and a year begins.
Ye wise ones, knowing in Nature’s scheme,
Oh tell us whither they go, the years
That drop in the gulfs of time and dream!
They go to the goal of all things mortal,
Where fade our destinies, scarce perceived,
To the dim abyss wherein time confounds them—
The hours we laughed and the days we grieved.
They go where the bubbles of rainbow break
We breathed in our youth of love and fame,
Where great and small are as one together,
And oak and windflower counted the same.
They go where follow our smiles and tears,
The gold of youth and the gray of age,
Where falls the storm and falls the stillness,
The laughter of spring and winter’s rage.
What hand shall gauge the depth of time
Or a little measure eternity?
God only, as they unroll before Him,
Conceives and orders the mystery.
A CHRISTMAS-EVE COURTIN’
The snow’d laid deep that winter from the middle of November;
The goin’, as I remember, was the purtiest kind of goin’;
An’ as the time drawed nigh fur turkeys an’ mince pie
The woods, all white an’ frosted, was a sight worth showin’.
The snow hung down the woodpiles all scalloped-like an’ curled.
You’d swear in all the world ther’ warn’t no fences any more.
The cows kep’ under cover, an’ the chickens scratched twice over
The yaller ruck of straw a-layin’ round the stable door.
’Twas Christmas Eve, in the afternoon, an’ the store was jest a-hummin’
When we seen the parson comin’ in his pung along the road;
An’ as he passed the store he called in through the door,
‘Church to-night at the Crossroads! Come, boys, and bring a load!’
’Twas a new idee in them parts, an’ Bill Simmons made ’n oration
About ‘High Church innovation,’ an’ ‘a-driftin’ back to Rome,’
But I backed the parson’s rights to have Church o’ moonlight nights;
An’ I thought of Nance’s cute red lips, an’ pinted straight fur home.
I wasn’t long a-gittin’ the chores done up, you bet,
An’ the supper that I eat wouldn’t more’n a’ fed a fly!
Then I hitched the mare in the pung an’ soon was bowlin’ along
Down by the crick to Nance’s while the moon was white an’ high.
She didn’t keep me waitin’, fur church was at half-pas’ seven;
An’ my idee of Heaven, as I tucked her into the furs,
Was a-ridin’ with Nance at night when the moon was high an’ white,
An’ the deep sky all a-sparkle like them laughin’ eyes of hers.
I had a heap to say, but I couldn’t jest find my tongue;
But my heart it sung an’ sung, like canaries was into it.
So I chirruped to the mare with a kind of easy air,
An’ Nance had to do the talkin’,—as was jest the one could do it!
An’ I could feel her shoulder, kind of comfortin’ an’ warm,
Nestlin’ agin my arm,—sech a sweet an’ cunnin’ shoulder.
My heart was all afire, but I kep’ gittin’ shyer an’ shyer,
An’ wished that I’d been born a leetle sassier an’ bolder.
We come to them there Crossroads ’fore I’d time to say a word;
An’ I reckon as how I heard mighty little of the sarvice.
But ’twas grand to hear Nance sing ‘Glory to the new-born King,’
Tho’ the way the choir folks stared at us, it made me kind of narvous.
I wished the parson’d stop an’ give me another chance
Out there in the night with Nance, under the stars an’ moon;
An’ I vowed I’d have my say in the tidiest kind of way,
An’ she shouldn’t have no more call to think me a blame gossoon.
At last the preachin’ come to an end, an’ the folks all crowded out.
’Fore I knowed what I was about we was on the road fur home.
But the sky was overcast an’ a thick snow droppin’ fast,
An’ a big wind down from the mountins got a-rantin’ an moanin’ some.
We hadn’t rode two mile when it blowed like all possessed,
An’ at that I kind of guessed we was in fur a ticklish night.
We couldn’t go more’n a walk, an’ Nance she forgot to talk;
Then I jest slipped my arm around her, an’ she never kicked a mite.
Well, now, if the hull blame roof’d blowed off I wouldn’t ’a keered,
But I seen as how Nance was skeered, so I sez, ‘By gracious, Nance,
I guess if we don’t turn, an’ cut back for the Crossroads, durn
The shelter we’ll git to-night by any kind of a chance!’
Then the mare stopped short an’ whinnied, an’ Nance jest said, ‘Oh, Si!’
An’ then commenced to cry, till I felt like cryin’ too;
I forgot about the storm, an’ jest hugged her close an’ warm,
An’ kissed her, an’ kissed her, an’ swore as how I’d be true.
Then Nance she quit her cryin’ an’ said she wastn’t skeered
So long’s she knowed I keered jest a leetle mite fur her;
But she guessed we’d better try an’ git home, an’ ‘by-an’-by
The storm ’ll stop, an’ anyways, it ain’t so very fur!’
My heart was that chock full I couldn’t find a word to say,
But she understood the way that I looked into her eyes!
In buffaler robe an’ rug I wrapped her warm an’ snug,
An’ got out an’ broke the mare a road all the way to Barnes’s Rise.
’Twas a tallish tramp, I tell you, a-leadin’ that flounderin’ mare
Thro’ snow drifts anywheres from four to six foot deep.
An’ a ‘painter’ now an’ then howled out from his mountin den;
But Nance, she never heered it, fur she must ’a fell to sleep.
It wasn’t fur from mornin’ when we come to Barnes’s Rise,—
An’ I found to my surprise I’d tramped nine mile an’ wasn’t tired.
I was in sech a happy dream it didn’t hardly seem
As the ride had been any tougher’n jest what I’d desired.
It was easier goin’ now, an’ Nance woke up all rosy.
She was sweeter’n any posy as I kissed her at the gate.
The dawn was jest a-growin’ so I wished her a Merry Christmas,
An’ remarked I must be goin’ as it might be gittin’ late!
We was married at the Crossroads jest six weeks from Christmas Eve;
An’ Nance an’ me believe in our parson’s innovations;
We ain’t much skeered o’ Rome, an’ we reckon he can preach some,
An’ we call that evenin’ sarvice a Providential Dispensation.
THE SUCCOUR OF GLUSKÂP
(A MICMAC LEGEND)
The happy valley laughed with sun,
The corn grew firm in stalk,
The lodges clustered safe where run
The streams of Peniawk.
The washing-pools and shallows rang
With shout of lads at play;
At corn-hoeing the women sang;
The warriors were away.
The splashed white pebbles on the beach,
The idling paddles, gleamed;
Before the lodge doors, spare of speech,
The old men basked and dreamed.
And when the windless noon grew hot,
And the white sun beat like steel,
In shade about the shimmering pot
They gathered to their meal.
Then from the hills, on flying feet,
A desperate runner came,
With cry that smote the peaceful street,
And slew the peace with shame.
‘Trapped in the night, and snared in sleep,
Our warriors wake no more!
Up from Wahloos the Mohawks creep—
Their feet are at the door!’
The grey old sachems rose and mocked
The ruin that drew near;
And down the beach the children flocked,
And women wild with fear.
Launched were the red canoes; when, lo!
Beside them Gluskâp stood,
Appearing with his giant bow
From out his mystic wood.
With quiet voice he called them back,
And comforted their fears;
He swore the lodges should not lack,
He dried the children’s tears;
Till sorrowing mothers almost deemed
The desperate runner lied,
And the tired children slept, and dreamed
Their fathers had not died.
That night behind the mystic wood
The Mohawk warriors crept;
A spell went through the solitude
And stilled them, and they slept.
And when the round moon, rising late,
The Hills of Kawlm had crossed,
She saw the camp of Mohawk hate
Swathed in a great white frost.
At morn, behind the mystic wood
Came Gluskâp, bow in hand,
And marked the ice-bound solitude,
And that unwaking band.
But as he gazed his lips grew mild,
For, safe among the dead,
There played a ruddy, laughing child
By a captive mother’s head;
And child and mother, nestling warm,
Scarce knew their foes had died,
As past their sleep the noiseless storm
Of strange death turned aside.
HOW THE MOHAWKS SET OUT FOR MEDOCTEC
[When the invading Mohawks captured the outlying Melicite village of Madawaska, they spared two squaws to guide them down stream to the main Melicite town of Medoctec, below Grand Falls. The squaws steered themselves and their captors over the Falls.]