THE BUILDING OF THE CHATEAU
Where the wilderness holds kingdom, where the primal fastness broods,
I, the rock, within my stratum, lay amid the solitudes,
Patient lay throughout the ages, part of the primeval plan,
Till the voice of progress called me to the purpose of the man.
From afar he came invading, pressing onward unafraid,
Braved the spirits of the vastness where they met him grim arrayed,
Piercing past my rugged outposts, hewing down my mighty guards,
Crying I, the earth god, seeketh, and my purpose none retards.
In the bosom of the mountain, there he found me, laid me bare,
Found me fitting for his purpose, found me worthy past compare,
With strange instruments attacked me, drilled and blasted me apart,
From the wilderness he bore me, from my mountain mother's heart.
Lifted me with strong devices, dragged me down the mountain trails,
Barged me down the rushing rivers, speeded me on gleaming rails,
Captive bore me to the city where I rose above the land,
For the purpose of the builders who an edifice had planned.
On the plateau by the river, 'neath the shadow of the tower,
There the purpose was unfolded of the man's creative power.
To the northward, the Laurentians purple-tinted cast their haze,
Such the setting of my future, such the vista for my gaze.
Came the toilers, swiftly shaping, blasting, through the day
and night.
Delving for my deep foundation by the city's vista'd site,
Came the long and slender girders all the iron, measured, bored,
Clanging protest as they piled it, while the blasting ripped
and roared.
Circling swung the straining derricks, shrieked the engine's
shrilly note,
As by magic to their places joint and girder seemed to float;
Stone on stone they laid and set me, tier on tier my structure rose,
On the plateau by the river, sweeping seaward as it flows.
They have hewn me to being, they have shaped with skilful hands,
And the chateau on the plateau o'er the river proudly stands,
Deemed a miracle of beauty, classic, stately, and refined,
Reared as fitting habitation for the leaders of mankind.
Though I stand a thing of grandeur, stone on stone majestic piled,
I am brooding on the open, I am dreaming of the wild.
They would tame me with their graces, they would lure me
with their songs,
From the olden memoried places where my stony heart belongs.
Though the wealthy loll within me and on luxury they feast,
Though they robe me and bedeck me with the weavings of the East,
Though my floors with rugs be matted, that their feet may
silent tread,
I am steel and stone and iron, and my soul is mountain-bred.
When the wind drives from the mountain far beyond the river shore,
All my being throbs in gladness to the music of its roar,
All the primal that's within me, all the hewn and chiselled stone,
Thrills in greeting to the booming of its mighty chested tone.
And I see the pine-tressed mountains where they taunt the raging gale,
As it roars adown the gulches to the cities of the vale,
And the bed within its shadows where for centuries I lay,
Beckons for the lost one, dwelling where the humans hold their sway.
When the night her mask of sable presses on the earth's warm face,
And when, satined and bejewelled, lovely women do me grace,
When the violins are throbbing out the passion of the dance,
Then I ponder on the future, and the destiny of chance.
I the chateau, I the splendid, shall I crumble and decay,
Lichened guard the shining river when the years have passed away,
Or a comforter still flourish, guarding humans from the blast,
When a century has rounded, when a hundred years have passed.
Time the jester, time the judger, time the measurer of things,
Time shall weigh the builders' cunning, as the earth to eastward swings;
They have hewn me to being, they have shaped with skilful hands,
And the chateau on the plateau o'er the river proudly stands.[*]
[*] This poem was written around the building of the Chateau Laurier, Ottawa. From the Chateau a fine view of the Laurentian Mountains can be had.