"Can you wonder that the rains have beaten on my statued form?
Can you marvel that the winter shakes me with its fiercest storm?
Ah! not age it is but shame that makes me look so worn and old,
Makes me hang my head and tremble lest the bitter truth be told.
It is murmured by the maples, it is whispered by the wind,
Till I cannot but imagine it is heard by all mankind,
How your children, from gay boyhood until tottering age, behold
Gallant Maisonneuve forgotten and less worthy me extolled.
Oh! my comrades, if you love me, lighten the disgrace I feel,
Lend your ready hands to aid me, bend your hearts to my appeal:
Raise a statue to the founder of this great, historic town,
Chomedey de Maisonneuve, or pity me and take mine down."
RED ROSES.
TO ONE WHO LOVES RED ROSES.
_
When our lives were in their springtime and our souls were in the bud,
While the watchful world was silent, heeding not such childish love,
I poured forth for thee my heart-thoughts in a sweet, unthinking flood,
Like a bird that carols freely in the grove.
And thou heardst them, half unconscious of the import that they bore,
Till the years unlocked the chambers of thy stainless, maiden heart
And thou badest my songs be silent. They are silent evermore,
But their echoes from my soul will not depart.
Yet the love songs that I lilted in those by-gone childhood days,
Surely, them thou wilt not silence, let them be a memory dear
Of the happy days of childhood when unchecked I sang thy praise,
While with thee I looked to heaven and deemed it here.
_
THREE SONNETS.
THE MAIDEN.
The melody of birds is in her voice.
The lake is not more crystal than her eyes,
In whose brown depths her soul still sleeping lies.
With her soft curls the passionate zephyr toys,
And whispers in her ear of coming joys.
Upon her breast red rosebuds fall and rise,
Kissing her snowy throat, and, lover-wise,
Breathing forth sweetness till the fragrance cloys.
Sometimes she thinks of love, but, oftener yet,
Wooing but wearies her, and love's warm phrase
Repels and frightens her. Then, like the sun
At misty dawn, amid the fear and fret
There rises in her heart at last some One,
And all save love is banished by his rays.