UC-NRLF 375 Jl^-n n_n_n_n_n_n_n-_n_n_n_n_n_n_n_n_n_n_n_n_ REESE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA *f-S3 Class C ^^^^^-^^ LOW TIDE ON GRAND PRE BALLADS OF LOST HAVEN Low Tide on Grand Pre and Ballads of Lost Haven By Bliss Carman Two Volumes in One Boston Small Maynard & Company 1905 COPYRIGHT, 1893, 1894, BY BLISS CARMAN. COPYRIGHT, 1897, BY LAMSON WOLFFE & COMPANY. All Rights Reserved. FIRST EDITION, NOVEMBER 25th, 1893. SECOND EDITION, MARCH isth, 1894. THIRD EDITION, DECEMBER, 1895. FOURTH EDITION, OCTOBER, 1899. FIFTH EDITION, AUGUST, 1905. PREFATORY NOTE TO THE FIRST EDITION OF LOW TIDE ON GRAND PRE The poems in this volume have been collected with reference to their similarity of tone. They are variations on a single theme, more or less aptly suggested by the title, Low TIDE ON GRAND PR. It seemed better to bring together between the same covers only those pieces of work which happened to be in the same key, rather than to publish a larger book of more uncertain aim. B. C. By Grand Pre, September, 1893. fa < C PUBLISHERS' NOTE In reprinting the present edition of Low TIDE ON GRAND PRE, the text of the first edition is reproduced without altera- tion, except for a line in " The Eavesdropper " and the addition of "Marian Drury," " Golden Rowan," and "A Sea Drift," all of these changes having been made by the author in the second edition of the book which was published in 1894. The original edition of BALLADS OF LOST HAVEN having gone out of print, the publishers have obtained Mr. Carman's permission to reprint it at the end of this volume in its original sequence and text, believing that this is no real violation of his desire to group together those pieces of his work " which happen to be in the same key" and that the consequent gain to his readers will be an appreciable one. S. M. & Co. Boston, August, Low Tide on Grand Pre A Book of Lyrics A TABLE OF THE CONTENTS OF THIS BOOK Low TIDE ON GRAND PRE, Page 15 WHY, 19 THE UNRETURNING, 22 MARIAN DRURY, 23 A WlNDFLOWER, 2J IN LYRIC SEASON, 29 THE PENSIONERS, 31 AT THE VOICE OF A BIRD, 35 WHEN THE GUELDER ROSES BLOOM, 39 SEVEN THINGS, 52 A SEA CHILD, 55 PULVIS ET UMBRA, 56 GOLDEN ROWAN, 69 THROUGH THE TWILIGHT, 72 CARNATIONS IN WINTER, 74 A SEA DRIFT, 76 A NORTHERN VIGIL, 77 THE EAVESDROPPER, 85 IN APPLE TIME, 89 J/WANDERER, 91 vAFOOT, 1 01 f ^VAYFARING, Io6 yJTHE END OF THE TRAIL, 115 THE VAGABONDS, 123 WHITHER, 130 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 Low Tide on Grand Pre 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 ? 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. 16 Low Tide on Grand Pre 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. Low Tide on Grand Pre 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. 18 WHY FOR a name unknown, Whose fame unblown Sleeps in the hills For ever and aye; For her who hears The stir of the years Go by on the wind By night and day; '9 Low Tide on Grand Pre And heeds no thing* Of the needs of spring, Of autumn's wonder Or winter's chill; For one who sees The great sun freeze, As he wanders a-cold From hill to hill; And all her heart Is a woven part Of the flurry and drift Of whirling snow; 20 Why For the sake of two Sad eyes and true, And the old, old love So long ago. 21 THE UNRETURNING THE old eternal spring once more Comes back the sad eternal way, With tender rosy light before The going-out of day. The great white moon across my door A shadow in the twilight stirs; But now forever comes no more That wondrous look of Hers. 22 MARIAN DRURY MARIAN DRURY, Marian Drury, How are the marshes full of the sea ! Acadie dreams of your coming home All year through, and her heart gets free, Free on the trail of the wind to travel, Search and course with the roving tide, All year long where his hands unravel Blossom and berry the marshes hide. Low Tide on Grand Prt Marian Drury, Marian Drury, How are the marshes full of the surge ! April over the Norland now Walks in the quiet from verge to verge. Burying, brimming, the building billows Fret the long dikes with uneasy foam. Drenched with gold weather, the idling willows Kiss you a hand from the Norland home. , ^Marian Drury, Marian Drury, How are the marshes full of the sun I Blomidon waits for your coming home, All day long where the white wings run. Marian Drury All spring through they falter and follow, Wander, and beckon the roving tide, Wheel and float with the veering swallow, Lift you a voice from the blue hillside. Marian Drury, Marian Drury, How are the marshes full of the rain ! April over the Norland now Bugles for rapture^ and rouses pain, Halts before the forsaken dwelling, Where in the twilight, too spent to roam, Love, whom the fingers of death are quelling, Cries you a cheer from the Norland home. Low Tide on Grand Prt Marian Drury, Marian Drury, How are the marshes filled with you ! Grand Pr dreams of your coming home, Dreams while the rain birds all night through, Far in the uplands calling to win you, Tease the brown dusk on the marshes wide; And never the burning heart within you Stirs in your sleep by the roving tide. 26 A WINDFLOWER BETWEEN the roadside and the wood, Between the dawning and the dew, A tiny flower before the sun, Ephemeral in time, I grew. And there upon the trail of spring, Not death nor love nor any name Known among men in all their lands Could blur the wild desire with shame. Low Tide on Grand Pre But down my dayspan of the year The feet of straying winds came by; And all my trembling soul was thrilled To follow one lost mountain cry. And then my heart beat once and broke To hear the sweeping rain forebode Some ruin in the April world, Between the woodside and the road. To-night can bring no healing now; The calm of yesternight is gone; Surely the wind is but the wind, And I a broken waif thereon. IN LYRIC SEASON THE lyric April time is forth With lyric mornings, frost and sun; From leaguers vast of night undone Auroral mild new stars are born. And ever at the year's return, Along the valleys gray with rime, Thou leadest as of old, where time Can naught but follow to thy sway. 29 Low Tide on Grand Pre The trail is far through leagues of spring, And long the quest to the white core Of harvest quiet, yet once more I gird me to the old unrest. I know I shall not ever meet Thy still regard across the year, And yet I know thou wilt draw near, When the last hour of pain and loss Drifts out to slumber, and the deeps Of nightfall feel God's hand unbar His lyric April, star by star, And the lost twilight land reveal. THE PENSIONERS WE are the pensioners of Spring, And take the largess of her hand When vassal warder winds unbar The wintry portals of her land; The lonely shadow-girdled winds, Her seraph almoners, who keep This little life in flesh and bone With meagre portions of white sleep. Low Tide on Grand Pre Then all year through with starveling care We go on some fool's idle quest, And eat her bread and wine in thrall To a fool's shame with blind unrest. Until her April train goes by, And then because we are the kin Of every hill flower on the hill We must arise and walk therein. Because her heart as our own heart, Knowing the same wild upward stir, Beats joyward by eternal laws, We must arise and go with her; The Pensioners Forget we are not where old joys Return when dawns and dreams retire; Make grief a phantom of regret, And fate the henchman of desire; Divorce unreason from delight; Learn how despair is uncontrol, Failure the shadow of remorse, And death a shudder of the soul. Yea, must we triumph when she leads, A little rain before the sun, A breath of wind on the road's dust, The sound of trammeled brooks undone, 33 Low Tide on Grand Pre Along red glinting willow stems The year's white prime, on bank and stream The haunting cadence of no song And vivid wanderings of dream, A range of low blue hills, the far First whitethroat's ecstasy unfurled: And we are overlords of change, In the glad morning of the world, Though we should fare as they whose life Time takes within his hands to wring Between the winter and the sea, The weary pensioners of Spring. 34 AT THE VOICE OF A BIRD Consurgent ad vocem -volucris. CALL to me, thrush, When night grows dim, When dreams unform And death is far! When hoar dews flush On dawn's rathe brim, Wake me to hear Thy wildwood charm, 35 Low Tide on Grand Pre As a lone rush Astir in the slim White stream where sheer Blue mornings are. Stir the keen hush On twilight's rim When my own star Is white and clear. Fly low to brush Mine eyelids grim, Where sleep and storm Will set their bar; At the Voice of a Bird For God shall crush Spring balm for him, Stark on his bier Past fault or harm, Who once, as flush Of day might skim The dusk, afar In sleep shall hear Thy song's cool rush With joy rebrim The world, and calm The deep with cheer. 37 Low Tide on Grand Pre Then, Heartsease, hush ! If sense grow dim, Desire shall steer Us home from far. WHEN THE GUELDER ROSES BLOOM WHEN the Guelder roses bloom, Love, the vagrant, wanders home. Love, that died so long ago, As we deemed, in dark and snow, Comes back to the door again, Guendolen, Guendolen. 39 Low Tide on Grand Pre In his hands a few bright flowers, Gathered in the earlier hours, Speedwell-blue, and poppy-red, Withered in the sun and dead, With a history to each, Are more eloquent than speech. In his eyes the welling tears Plead against the lapse of years. 40 When the Guelder Roses Bloom And that mouth we knew so well, Hath a pilgrim's tale to tell. Hear his litany again : " Guendolen, Guendolen ! " " No, love, no, thou art a ghost ! Love long since in night was lost. " Thou art but the shade of him, For thine eves are sad and dim." ES' , X JFO*^!' Low Tide on Grand Pre " Nay, but they will shine once more, Glad and brighter than before, "If thou bring me but again To my mother Guendolen ! " These dark flowers are for thee, Gathered by the lonely sea. ' And these singing shells for her Who first called me wanderer, When the Guelder Roses Bloom " In whose beauty glad I grew, When this weary life was new." Hear him raving ! " It is I. Love once born can never die." " Thou, poor love, thou art gone mad With the hardships thou hast had. " True, it is the spring of year, But thy mother is not here. 43 Low Tide on Grand Pre " True, the Guelder roses bloom As long since about this room, "Where thy blessed self was born In the early golden morn, " But the years are dead, good lack ! Ah, love, why hast thou come back, " Pleading at the door again, ' Guendolen, Guendolen ' ? " 44 When the Guelder Roses Bloom When the Guelder roses bloom, And the vernal stars resume Their old purple sweep and range, I can hear a whisper strange As the wind gone daft again, " Guendolen, Guendolen ! " " When the Guelder roses blow, Love that died so long ago, 45 Low Tide on Grand Pre " Why wilt thou return so oft, With that whisper sad and soft "On thy pleading lips again, 'Guendolen, Guendolen ' ! " Still the Guelder roses bloom. And the sunlight fills the room, Where love's shadow at the door Falls upon the dusty floor. When the Guelder Roses Bloom And his eyes are sad and grave With the tenderness they crave, Seeing in the broken rhyme The significance of time, Wondrous eyes that know not sin From his brother death, wherein I can see thy look again, Guendolen, Guendolen. 47 Low Tide on Grand Pre And love with no more to say, In this lovely world to-day Where the Guelder roses bloom, Than the record on a tomb, Only moves his lips again, " Guendolen, Guendolen ! " Then he passes up the road From this dwelling, where he bode When the Guelder Roses Bloom In the by-gone years. And still, As he mounts the sunset hill Where the Guelder roses blow With their drifts of summer snow, I can hear him, like one dazed At a phantom he has raised, Murmur o'er and o'er again, " Guendolen, Guendolen ! " 49 Low Tide on Grand Pre And thus every year, I know, When the Guelder roses blow, Love will wander by my door, Till the spring returns no more ; Till no more I can withstand, But must rise and take his hand Through the countries of the night, Where he walks by his own sight, When the Guelder Roses Bloom To the mountains of a dawn That has never yet come on, Out of this fair land of doom Where the Guelder roses bloom, Till I come to thee again, Guendolen, Guendolen. SEVEN THINGS THE fields of earth are sown From the hand of the striding rain, And kernels of joy are strewn Abroad for the harrow of pain. The first song- sparrow brown That wakes the earliest spring, When time and fear sink down, And death is a fabled thing. Seven Things ii. The stealing of that first dawn Over the rosy brow, When thy soul said, " World, fare on, For Heaven is here and now! ' in. The crimson shield of the sun On the wall of this House of Doom, With the garb of war undone At last in the narrow room. IV. A heart that abides to the end, As the hills for sureness and peace, And is neither weary to wend Nor reluctant at last of release. 53 Loiv Tide on Grand Pre v. Thy mother's cradle croon To haunt thee over the deep, Out of the land of Boon Into the land of Sleep. VI. The sound of the sea in storm, Hearing its captain cry, When the wild, white riders form, And the Ride to the Dark draws nigh. VII. But last and best, the urge Of the great world's desire, Whose being from core to verge Only attains to aspire. 54 A SEA CHILD THE lover of child Marjory Had one white hour of life brim full; Now the old nurse, the rocking sea, Hath him to lull. The daughter of child Marjory Hath in her veins, to beat and run, The glad indomitable sea, The strong white sun. 55 PULVIS ET UMBRA THERE is dust upon my fingers, Pale gray dust of beaten wings, Where a great moth came and settled From the night's blown winnowings. Harvest with her low red planets Wheeling over Arrochar ; And the lonely hopeless calling Of the bell-buoy on the bar, 56 Pulvis et Umbra Where the sea with her old secret Moves in sleep and cannot rest. From that dark beyond my doorway, Silent the unbidden guest Came and tarried, fearless, gentle, Vagrant of the starlit gloom, One frail waif of beauty fronting Immortality and doom ; Through the chambers of the twilight Roaming from the vast outland, Resting for a thousand heart-beats In the hollow of my hand. 57 Low Tide on Grand Pre " Did the volley of a thrush-song Lodge among some leaves and dew Hillward, then across the gloaming This dark mottled thing was you ? " Or is my mute guest whose coming So unheralded befell From the border wilds of dreamland, Only whimsy Ariel, " Gleaning with the wind, in furrows Lonelier than dawn to reap, Dust and shadow and forgetting, Frost and reverie and sleep ? Pulvis et Umbra " In the hush when Cleopatra Felt the darkness reel and cease, Was thy soul a wan blue lotus Laid upon her lips for peace ? " And through all the years that wayward Passion in one mortal breath, Making thee a thing of silence, Made thee as the lords of death ? " Or did goblin men contrive thee In the forges of the hills Out of thistle-drift and sundown Lost amid their tawny rills, 59 Low Tide on Grand Pre " Every atom on their anvil Beaten fine and bolted home, Every quiver wrought to cadence From the rapture of a gnome ? " Then the lonely mountain wood-wind, Straying up from dale to dale, Gave thee spirit, free forever, Thou immortal and so frail ! " Surely thou art not that sun-bright Psyche, hoar with age, and hurled On the northern shore of Lethe, To this wan Auroral world ! 60 Pulvis et Umbra " Ghost of Psyche, uncompanioned, Are the yester-years all done ? Have the oars of Charon ferried All thy playmates from the sun ? " In thy wings the beat and breathing Of the wind of life abides, And the night whose sea-gray cohorts Swing the stars up with the tides. " Did they once make sail and wander Through the trembling harvest sky, Where the silent Northern streamers Change and rest not till they die ? 61 Low Tide on Grand Pre 11 Or from clouds that tent and people The blue firmamental waste, Did they learn the noiseless secret Of eternity's unhaste? " Where learned they to rove and loiter, By the margin of what sea ? Was it with outworn Demeter, Searching for Persephone ? " Or did that girl-queen behold thee In the fields of moveless air ? Did these wings which break no whisper Brush the poppies in her hair ? 62 Pulvis et Umbra " Is it thence they wear the pulvil Ash of ruined days and sleep, And the two great orbs of splendid Melting sable deep on deep ! " Pilot of the shadow people, Steering whither by what star Hast thou come to hapless port here, Thou gray ghost of Arrochar ? " For man walks the world with mourning Down to death, and leaves no trace, With the dust upon his forehead, And the shadow in his face. Low Tide on Grand Pre Pillared dust and fleeing shadow As the roadside wind goes by, And the fourscore years that vanish In the twinkling of an eye. Beauty, the fine frosty trace-work Of some breath upon the pane ; Spirit, the keen wintry moonlight Flashed thereon to fade again. Beauty, the white clouds a-building When God said and it was done ; Spirit, the sheer brooding rapture Where no mid-day brooks no sun. Pulvis et Umbra So. And here, the open casement Where my fellow-mate goes free ; Eastward, the untrodden star-road And the long wind on the sea. What's to hinder but I follow This my gypsy guide afar, When the bugle rouses slumber Sounding taps on Arrochar ? " Where, my brother, wends the by-way, To what bourne beneath what sun, Thou and I are set to travel Till the shifting dream be done ? Low Tide on Grand Pre " Comrade of the dusk, forever I pursue the endless way Of the dust and shadow kindred, Thou art perfect for a day. " Yet from beauty marred and broken, Joy and memory and tears, I shall crush the clearer honey In the harvest of the years. " Thou art faultless as a flower Wrought of sun and wind and snow, I survive the fault and failure. The wise Fates will have it so. 66 Pulvis et Umbra " For man walks the world in twilight, But the morn shall wipe all trace Of the dust from off his forehead, And the shadow from his face. " Cheer thee on, my tidings-bearer ! All the valor of the North Mounts as soul from flesh escaping Through the night, and bids thee forth. " Go, and when thou hast discovered Her whose dark eyes match thy wings, Bid that lyric heart beat lighter For the joy thy beauty brings." Low Tide on Grand Pre Then I leaned far out and lifted My light guest up, and bade speed On the trail where no one tarries That wayfarer few will heed. Pale gray dust upon my fingers ; And from this my cabined room The white soul of eager message Racing seaward in the gloom. Far off shore, the sweet low calling Of the bell-buoy on the bar, Warning night of dawn and ruin Lonelily on Arrochar. GOLDEN ROWAN SHE lived where the mountains go down to the sea, And river and tide confer. Golden Rowan, in Menalowan, Was the name they gave to her. She had the soul no circumstance Can hurry or defer. Golden Rowan, of Menalowan, How time stood still for her! 69 Low Tide on Grand Pre Her playmates for their lovers grew, But that shy wanderer, Golden Rowan, of Menalowan, Knew love was not for her. Hers was the love of wilding things ; To hear a squirrel chir In the golden rowan, of Menalowan, Was joy enough for her. She sleeps on the hill with the lonely sun, Where in the days that were, The golden rowan, of Menalowan, So often shadowed her. Golden Rowan The scarlet fruit will come to fill, The scarlet spring to stir The golden rowan, of Menalowan, And wake no dream for her. Only the wind is over her grave, For mourner and comforter; And " Golden Rowan, of Menalowan," Is all we know of her. THROUGH THE TWILIGHT THE red vines bar my window way; The Autumn sleeps beside his fire, For he has sent this fleet-foot day A year's march back to bring to me One face whose smile is my desire, Its light my star. Surely you will come near and speak, This calm of death from the day to sever ! And so I shall draw down your cheek Close to my face So close ! and know God's hand between our hands forever Will set no bar. Low Tide on Grand Pre Before the dusk falls even now I know your step along the gravel, And catch your quiet poise of brow, And wait so long till you turn the latch ! Is the way so hard you had to travel ? Is the land so far ? The dark has shut your eyes from mine, But in this hush of brooding weather A gleam on twilight's gathering line Has riven the barriers of dream : Soul of my soul, we are together As the angels are ! 73 CARNATIONS IN WINTER YOUR carmine flakes of bloom to-night The fire of wintry sunsets hold ; Again in dreams you burn to light A far Canadian garden old. The blue north summer over it Is bland with long ethereal days ; The gleaming martins wheel and flit Where breaks your sun down orient ways. 74 Low Tide on Grand Pre There, when the gradual twilight falls, Through quietudes of dusk afar, Hermit antiphonal hermit calls From hills below the first pale star. Then in your passionate love's foredoom Once more your spirit stirs the air, And you are lifted through the gloom To warm the coils of her dark hair. 75 A SEA-DRIFT As the seaweed swims the sea In the ruin after storm, Sunburnt memories of thee Through the twilight float and form. And desire, when thou art gone, Roves his desolate domain, As the meadow-birds at dawn Haunt the spaces of the rain. A NORTHERN VIGIL HERE by the gray north sea, In the wintry heart of the wild, Comes the old dream of thee, Guendolen, mistress and child. The heart of the forest grieves In the drift against my door; A voice is under the eaves, A footfall on the floor. 77 Low Tide on Grand Pre Threshold, mirror and hall, Vacant and strangely aware, Wait for their soul's recall With the dumb expectant air. Here when the smouldering west Burns down into the sea, I take no heed of rest And keep the watch for thee. I sit by the fire and hear The restless wind go by, On the long dirge and drear, Under the low bleak sky. A Northern Vigil When day puts out to sea And night makes in for land, There is no lock for thee, Each door awaits thy hand ! When night goes over the hill And dawn comes down the ,dale, It's O for the wild sweet will That shall no more prevail ! When the zenith moon is round, And snow-wraiths gather and run, And there is set no bound To love beneath the sun, 79 Low Tide on Grand Pre O wayward will, come near The old mad willful way, The soft mouth at my ear With words too sweet to say ! Come, for the night is cold, The ghostly moonlight fills Hollow and rift and fold Of the eerie Ardise hills ! The windows of my room Are dark with bitter frost, The stillness aches with doom Of something loved and lost. A Northern Outside, the great blue star Burns in the ghostland pale, Where giant Algebar Holds on the endless trail. Come, for the years are long, And silence keeps the door, Where shapes with the shadows throng The firelit chamber floor. Come, for thy kiss was warm, With the red embers' glare Across thy folding arm And dark tumultuous hair ! 81 Low Tide on Grand Pre And though thy coming rouse The sleep-cry of no bird, The keepers of the house Shall tremble at thy word. Come, for the soul is free ! In all the vast dreamland There is no lock for thee, Each door awaits thy hand. Ah, not in dreams at all, Fleering, perishing, dim, But thy old self, supple and tall, Mistress and child of whim 1 A Northern Vigil The proud imperious guise, Impetuous and serene, The sad mysterious eyes, And dignity of mien ! Yea, wilt thou not return, When the late hill-winds veer, And the bright hill-flowers burn With the reviving year? When April comes, and the sea Sparkles as if it smiled, Will they restore to me My dark Love, empress and child ? Low Tide on Grand Pre The curtains seem to part; A sound is on the stair, As if at the last ... I start; Only the wind is there. Lo, now far on the hills The crimson fumes uncurled, Where the caldron mantles and spills Another dawn on the world ! THE EAVESDROPPER IN a still room at hush of dawn, My Love and I lay side by side And heard the roaming forest wind Stir in the paling autumn-tide. I watched her earth-brown eyes grow glad Because the round day was so fair; While memories of reluctant night Lurked in the blue dusk of her hair. Low Tide on Grand Pre Outside, a yellow maple tree, Shifting upon the silvery blue With tiny multitudinous sound, Rustled to let the sunlight through. The livelong day the elvish leaves Danced with their shadows on the floor; And the lost children of the wind Went straying homeward by our door. And all the swarthy afternoon We watched the great deliberate sun Walk through the crimsoned hazy world, Counting his hilltops one by one. 86 The Eavesdropper Then as the purple twilight came And touched the vines along our eaves, Another Shadow stood without And gloomed the dancing of the leaves. The silence fell on my Love's lips; Her great brown eyes were veiled and sad With pondering some maze of dream, Though all the splendid year was glad. Restless and vague as a gray wind Her heart had grown, she knew not why. But hurrying to the open door, Against the verge of western sky Low Tide on Grand Pre I saw retreating on the hills, Looming and sinister and black, The stealthy figure swift and huge Of One who strode and looked not back. IN APPLE TIME THE apple harvest days are here, The boding apple harvest days, And down the flaming valley ways, The foresters of time draw near. Through leagues of bloom I went with Spring, To call you on the slopes of morn, Where in imperious song is borne The wild heart of the goldenwing. Low Tide on Grand Pre I roamed through alien summer lands, I sought your beauty near and far; To-day, where russet shadows are, I hold your face between my hands. On runnels dark by slopes of fern, The hazy undern sleeps in sun. Remembrance and desire, undone, From old regret to dreams return. The apple harvest time is here, The tender apple harvest time; A sheltering calm, unknown at prime, Settles upon the brooding year. 90 WANDERER WANDERER, wanderer, whither away ? What saith the morning unto thee ? " Wanderer, wanderer, hither, come hither, Into the eld of the East with me! " Saith the wide wind of the low red morning, Making in from the gray rough sea. " Wanderer, come, of the footfall weary, And heavy at heart as the sad-heart sea. Low Tide on Grand Pre For long ago, when the world was making, I walked through Eden with God for guide; And since that time in my heart forever His calm and wisdom and peace abide. I am thy spirit and thy familiar, Child of the teeming earth's unrest! Before God's joy upon gloom begot thee, I had hungered and searched and ended the quest. I sit by the roadside wells of knowledge; I haunt the streams of the springs of thought; But because my voice is the voice of silence, The heart within thee regardeth not. Wanderer " Yet I await thee, assured, unimpatient, Till thy small tumult of striving be past. How long, O wanderer, wilt thou a-weary, Keep thee afar from my arms at the last ? " ii Wanderer, wanderer, whither away ? What saith the high noon unto thee ? < Wanderer, wanderer, hither, turn hither, Far to the burning South with me," Saith the soft wind on the high June headland, Sheering up from the summer sea, " While the implacable warder, Oblivion, Sleeps on the marge of a foamless sea! 93 Low Tide on Grand Pre " Come where the urge of desire availeth, And no fear follows the children of men; For a handful of dust is the only heirloom The morrow bequeaths to its morrow again. " Touch and feel how the flesh is perfect Beyond the compass of dream to be! 1 Bone of my bone,' said God to Adam; < Core of my core,' say I to thee. " Look and see how the form is goodly Beyond the reach of desire and art! For he who fashioned the world so easily Laughed in his sleeve as he walked apart. Wanderer " Therefore, O wanderer, cease from desiring; Take the wide province of seaway and sun! Here for the infinite quench of thy craving, Infinite yearning and bliss are one." in Wanderer, wanderer, whither away ? What saith the evening unto thee ? " Wanderer, wanderer, hither, haste hither, Into the glad-heart West with me! " Saith the strong wind of the gold-green twilight, Gathering out of the autumn hills, " I am the word of the world's first dreamer Who woke when Freedom walked on the hills. 95 Low Tide on Grand Pre " And the secret triumph from daring to doing, From musing to marble, I will be, Till the last fine fleck of the world is finished, And Freedom shall walk alone by the sea. " Who is thy heart's lord, who is thy hero ? Bruce or Caesar or Charlemagne, Hannibal, Olaf, Alaric, Roland ? Dare as they dared and the deed's done again! " Here where they come of the habit immortal, By the open road to the land of the Name, Splendor and homage and wealth await thee Of builded cities and bruited fame. Wanderer Let loose the conquering toiler within thee; Know the large rapture of deeds begun! The joy of the hand that hews for beauty Is the dearest solace beneath the sun." IV Wanderer, wanderer, whither away ? What saith the midnight unto thee ? Wanderer, wanderer, hither turn home, Back to thy North at last to me! " Saith the great forest wind and lonely, Out of the stars and the wintry hills. Weary, bethink thee of rest, and remember Thy waiting auroral Ardise hills! 97 Low Tide on Grand Pre " Was it not I, when thy mother bore thee In the sweet, solemn April night, Took thee safe in my arms to fondle, Filled thy dream with the old delight ? " Told thee tales of more marvelous summers Of the far away and the long ago, Made thee my own nurse-child forever In the tender dear dark land of the snow ? " Have I not rocked thee, have I not lulled thee, Crooned thee in forest, and cradled in foam, Then with a smile from the hearthstone of child- hood Bade thee farewell when thy heart bade thee roam? Wanderer Ah, my wide -wanderer, thou blessed vagrant, Dear will thy footfall be nearing my door. How the glad tears will give vent at thy coming, Wayward or sad-heart to wander no more!" v Morning and midday I wander, and evening, April and harvest and golden fall; Seaway or hillward, taut sheet or saddle-bow, Only the night wind brings solace at all. Then when the tide of all being and beauty Ebbs to the utmost before the first dawn, Comes the still voice of the morrow revealing Inscrutable valorous hope and is gone. 99 Low Tide on Grand Pre Therefore is joy more than sorrow, foreseeing The lust of the mind and the lure of the eye And the pride of the hand have their hour of triumph, But the dream of the heart will endure by-and-by. zoo AFOOT THERE'S a garden in the South Where the early violets come, Where they strew the floor of April With their purple, bloom by bloom. There the tender peach-trees blow, Pink against the red brick wall, And the hand of twilight hushes The rain-children's least footfall, 101 Low Tide on Grand Pre Till at midnight I can hear The dark Mother croon and lean Close above me. And her whisper Bids the vagabonds convene. Then the glad and wayward heart Dreams a dream it must obey ; And the wanderer within me Stirs a foot and will not stay. I would journey far and wide Through the provinces of spring, Where the gorgeous white azaleas Hear the sultry yorlin sing. 102 Afoot I would wander all the hills Where my fellow-vagrants wend, Following the trails of shadows To the country where they end. Well I know the gypsy kin, Roving foot and restless hand, And the eyes in dark elusion Dreaming down the summer land. On the frontier of desire I will drink the last regret, And then forth beyond the morrow Where I may but half forget. 103 Low Tide on Grand Pre So another year shall pass, Till some noon the gardener Sun Wanders forth to lay his finger On the peach-buds one by one. And the Mother there once more Will rewhisper her dark word, That my brothers all may wonder, Hearing then as once I heard. There will come the whitethroat's cry, That far lonely silver strain, Piercing, like a sweet desire, The seclusion of the rain. 104 Afoot And though I be far away, When the early violets come Smiling at the door with April, Say, " The vagabonds are home ! " 105 CAL WAYFARING ACROSS the harbor's tangled yards We watch the flaring sunset fail ; Then the forever questing stars File down along the vanished trail, To no discovered country, where They will forgather when the hands Of the strong Fates shall take away Their burdens and unloose their bands. 106 Wayfaring Westward and lone the hill-road gray Mounts to the skyline sheer and wan, Where many a weary dream puts forth To strike the trail where they are gone. The sleepless guide to that outland Is the great Mother of us all, Whose molded dust and dew we are With the blown flowers by the wall. Girt with the twilight she is grave, The strong companion, wise and free ; She leads beyond the dales of time, The earldom of the calling sea 107 Low Tide on Grand Pre Beyond these dull green miles of dike, And gleaming breakers on the bar To the white kingdom of her lord, The nameless Word, whose breath we are. And all the world is but a scheme Of busy children in the street, A play they follow and forget On summer evenings, pale with heat. The dusty courtyard flags and walls Are like a prison gate of stone, To every spirit for whose breath The long sweet hill-winds once have blown. 108 Wayfaring But waiting in the fields for them I see the ancient Mother stand, With the old courage of her smile, The patience of her sunbrown hand. They heed her not, until there comes A breath of sleep upon their eyes, A drift of dust upon their face ; Then in the closing dusk they rise, And turn them to the empty doors ; But she within whose hands alone The days are gathered up as fruit, Doth habit not in brick and stone. 109 Low Tide on Grand Pre But where the wild shy things abide, Along the woodside and the wheat, Is her abiding, deep withdrawn ; And there, the footing of her feet. There is no common fame of her Upon the corners, yet some word Of her most secret heritage Her lovers from her lips have heard. Her daisies sprang where Chaucer went ; Her darkling nightingales with spring Possessed the soul of Keats for song ; And Shelley heard her skylark sing ; no Wayfaring With reverent clear uplifted heart Wordsworth beheld her daffodils ; And he became too great for haste, Who watched the warm green Cumner hills. She gave the apples of her eyes For the delight of him who knew, With all the wisdom of a child, "A bank whereon the wild thyme grew." Still the old secret shifts, and waits The last interpreter ; it fills The autumn song no ear hath heard Upon the dreaming Ardise hills. in Low Tide on Grand Pre The poplars babble over it When waking winds of dawn go by ; It fills her rivers like a voice, And leads her wanderers till they die. She knows the morning ways whereon The windflowers and the wind confer ; Surely there is not any fear Upon the farthest trail with her ! And yet, what ails the fir-dark slopes, That all night long the whippoorwills Cry their insatiable cry Across the sleeping Ardise hills ? Wayfaring Is it that no fair mortal thing, Blown leaf, nor song, nor friend can stray Beyond the bourne and bring one word Back the irremeable way ? The noise is hushed within the street ; The summer twilight gathers down ; The elms are still ; the moonlit spires Track their long shadows through the town. With looming willows and gray dusk The open hillward road is pale, And the great stars are white and few Above the lonely Ardise trail. Low Tide on Grand Pre And with no haste nor any fear, We are as children going home Along the marshes where the wind Sleeps in the cradle of the foam. 114 THE END OF THE TRAIL ONCE more the hunters of the dusk Are forth to search the moorlands wide, Among the autumn-colored hills, And wander by the shifting tide. All day along the haze-hung verge They scour upon a fleeing trace, Between the red sun and the sea, Where haunts the vision of your face. Low Tide on Grand Pre The plain at Martock lies and drinks The long Septembral gaze of blue; The royal leisure of the hills Hath wayward reveries of you. Far rovers of the ancient dream Have all their will of musing hours: Your eyes were gray-deep as the sea, Your hands lay open in the flowers ! From mining Rawdon to Pereau, For all the gold they delve and share, The goblins of the Ardise hills Can hoard no treasure like your hair. 116 The End of the Trail The swirling tide, the lonely gulls, The sweet low wood-winds that rejoice No sound nor echo of the sea But hath tradition of your voice. The crimson leaves, the yellow fruit, The basking woodlands mile on mile No gleam in all the russet hills But wears the solace of your smile. A thousand cattle rove and feed On the great marshes in the sun, And wonder at the restless sea; But I am glad the year is done, 117 Low Tide on Grand Pre Because I am a wanderer Upon the roads of endless quest, Between the hill -wind and the hills, Along the margin men call rest. Because there lies upon my lips A whisper of the wind at morn, A murmur of the rolling sea Cradling the land where I was born; Because its sleepless tides and storms Are in my heart for memory And music, and its gray-green hills Run white to bear me company; 118 The End of the Trail Because in that sad time of year, With April twilight on the earth And journeying rain upon the sea, With the shy windflowers was my birth; Because I was a tiny boy Among the thrushes of the wood, And all the rivers in the hills Were playmates of my solitude; Because the holy winter night Was for my chamber, deep among The dark pine forests by the sea, With woven red auroras hung, 119 Low Tide on Grand Pre Silent with frost and floored with snow, With what dream folk to people it And bring their stories from the hills, When all the splendid stars were lit; Therefore I house me not with kin, But journey as the sun goes forth, By stream and wood and marsh and sea, Through dying summers of the North; Until, some hazy autumn day, With yellow evening in the skies And rime upon the tawny hills, The far blue signal smoke shall rise, 120 The End of the Trail To tell my scouting foresters Have heard the clarions of rest Bugling, along the outer sea, The end of failure and of quest. Then all the piping Nixie folk, Where lonesome meadow winds are low, Through all the valleys in the hills Their river reeds shall blow and blow, To lead me like a joy, as when The shining April flowers return, Back to a footpath by the sea With scarlet hip and ruined fern. 121 Low Tide on Grand Pre For I must gain, ere the long night Bury its travelers deep with snow, That trail among the Ardise hills Where first I found you years ago. I shall not fail, for I am strong, And Time is very old, they say, And somewhere by the quiet sea Makes no refusal to delay. There will I get me home, and there Lift up your face in my brown hand, With all the rosy rusted hills About the heart of that dear land. 122 THE VAGABONDS " Such as wake on the night and sleep on the day, and haunt customable taverns and alehouses and routs about, and no man wot from whence they came, nor whither they go. "Old English Statute. WE are the vagabonds of time. And rove the yellow autumn days, When all the roads are gray with rime And all the valleys blue with haze. We came unlocked for as the wind Trooping across the April hills, When the brown waking earth had dreams Of summer in the Wander Kills. Low Tide on Grand Pre How far afield we joyed to fare, With June in every blade and tree ! Now with the sea- wind in our hair We turn our faces to the sea. We go unheeded as the stream That wanders by the hill-wood side, Till the great marshes take his hand And lead him to the roving tide. The roving tide, the sleeping hills, These are the borders of that zone Where they may fare as fancy wills Whom wisdom smiles and calls her own. 124 The Vagabonds It is a country of the sun, Full of forgotten yesterdays, When time takes Summer in his care, And fills the distance of her gaze. It stretches from the open sea To the blue mountains and beyond; The world is Vagabondia To him who is a vagabond. In the beginning God made man Out of the wandering dust, men say; And in the end his life shall be A wandering wind and blown away. 125 Low Tide on Grand Pre We are the vagabonds of time, Willing to let the world go by, With joy supreme, with heart sublime, And valor in the kindling eye. We have forgotten where we slept, And guess not where we sleep to-night, Whether among the lonely hills In the pale streamers' ghostly light We shall lie down and hear the frost Walk in the dead leaves restlessly, Or somewhere on the iron coast Learn the oblivion of the sea. 126 The Vagabonds It matters not. And yet I dream Of dreams fulfilled and rest somewhere Before this restless heart is stilled And all its fancies blown to air. Had I my will ! . . . The sun burns down And something plucks my garment's hem; The robins in their faded brown Would lure me to the south with them. 'Tis time for vagabonds to make The nearest inn. Far on I hear The voices of the Northern hills Gather the vagrants of the year. 127 Low Tide on Grand Prt Brave heart, my soul ! Let longings be ! We have another day to wend. For dark or waylay what care we Who have the lords of time to friend ? And if we tarry or make haste, The wayside sleep can hold no fear. Shall fate unpoise, or whim perturb, The calm-begirt in dawn austere ? There is a tavern, I have heard, Not far, and frugal, kept by One Who knows the children of the Word, And welcomes each when day is done. 128 The Vagabonds Some say the house is lonely set In Northern night, and snowdrifts keep The silent door; the hearth is cold, And all my fellows gone to sleep. . . . Had I my will ! I hear the sea Thunder a welcome on the shore; I know where lies the hostelry And who should open me the door. 129 WHITHER WHAT shall we do, dearie, Dreaming such dreams ? Will they come true, dearie? Never, it seems. Leave the wise thrush alone; He knows such things. How rich the silences Fall when he sings ! 130 Whither When shall we come, dearie. Into that land Once was our home, dearie, Perfect as planned ? When the wind calling us, Some summer day, Into the long ago Lures us away. Where shall we go, dearie, Wandering thus ? Far to and fro, dearie, Life leads for us. Low Tide on Grand Pre Thou with the morrow's sun Hillward and free, I to the vast and hoar Lone of the sea. 1886-1893. 13* Ballads of Lost Haven Contents PAGE A SON OF THE SEA 7 THE GRAVEDIGGER . 8 THE YULE GUEST . . . . ... . . 12 THE MARRING OF MALYN . , > 2 ^ THE NANCY'S PRIDE . . . , . . '43 ARNOLD, MASTER OF THE SCUD . . . . . 48 THE SHIPS OF ST. JOHN . . . . . . -55 THE KING OF Ys > . . 59 THE KELPIE RIDERS . . . . . . . 68 NOONS OF POPPY . ... . . . 93 LEGENDS OF LOST HAVEN . . . . . -95 THE SHADOW BOATSWAIN 98 THE MASTER OF THE ISLES 104 THE LAST WATCH no OUTBOUND . .116 A SON OF THE SEA I WAS born for deep-sea faring; I was bred to put to sea; Stories of ray father's daring Filled me at my mother's knee. I was sired among the surges; I was cubbed beside the foam; All my heart is in its verges, And the sea wind is my home. All my boyhood, from far vernal Bourns of being, came to me Dream-like, plangent, and eternal Memories of the plunging sea. 7 THE GRAVEDIGGER OH, the shambling sea is a sexton old, And well his work is done. With an equal grave for lord and knave, He buries them every one. Then hoy and rip, with a rolling hip, He makes for the nearest shore; And God, who sent him a thousand ship, Will send him a thousand more; But some he'll save for a bleaching grave, And shoulder them in to shore, Shoulder them in, shoulder them in, Shoulder them in to shore. 8 The Gravedigger Oh, the ships of Greece and the ships of Tyre Went out, and where are they? In the port they made, they are delayed With the ships of yesterday. He followed the ships of England far, As the ships of long ago; And the ships of France they led him a dance, But he laid them all arow. Oh, a loafing, idle lubber to him Is the sexton of the town; For sure and swift, with a guiding lift, He shovels the dead men down. But though he delves so fierce and grim, His honest graves are wide, As well they know who sleep below The dredge of the deepest tide. 9 The Gravedigger Oh, he works with a rollicking stave at lip, And loud is the chorus skirled; With the burly rote of his rumbling throat He batters it down the world. He learned it once in his father's house, Where the ballads of eld were sung; And merry enough is the burden rough, But no man knows the tongue. i Oh, fair, they say, was his bride to see, And wilful she must have been, That she could bide at his gruesome side When the first red dawn came in. And sweet, they say, is her kiss to those She greets to his border home; And softer than sleep her hand's first sweep That beckons, and they come. 10 The Gravedigger Oh, crooked is he, but strong enough To handle the tallest mast; From the royal barque to the slaver dark, He buries them all at last. Then hoy and rip, with a rolling hip, He makes for the nearest shore; And God, who sent him a thousand ship, Will send him a thousand more; But some he'll save for a bleaching grave, And shoulder them in to shore, Shoulder them in, shoulder them in, Shoulder them in to shore. ii THE YULE GUEST AND Yanna by the yule log Sat in the empty hall, And watched the goblin firelight Caper upon the wall: The goblins of the hearthstone, Who teach the wind to sing, Who dance the frozen yule away And usher back the spring; The goblins of the Northland, Who teach the gulls to scream, Who dance the autumn into dust, The ages into dream. 12 The Yule Guest Like the tall corn was Yanna, Bending and smooth and fair, His Yanna of the sea-gray eyes And harvest-yellow hair. Child of the low-voiced people Who dwell among the hills, She had the lonely calm and poise Of life that waits and wills. Only to-night a little With grave regard she smiled, Remembering the morn she woke And ceased to be a child. Outside, the ghostly rampikes, Those armies of the moon, Stood while the ranks of stars drew on To that more spacious noon, 13 The Yule Guest While over them in silence Waved on the dusk afar The gold flags of the Northern light Streaming with ancient war. And when below the headland The riders of the foam Up from the misty border rode The wild gray horses home, And woke the wintry mountains With thunder on the shore, Out of the night there came a weird And cried at Yanna's door. "O Yanna, Adrianna, They buried me away In the blue fathoms of the deep, Beyond the outer bay. 14 The Yule Guest "But in the yule, O Yanna, Up from the round dim sea And reeling dungeons of the fog, I am come back to thee ! " The wind slept in the forest, The moon was white and high, Only the shifting snow awoke To hear the yule guest cry. "O Yanna, Yanna, Yanna, Be quick and let me in! For bitter is the trackless way And far that I have been ! " Then Yanna by the yule log Starts from her dream to hear A voice that bids her brooding heart Shudder with joy and fear. The Yule Guest The wind is up a moment And whistles at the eaves, And in his troubled iron dream The ocean moans and heaves. She trembles at the door-lock That he is come again, And frees the wooden bolt for one No barrier could detain. "O Garvin, bonny Garvin, So late, so late you come!" The yule log crumbles down and throws Strange figures on the gloom; But in the moonlight pouring Through the half-open door Stands the gray guest of yule and casts No shadow on the floor. 16 The Yule Guest The change that is upon him She knows not in her haste; About him her strong arms with glad Impetuous tears are laced. She's led him to the fireside, And set the wide oak chair, And with her warm hands brushed away The sea-rime from his hair. "O Garvin, I have waited, Have watched the red sun sink, And clouds of sail come flocking in Over the world's gray brink, "With stories of encounter On plank and mast and spar; But never the brave barque I launched And waved across the bar. c 17 The Yule Guest "How come you so unsignalled, When I have watched so well? Where rides the Adrianna With my name on boat and bell?" "O Yanna, golden Yanna, The Adrianna lies With the sea dredging through her ports, The white sand through her eyes. "And strange unearthly creatures Make marvel of her hull, Where far below the gulfs of storm There is eternal lull. "O Yanna, Adrianna, This midnight I am here, Because one night of all my life At yule tide of the year, 18 The Yule Guest "With the stars white in heaven, And peace upon the sea, With all my world in your white arms You gave yourself to me. "For that one night, my Yanna, Within the dying year, Was it not well to love, and now Can it be well to fear?" "O Garvin, there is heartache In tales that are half told; But ah, thy cheek is pale to-night, And thy poor hands are cold! "Tell me the course, the voyage, The ports, and the new stars; Did the long rollers make green surf On the white reefs and bars?" 19 The Yule Guest "O Yanna, Adrianna, Though easily I found The set of those uncharted tides In seas no line could sound, "And made without a pilot The port without a light, No log keeps tally of the knots That I have sailed to-night. "It fell about mid- April; The Trades were holding free; We drove her till the scuppers hissed And buried in the lee. #######. "O Yanna, Adrianna, Loose hands and let me go! The night grows red along the East, And in the shifting snow 20 The Yule Guest "I hear my shipmates calling, Sent out to search for me In the pale lands beneath the moon Along the troubling sea." "O Garvin, bonny Garvin, What is the booming sound Of canvas, and the piping shrill, As when a ship comes round?" "It is the shadow boatswain Piping his hands to bend The looming sails on giant yards Aboard the Nomansfriend. "She sails for Sunken Harbor And ports of yester year; The tern are shrilling in the lift, The low wind-gates are clear. 21 The Yule Guest "O Yanna, Adrianna, The little while is done. Thou wilt behold the brightening sea Freshen before the sun, "And many a morning redden The dark hill slopes of pine; But I must sail hull-down to-night B*low the gray sea-line. " I shall not hear the snowbirds Their morning litany, For when the dawn comes over dale I must put out to sea." "O Garvin, bonny Garvin, To have thee as I will, I would that never more on earth The dawn came over hill." 22 The Yule Guest ******* Then on the snowy pillow, Her hair about her face, He laid her in the quiet room, And wiped away all trace Of tears from the poor eyelids That were so sad for him, And soothed her into sleep at last As the great stars grew dim. Tender as April twilight He sang, and the song grew Vague as the dreams which roam about This world of dust and dew: "O Yanna, Adrianna, Dear Love, look forth to sea And all year long until the yule, Dear Heart, keep watch for me! 23 The Yule Guest "O Yanna, Adrianna, I hear the calling sea, And the folk telling tales among The hills where I would be. "O Yanna, Adrianna, Over the hills of sea The wind calls and the morning comes, And I must forth from thee. "But Yanna, Adrianna, Keep watch above the sea; And when the weary time is o'er, Dear Life, come back to me ! " "O Garvin, bonny Garvin " She murmurs in her dream, And smiles a moment in her sleep To hear the white gulls scream. 24 The Yule Guest Then with the storm foreboding Far in the dim gray South, He kissed her not upon the cheek Nor on the burning mouth, But once above the forehead Before he turned away; And ere the morning light stole in, That golden lock was gray. "O Yanna, Adrianna " The wind moans to the sea; And down the sluices of the dawn A shadow drifts alee. 2 5 THE MARRING OF MALYN I THE MERRYMAKERS AMONG the wintry mountains beside the Northern sea There is a merrymaking, as old as old can be. Over the river reaches, over the wastes of snow, Halting at every doorway, the white drifts come and go. They scour upon the open, and mass along the wood, The burliest invaders that ever man withstood. With swoop and whirl and scurry, these riders of the drift 26 The Merrymakers Will mount and wheel and column, and pass into the lift. All night upon the marshes you hear their tread go by, And all night long the streamers are dancing on the sky. Their light in Malyn' s chamber is pale upon the floor, And Malyn of the mountains is theirs for evermore. She fancies them a people in saffron and in green, Dancing for her. For Malyn is only seventeen. Out there beyond her window, from frosty deep to deep, Her heart is dancing with them until she falls asleep. Then all night long through heaven, with stately to and fro, To music of no measure, the gorgeous dancers go. 27 The Merrymakers The stars are great and splendid, beryl and gold and blue, And there are dreams for Malyn that never will come true. Yet for one golden Yule-tide their royal guest is she, Among the wintry mountains beside the Northern sea. 28 II A SAILOR'S WEDDING THERE is a Norland laddie who sails the round sea- rim, And Malyn of the mountains is all the world to him. The Master of the Snowflake, bound upward from the line, He smothers her with canvas along the crumbling brine. He crowds her till she buries and shudders from his hand, For in the angry sunset the watch has sighted land; And he will brook no gainsay who goes to meet his bride. 29 A Sailor's Wedding But their will is the wind's will who traffic on the tide. Make home, my bonny schooner ! The sun goes down to light The gusty crimson wind-halls against the wedding night. She gathers up the distance, and grows and veers and swings, Like any homing swallow with nightfall in her wings. The wind's white sources glimmer with shining gusts of rain; And in the Ardise country the spring comes back again. It is the brooding April, haunted and sad and dear, When vanished things return not with the returning year. 30 A Sattor's Wedding Only, when evening purples the light in Malyn's dale, With sound of brooks and robins, by many a hidden trail, With stir of lulling rivers along the forest floor, The dream-folk of the gloaming come back to Malyn's door. The dusk is long and gracious, and far up in the sky You hear the chimney-swallows twitter and scurry by. The hyacinths are lonesome and white in Malyn's room; And out at sea the Snowflake is driving through the gloom. The whitecaps froth and freshen; in squadrons of white surge They thunder on to ruin, and smoke along the verge. The lift is black above them, the sea is mirk below, And down the world's wide border they perish as they go. 3 1 A Sailor's Wedding They comb and seethe and founder, they mount and glimmer and flee, Amid the awful sobbing and quailing of the sea. They sheet the flying schooner in foam from stem to stern, Till every yard of canvas is drenched from clew to ear'n'. And where they move uneasy, chill is the light and pale; They are the Skipper's daughters, who dance before the gale. They revel with the Snowflake, and down the close of day Among the boisterous dancers she holds her dancing way; And then the dark has kindled the harbor light alee, With stars and wind and sea-room upon the gurly sea. 3 2 A Sailor's Wedding The storm gets up to windward to heave and clang and brawl; The dancers of the open begin to moan and call. A lure is in their dancing, a weird is in their song; The snow-white Skipper's daughters are stronger than the strong. They love the Norland sailor who dares the rough sea play; Their arms are white and splendid to beckon him away. They promise him, for kisses a moment at their lips, To make before the morning the port of missing ships, Where men put in for shelter, and dreams put forth again, And the great sea- winds follow the journey of the rain. A bridal with no morrow, no welling of old tears, For him, and no more tidings of the departed years! For there of old were fashioned the chambers cool and dim, D 33 A Sailor's Wedding In the eternal silence below the twilight's rim. The borders of that country are slumberous and wide; And they are well who marry the fondlers of the tide. Within their arms immortal, no mortal fear can be; But Malyn of the mountains is fairer than the sea. And so the scudding Snowflake flies with the wind astern, And through the boding twilight are blown the shrill- ing tern. The light is on the headland, the harbor gate is wide; But rolling in with ruin the fog is on the tide. Fate like a muffled steersman sails with that Norland gloom; The Snowflake in the offing is neck and neck with doom. Ha, ha, my saucy cruiser, crowd up your helm and run ! There'll be a merrymaking to-morrow in the sun. A cloud of straining canvas, a roar of breaking foam, 34 A Sailor's Wedding The Snowflake and the sea-drift are racing in for home. Her heart is dancing shoreward, but silently and pale The swift relentless phantom is hungering on her trail. They scour and fly together, until across the roar He signals for a pilot and Death puts out from shore. A moment Malyn's window is gleaming in the lee, And then the ghost of wreckage upon the iron sea. Ah, Malyn, lay your forehead upon your folded arm, And hear the grim marauder shake out the reefs of storm ! Loud laughs the surly Skipper to feel the fog drive in, Because a blue-eyed sailor shall wed his kith and kin, And the red dawn discover a rover spent for breath Among the merrymakers who fondle him to death. And all the snowy sisters are dancing wild and grand, For him whose broken beauty shall slacken to their hand. 35 A Sailor's Wedding They wanton in their triumph, and skirl at Malyn's plight; Lift up their hands in chorus, and thunder to the night. The gulls are driven inland; but on the dancing tide The master of the Snowflake is taken to his bride. And there when daybreak yellows along the far sea- plain, The fresh and buoyant morning comes down the wind again. The world is glad of April, the gulls are wild with glee, And Malyn on the headland alone looks out to sea. Once more that gray Shipmaster smiles, for the night is done, And all his snow-white daughters are dancing in the sun. Ill THE LIGHT ON THE MARSH THE year grows on to harvest, the tawny lilies burn Along the marsh, and hillward the roads are sweet with fern. All day the windless heaven pavilions the sea-blue, Then twilight comes and drenches the sultry dells with dew. The lone white star of evening comes out among the hills, And in the darkling forest begin the whip-poor-wills. The fireflies that wander, the hawks that flit and scream, And all the wilding vagrants of summer dusk and dream, 37 The Light on the Marsh Have all their will, and reck not of any after thing, Inheriting no sorrow and no foreshadowing. The wind forgets to whisper, the pines forget to moan, And Malyn of the mountains is there among her own. Malyn, whom grief nor wonder can trouble nevermore, Since that spring night the Snowflake was wrecked beside her door, And strange her cry went seaward once, and her soul thereon With the vast lonely sea-winds, a wanderer, was gone. But she, that patient beauty which is her body fair, Endures on earth still lovely, untenanted of care. The folk down at the harbor pity from day to day; With a " God save you, Malyn ! " they bid her on her way. She smiles, poor feckless Malyn, the knowing smile of those Whom the too sudden vision God sometimes may disclose 38 The Light on the Marsh Of his wild, lurid world-wreck, has blinded with its sheen. Then, with a fond insistence, pathetic and serene, They pass among their fellows for lost minds none can save, Bent on their single business, and marvel why men rave. Now far away a sighing comes from the buried reef, As though the sea were mourning above an ancient grief. For once the restless Mother of all the weary lands Went down to him in beauty, with trouble in her hands, And gave to him forever all memory to keep, But to her wayward children oblivion and sleep, That no immortal burden might plague one living thing, But death should sweetly visit us vagabonds of spring. And so his heart forever goes inland with the tide, Searching with many voices among the marshes wide. Under the quiet starlight, up through the stirring reeds, 39 The Light on the Marsh With whispering and lamenting it rises and recedes. All night the lapsing rivers croon to their shingly bars The wizardries that mingle the sea-wind and the stars. And all night long wherever the moving waters gleam, The little hills hearken, hearken, the great hills hear and dream. And Malyn keeps the marshes all the sweet summer night, Alone, foot-free, to follow a wandering wisp-light. For every day at sundown, at the first beacon's gleam, She calls the gulls her brothers and keeps a tryst with them. "O gulls, white gulls, what see you beyond the slop- ing blue? And where away's the Snowflake, she's so long over- due?" Then, as the gloaming settles, the hilltop stars emerge And watch that plaintive figure patrol the dark sea verge. 40 The Light on the Marsh She follows the marsh fire; her heart laughs and is glad; She knows that light to seaward is her own sailor lad ! What are these tales they tell her of wreckage on the shore ? Delay but makes his coming the nearer than before! Surely her eyes have sighted his schooner in the lift ! But the great tide he homes on sets with an outward drift. So will-o'-the-wisp deludes her till dawn, and she turns home In unperturbed assurance, "To-morrow he will come." This is the tale of Malyn, whom sudden grief so marred. And still each lovely summer resumes that sweet re- gard, The old unvexed eternal indifference to pain; The sea sings in the marshes, and June comes back again. The Light on the Marsh All night the lapsing rivers lisp in the long dike grass, And many memories whisper the sea-winds as they pass; The tides disturb the silence; but not a hindrance bars The wash of time, where founder even the galleon stars. And all night long wherever the moving waters gleam, The little hills hearken, hearken, the great hills hear and dream. 42 THE NANCY'S PRIDE ON the long slow heave of a lazy sea, To the flap of an idle sail, The Nancy's Pride went out on the tide; And the skipper stood by the rail. All down, all down by the sleepy town, With the hollyhocks a-row In the little poppy gardens, The sea had her in tow. They let her slip by the breathing rip, Where the bell is never still, And over the sounding harbor bar, And under the harbor hill. 43 The Nancy's Pride She melted into the dreaming noon, Out of the drowsy land, In sight of a flag of goldy hair, To the kiss of a girlish hand. For the lass who hailed the lad who sailed, Was who but his April bride? And of all the fleet of Grand Latite, Her pride was the Nancy's Pride. So the little vessel faded down With her creaking boom a-swing, Till a wind from the deep came up with a creep, And caught her wing and wing. She made for the lost horizon line, Where the clouds a-castled lay, While the boil and seethe of the open sea Hung on her frothing way. 44 The Nancy's Pride She lifted her hull like a breasting gull Where the rolling valleys be, And dipped where the shining porpoises Put ploughshares through the sea. A fading sail on the far sea-line, About the turn of the tide, As she made for the Banks on her maiden cruise, Was the last of the Nancy's Pride. To-day a boy with goldy hair, In a garden of Grand Latite, From his mother's knee looks out to sea For the coming of the fleet. They all may home on a sleepy tide, To the flap of the idle sail; But it's never again the Nancy's Pride That answers a human hail. 45 The Nancy's Pride They all may home on a sleepy tide To the sag of an idle sheet; But it's never again the Nancy's Pride That draws men down the street. On the Banks to-night a fearsome sight The fishermen behold, Keeping the ghost watch in the moon When the small hours are cold. When the light wind veers, and the white fog clears, They see by the after rail An unknown schooner creeping up With mildewed spar and sail. Her crew lean forth by the rotting shrouds, With the Judgment in their face; And to their mates' " God save you ! " Have never a word of grace. 46 The Nancy's Pride Then into the gray they sheer away, On the awful polar tide; And the sailors know they have seen the wraith Of the missing Nancy's Pride. 47 ARNOLD, MASTER OF THE SCUD THERE'S a schooner out from Kingsport, Through the morning's dazzle-gleam, Snoring down the Bay of Fundy With a norther on her beam. How the tough wind springs to wrestle, When the tide is on the flood! And between them stands young daring Arnold, master of the Scud. He is only "Martin's youngster," To the Minas coasting fleet, "Twelve year old, and full of Satan As a nut is full of meat." 48 Arnold, Master of the Scud With a wake of froth behind him, And the gold green waste before, Just as though the sea this morning Were his boat pond by the door, Legs a-straddle, grips the tiller This young waif of the old sea; When the wind comes harder, only Laughs " Hurrah ! " and holds her free. Little wonder, as you watch him With the dash in his blue eye, Long ago his father called him "Arnold, Master," on the sly, While his mother's heart foreboded Reckless father makes rash son. So to-day the schooner carries Just these two whose will is one. E 49 Arnold, Master of the Scud Now the wind grows moody, shifting Point by point into the east. Wing and wing the Scud is flying With her scuppers full of yeast. And the father's older wisdom On the sea-line has descried, Like a stealthy cloud-bank making Up to windward with the tide, Those tall navies of disaster, The pale squadrons of the fog, That maraud this gray world border Without pilot, chart, or log, Ranging wanton as marooners From Minudie to Manan. "Heave to, and we'll reef, my master!" Cries he; when no will of man 50 Arnold y Master of the Scud Spills the foresail, but a clumsy Wind-flaw with a hand like stone Hurls the boom round. In an instant Arnold, Master, there alone Sees a crushed corpse shot to seaward, With the gray doom in its face; And the climbing foam receives it To its everlasting place. What does Arnold, Master, think you? Whimper like a child for dread? That's not Arnold. Foulest weather Strongest sailors ever bred. And this slip of taut sea-faring Grows a man who throttles fear. Let the storm and dark in spite now Do their worst with valor here! Arnold, Master of the Scud Not a reef and not a shiver, While the wind jeers in her shrouds, And the flauts of foam and sea-fog Swarm upon her deck in crowds, Flies the Scud like a mad racer; And with iron in his frown, Holding hard by wrath and dreadnought, Arnold, Master, rides her down. Let the taffrail shriek through foam-heads! Let the licking seas go glut Elsewhere their old hunger, baffled! Arnold's making for the Gut. Cleft sheer down, the sea-wall mountains Give that one port on the coast; Made, the Basin lies in sunshine! Missed, the little Scud is lost! 5 2 Arnold, Master of the Scud Come now, fog-horn, let your warning Rip the wind to starboard there! Suddenly that burly-throated Welcome ploughs the cumbered air. The young master hauls a little, Crowds her up and sheets her home, Heading for the narrow entry Whence the safety signals come. Then the wind lulls, and an eddy Tells of ledges, where away; Veers the Scud, sheet free, sun breaking, Through the rifts, and there's the bay! Like a bird in from the storm-beat, As the summer sun goes down, Slows the schooner to her moorings By the wharf at Digby town. S3 Arnold, Master of the Scud All the world next morning wondered. Largest letters, there it stood, "Storm in Fundy. A Boy's Daring. Arnold, Master of the Scud." THE SHIPS OF ST. JOHN SMILE, you inland hills and rivers! Flush, you mountains in the dawn! But my roving heart is seaward With the ships of gray St. John. Fair the land lies, full of August, Meadow island, shingly bar, Open barns and breezy twilight, Peace and the mild evening star. Gently now this gentlest country The old habitude takes on, But my wintry heart is outbound With the great ships of St. John. 55 The Ships of St. John Once in your wide arms you held me, Till the man-child was a man, Canada, great nurse and mother Of the young sea-roving clan. Always your bright face above me Through the dreams of boyhood shone; Now far alien countries call me With the ships of gray St. John. Swing, you tides, up out of Fundy! Blow, you white fogs, in from sea! I was born to be your fellow; You were bred to pilot me. At the touch of your strong fingers, Doubt, the derelict, is gone; Sane and glad I clear the headland With the white ships of St. John. 56 The Ships of St. John Loyalists, my fathers, builded This gray port of the gray sea, When the duty to ideals Could not let well-being be. When the breadth of scarlet bunting Puts the wreath of maple on, I must cheer too, slip my moorings With the ships of gray St. John. Peerless-hearted port of heroes, Be a word to lift the world, Till the many see the signal Of the few once more unfurled. Past the lighthouse, past the nunbuoy, Past the crimson rising sun, There are dreams go down the harbor With the tall ships of St. John. 57 The Ships of St. John In the morning I am with them As they clear the island bar, Fade, till speck by speck the midday Has forgotten where they are. But I sight a vaster sea-line, Wider lee-way, longer run, Whose discoverers return not With the ships of gray St. John. THE KING OF YS WILD across the Breton country, Fabled centuries ago, Riding from the black sea border, Came the squadrons of the snow. Piping dread at every latch-hole, Moaning death at every sill, The white Yule came down in vengeance Upon Ys, and had its will. Walled and dreamy stood the city, Wide and dazzling shone the sea, When the gods set hand to smother Ys, the pride of Brittany. 59 The King of Ys Morning drenched her towers in purple; Light of heart were king and fool; Fair forebode the merrymaking Of the seven days of Yule. Laughed the king, "Once more, my mistress, Time and place and joy are one!" Bade the balconies with banners Match the splendor of the sun; Eyes of urchins shine with silver, And with gold the pavement ring; Bade the war-horns sound their bravest In The Mistress of the King. Mountebanks and ballad-mongers And all strolling traffickers Should block up the market corners With none other name than hers. 60 The King of Ys Laughed the fool, "To-day, my Folly, Thou shalt be the king of Ys ! " O wise fool! How long must wisdom Under motley hold her peace? Then the storm came down. The valleys Wailed and ciphered to the dune Like huge organ pipes; a midnight Stalked those gala streets at noon; And the sea rose, rocked and tilted Like a beaker in the hand, Till the moon-hung tide broke tether And stampeded in for land. All day long with doom portentous, Shreds of pennons shrieked and flew Over Ys; and black fear shuddered On the hearthstone all night through. 61 The King of Ys Fear, which freezes up the marrow Of the heart, from door to door Like a plague went through the city, And filled up the devil's score; Filled her tally of the craven, To the sea-wind's dismal note; While a panic superstition Took the people by the throat. As with morning still the sea rose With vast wreckage on the tide, And their pasture rills, grown rivers, Thundered in the mountain side, "Vengeance, vengeance, gods to vengeance!" Rose a storm of muttering; And the human flood came pouring To the palace of the king. 62 The King of Ys "Save, O king, before we perish In the whirlpools e>f the sea, Ys thy city, us thy people!" Growled the king then, "What would ye?" But his wolf's eyes talked defiance, And his bearded mouth meant scorn. "O our king, the gods are angry; And no longer to be borne "Is the shameless face that greets us From thy windows, at thy side, Smiling infamy. And therefore Thou shalt take her up, and ride "Down with her into the sea's mouth, And there leave her; else we die, And thy name goes down to story A new word for cruelty." 63 The King of Ys Ah, but she was fair, this woman! Warm and flaxen waved her hair; Her blue Breton eyes made summer In that bleak December air. There she stood whose burning beauty Made the world's high roof tree ring, A white poppy tall and wind-blown In the garden of the king. Her throat shook, but not with terror; Her eyes swam, but not with fear; While her two hands caught and clung to The one man they had found dear. "Lord and lover," thus she smiled him Her last word, "it shall be so, Only the sea's arms shall hold me, When from out thine arms I go." 64 The King of Ys Swore he, "By the gods, my mistress, Thou shalt have queen's burial. Pearls and amber shall thy tomb be; Shot with gold and green thy pall. "And a million-throated chorus Shall take up thy dirge to-night; Where thy slumber's starry watch-fires Shall a thousand years be bright." Then they brought the coal-black stallion, Chafing on the bit. Astride Sprang the young king; shouted, "Way there!" Caught the girl up to his side; And a path through that scared rabble Rode in pageant to the sea. And the coal-black mane was mingled With gold hair against his knee. 65 The King of Ys Sure as the wild gulls make seaward, From the west gate to the beach Rode these two for whom now freedom Landward lay beyond their reach. And the great horse, scenting peril, Snorted at the flying spume, Flicked with courage, as how often, When the tides were racing doom, Ridden, he had plunged to rescue From that seething icy hell Some poor sailor wrecked a-fishing On the coast. What fears should quell That high spirit? Knee to shoulder, King and stallion reared and sprang Clear above the long white combers And that turmoil's iron clang. 66 The King of Ys What a launching! For a moment, While the tempest held its breath And a thousand eyes looked wonder, Swimming in that trough of death, Steering seaward through the welter, Ere they settled out of sight, W'aved above them one gold streamer. Valor, bid the world good-night! . . Not a trace, while the long summers Warm the heart of Brittany, Save one stone of Ys, as remnant, For a white mark in the sea. THE KELPIE RIDERS BURIED alive in calm Rochelle, Six in a row by a crystal well, All Summer long on Bareau Fen Slumber and sleep the Kelpie men; By the side of each to cheer his ghost, A flagon of foam with a crumpet of frost. Hear me, friends, for the years are fleet; Soon I leave the noise and the street 68 The Kelpie Riders For the silent uncompanioned way Where the inn is cold and the night is gray. But noon is warm and the world is still Where the Kelpie riders have their will. For never a wind dare stir or stray Over those marshes salt and gray; No bit of shade as big as your hand To traverse or trammel the sleeping land, Save where a dozen poplars fleck The long gray grass and the well's blue beck. Yet you mark their leaves are blanched and sear, Whispering daft at a nameless fear. While round the bole of one is a rune, Black in the wash of the bleaching noon. 69 The Kelpie Riders "Ride, for the wind is awake and away. Sleep, for the harvest grain is gray." No word more. And many a mile, A ghostly bivouac rank and file, They sleep to-day on the marshes wide; Some far night they will wake and ride. Once they were riders hot with speed, "Kelpie, Kelpie, gallop at need!" With hills of the barren sea to roam, Housing their horses on the foam. But earth is cool and the hush is long Beneath the lull of the slumber song The crickets falter and strive to tell To the dragon-fly of the crystal well; 70 The Kelpie Riders And love is a forgotten jest, Where the Kelpie riders take their rest, And blossoming grasses hour by hour Burn in the bud and freeze in the flower. But never again shall their roving be On the shifting hills of the tumbling sea, With the salt, and the rain, and the glad desire Strong as the wind and pure as fire. II One doomful night in the April tide With riot of brooks on the mountain side, The goblin maidens of the hills Went forth to the revel-call of the rills. The Kelpie Riders Many as leaves of the falling year, To the swing of a ballad wild and clear They held the plain and the uplands high; And the merry-dancers held the sky. The Kelpie riders abroad on the sea Caught sound of that call of eerie glee, Over their prairie waste and wan; And the goblin maidens tolled them on. The yellow eyes and the raven hair And the tawny arms blown fresh and bare, Were more than a mortal might behold And live with the saints for a crown of gold. The Kelpie riders were stricken sore; They wavered, and wheeled, and rode for the shore, 72 The Kelpie Riders "Kelpie, Kelpie, treble your stride! Never again on the sea we ride. "Kelpie, Kelpie, out of the storm; On, for the fields of earth are warm!" Knee to knee they are riding in: " Brother, brother, the goblin kin ! " The meadows rocked as they clomb the scaur; The pines re-echo for evermore The sound of the host of Kelpie men; But the windflowers died on Bareau Fen. Over the marshes all night long The stars went round to a riding song: " Kelpie, Kelpie, carry us through ! " And the goblin maidens danced thereto. 73 The Kelpie Riders Till dawn, and the revel died with a shout, For the ocean riders were wearied out. They looked, and the grass was warm and soft; The dreamy clouds went over aloft; A gloom of pines on the weather verge Had the lulling sound of their own white surge; A whip-poor-will, far from their din, Was saying his litanies therein. Then voices neither loud nor deep: "Tired, so tired; sleep! ah, sleep! "The stars are calm, and the earth is warm, But the sea for an earldom is given to storm. "Come now, inherit the houses of doom; Your fields of the sun shall be harried of gloom." 74 The Kelpie Riders They laid them down; but over long They rest, for the goblin maids are strong. The sun goes round; and Bareau Fen Is a door of earth on the Kelpie men, Buried at dawn, asleep, unslain, With not a mound on the sunny plain, Hard by the walls of calm Rochelle, Row on row by the crystal well. And never again they are free to ride Through all the years on the tossing tide, Barred from the breast of the barren foam, Where the heart within them is yearning home,- For one long drench of the surf to quell The cursing doom of the goblin spell. 75 The Kelpie Riders Only, when bugling snows alight To smother the marshes stark and white, Or a low red moon peers over the rim Of a winter twilight crisp and dim, With a sound of drift on the buried lands, The goblin maidens loose their hands; A wind comes down from the sheer blue North; And the Kelpie riders get them forth. Ill Twice have I been on Bareau Fen, But the son of my son is a man since then. Once as a lad I used to bear St. Louis' cross through the chapel square, 76 The Kelpie Riders Leading the choristers' surpliced file Slow up the dusk Cathedral aisle. I was the boy of all Rochelle The pure old father trusted well. But one clear night in the winter's heart, I wandered out to that place apart. The shafts of smoke went up to the stars, Straight as the Northern Streamer spars, From the town's white roofs, so still it was. The night in her dream let no word pass, Nor ever a breath that one could feel; Only the snow shrieked under my heel. Yet it seemed when I reached the poplar bole, The ghost of a voice was crying, "Skoal! 77 The Kelpie Riders "Rouse thee and drink, for the well is sweet, And the crystal snow is good to eat ! " I heeded little, but stooped on my knee, And ate of a handful dreamily. 'Twas cool to the mouth and slaking at first, But the lure of it was ill for thirst. The voice cried, "Soul of the mortal span, Art thou not of the Kelpie clan?" "What are you doing there in the ground, Kelpie rider, and never a sound "To roam the night but the ghost of a cry?" Ringing and swift there came reply, "He is asleep where thou art afraid, In the tawny arms of a goblin maid!" 78 The Kelpie Riders Then I knew the voice was the voice of a girl, And I marvelled much (while a little swirl Of snow leaped up far off on the plain Of sparkling dust and died again), For what do the cloisters know, think ye, Of women's ways? They be hard to see. Again the voice cried, "Kin of my kin, The child of the Sun shall win, shall win!" 'Twas an evil weird that so befell; Yet I leaned and drank of the bubbling well. I looked for my face in the crystal spring, But the face that flickered there was a thing To make the nape of your neck grow chill, .And every vein surge back and thrill 79 The Kelpie Riders With a passion for something not their own In a life their life has never known. For raven hair and eyes like the sun Are merry but dour to look upon. She smiled through her lashes under the wave, And my soul went forth her bartered slave. I swore, "By St. Louis, I'll come to thee, Though I ride to my doom in the gulfs of the sea! "Thy Kelpie rider shall wake and rue His ruined life in the loss of you." Then I fled in the start of a terror of joy, O'er leagues where a legion might deploy; For the acres of snow were level and hard, Every flake like a crystal shard. 80 The Kelpie Riders I was the runner of all Rochelle, Could run with the hounds on Haric Fell; And something stark as a gust of the sea Had a grip of the whimsy boy in me. I ran like the drift on the ice low curled When the winds of Yule are abroad on the world, Sudden, the beat of a throbbing sound Lost in the core of the blue profound: "Kelpie, Kelpie, Kelpie, come!" Was it my heart? But my heart was numb. "Kelpie, Kelpie!" Was it the sea? Far on, at the verge of Bareau lea, I saw like an army, shield and casque, The breakers roll in the Roads of Basque. G 81 The Kelpie Riders "Kelpie, Kelpie!" Was it the wolves? In the dusk of pines where night dissolves To streamers and stars through the mountain gorge, I heard the blast of a giant forge. Then I knew the wind was awake from the North, And the ocean riders were freed and forth. Time, there is time (now gallop, my heart!) Ere the black riders disperse and depart. The dawn is late, but the dawn comes round, And Fleetfoot Jean has the wind of a hound. The hue and cry of the Kelpie horde Was growing and grim on that white seaboard. It rolled and gathered and died and grew Far off to the rear; a smile thereto 82 The Kelpie Riders I turned; a fathom behind my ear A rider rode with a shadowy leer. I sickened and sped. He laughed aloud, "Wind for a mourner, snow for a shroud!" On and on, half blown, half blind, Shadow and self, and the wind behind! I slackened, he slackened; I fled, he flew; In a swirl of snow-drift all night through I scoured along the gusty fen, A quarry for hunting Kelpie men. But only one could hold at my side : "Brother, brother, I love thy stride. "Wilt thou follow thy whim to win My merry maid of the goblin kin?" The Kelpie Riders I swerved from my trail, for he haunted my ear With his moaning jibe and his shadowy leer. So by good hap as we sped it fell, I fetched a circuit back for the well. Like a spilth of spume on the crest of the bore When the combing tides make in for shore, That runner ran whose love was a wraith; But the rider rode with revenge in his teeth. Another league, and I touch the goal, The mystic rune on the poplar bole, When the dusky eyes and the raven hair And the lithe brown arms shall greet me there. I ran like a harrier on the trace In the leash of that ghoul, and the wind gave chase. 84 The Kelpie Riders A furlong now; I caught the gleam Of the bubbling well with its tiny stream; An arrowy burst; I cleared the beck; And the Kelpie rider bestrode my neck. ********* Dawn, the still red winter dawn; I awoke on the plain; the wind was gone; All gracious and good as when God made The living creatures, and none was afraid. I stooped to drink of the wholesome spring Under the poplars whispering: Face to my face in that water clear The Kelpie rider's jabbering leer! Ah, God! not me: I was never so! Sainted Louis, who can know 85 The Kelpie Riders The lords of life from the slaves of death? What help avail the speeding breath Of the spirit that knows not self's abode, When the soul is lost that knows not God? I turned me home by St. Louis' Hall, Where the red sun burns on the windows tall. And I thought the world was strange and wild,. And God with his altar only a child. IV Again one year in the prime of June, I came to the well in the heated noon, Leaving Rochelle with its red roof tiles By the Pottery Gate before St. Giles, 86 The Kelpie Riders There where the flower market is, Where every morning up from Duprisse The flower girls come by the long white lane That skirts the edge of Bareau plain; To the North, the city wall in the sun, To the left, the fen where the eye may run And have its will of the blazing blue. The while I loitered the market through, Halting a moment to converse With old Babette who had been my nurse, There passed through the stalls a woman, bright With a kirtle of cinnabar and white Among the kerseys blue; and I said, "Who is it, Babette, with lifted head, 87 The Kelpie Riders "And the startled look, possessed and strange, Under the paint secure from change?" "Ah, 'Sieur Jean, do ye not ken Of the eerie folk of Bareau Fen?" I blenched, and she knew too well I wist The fearsome fate of the goblin tryst. "The street is a cruel home, 'Sieur Jean, But a weird uncanny drives her on. "'Tis a bitter tale for Christian folk, How once she dreamed, and how she woke," "Ay, ay!" I passed and reached the spring Where the poplars kept their whispering, Hid for an hour in the shade, In the rank marsh grass of a tiny glade. 88 The Kelpie Riders There crossed the moor from the town afar, In kirtle of white and cinnabar, A wanderer on that plain of tears, Bowed with a burden not of the years, As one that goeth sorrowing For many an unforgotten thing. To the crystal well as the sun drew low There came that harridan of woe. She stooped to drink; I heard her cry: "Ah, God, how tired out am I! "I called him by the dearest name A girl may call; I have my shame. "'Yet death is crueller than life,' Once they said, 'for all the strife.' 89 The Kelpie Riders "And so I lived; but the wild will, Broken and bitter, drives to ill. "And now I know, what no one saith, That love is crueller than death. "How I did love him! Is love too high, My God, for such lost folk as I?" Her tears went down to the grass by the well, In that passion of grief, and where they fell Windflowers trembled pale and white. A craven I crept away from the sight; And turned me home to St. Louis' Hall, Where the sunflowers burn by the eastern wall. The vesper frankincense that day Rose to the rafters and melted away, 90 The Kelpie Riders And was no more than a cloud that stirs Among the spires of Norway firs. And I said, "The holy solitude Of the hoary crypt and the wild green wood "Are one to the God I have never known, Whose kingdom has neither bourn nor throne." Now I am old, and the years delay; But I know, I know, there will come a day, When April is over the Norland town, And the loosened brooks from the hills go down, When tears have quenched the sorrow of time, Wherein the earth shall rebuild her prime, The Kelpie Riders And the houses of dark be overthrown; When the goblin maids shall love their own, Their arms forever unlaced from their hold Of the earls of the sea on that alien wold, And the feckless light of their golden eyes Shall forget the desire that made them wise; When the hands of the foam shall beckon and flee, And the Kelpie riders ride for the sea; And the whip-poor-will the whole night long Repeat his litanies of song, Till morning whiten the world again, And the flowers revive on Bareau Fen, Over the acres of calm Rochelle Fresh by the stream of the crystal well. 92 NOONS OF POPPY NOONS of poppy, noons of poppy, Scarlet leagues along the sea; Flaxen hair afloat in sunlight, Love, come down the world to me! There's a Captain I must ship with, (Heart, that day be far from now!) Wears his dark command in silence With the sea- frost on his brow. Noons of poppy, noons of poppy, Purple shadows by the sea; How should love take thought to wonder What the destined port may be? 93 Noons of Poppy Nay, if love have joy for shipmate For a night-watch or a year, Dawn will light o'er Lonely Haven, Heart to happy heart, as here. Noons of poppy, noons of poppy, Scarlet acres by the sea Burning to the blue above them; Love, the world is full for me. 94 LEGENDS OF LOST HAVEN THERE are legends of Lost Haven, Come, I know not whence, to me, When the wind is in the clover, When the sun is on the sea. There are rumors in the pine-tops, There are whispers in the grass; And the flocking crows at nightfall Bring home hints of things that pass Out upon the broad dike yonder, All day long beneath the sun, Where the tall ships cloud and settle Down the sea-curve, one by one. 95 Legends of Lost Haven And the crickets in fine chorus Every slim and tiny reed Strive to chord the broken rhythmus Of the world, and half succeed. There are myriad traditions Treasured by the talking rain; And with memories the moonlight Walks the cold and silent plain. Where the river tells his hill-tales To the lone complaining bar, Where the midgets thread their dances To the yellow twilight star, Where the blossom bends to hearken To the bee with velvet bands, There are chronicles enciphered Of the yet uncharted lands. 96 Legends of Lost Haven All the musical marauders Of the berry and the bloom Sing the lure of soul's illusion Out of darkness, out of doom. But the sure and great evangel Comes when half alone I hear, At the rosy door of silence, Love, the lord of speech, draw near. Then for once across the threshold, Darkling spirit, thou art free, As thy hope is every ship makes Some lost haven of the sea. 97 THE SHADOW BOATSWAIN DON'T you know the sailing orders? It is time to put to sea, And the stranger in the harbor Sends a boat ashore for me. With the thunder of her canvas Coming on the wind again, I can hear the Shadow Boatswain Piping to his shadow men. Is it firelight or morning, That red flicker on the floor? Your good-by was braver, sweetheart, When I sailed away before. The Shadow Boatswain Think of this last lovely summer! Love, what ails the wind to-night? What's he saying in the chimney Turns your berry cheek so white? What a morning! How the sunlight Sparkles on the outer bay, Where the brig lies waiting for me To trip anchor and away! That's the Doomkeel. You may know her By her clean run aft; and, then, Don't you hear the Shadow Boatswain Piping to his shadow men? Off the freshening sea to windward, Is it a white tern I hear Shrilling in the gusty weather Where the far sea-line is clear? 99 The Shadow Boatswain What a morning for departure! How your blue eyes melt and shine! Will you watch us from the headland Till we sink below the line? I can see the wind already Steer the scurf marks of the tide, As we slip the wake of being Down the sloping world and wide. I can feel the vasty mountains Heave and settle under me, And the Doomkeel veer and shudder, Crumbling on the hollow sea. There's a call, as when a white gull Cries and beats across the blue; That must be the Shadow Boatswain Piping to his shadow crew. 100 The Shadow Boatswain There's a boding sound, like winter When the pines begin to quail; That must be the gray wind moaning In the belly of the sail. I can feel the icy fingers Creeping in upon my bones; There must be a berg to windward Somewhere in these border zones. Stir the fire. ... I love the sunlight,- Always loved my shipmate sun. How the sunflowers beckon to me From the dooryard one by one ! How the royal lady roses Strew this summer world of ours! There'll be none in Lonely Haven; It is too far north for flowers. 101 The Shadow Boatswain There, sweetheart! And I must leave you. What should touch my wife with tears? There's no danger with the Master; He has sailed the sea for years. With the sea-wolves on her quarter, And a white bone in her teeth, He will steer the shadow cruiser, Dark before and doom beneath, Down the last expanse, till morning Flares above the broken sea, And the midnight storm is over, And the Isles are close alee. So some twilight, when your roses Are all blown and it is June, You will turn your blue eyes seaward Through the white dusk of the moon, 102 The Shadow Boatswain Wondering, as that far sea-cry Comes upon the wind again, And you hear the Shadow Boatswain Piping to his shadow men. 103 THE MASTER OF THE ISLES THERE is rumor in Dark Harbor, And the folk are all astir; For a stranger in the offing Draws them down to gaze at her, In the gray of early morning, Black against the orange streak, Making in below the ledges, With no colors at her peak. Something makes their hearts uneasy As they watch the long black hull, For she brings the storm behind her While before her there is lull. 104 The Master of the Isles With no pilot and unspoken, Where the dancing breakers are, Presently she veers and races In across the roaring bar, Rounds and luffs and comes to anchor, While the wharf begins to throng. Silence falls upon the women, And misgiving stirs the strong. Then with some obscure foreboding, As a gray-haired watcher smiles, They perceive the fearless captain Is the Master of the Isles. They recall the bleak December Many streaming years ago, When the stranger had been sighted Driving shoreward with the snow; 105 The Master of the Isles When the Master came among them With his calm and courtly pride, And had sailed away at sundown With pale Dora for his bride; How again he came one summer When the herring schools were late, And had cleared before the morning With old Alec's son for mate. There was glamour with the Master; He had tales of far-off seas; But his habit and demeanor Were of other lands than these. He had never made the Harbor But there sailed away with him Wife or child or friend or lover, Leaving eyes to strain and swim, 1 06 The Master of the Isles Strain and wait for their returning; Yet they never had come back; For the pale wake of the Master Is a wandering, fading track. Just beyond our utmost fathom Is the anchorage we crave, But the Master knows the soundings By the reach of every wave. Just beyond the last horizon, Vague upon the weather-gleam, Loom the Faroff Isles forever, The tradition of a dream. There a white and brooding summer Haunts upon the gray sea-plain, Where the gray sea-winds are quiet At the sources of the rain. 107 The Master of the Isles There where all world-weary dreamers Get them forth to their release, Lie the colonies of the kindred, In the provinces of peace. Thither in the stormy sunset Will the Master sail to-night; And the village will be silent When he drops below the light Not a soul on all the hillside But will watch her when she clears, Dreaming of the Port o' Strangers In the roadstead of the years. "Port o' Strangers, Port o' Strangers!" "Where away?" "On the weather bow." " Drive her down the closing distance ! " . That's to-morrow, but not now. 108 The Master of the Isles What imperial adventure Some wide morning it will be, Sweeping in to Lonely Haven From the chartless round of sea! How imposing a departure, While this little harbor smiles, Steering for the outer sea-rim With the Master of the Isles! 109 THE LAST WATCH COMRADES, comrades, have me buried Like a warrior of the sea, With a flag across my breast And my sword upon my knee. Steering out from vanished headlands For a harbor on no chart, With the winter in the rigging, With the ice-wind in my heart, Down the bournless slopes of sea-room, With the long gray wake behind, I have sailed my cruiser steady With no pilot but the wind, no The Last Watch Battling with relentless pirates From the lower seas of Doom, I have kept the colors flying Through the roar of drift and gloom. Scudding where the shadow foemen Hang about us grim and stark, Broken spars and shredded canvas, We are racing for the dark. Sped and blown abaft the sunset Like a shriek the storm has caught; But the helm is lashed to windward, And the sails are sheeted taut. Comrades, comrades, have me buried Like a warrior of the night. I can hear the bell-buoy calling Down below the harbor light. in The Last Watch Steer in shoreward, loose the signal, The last watch has been cut short; Speak me kindly to the islesmen, When we make the foreign port. We shall make it ere the morning Rolls the fog from strait and bluff; Where the offing crimsons eastward There is anchorage enough. How I wander in my dreaming! Are we northing nearer home, Or outbound for fresh adventure On the reeling plains of foam? North I think it is, my comrades, Where one heart-beat counts for ten, Where the loving hand is loyal, And the women's sons are men; 112 The Last Watch Where the red auroras tremble When the polar night is still, Lighting home the worn seafarers To their haven in the hill. Comrades, comrades, have me buried Like a warrior of the North. Lower me the long-boat, stay me In your arms, and bear me forth; Lay me in the sheets and row me, With the tiller in my hand, Row me in below the beacon Where my sea-dogs used to land. Has your captain lost his cunning After leading you so far? Row me your last league, my sea-kings; It is safe within the bar. 113 The Last Watch Shoulder me and house me hillward, Where the field-lark makes his bed, So the gulls can wheel above me, All day long when I am dead; Where the keening wind can find me With the April rain for guide, And come crooning her old stories Of the kingdoms of the tide. Comrades, comrades, have me buried Like a warrior of the sun; I have carried my sealed orders Till the last command is done. Kiss me on the cheek for courage, (There is none to greet me home,) Then farewell to your old lover Of the thunder of the foam; 114 The Last Watch For the grass is full of slumber In the twilight world for me, And my tired hands are slackened From their toiling on the sea. OUTBOUND A LONELY sail in the vast sea-room, I have put out for the port of gloom. The voyage is far on the trackless tide, The watch is long, and the seas are wide. The headlands blue in the sinking day Kiss me a hand on the outward way. The fading gulls, as they dip and veer. Lift me a voice that is good to hear. The great winds come, and the heaving sea, The restless mother, is calling me. 116 Outbound The cry of her heart is lone and wild, Searching the night for her wandered child. Beautiful, weariless mother of mine, In the drift of doom I am here, I am thine. Beyond the fathom of hope or fear, From bourn to bourn of the dusk I steer, Swept on in the wake of the stars, in the stream Of a roving tide, from dream to dream. 117 By BLISS CARMAN A WINTER HOLIDAY. 7S cents. i6mo, paper boards, cover design in silver, by T. B. Meteyard. Of the seven poems making up the collection, five directly reflect the warm, many-colored experiences of the Bahamas. The two other pieces, " December in Scituate " and " Winter at Tortoise Shell," de- pict in sharp contrast, yet with equal charm, New England winter scenes indoors and out. They show that this poet's remarkable gift for nature-description is as much in evidence when dealing with win- ter's monochromes as when moved by all the vibrancy and bloom of the full summer tide. RICHARD BURTON, in Saturday Evening Post. BEHIND THE ARRAS. A Book of the Unseen. $1.25. i6mo, cloth, decorative, with eight illustrations by T. B. Mete- yard. The subtitle of this book, and the dedication, " To G. H. B., I shut myself in with my soul, And the shapes come eddying forth," explains the tenor of its contents, which, for the most part in a minor key, are full of thought, of suggestion, and of the connec- tion between soul and spirit. Mr. Meteyard has admirably caught the subtle suggestions of the text, and his illustrations add greatly to its expression. The collection is of exceptional merit, and besides its poetic quality has two excellent characteristics : it awakens interest and compels thought. Halifax Herald. BY THE AURELIAN WALL. And Other Elegies. $1.25. i6mo, cloth, decorative, with cover design by G. H. Hallowell. Among the elegies contained in this volume is the beautiful threnody for Robert Louis Stevenson, "A Sea-mark," which, separately published some years ago, aroused the admi- ration of the critics. As a maker of ballads, imaginative and full of haunting memory, Mr. Carman is easily the master among his contemporaries. The Critic. For sale at all Bookstores, or sent postpaid by the publishers SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY BOSTON Songs from Vagabondia By BLISS CARMAN 6- RICHARD HOVEY i6mo, paper boards, with cover and end paper decorations by Tom B. Meteyard. Ji.oo. A book full of the rapture of the open air and the open road, of the wayside tavern bench, the April weather, and the " manly love of com- rades." . . . The charm and interest of the book consist in the real, frank jollity of mood and manner, the gypsy freedom, the intimate, natural happiness of these marching, drinking, fighting, and loving songs. They proclaim a blithe, sane, and hearty Bohemianism in the opening lines. . . . The mood is an unusual one, especially in verse, but welcome, if only as a change, after the desperate melan- choly, the heart-sickness, and life-weariness of the average verse-writer London Athenaum. Between the close covers of this narrow book there are some fifty- odd pages of good verse that Bobby Burns would have shouted at his plough to see and Elia Lamb would have praised in immortal essays. These are sound, healthy poems, with a bit of honest pathos here and there, to be sure, but made in the sunlight and nurtured with whole- some, manly humors. There is not a bit of intellectual hypochondria in the little book, and there is not a line that was made in the sweat of the brow. They are the free, untrammelled songs of men who sing because their hearts are full of music, and who have their own way of singing, too. These are not the mere echoes of the old organ voices. They are the merry pipings of song-birds, and they bear the gift of nature. New York Times. The authors of the small joint volume called " Songs from Vaga- 'bondia" have an unmistakable right to the name of poet. These little snatches have the spirit of a gypsy Omar Khayyim. They have always careless verve, and often careless felicity ; they are masculine and rough, as roving songs should be. . . . You have the whole spirit of the book in such an unforgettable little lyric as " In the House of Idiedaily." FRANCIS THOMPSON, in Merry England. For sale by all Booksellers, or sent postpaid by the publishers SMALL, MAYNARD 6- COMPANY - BOSTON More Songs from Vagabondia By BLISS CARMAN & RICHARD HOVEY i6mo, paper boards, with cover and end paper decorations by Tom B. Meteyard. #1.00. The second volume is no less worthy of welcome than the first. We find the same ardent imagination, the same delicacy and grace of rhythm as before. Chicago Inter-Ocean. The muse of these poems may be a reckless, wanton baggage . . . but her eyes are as honest as the growth of a tree or the movement of a deer, and she is as clean and wholesome as a burgeoning spring noon. Boston Journal. HJW long is it since another volume appeared so packed with high spirits and good humor? Certainly not since the original "Songs from Vagabondia " came out. The poetry fairly bubbles over, even over into the inside of the covers, where some verses are enshrined in drawings. It is a book that makes the reader young again. Buffalo Express. Hail to the poets ! Good poets ! Real poets ! . . . They are the free, untrammelled songs of men who sing because their hearts are full of music ; and they have their own way of singing, too. " Songs from Vagabondia" ought to go singing themselves into every library from Denver to both seas, for they are good to know. New York Times. These gentlemen have something to say, and they say it in a hale and ready way that is as convincing as it is artistic. One is not met at every turn by some platitude laboriously wrought, which the minor poets nowadays so delight in, but a ring and a cheer and a manner neither obscure nor commonplace, with just enough mystery to delight and stimulate the imagination without overtaxing it. Washington Star. The pulsing of warm, youthful blood, the joy of living, and comrade- ship are enclosed between the covers of " More Songs from Vaga- bondia." The poems are full of exuberant vitality, with a fine and energetic rhythm. The Argonaut. For sale by all Booksellers, or sent postpaid by the publishers SMALL, MAYNARD 6- COMPANY BOSTON Last Songs from Vagabondia By BLISS CARMAN <&- RICHARD HOVEY i6mo, paper boards, with cover and end paper decorations by Tom B. Meteyard. $1.00 This third collection makes a fitting close to the fresh and exhilarating poetry of the two preceding volumes of the series. It contains, in addition to verses set aside for this purpose by both authors prior to Mr. Hovey's death, certain later poems by Mr. Carman, reminiscent of his friend and fellow-vagabond. " The sight of ' Last Songs from Vagabondia' must raise a pang in many breasts, a remembrance of two best of comrades sundered. They were mad carols, those early Vagabondian lays, with here and there a song more seriously tuned, but beyond their joyous ebullition were beauty of no uncertain quality, the riches of Vagabondia love and youth and com- radeship and the glamour of the great world unexplored. All those qualities are embodied in these ' Last Songs,' nor is the joy in living absent, only softened to a soberer tone. The themes vary little, the joys of the road are still undimmed, there is ever closer cleaving of comrade to comrade, and there is the old buckling on of bravery against the battle; under- neath all this a note hitherto unheard in Vagabondia, a sense of the inescapable loneliness of every soul. Both Mr. Carman and Mr. Hovey have perfect command of the lyric form, both the power to -imprison in richly colored verse a complete expression of the wander-spirit." Boston Transcript. " Worthy to take their place alongside their charming and inspiriting predecessors." Boston Journal. " One finds in this volume the breadth of view, the spon- taneous joy, the unexpected outlook, and the felicity of touch which betray the true poet." The Outlook. " The charm of the verses, especially of the lyrics, is as great in this as in the two previous volumes." New Orleans Picayune. For sale at all Booksellers, or sent postpaid by the publishers SMALL, MAYNARD 6- COMPANY BOSTON By RICHARD HOVEY Launcelot ^ Guenevere A POEM IN DRAMAS. I. The QUEST of MERLIN. II. The MARRIAGE O/GUENEVERE. III. The BIRTH O/GALAHAD. IV. TALIESIN. V. The HOLY GRAAL (in preparation). 5 volumes, i6mo, paper board sides, vellum backs, with decoration in gold by Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue. (For description of the separate volumes see the following pages.) Reviewing the first three volumes of this work, George Hamlin Fitch wrote as follows in the San Francisco Chronicle: " A new poet, saturated with the spirit of the present, and yet with the strength, the sweetness, and the technical skill of the men who have become English classics this is what the world of English-speaking readers has been awaiting for more than a generation. . . . Hence the appearance is noteworthy of an American poet with a work which places him in the front rank of poets of to-day, and which makes him, in my judgment, the rightful claimant to the place left vacant by the authors of ' Pippa Passes ' and ' The Idyls of the King.' This may seem to be high, even extravagant praise, but when one reads carefully these three books of verse, there can be no other judgment than that here is a genius whose first mature poem gives promise of splendid creative work during the next decade. . . . They form a drama which is full of the passion and power of Browning, yet with much of the charm of Shakes- peare's plays. At first blush it seems presumptuous in a young poet to attempt the theme on which Tennyson lavished his best powers ; but when one has read Mr. Hovey's poems he sees at once the absolute originality of the younger poet." SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY, Publishers Launcelot ^ Guenevere A Poem in Dramas fy RICHARD HOVEY I. The QUEST of MERLIN. A Masque. $1.25. "The Quest of Merlin" shows indisputable talent and in- disputable metrical faculty. The Athenaum, London. Whatever else may be said of this work, it cannot be denied that the singer is master of the technique of his art ; that for him our stubborn English tongue becomes fluent and musical. . . . Underlying all these evidences of artistic skill is a deeper intent, revealing in part the poet's philosophy of being. ... Washington Post. " The Quest of Merlin " has all the mystery and exquisite delicateness of a midsummer night's dream. Washington Republic. II. The MARRIAGE of GUENEVERE. A Tragedy. $1.50. It requires the possession of some remarkable qualities in Mr. Richard Hovey to impel me to draw attention to this " poem in dramas " which comes to us from America. . . . The volume shows powers of a very unusual quality, clearness and vividness of characterization, capacity of seeing, and, by a few happy touches, making us see, ease and inevitableness of blank verse, free alike from convolution and monotony. . . . If he has caught here and there the echo of other voices, his own is clear and full-throated, vibrating with passionate sensi- bility. HAMILTON AIDE, in The Nineteenth Century, London. There are few young poets who start so well as Mr. Richard Hovey. He has the freest lilt of any of the younger Ameri- cans. WILLIAM SHARP, in The Academy, London. The strength and flexibility of the verse are a heritage from the Elizabethans, yet plainly stamped with Mr. Hovey's indi- viduality. CHARLES G. D! ROBERTS, in The Bookbuyer. For sale at all Bookstores, or sent postpaid by the publishers SMALL, MAYNARD 6- COMPANY BOSTON Launcelot <*f Guenevere A Poem in Dramas by RICHARD HOVEY III. The BIRTH of GALAHAD. A Roman- tic Drama. $1.50. " The Birth of Galahad " is the finest of the trilogy, both in sustained strength of the poetry and in dramatic unity. GEORGE HAMLIN FITCH, in San Francisco Chronicle. It is written with notable power, showing a strong dramatic understanding and a clear dramatic instinct. Mr. Hovey took his risk when he boldly entered Tennyson's close, but we can-/ not see that he suffers. The Independent, New York. Richard Hovey . . . must at least be called a true and re- markable poet in his field. He can not only say things in a masterly manner, but he has something impressive to say. . . . Nothing modern since the appearance of Swinburne's "Ata- lanta in Calydon " surpasses them [these dramas] in virility and classical clearness and perfection of thought. JOEL BENTON, in The New York Times Saturday Review. IV. TALIESIN. A Masque. $1.00. " Taliesin " is a poet's poem. As a part of the " Poem in Dramas," it introduces the second trilogy, and prefigures " The Quest of the Graal." It is in many ways the author's highest achievement. It is the greatest study of rhythm we have in English. It is the greatest poetic study that we have of the artist's relation to life, and of his development. And it is a significant study of life itself in its highest aspiration. CURTIS HIDDEN PAGE, in The Bookman. No living poet whose mother-tongue is English has written finer things than are scattered through " Taliesin." RICHARD HENRY STODDARD, in The Mail and Express, New York. It is sheer poetry or it is nothing, the proof of an ear and a voice which it seems ill to have lost just at the moment of their complete training. In his death there is no doubt that America has lost one of her best equipped lyrical and dra- matic poets. EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN, in An Amer- ican Anthology. For sale at all Bookstores, or sent postpaid by the publishers SMALL, MAYNARD 6- COMPANY - BOSTON Launcelot & Guenevere A Poem in Dramas by RICHARD HOVEY V. The HOLY GRAAL. Fragments of the Five Unfinished Dramas of the Launcelot & Guenevere Series (in preparation). $1.50. It had been Mr. Hovey's intention to complete his notable Arthurian Series in nine dramas, of which only four had been published at the time of his death. He left fragmentary por- tions in manuscript of all the remaining five, and these frag- ments have been edited and arranged, with notes, by his widow, as the only possible attempt toward completion of this match- less monument of American verse. ALONG THE TRAIL A Book of Lyrics by RICHARD HOVEY i6mo, brown cloth, gold cover decoration by Bertram Gros- venor Goodhue. 1.50. Richard Hovey has made a definite place for himself among the poets of to-day. This little volume illustrates all his good qualities of sincerity, fervor, and lyric grace. He sings the songs of the open air, of battle and comradeship, of love, and of country, and they are all songs well sung. In addition, his work is distinguished by a fine masculine optimism that is all too rare in the poetry of the younger generation. Satur- day Evening Post, Philadelphia. As a whole it stands the most searching test you read it again and again with constantly increasing pleasure, satisfac- tion, and admiration. Boston Herald. Mr. Hovey has the full technical equipment of the poet, and he has a poet's personality to express, a personality new and fresh, healthy and joyous, manly, vigorous, earnest. Added to this he has the dramatic power which is essential to a broad poetic endowment. He is master of his art and master of life. He is the poet of joy and belief in life. He is the poet of comradeship and courage. CURTIS HIDDEN PAGE, in The Bookman. For sale at all Bookstores ^ or sent postpaid by the publishers SMALL, MAYNARD dr> COMPANY BOSTON THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW 10 i. FEB 10 1919 9 1928 15 1938 30m-6,'14 and balla Mar 24,19:3 Number : 3 10 JG r. ec 13 EP 97 c-r ^ / e of Loet Haven ' LIBRARIES SEE-1 25m-9,'12 YC160562