953 
 
 L8315 
 
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 UC-NRLF 
 
 B M ban 72D 
 
 V^ERSES 
 
 BY 
 JOHN EDWARD LOGAN 
 
 ('•BARRY DANE") 
 
BERKELEY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 LtMtV5R3iTY OF 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
JOHN EDWARD LOGAN 
 
Verses 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN EDWARD LOGAN 
 
 {"BARRY DANE") 
 
 Th€ Pen and Pencil Club 
 
 MONTREAL 
 
 1 ,9 1 6 
 
COPYRIGHT, CANADA. 
 
 BY 
 THE PEN AND PENCIL CLUB 
 
 i.19^ 
 
 lOAN STACK 
 
L}<3I5 
 
 John Edward Logan, better known to many lovers 
 of Canadian poetry as "Barry Dane," died in the year 
 1915, He left, in manuscript, a small but carefully 
 chosen collection of his verses — all that he considered 
 worthy of preservation. The present volume contains 
 practically the whole of that manuscript collection, with 
 the exception of a few poems of whose permanent value 
 the author was himself doubtful. Many others which 
 the author also marked as doubtful have seemed to the 
 editors of this volume to be worthy of publication. 
 
 In the earlier period of his literary activity "Barry 
 Dane" contributed freely to the current periodicals of 
 the time; and a number of the poems in this book are 
 already familiar to that portion of the public which is 
 interested in thoughtful, delicate and expressive verse by 
 Canadian writers. Several of them have indeed found 
 an honourable resting-place in the best anthologies of 
 English verse. In his later years he seldom sought a 
 public wider than that provided by the circle of his 
 intimate friends. 
 
 The Pen and Pencil Club of Montreal, of which John 
 Edward Logan was a beloved member from its foundation, 
 has felt that no better memorial can be set up for the 
 dead, and no better service afforded to Canadian literature, 
 than by the publication of this volume. Much of what it 
 contains was written for, and read to, the members of 
 the Club, and has until now been placed before no larger 
 audience. The printed page can give but a poor reflec- 
 tion of the magnetism and sympathy of the living presence; 
 
 (m.) 
 
 8G5 
 
but there is in some of these verses an image of the mind 
 and heart of the writer, so clear and vivid that those who 
 knew him well must find their loving memory of him 
 illumined afresh by their perusal, and those who knew 
 him not may perchance form some picture of the man, 
 some shadowy conception at least of the qualities which 
 made him beloved. 
 
 The editors desire to express their gratitude for the 
 invaluable assistance given by Mrs. Annie Robertson 
 Logan, wife of the poet, in the revision of manuscripts, 
 the selection and arrangement of the poems, and the 
 correction of proofs; also their deep sense of loss through 
 the untimely death of their colleague, Kenneth R. Mac- 
 pherson, K.C., who, during the brief months by which 
 he survived his friend, was a tireless worker himself and 
 an inspiration to others in the task of preparing this 
 volume for the press. 
 
 (w.) 
 
INDEX 
 
 Indian Woman's Lament 1 
 
 The Flower's Ghost 2 
 
 Song: "Ah, why at times so scornful" - - - 4 
 
 When Summer Comes 5 
 
 Summer 7 
 
 A Dead Singer 9 
 
 My Garden 11 
 
 Song of the Rain Drops - 14 
 
 September --16 
 
 Chicory 17 
 
 At the Dawning of the Day 20 
 
 Vive la Bagatelle -------- 21 
 
 Compensation - -22 
 
 Peace - - - 24 
 
 Force - - 25 
 
 Song: "Could you forget to love me" - - - 27 
 
 Autumn's Burial 28 
 
 MyTownies --------- 30 
 
 Fairies' Song - - - 31 
 
 I wonder 32 
 
 A debut - - - - 33 
 
 Idleness (I) . . . 35 
 
 Idleness (II) --------- 36 
 
 At Pompeii ---- 37 
 
 Ephemera 41 
 
 Ulysses ._.--42 
 
 Penelope --- -44 
 
 Orpheus 45 
 
 Launcelot 46 
 
 Guinevere 51 
 
 Tristram to Isolt -------- 56 
 
 Isolt to Tristram --------57 
 
 Song: "What care I for critics' scorn" - - - 58 
 
 Down the Gulf - - 59 
 
 (».) 
 
Two Spinners 62 
 
 The Equinox - - - - ----- 63 
 
 Phyllis ---------- 65 
 
 In Arcady --------- 66 
 
 Lines Written in a Miniature "Church Service" - 67 
 
 To Louis Frechette ------- 68 
 
 A Dream Verse: To Albani ----- 69 
 
 Individuality - - 70 
 
 On the Threshold, 1900 71 
 
 The Nor'-West Courier - - - - - - 73 
 
 The Time o'Day -------- 75 
 
 The Bells of Dorval ------- 76 
 
 The Bloodroot - - - - - - - - 77 
 
 Atonement --------- 78 
 
 The Lake - - - - 79 
 
 Song: "Only a Dream" ------ 80 
 
 To My Children -------- 81 
 
 The Claymore— A.D. 1788 ------ 82 
 
 Sir William Van Home - - - - - - 84 
 
 The Hawthorn Tree ------- 85 
 
 Sonnets — 
 
 Columbus ----89 
 
 Champlain ------ .-90 
 
 Impatience -------- 91 
 
 She Knoweth Naught ------ 92 
 
 Metis, 1885 - 93 
 
 November --------94 
 
 Toil 95 
 
 Dialect Verses — 
 
 Shakespeer at Dead-Hoss Crick - - - - 99 
 
 The Critic of the Pilot Mound - - - - 107 
 
 : "The Injun" 112 
 
 A Cry from the Saskatchewan 118 
 
DEDICATION 
 TO MY MOTHER 
 
 Songs I have heard on the plain, 
 When the sky above me was blue : 
 
 Songs I have heard in the waves, 
 As they laughed to my bark canoe : 
 
 Songs I have heard in the night. 
 When the voices of day were still : 
 
 Songs I have heard in the storm. 
 As it echoed from hill to hill. 
 
 Songs I have heard in the lives 
 
 That have blended their tones with mine. 
 As with the rush of the river 
 
 Is mingled the sigh of the pine: 
 Songs I have heard in my heart, 
 
 And none of them strange or new: 
 Yet I know you are glad to listen, 
 
 So I sing them over to you. 
 
 (m.) 
 
INDIAN WOMAN'S LAMENT 
 
 A BLOOD-RED ring hung round the moon, 
 Hung round the moon. Ah me! Ah'me! 
 I heard the piping of the loon, 
 A wounded loon. Ah me! 
 And yet the eagle feathers rare, 
 I, trembling, wove in my brave's hair. 
 
 He left me in the early morn, 
 
 The early morn. Ah me! Ah me! 
 
 The feathers swayed like stately corn. 
 So like the corn. Ah me! 
 
 A fierce wind swept across the plain; 
 
 The stately corn was snapt in twain. 
 
 They crushed in blood the hated race. 
 The hated race. Ah me! Ah me! 
 
 I only clasped a cold, blind face. 
 His cold, dead face. Ah me! 
 
 The blood-red ring hangs in my sight, 
 
 I hear the loon cry every night. 
 
THE FLOWER'S GHOST 
 
 APOLLO, in a gentle mood, 
 Looked down upon the earth, 
 Just as the spring first touched the wood, 
 And called the leaves to birth. 
 
 'Twas there he saw a tiny flower 
 That watched his daily race, 
 
 And, half defiant of his power, 
 Stared boldly in his face. 
 
 Brighter each morning grew the eye 
 
 That gazed on him alone. 
 At last, he found its golden dye 
 
 Was stolen from his own. 
 
 Then deep displeasure filled his heart, 
 
 That, from an earthly clod, 
 A fragile flower had dared to start 
 
 And emulate a God. 
 
Fiercer and hotter grew his ire 
 
 With each succeeding day, 
 Until, beneath his scorching fire, 
 
 The flower all withered lay. 
 
 But pity touched a tenderer breast 
 That felt the flow'ret's pain ; 
 
 'Twas her's, that loves all nature best, 
 The Goddess of the grain. 
 
 She plucked the withered plant, and blew 
 Within its hollow reed ; 
 Lo, where the brilliant blossom grew, 
 Appeared its phantom seed. 
 
 Though lost the splendour of the spring, 
 
 The glory of the gold, 
 The wraith upon its silver wing, 
 
 Was fairer to behold ; 
 
 And on each balmy Zephyr's breath 
 Through all the world was borne; 
 
 Dowered with eternal life in death. 
 To bloom some brighter morn. 
 
 So, when some golden hour has fled, 
 
 Still live in hope and faith, 
 Its fairer ghost may come instead. 
 
 The Dandelion's wraith. 
 
SONG 
 
 AH, why at times so scornful 
 To eyes that plead in vain? 
 Ah, why again so mournful, 
 And lonely thus remain? 
 The effort of concealing 
 Is only the revealing 
 Of all the tender feeling 
 That in thy breast has lain. 
 
 Why flee the sweet confessing 
 
 Of loss, that is but gain. 
 To him who seeks the blessing 
 
 And suffers to obtain? 
 Thy scorn his breast has riven. 
 
 And only deeper driven 
 
 The wound so swift forgiven, 
 Where love defeats disdain. 
 
 The thorns about the roses. 
 
 Give but a useless pain; 
 Some ravisher encloses 
 
 The stem, 'tis snapt in twain. 
 O, yield thyself, believing 
 
 That love is not deceiving; 
 
 So, where two hearts were grieving, 
 Only one joy shall reign. 
 
WHEN SUMMER COMES 
 
 *' Yj/THEN summer comes!" 
 ▼▼ Ah, so we longing sigh, 
 When winter winds are high, 
 ''When summer comes!" 
 Our pulses like the rill, 
 That now is cold and still 
 Beneath the snow. 
 Will joyous flow 
 When summer comes. 
 
 II. 
 
 When summer comes! 
 A messenger will bring 
 New life to everything, 
 When summer comes! 
 And unto you and me 
 Now parted, there may be 
 A moment sweet 
 What time we meet 
 When summer comes. 
 
III. 
 
 When summer comes! 
 
 Ah, the sweet longed-for day 
 May be, yet pass away, 
 When summer comes! 
 
 And our sad feet have missed 
 The long expected tryst, — 
 What shall we know 
 Of joy or woe. 
 When summer comes? 
 
 IV. 
 
 W^hen summer comes! 
 
 Alas, our hearts may yearn 
 For winter to return, 
 When summer comes. 
 The future we forecast, 
 We dream its joys will last. 
 To-day is fraught 
 With but one thought, 
 "When summer comes!" 
 
SUMMER 
 
 Summer has come, 
 
 And yet no songs I hear 
 
 From out the woodland drear, 
 No voice of waking brook 
 From some sequestered nook, 
 Salutes mine ear: 
 
 Yet is there music that is sweeter far 
 Than all the sounds that are. 
 
 Thy voice! Thy voice! 
 
 And with thee, Dear, 
 Summer is all the year, 
 
 Summer has come. 
 
 Summer has come, 
 Yet to the sun's bright rays, 
 No opening flower displays 
 
 Its smiling eye, for lo, 
 
 The winter gai*b of snow 
 Fast clinging, stays: 
 
Yet doth one flower forever brighter bloom 
 Throughout the winter's gloom, 
 
 Thy face! thy face 
 
 Fills all my ways: 
 Summer is all my days, 
 
 Summer has come. 
 
 Summer has come, 
 Though snows may not depart, 
 Nor meadow streamlets start 
 From out their crystal urn. 
 Nor mating birds return; 
 I feel its dart 
 
 Pierce me and thrill me every happy hour, 
 With ever subtler power. 
 
 Thy soul, thy soul 
 Blooms round my heart. 
 Summer is where thou art. 
 
 Summer has come. 
 
A DEAD SINGER 
 
 CAIR little spirit of the woodland mazes, 
 -'■ Thou liest sadly low, 
 No more the purple vetch and star-eyed daisies 
 Thy matin hymn shall know. 
 
 No more the harebell by the silent river 
 
 Shall bend her dainty ear, 
 When nigh thou fliest, and her petals quiver 
 
 With maiden joy, to hear. 
 
 No more to flit among the yellow mustard, 
 
 Imperial thistle tops, 
 And intertwining woodbine, thickly clustered 
 
 With tendrils of wild hops. 
 
 No more the dragon's darting course to follow 
 
 O'er golden sun-lit sheaves: 
 No more to catch, within the shady hollow, 
 
 The dew from spangled leaves. 
 
No more above the scented rose to hover, 
 
 Sipping its fragrant fee: 
 No more to chase across the billowy clover. 
 
 The velvet-coated bee. 
 
 What fatal stroke has torn the downy cincture 
 
 Round thy once tuneful throat 
 And pulseless bosom, where a deathly tincture 
 
 Dyes thy soft, feathery coat? 
 
 No gentle mate and thou shall wing together. 
 
 With tender chicks, your way 
 To sunnier southern fields, when autumn weather 
 
 Chills the short northern day. 
 
 Dead is the soul of love and song and laughter. 
 
 That thrilled thy fragile breast; 
 There is no more for thee, but dead hereafter 
 
 Of unbegotten rest. 
 
 10 
 
MY GARDEN 
 
 I HAD a garden in which grew 
 Nought but wild weeds 
 In careless beauty. Ah, they knew 
 My humble needs. 
 
 I never thrust the cruel spade, 
 
 Or rake, or hoe, 
 Beneath that sweet, luxuriant glade, 
 
 To make them grow. 
 
 Knee deep I wandered, as a child 
 
 Untaught, unwise. 
 Stars of the earth looked up and smiled 
 
 With loving eyes. 
 
 Even to pluck one were unkind. 
 
 Seemed half a wrong; 
 They were so joyous, as the wind 
 
 Sang each a song. 
 
 11 
 
Sweet strains, so soft, a flower's ear 
 
 Alone might know 
 That music from another sphere, 
 
 Borne here below. 
 
 Sweet flowers! ye were but common weeds, 
 
 So my friends said. 
 Who furnished me with rarest seeds 
 
 To plant instead. 
 
 So I, with sharpened sickle, thrust 
 
 Your plumage through ; 
 Laying you, ruthless, in the dust, 
 
 Because they knew. 
 
 And plough and hoe and spade and rake 
 
 With vicious toil. 
 Tore up your clinging roots, to make 
 
 A cleaner soil. 
 
 Wherein I planted many a thing 
 
 From every clime; 
 And carried water all the spring 
 
 And summer time. 
 
 Alas, they grew not; they had strange 
 
 Exotic wants, 
 Born of some milder climate's range. 
 
 More fertile haunts. 
 
 12 
 
Vain labour! — When you stood in crowds, 
 
 You needed not 
 A toilsome friendship. Were not clouds 
 
 Your waterpot ? 
 
 Nature can give you what you need, 
 
 While I can sing 
 A song in season, as a meed — 
 
 Though worthless thing. 
 
 Return, weeds! I humbly crave 
 
 Your tender pardon, 
 Give me, as once before you gave, 
 
 The sluggard's garden. 
 
 13 
 
SONG OF THE RAIN DROPS 
 
 WE know not from whence we flow, 
 Bearing life or death 
 On a blast or breath, 
 We know not whither we go. 
 
 We know not pity or pain: 
 
 But fall if we must 
 
 On the earth's parched crust, 
 And freshen the fields of grain. 
 
 W^e know not passion or wrath, 
 
 As we rise up black 
 
 In a threatening wrack. 
 With ruin to mark our path. 
 
 We answer not mortal cry, 
 
 For the restless wind. 
 
 With a shriek behind. 
 Drives, and we heedlessly fly. 
 
 14 
 
We are not the angels' tears 
 
 That pitying fall 
 
 For the wrongs that call 
 From earth, through the weary years. 
 
 We have never a joyous glow, 
 Though we quench the thirst 
 Of the fever cursed 
 
 Where the poisoned swamp winds blow. 
 
 We have neither loathing nor dread, 
 
 As we cling like sweat 
 
 On the pale cadet 
 Where he lies with a thousand dead. 
 
 And the spring may burst to bloom 
 'Neath our freshening showers, 
 And its million flowers 
 
 May cover the winter's tomb. 
 
 Or the flowers may droop and die 
 As we strike them down 
 In our streams that drown 
 
 From the stormy autumn sky. 
 
 For we know not loss or gain, 
 
 Or from whence we flow. 
 
 Or whither we go,— 
 We are only the drops of rain. 
 
 15 
 
SEPTEMBER 
 
 September, September! 
 Chastened by loss and pain, 
 Is not thy silver stubble 
 Fair as the golden grain? 
 
 Fairer to me than Springtime, 
 
 With wooing of birds that build. 
 
 That never may know thy glory 
 Of promises all fulfilled. 
 
 Sweeter than summer spangled 
 With flowers on every slope; — 
 
 Queen of the heart of Nature; 
 Goal of its early hope. 
 
 Passing in robes of purple, 
 Far o'er the misty meres, 
 
 Dead on thy lover's bosom, 
 Needing not mourner's tears. 
 
 September, September! 
 
 Chastened by loss and pain, 
 Is not thy silver stubble 
 
 Fairer than golden grain'? 
 
 16 
 
CHICORY 
 
 I SAW your sweet blue eyes in^June 
 Sparkle out brightly, |^^ 
 
 And thought, alas, Old Time will soon 
 Shut them up tightly. 
 
 But while some frailer blossom dies 
 
 For no good reason, 
 Still do I see your starry eyes, 
 
 In autumn season. 
 
 Early to come and late to go, 
 
 Vagrant of flowers; 
 Reminding me of friends I know 
 
 And of their hours. 
 
 Like unto like, each vagi^ant thing. 
 
 Birds of a feather, 
 Are forced, in self-defence, to cling 
 
 Closely together. 
 
 17 
 
So you in my small g-arden-plot. 
 
 Are not offending; 
 Welcome, with me cast in your lot, 
 
 You don't need tending. 
 
 Grow, multiply, increase, encore, 
 
 With weedlike vigour; 
 No sickle at my humble door, 
 
 Treats you with rigour. 
 
 W^elcome to all the shine and rain 
 The skies may grant you: 
 
 I have no labour, thankless, vain, 
 I didn't plant you. 
 
 Corn-flower, Chicory, or what 
 They choose to name you ; 
 
 Grow over all the land I've got. 
 And I'll not blame you. 
 
 No useful wheat shall here intrude 
 
 Its golden treasure. 
 To shame you with its pompous, rude, 
 
 Full-bushel measure. 
 
 You are not useful ; but your eye 
 
 Sheds a soft lustre 
 So pleasant to the passer-by, 
 
 Where'er you cluster. 
 
 18 
 
I've heard the farmer tell a tale 
 
 Of your wild doing; 
 How over every hill and dale, 
 
 He's caught you wooing: 
 
 Love-making to the tender wheat, 
 
 And fonder parley 
 With oats, that were not wild, and sweet 
 
 Kisses for barley. 
 
 This may be true, but here begin 
 
 Renunciation ; 
 Repent of all your former sin; 
 
 There's no temptation; 
 
 Because no other weed can grow 
 
 In this hard gravel ; 
 Stay with me till the winter snow 
 
 Bids me to travel. 
 
 19 
 
AT THE DAWNING OF THE DAY 
 
 pLY, fly, little bird, and tell me truly, 
 •■' Where wandereth my love, this dawn of day; 
 Wing thine airy flight, and may no blast unruly, 
 Swerve thy pinions from the ever pleasant way: 
 And the butterfly, O chase not. 
 And the shining dragon, race not. 
 Lest you miss my love this dawning of the day. 
 
 Why fly you not, little bird, but slyly 
 
 Twinkle merry eyes above the leafy spray? 
 Ah, a lover too hast thou, and sitting shyly. 
 
 Thou art waiting as he wings to thee his way : 
 Waiting for thy love to bring thee 
 A new song of love, to sing thee. 
 At this the happy dawning of the day. 
 
 Then tell me, little bird, is my love waiting 
 
 By the brooklet in the meadows far away, 
 For a lazy but true lover thus debating 
 
 With a bird that swings and sings upon a spray? 
 Then, farewell, I go to meet her. 
 Whose red lips are ever sweeter 
 Than rosebuds at the dawning of the day. 
 
 20 
 
VIVE LA BAGATELLE 
 
 A H, who would be an anchorite 
 ^^^ And live within a cell, 
 When there are pleasant palaces 
 
 That shelter quite as well? 
 And who would dress in cloth of hair, 
 
 When linen is as cheap, 
 Or drink from rusty canakins 
 
 When goblets are as deep? 
 
 Oh, they who'd banish days of love. 
 
 And silence hours of song, 
 Would make the world a wilderness 
 
 Where life were all too long: 
 But give us love and song and wine, 
 
 The jest and quick retort. 
 And earth will be a paradise. 
 
 Though life, alas, too short. 
 
 Still let the melody of song, 
 
 The ruby of the wine, 
 Twin streamlets, flow beneath the glow 
 
 Of eyes that are divine. 
 Today is all the time we know, 
 
 TomoiTow ne'er may be: 
 So here's to love and wine and song, 
 
 The sweet, immortal Three. 
 
 21 
 
COMPENSATION 
 
 "Even in laughter the heart is sorrowful, 
 and the end of that mirth is heaviness." 
 
 WHAT though thy mirth and thy laughter 
 Be followed by sorrowful sighs? 
 Doth not the darkness come after 
 The rosiest skies? 
 
 What though some sad heart be dying ? 
 
 Joyous ones spring to their birth. 
 So shall thy sorrow and sighing 
 
 Be followed by mirth. 
 
 All things are justly appointed, 
 
 To those who in spirit are just. 
 What seems to mortals disjointed, 
 
 But trieth their trust. 
 
 Nature, though gentle in dealing 
 With those who obey her in love ; 
 
 Scourges the bold hand for stealing 
 Her flame from above. 
 
 22 
 
Scourges, yet smiles on the sinner 
 
 Who leaps the cloud ramparts of heaven: 
 
 Yet he knows that the spirit within her 
 Has whispered, "Forgiven." 
 
 Pardoned, yet burdened with power, 
 He, like the life-boat, must launch 
 
 Into the waves that devour 
 Timbers less staunch. 
 
 As a man's power, so his duty — 
 These wei-e appointed for this — 
 
 See that the soul keep the beauty 
 Of nature's first kiss. 
 
 So must the tribute we render 
 To nature, be such as she gave. 
 
 Or Caesar himself were more tender 
 To treacherous slave. 
 
 All things are justly appointed 
 To those who in spirit are just. 
 
 Each makes himself the anointed 
 Of God, or base dust. 
 
 23 
 
PEACE 
 
 JPEACE! peace! Is there no peace 
 ^ *, Within the crescent of our waking hours? 
 No restful moment when our joys increase 
 Like growths of odorous flowers ? 
 
 No time when all our duty 
 
 Is but to calmly wait in perfect rest, 
 Like hanging fruit that ripens into beauty, 
 
 By labor undistressed? 
 
 Or must we hail thee, Sleep, 
 
 As the sole moment of a blissful calm, 
 A rich unconsciousness wherein we steep 
 
 Bruised senses as in balm? 
 
 Then come, but bring no dream 
 
 Of waking life to fret me as I lie 
 On thy dear bosom : rather let my stream 
 
 Of life run softly dry. 
 
 24 
 
FORCE 
 
 I come from the infinite dome 
 Over-arching on high, 
 Where the sun and the stars have their home, 
 That ye mortals call sky. 
 
 I am that which doth open each seed, 
 
 Where all hidden it clings, 
 Riving rocks with a tremulous weed. 
 
 As its petal upsprings. 
 
 Like a wave over meadows of bloom, 
 
 I pass as a breath : 
 But my voice in the canon's deep gloom, 
 
 Is the tocsin of death. 
 
 I am that, which moves lip unto lip. 
 
 In a lover's embrace: 
 But I snatch the keen sword from the hip, 
 
 Where race hateth race. 
 
 25 
 
No touch is so tender, but I 
 
 Have inspired the hand, 
 No blow is so fell, where men die, 
 
 But I wielded the brand. 
 
 The home wind that fills the white sails 
 
 Is the breath of my mouth: 
 Yet I crouch where the parched Arab wails. 
 
 For I am the drouth. 
 
 I have lifted each mountainous height, 
 
 With its tent peaks of snow, 
 I have cleft it apart in my might, 
 
 That the rivers should flow. 
 
 The wild stars that pass through the night 
 
 With a flash, and are gone. 
 Forever I urge in their flight. 
 
 As they ever flee on. 
 
 My will stretches out to the poles 
 
 Of the uttermost sun. 
 Yet moves at thy side and controls 
 
 Thy deeds, one by one. 
 
 For I am the limitless space, 
 
 Stars my pathways have trod : 
 
 Could I fail, so would life, time and place, 
 I am force, I am God. 
 
 26 
 
SONG 
 
 COULD you forget to love me, 
 And I forget to woo ; 
 There'd be no heaven above me, 
 
 There'd be no joy for you, 
 Could you forget to love me, 
 And I forget to woo. 
 
 But that day cometh never. 
 For love that loveth true 
 
 Is as the light forever. 
 
 That each day must renew; 
 
 So that day cometh never 
 To love that loveth true. 
 
 27 
 
AUTUMN'S BURIAL 
 
 HARK! light footsteps patter; 
 No one near I see: 
 'Tis the winds that scatter 
 Dead leaves from the tree. 
 
 Yet I make confession, 
 
 That I feel a dread 
 Of the dead procession 
 
 Burying its dead. 
 
 Through the naked branches 
 
 Peers the pallid Queen 
 Weaving ghastly fancies 
 
 With her fickle sheen. 
 
 Mockery of mortals, 
 
 Skeleton on high, 
 Sentinel of portals 
 
 Where souls never die. 
 
 28 
 
White as alabaster, 
 
 Thou art like a tomb 
 
 Reared above disaster, 
 Brightest in the gloom. 
 
 Still the leaves keep shifting, 
 Through the silent night, 
 
 Mournful faces lifting 
 In the wavering light. 
 
 And they mourn with reason, 
 As they restless wave, 
 
 For they bear a season, 
 Dying, to the grave. 
 
 Dead — the last endearment. 
 Sadly they bestow: 
 
 Winding like a cerement, 
 With the driftina: snow. 
 
 29 
 
MY TOWNIES 
 
 I HAVE no garden, but a humble street, 
 Meeting another, forms a fair retreat, 
 Where at a corner, standing in a glade. 
 Trees arch together for a cooling shade. 
 Ail the young spring-time, through each summer morn, 
 I hear a music on the breezes borne. 
 The call of birds awaking, bids me rise 
 To catch the glory of the early skies. 
 No cry of labour in their joyous rune, 
 Their toils are playtime and their speech a tune; 
 Instinct with life that knoweth naught of ill, 
 Unfettered as a leaping mountain rill, — 
 Then shrieks the tumult of man's loftier life, 
 The vain endeavour and the sordid strife. 
 
 O, come, calm moments! on my ear to pour 
 Thy floods melodious, at my urban door. 
 Usher, ye birds, my days, with thy glad hymn, 
 To leave my soul some echo, far and dim, 
 Through the dull hours of labour underpaid, 
 Wherein thy tones shall not completely fade; 
 Trusting another morn of song shall break, 
 Alluring me to rapture, as I wake. 
 Ye birds, thy voices softly shrill and wise, 
 Translate mv corner to a Paradise. 
 
 30 
 
FAIRIES' SONG 
 
 MT/'E have beauty that lasts forever 
 
 ^f^ In a land of eternal youth. 
 We have loves that no fate can sever, 
 We have lips that are sweet with truth. 
 
 We have eyes that no pang of sorrow 
 Has stained with a fruitless tear, 
 
 For today and tonight and tomorrow 
 Are a joy through the rolling year. 
 
 31 
 
I WONDER 
 
 IF you were a Princess in Fairy-land, 
 And sped on a gossamer wing, 
 Waving a wand in your dainty hand, 
 
 And if I were a Fairy King? 
 If I drew nigh with a lover's sigh, 
 And dropt on my bended knee, 
 Laying the crown of my kingdom down 
 At your feet, as a lover's fee ? 
 
 If we were like this, and it all were so, 
 
 I wonder what you would do. 
 I wonder if I should be told to go. 
 
 Or allowed to remain and woo. 
 I wonder if I would homeward fly, 
 
 To fetch you a fairy ring. 
 If you were a Princess in Fairyland, 
 
 And I were a Fairy King? 
 
 But you are a fairy now, in truth, 
 
 A wonderful, wingless fay. 
 And live in the fairy-land of youth. 
 
 Unthinking, from day to day : 
 While I go down to the busy town,— 
 
 So what is the use to sing 
 "If you were a Princess in Fairyland, 
 
 And if I were a Fairy King?" 
 
 32 
 
A DEBUT 
 
 A SEED fell in a tiny rift 
 -^^ Between the rocks, one autumn day, 
 And there beneath the deepening drift, 
 Benumbed, it pining lay. 
 
 No throbbing of the mountain rills, 
 
 No music of a passing bird, 
 The wild wind shrieking through the hills, 
 
 Was the sole voice it heard. 
 
 It ne'er had known the petals rare. 
 
 Within whose folds it sprang to birth. 
 
 The dead leaves fluttered in the air 
 When first it saw the earth. 
 
 Thus long it lay and murmured sore. 
 That it was only born to die; 
 
 One morn it heard the sudden roar 
 Of torrents rushing by. 
 
 33 
 
As from a midnight of despair 
 
 It seemed to wake, to live, to rise, 
 
 And bursting upward to the air. 
 It saw the azure skies. 
 
 And swaying in the balmy wind. 
 
 With artless pride and dainty grace, 
 
 It bent above a stream to find 
 Its own sweet pictured face. 
 
 34 
 
IDLENESS— (I) 
 
 GRANT me no idle hour when grief 
 Across my pathway steals, 
 Labour alone can bind the sheaf 
 Wherein the drowsy poppy leaf 
 Its soothing balm conceals. 
 
 But grant me days of idleness 
 
 When joy comes wandering by, 
 My greatest toil a fond caress, 
 A[rose's thorn my chief distress, 
 My moan, a lover's sigh. 
 
 Grant me no idle moment's space 
 
 To meet with death ah no! 
 Too long a gaze on that gaunt face, 
 And I might falter; let me place 
 My hand in his, and go. 
 
 35 
 
IDLENESS— (II) 
 
 CURSED with desires that ne'er fulfil, 
 With thoughts that faint ere we express, 
 Ambitions greater than the will, 
 Life riddles we may never guess. 
 
 Fain would I strive no more for gain, 
 Aye, barter all the world's success, 
 
 To roam the mountain and the plain 
 With thee alone, in Idleness. 
 
 36 
 
AT POMPEII 
 
 JOVE ! 'twas a glorious sight to see, 
 As I lay in a balcony, 
 The lava rivers from the crown 
 Of scarred Vesuvius, twisting down 
 Like golden serpents to the town 
 Low lying by the trembling sea. 
 
 (Nor hand nor foot of me was free 
 To leave my couch, to rise and flee), 
 I saw each lift its glittering head, 
 As through some narrowing gorge it sped, 
 And hissing o'er the meadows spread 
 A thousand tongues toward Pompeii, 
 
 I saw scared faces that I knew, 
 Each like the other, pallid, through 
 The darkness of the cinder blast. 
 Heedless of me, go hurrying past, 
 Leaving me like a splintered mast 
 Stranded where waves their wreckage strew. 
 
There was no friendship in that hour, 
 When each one felt the deadly shower, 
 And heard the murmur, then the roar 
 Of fierce waves from hell's farthest shore, 
 Dash up and break and topple o'er 
 The ramparts of a mountain tower. 
 
 My slaves had fled at the first sight 
 Of that black heaven and lurid light: 
 But I had been alone before 
 When heaven was black as midnight's core, 
 And earth as red as hell's broad floor 
 With blood, yet felt not this af right: 
 
 Times past, when my veins' fiercer flood 
 Sped which way beckoning beauty stood, 
 Had I not held two perfect lips 
 Against my own, that would eclipse 
 The flame of lava where it dips 
 To kiss the haylands into blood? 
 
 But by some fancy of my brain. 
 We two, who had been one, were twain — 
 Passed and repassed, until of late 
 There grew within my soul a hate 
 To see her coldly move in state. 
 Who trembling on my breast had lain. 
 
 38 
 
And now, once more adown the street 
 They came with steps by fear made fleet, 
 Bearing her with the face serene, 
 Curved Hps no whit less red I ween 
 Than if this horror ne'er had been, 
 And every breath were odorous sweet. 
 
 She saw me as I helpless lay 
 Waiting the end on that dread day: — - 
 Her voice was like a trumpet blast, 
 They trembled, stopped and looked^aghast. 
 Then bore me with her, as they passed 
 Down to the waters of the bay. 
 
 Far out upon the wild, vexed tide, 
 Her galley dipped its glittering side; 
 
 She pointed to a cockle boat 
 
 That scarce seemed large enough to float. 
 
 "Bear him, I wait." — Her full white throat 
 Turned from me; was it love or pride? 
 
 They left me with the galley's crew, 
 I clung across the thwarts, I knew 
 There was but little time to waste, 
 I swear I cried to them to haste; 
 A great red flood of flame effaced 
 The rocking mountain from my view. 
 
 39 
 
Gods! they had worshipped her — those slaves 
 Sped like winged demons o'er the waves, 
 Back to a hell. I saw her stand, 
 Lean toward me, kiss her slender hand, 
 Then sink into the molten sand, 
 Among a thousand other graves. 
 
 ■40 
 
EPHEMERA 
 
 LIFE at best a scented flower, 
 Catch the sweeetness ere it fly: 
 Love at most the perfume's power 
 Borne upon a summer sigh. 
 
 Grief at worst a passing shower, 
 Else the flowers of Hfe grow dry; 
 
 Death a perfect midnight hour 
 Where in dreamless sleep we lie. 
 
 41 
 
ULYSSES 
 
 AH, my Penelope! Our year of bliss 
 Sped all too swiftly to its final hour : 
 War, triumph, shipwreck, pain, have not had power 
 To efface the impress of our last, long kiss. 
 
 If I have lingered, 'tis that envious seas 
 
 Have lifted up their huge and shapeless hands, 
 And thrust me like drift seaweed upon sands. 
 
 Or rugged headlands, or fair kirtled leas. 
 
 If I have lingered, ere I homeward turned, 
 It was not that a lessened love I bore 
 For thee, Penelope, for more and more 
 
 The sacred flame within my bosom burned. 
 
 42 
 
But a wild, roving passion grew within: 
 A thirst to fill my life with daring deeds: 
 To come again a wanderer, to the meads 
 
 Of Ithaca, and its sweet queen re- win. 
 
 To tell her of those victories of mine: 
 
 To tell her of vast struggles and defeat. 
 To feel her sympathy, and see the sweet 
 
 Unconscious tears of love and pity shine. 
 
 And I have come at last, Penelope, 
 
 And every thread thy trembling fingers spun 
 Through weary waiting years, are knit as one 
 
 Strong girdle binding me for aye to thee. 
 
 43 
 
PENELOPE 
 
 WHY are her eyelids drooped in sorrow ? 
 Why does she sit the Uvelong day, 
 And whisper to herself, "To-morrow," 
 And guide the shuttle on its way ? 
 
 Why do her lips compress and whiten, 
 As courtly wooers bend the knee ? 
 
 Why does no blushing colour heighten 
 Upon her cheek so fair to see ? 
 
 Why does her queenly figure tremble. 
 
 As rival suitors strain the cord ? 
 Because her heart can scarce dissemble 
 
 The love she bears her absent lord. 
 
 Why does her heart beat wilder motion 
 
 When one strong arm the prize has earned ? 
 
 Because from o'er the treacherous ocean, 
 The lost Ulysses has returned. 
 
 Ah, would, as in this ancient fable. 
 
 Love's stoiy were forever thus : 
 Our own would not be so unstable, 
 
 If such true hearts should beat for us. 
 
 44 
 
ORPHEUS 
 
 WERE there no life but this, 
 Then were it well : 
 But if there be, and that my soul should miss 
 The heaven where thine would dwell, 
 Thy spirit would disdain the lonely bliss, 
 And seek mine down in hell. 
 
 45 
 
LAUNCELOT 
 I. 
 
 OTHOU whose eyes like falchions flash above, 
 Cleaving my heart in twain, 
 I fear not thy swift strokes, though thou should 'st prove 
 
 My everlasting pain : 
 When thou art cruelest, then most I love, 
 Though it be all in vain. 
 
 And yet, I sometimes hold thee half unworthy 
 
 Of this strong love of mine: 
 Though I be very basest of the earthy, 
 
 Yet is my love divine. 
 
 A higher spirit that takes my form and fashion, 
 
 And is dragged down to thee, 
 By the gross weight of a fierce mortal passion 
 
 Riving the soul of me. 
 
 Thine eyes, as liquid as a dew-clad flower, 
 
 Touch me with softer rays. 
 And of their gentleness a subtler power 
 
 Encircleth all my ways. 
 
 46 
 
So that no whither would my footsteps flee, 
 
 But that lithe arms and soft 
 Stretch out and in their clasp encompass me, 
 
 Mine honour stained thus oft. 
 
 So that no whither would my soul arise, 
 
 Rending itself from thee: 
 But that it feels the magic of thine eyes, 
 
 And is no longer free. 
 
 Oh, broken honour! making hell and heaven 
 
 Here on the pleasant earth. 
 Would that some spear-shaft through this breast had 
 driven, 
 
 Ere I had stained thy worth. 
 
 II. 
 
 We have repented of our grievous sin : 
 
 Long years of toil and prayer, 
 And Christ's great mercy, yet for us may win 
 
 Of heaven some little share. 
 
 "We have repented," so our lips may speak 
 
 To calm the soul's unrest: 
 But if one sad regret for parting break 
 
 Our peace, we are unblest. 
 
 47 
 
Yea, all unblest, not fully shrived of guilt, 
 
 Weary in prayer, I sleep, 
 And dream that once again I grasp the hilt, 
 
 And on my charger leap. 
 
 Dream that the lists are opened, that I bear 
 
 Brave knights before my lance: 
 Dream that the very fairest of the fair 
 
 Has deigned on me to glance. 
 
 Dream that her smile is of my life the charm. 
 
 Guiding mine ashen spear. 
 Lending a triple strength unto mine arm, 
 
 So that I know not fear. 
 
 Dream that I smite upon the foeman's crest. 
 
 Great blows for her sweet sake : 
 Dream that her love has made me doubly blest, 
 
 And dreaming thus, awake — 
 
 Awake, as smitten by a foeman's steel. 
 
 And stretch me for my sword. 
 Till full aroused, within my hand I feel 
 
 The cross of Christ my Lord. 
 
 Then is it that I know myself unblest, 
 
 All unrepentent yet: 
 For like a barbed spear point in the breast, 
 
 Clingeth one wild regret. 
 
 48 
 
Yet do I pray me eveiy morn and night, 
 
 And through the heavy day, 
 That from my soul it may be severed quite, 
 
 Bearing my guilt away. 
 
 III. 
 
 What are these bonds about my weary arms ? 
 
 I feel, but see them not: 
 Ha, Merlin! hast thou wrought on me with charms. 
 
 Chaining me to this spot ? 
 
 Unhand me; nay, I will not thus be bound — 
 
 Bring me my spear and shield. 
 Has thy dull ear caught not the welcome sound 
 
 Born from the tented field ? 
 
 Hark ! for they call me — lift my wizard spell, — 
 
 The Queen doth speak my name: 
 Yea, I will go, though thou be leagued with hell, 
 
 To work my fall and shame. 
 
 Thy knight is coming. Love, for thee alone, 
 
 But for thine eyes to see ; 
 Through the wild din of arms, thy gentlest tone 
 
 Seeketh and findeth me. 
 
 49 
 
Not for hoarse plaudits do I seek the fray: 
 
 O Love! I dare arise 
 And battle with an Empire, if it lay 
 
 In sight of thy sweet eyes— 
 
 Of thy dear eyes, sweet Love, whose faintest beam 
 Maketh my heart to leap — 
 
 Ah me, that cruel, sweet, eternal dream, 
 The life of me asleep. 
 
 Oh ! holy brother, kneel thee by my side. 
 
 And fold my hands in prayer, 
 That I may supplicate the Crucified 
 
 To lift me from despair. 
 
 Am I forgiven? Oh! Lord, thou knowest best 
 
 How this wild heart has fought 
 Against its passion, finding little rest 
 
 In prayer and lonely thought. 
 
 So little rest and comfort come to those 
 
 Whose lives apart are set, 
 And bearing ever, to their mournful close, 
 
 A burden of regret. 
 
 And yet I fear not, though I trembling pray, 
 
 Raising my hands to heaven:-- 
 We shall be lifted to the purer day, 
 
 Together and forgiven. 
 
 50 
 
GUINEVERE 
 
 I. 
 
 WHY does he love me ? That I am more fair 
 Than other women ? 'Twas perchance his eye 
 That led him on. I saw the fancy there; 
 Would God I could have bid the fancy die. 
 
 Ah me! no wonder that I sometimes sink, 
 
 In silent horror, on my chapel floor, 
 My hand has mixed this cup that I must drink, 
 
 And taste its bitterness for evermore. 
 
 But I do love him! 0, my Launcelot! 
 
 My love, my knight, my — nay, nay, not my king: 
 Heaven, I do hate that word which comes to blot 
 
 My full expression, like some evil thing. 
 
 Why should I thus be chained to one whose love 
 
 Is ever like a cold, blue, placid bay 
 That winds fret never, and where clouds above. 
 
 Pass smooth and tearless on their lofty way. 
 
 51 
 
I would the ocean of my love were flecked 
 
 With foam from leaping billows, and the sky 
 
 Like to a tattered banner; though they WTecked 
 Our tossing galley, in his arms I'd die. 
 
 I would have breakers in my lover's breast, 
 I would have storms upon my lover's brow; 
 
 Then were each calm a blessed time of rest, 
 A sweet repentance, a new spoken vow. 
 
 O! I do love thee, mine own Launcelot. 
 
 Why not proclaim it to the world and fiee ? 
 Earth's very barrenest and bleakest spot 
 
 Were a whole paradise to thee and me. 
 
 WTiy does he take me not ? It were my will. 
 
 What matter now ? the future were the same. 
 Some frayed and straining strand of honour still 
 
 Binds him to keep the secret of my shame. 
 
 God, forgive us, for that first strange touch 
 Of lips that made us tremble so, that there 
 
 We dropped the jewel, honour — Oh, how much. 
 And on which side repentance, lies despair? 
 
 Repentance! That is past, it is too late: — 
 0, come, my love, our only heaven is this! — 
 
 Swoon conscience with caresses, and let fate 
 Strike when we heed not, even as we kiss. 
 
 52 
 
II. 
 
 I have shut out the world, and wear, as weeds, 
 The garment of my bridal to the cross, 
 
 Strange answers to my prayers my spirit needs, 
 To make me look upon the world as dross. 
 
 Oh, I have prayed so madly to forget, 
 
 And poured out rivers of my burning tears: 
 
 But even as I rise from prayer, regret 
 
 Pierces my spirit, for the banished years. 
 
 Heaven keep me from despair. This weight of sin 
 
 \ Sinks me each moment nearer to the flame. 
 Can this poor, fluttering, sable garment win 
 One day of peace for me, or hide my shame. 
 
 Oh! I could tear it from my aching form. 
 And leap forth unforgiven into hell. 
 
 For I might see, even once, within the storm 
 Of fiery waves, the face I love too well. 
 
 God, strike me or forgive me, I can bear 
 But little longer this great weight of woe. 
 
 Why does that calm, sad face with golden hair, 
 Come, like an angel's, in the sunset-glow ? 
 
 It cannot come to mock me with its calm 
 And sinless lips, and passionless, sad eyes, 
 
 Too sorrowful for tears: perchance some balm 
 It brings my tortured spirit from the skies. 
 
 53 
 
Mayhap it meaneth that I am forgiven; 
 
 That vision could no other message bring. — 
 Surely the dear Christ looking down from heaven, 
 
 Hath as much mercy as an injured king. 
 
 Oh! I do feel some little thrill of hope. — 
 Not all forgiven: but I can feel as one, 
 
 Who journeying all night up a mountain slope, 
 Catches the first wanri radiance of the sun. 
 
 Thank God, that if I can not banish thought, 
 
 I yet can pray to have it purified; 
 Trembling I feel the answer I have sought. 
 
 Lift my sad heart, and bear it, like a tide. 
 
 And yet my tears fall even as I pray: 
 
 But tears may help to wash my sinful feet. 
 
 And make them worthier the narrow way 
 
 They bleeding travel — may their steps be fleet. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Strong hope! — sweet peace! — How often have I led 
 Some faint and weeping fugitive from sin 
 
 Up to their very threshold, and then fled. 
 Not daring of myself to enter in. 
 
 54 
 
I had a vision of a noble knight. 
 
 Who rode up to a golden city's gate, 
 
 And smote upon the panel shining bnght, 
 
 With his cross-hilted sword, nor brooked to wait. 
 
 An angel was the porter, and he cried 
 
 "Who art thou that thus comest as a king ?" 
 
 "A sinner, for whom Christ was crucified, 
 "His blood is all the warrant that I bring. 
 
 "Stay, ere I enter, weeping in the way 
 
 "There lies a woman, and His blood was shed 
 
 "For her as for us all. Her sisters say, 
 
 " 'Unclean, unclean!' and pass with lifted head— 
 
 "And yet she toils and weeps, and lives to pray 
 "Forgiveness: but her heart is faint with fear: 
 
 "And these good sisters' words, her steps delay — " 
 The angel answered, "Bring the woman here." 
 
 And as they came up to the golden door. 
 
 The angel spake not: but flung open wide 
 The portal, - 1 awaking saw no more, 
 
 But that they entered walking side by side. 
 
 This was the pure, sweet vision of my sleep. 
 And hope came with a flood of morning light, 
 
 And faith with the calm sunset, and will keep 
 My soul in peace till there be no more night. 
 
 oo 
 
TRISTRAM to ISOLT 
 A Song 
 
 I. 
 
 IF we had known, as now we know, 
 The measure of our love and hate! 
 Could time again but come and go, 
 
 Ah! would we dare to brave our fate! 
 I daring all for love of thee, 
 
 Casting aside my truth and fame, 
 And thou, because of trust in me, 
 
 Scorning the pointing hand of blame, 
 How would it be, Love! Sweet! 
 Could we be young again and meet ? 
 
 II. 
 
 " If we had known as now we know ? " 
 
 Sad question born of sad regret, 
 Ah! why has time no ebb and flow. 
 
 Like tides that turn — or stars that set 
 Only to rise some fairer night, 
 
 And shed their radiance from above, 
 On eyes that rival their sweet light — 
 
 No answer comes, my Sweet! my Love! 
 There is no answer. Love, my Sweet, 
 For youth is past, and time is fleet. 
 
 56 
 
ISOLT to TRISTRAM 
 
 SING thee a song, my Love! 
 I would that these lips could sing: 
 But the day goes by with a weary tread, 
 And night but maketh the eyelids red 
 \^'ith tears that are shed for spring. 
 
 For a spring that ne'er may come, 
 
 The spring of a fancied past, 
 When birds were mated and built and sang 
 In their joyous loves, till the forest rang 
 
 With music too sweet to last. 
 
 But this is summer time. 
 
 Alas! that it should be so: 
 And thy nest is built in a distant tree. 
 And we vaguely wonder how it can be, 
 
 Half dumb with a sense of woe. 
 
 And the autumn draweth nigh, 
 
 With touches of silver frost. 
 And the winter days they come and go 
 For the birds return to mate— ah. no! 
 
 Our spring is forever lost. 
 
 .57 
 
SONG 
 
 WHAT care I for critics' scorn, 
 If you love my singing? 
 From your eyelids every mom, 
 Heavenly light for me is born, 
 Golden glory flinging. 
 
 What care I though wise heads sneer, 
 
 If you chide me never? 
 All their censure comes not near 
 "While your words are in my ear. 
 
 Ringing there forever. 
 
 What care I for spite or hate? 
 
 So I know you love me, 
 Every cruel turn of fate 
 Leaves, me still with heart elate. 
 
 And blue skies above me. 
 
 58 
 
DOWN THE GULF 
 
 SHE was here last season, down by the sea, 
 In this village set like a sea-bird's home 
 In a cleft of crags, where the wind blows free 
 Its ceaseless songs to the dancing foam. 
 
 Shall I know her cottage from all the rest ? 
 
 Surely some halo about the place. 
 Or last, late bloom where her feet have press'd, 
 
 Remains to tell of her own sweet grace. 
 
 Surely one blossom ? Alas! not one, 
 
 For the dead grass lies in the wind's cold hand, 
 With a gem of frost in its hair; the sun 
 
 Hath light, not warmth, for the dreary land. 
 
 Is there no trace where her feet have strayed, 
 No spot she favoured above the rest, 
 
 Down on the sand where the swallows played. 
 Out on the rocks where the waves caressed ? 
 
 59 
 
I will stand just here where the path curves down 
 Sharp and steep, for she must have stood 
 
 Just at this edge of the little town, 
 To gaze out over the purple flood. 
 
 Do I not know, for my heart beats ''Yes," 
 
 She stood and thought as she gazed — Ah. well, 
 
 Ye winds of summer, ye could not guess 
 
 Her thought, or guessing ye could not tell. 
 
 O miner, seeking the golden star 
 
 Lying deep hid in the earth's alloy. 
 You have seen its gleam in the rosy spar, 
 
 And reeled, half faint, in your trembling joy. 
 
 You have pressed your lips to the stones and wept, 
 You have laughed, and pressed them, again, again, 
 
 You have come at night like a thief, and crept 
 Noiseless and fearing the eyes of men. 
 
 You have done all this for a spark of gold 
 Clasped in a stone, and I blame you not: 
 
 Would you blame me now if the north wind told 
 That I pressed my lips to this rocky spot ? 
 
 Just here where I swear her hand has lain, 
 As she turned to rest from the steep ascent : 
 
 miner, you know not of joy or pain. 
 If you bow not too, as my head is bent. 
 
 60 
 
What came of your star in the rock and earth, 
 Have you got it still ? No, it pinched away, 
 
 And left you nought but your tears; your mirth 
 
 You crushed with your heart in the quartz that day. 
 
 Go forth again till you find a gleam 
 
 In the rosy rock: you may laugh and kiss, 
 
 But leave it there, so your soul may dream 
 
 Of a morrow's wealth that your toil might miss. 
 
 Ill 
 
TWO SPINNERS 
 
 1AM the spider, and I have spun 
 My fragile web, where the morning sun 
 Will burnish a moment the midnight dew, 
 That falters and sparkles and filters through, 
 A corselet, fit for a faery queen, 
 (Like a picture-pane when the frost is keen), 
 Entrapping the heedless buttej-fly, 
 As it wavering flutters idly by. 
 Yet deep in a corner I weave my woof 
 Under the pauper's sinking roof, 
 Batten on vermin, and hear the tone 
 Of the sluggard's curse or the cripple's groan. 
 What is the use of my gossamer skein. 
 Spun, broken, respun, and snapped again ? 
 What is mine, to the silkwonn's art ? 
 Her treasure is sold in the crowded mart. 
 The starry pattern I daily weave 
 May tear and tatter; but who shall grieve ? 
 So devil-may-care in the world am I, 
 For it profits none, though I live or die. 
 What does she do but spin her thread, 
 Then drop in her selfmade cerement, dead. 
 By the human hand that robbed her bed ? 
 She knoweth naught in her silent den. 
 Blind, patient spinner, neath far Cevennes. 
 And I know naught; yet I spin my span. 
 Wondering ever why each began. 
 
 G2 
 
THE EQUINOX 
 
 ^^E sang, O winds, my song of birth, 
 ' For I was born what time of year 
 Ye sweep lone places of the earth ; 
 Press on my brow, I have no fear. 
 
 For I have turned my face to catch 
 Thy fierce embrace, thy bitter kiss; 
 
 Have seen beneath the battened hatch, 
 Forms shrinking from thy fearsome bliss. 
 
 When I shall pass, as it must be, 
 Sing, sing as now I hear ye sing. 
 
 From a mad shriek to melody 
 
 Sweet as bird's voices in the Spring. 
 
 Winds of the mountain or the plain, 
 Winds that but silver-tip the grass, 
 
 Winds of the Street, do not disdain 
 To touch me as ye hunying pass. 
 
 63 
 
Fill to the full life's straining sail.. 
 No matter whither I may tack, 
 A\Tien weathering thy last wild gale, 
 Knowing I never shall voyage back. 
 
 Leaving upon some unknown shore, 
 
 My cargo's wreckage, tempest tossed; 
 
 And I, half thankful 'twas no more. 
 And that so little had been lost. 
 
 64 
 
PHYLLIS 
 
 WHEN Phyllis laughs, it is a smile 
 So sweet, so coy, it would beguile 
 Even St. Anthony a while, 
 When Phyllis laughs. 
 
 When Phyllis weeps, it is a tear 
 So mournful, pitiful, yet clear 
 As waters from a mountain mere, 
 When Phyllis weeps. 
 
 When Phyllis neither laughs nor weeps, 
 A light beneath her eyelids creeps. 
 Then, then, I know her bosom keeps 
 Sweet thoughts for me. 
 
 65 
 
IN ARCADY 
 
 I LI V^ ED in Arcady when I was young, 
 That was a long four thousand years ago. 
 And on the hillsides lay me down and sung 
 
 My songs to Phyllis, when the sun was low: 
 For we were shepherds there, where tendrils clung 
 About the tree-boles that the wild vines know. 
 
 And still I live in Arcady, and she 
 
 Listens to hear me pipe my simple lay, 
 
 Just as in that young time when life was free, 
 And all the year was a perpetual May. 
 
 I wonder if I yet shall singing be. 
 
 Another thousand years beyond today ? 
 
 I shall, if Phyllis doth but lean her ear 
 To catch again what melody my voice 
 
 May pour to her, and touch me without fear, 
 Laying her hand on mine, her only choice. 
 
 0! I shall sing again, and drawing near, 
 
 Press with my lips, and two souls shall rejoice. 
 
 66 
 
LINES WRITTEN IN A MINIATURE 
 "CHURCH SERVICE" 
 
 TWILL need good eyes, my girl, 
 To read this type of pearl. 
 
 'Twill need a better head, 
 To know what thou hast read. 
 
 'Twill need the best of hearts, 
 
 To heed what it imparts. 
 
 Which being done, my girl, 
 Thou hast the priceless pearl. 
 
 67 
 
TO LOUIS FRECHETTE 
 
 TO you, my elder brother, far above 
 The bigotry of races or of creeds, 
 This palm of friendship I extend in love 
 That sows no discord's seeds. 
 
 68 
 
A DREAM VERSE 
 To Albani 
 
 COULDJ but have unstinted choice 
 Of all the gems that sparkle clear, 
 I'd choose the jewel of thy voice, 
 To hang forever in mine ear. 
 
 69 
 
INDIVIDUALITY 
 
 STEAL not another's art; 
 Lofty, create thine own ; 
 Take from thy throbbing heart 
 Its colour, and impart 
 
 That to thy canvas' tone. 
 
 Do not as others do, 
 
 Some imitative thing; 
 With thine own passion woo 
 The beautiful, the true; 
 
 Fearless, spread thine own wing. 
 
 Then soar; for thou shalt rise 
 Far from the lower earth, 
 And float serene in skies 
 Where but the simple, wise. 
 
 Meet and give worth for worth. 
 
 70 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD, 1900 
 
 THOU new-time temple that dost ope 
 So soon thy portals to the wave 
 Of progress, can we dare to hope 
 A vaster aisle, a loftier nave ? 
 
 Where we, the nations, all must take, 
 Like myriad artisans combined, 
 
 Our parts, to fill thy space, and make 
 Great frescoes from the human mind. 
 
 I turn to find in temples past 
 
 That song and science, faith and art, 
 Change with the hour, and there but last, 
 
 Changeless, the passions of the heart. 
 
 These are the same in every space, 
 Bold paintings by the hand of Fate, 
 
 In lurid colours that efface 
 
 All others boundless love and hate. 
 
 71 
 
And at the door of every fane, 
 
 There stands a maiden, smiling, fair; 
 
 But in her hand the sword of pain, 
 And snow-white lilies in her hair. 
 
 Immutable for time to be, 
 
 Man's heart; till life's last sand be poured: 
 For at thy portal still I see 
 
 The maiden with the naked sword. 
 
 i'J. 
 
THE NOR'-WEST COURIER 
 
 I. 
 
 UP, my dogs, merrily, 
 The morn sun is shining. 
 Our path is uncertain, 
 And night's sombre curtain 
 May drop on us, verily, 
 Ere time for reclining: 
 So, up, without whining, 
 You rascals, instanter, 
 Come into your places — 
 There, stretch out your traces, 
 And off at a canter. 
 
 II. 
 
 Up, my dogs, cheerily, 
 The noon sun is glowing. 
 Fast and still faster. 
 Come, follow your master, 
 Or tonight we may wearily, 
 Tired and drearily 
 Travel, not knowing 
 What moment disaster 
 May sweep in the storm-blast, 
 And over each form cast 
 A shroud, in its blowing. 
 
III. 
 
 On, my dogs, steadily, 
 Though keen winds are shifting 
 The snow flakes, and drifting 
 Them straight in our faces. 
 Come, answer me readily. 
 Not wildly or headily 
 Plunging and lifting 
 Your feet, keep your paces; 
 For yet we shall weather 
 The blizzard together, 
 Though evil our case is. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Sleep, my dogs, cosily. 
 Coiled near the fire 
 That higher and higher 
 Sheds its light rosily 
 Out o'er the snow and sky, 
 Sleep in the ruddy glow, 
 Letting Keewaydin blow 
 Fierce in his ire: 
 Sleep, my dogs, soundly. 
 For tomorrow we roundly 
 Must buffet the foe. 
 
 74 
 
THE TIME O'DAY 
 
 WHAT is the time o'day, my love, 
 What is the time o'day ? 
 The time o'day is four i'th' morn, 
 For the birds are whisp'ring in the thorn, 
 And roses the breast of the east adorn. 
 So that's the time o'day. 
 
 What is the time o'day, my love, 
 
 What is the time o'day ? 
 The time o'day is the hour o'noon, 
 For I hear the sound of the horn's shrill tune, 
 Oh ! was there ever a sweeter rune 
 r the fields this time o'day? 
 
 What is the time o'day, my love. 
 
 What is the time o'day ? 
 The time o'day is the stroke o'seven. 
 For toil is over, the moon's in Heaven, 
 And peace is with us, our ills to leaven, 
 
 So that's the time o'day. 
 
 What is the time o'day, my love. 
 
 What is the time o'day ? 
 The day is over, the night is here. 
 And I lie with my arm around thee, dear, 
 Yes, nestle your head without a fear. 
 
 Till the dawn brings back the day. 
 
THE BELLS OF DORVAL 
 
 AS sweet as the chimes of bluebells 
 Must be to a Fairy's ear, 
 Are the tongues of the bells of Dorval 
 
 That every morn I hear ; 
 As the birds awake me early, 
 
 From their hawthorn lodges near, 
 As the sun strikes on my eyelids. 
 With its painless, golden spear. 
 
 76 
 
THE BLOODROOT 
 
 FIRST bursting bud of spring, before tiiy portal 
 I greet thee, half in awe as one thought dead, 
 Or being dead, hast risen up, immortal; 
 
 Thou wast so long within thy wintry bed. 
 
 In that groined crypt of gnarled roots, didst slumber? 
 
 Or art thou given to us a new birth 
 Outstripping other flower-babes thereunder, 
 
 That follow thee to make a pleasant earth ? 
 
 Mysterious one, whose coming or whose exit 
 I know not more than doth the fool or wise, 
 
 I worry not my soul; then why perplex it 
 To seek beneath a simple flower's disguise? 
 
 And yet some eve I'll lay me where no care is, 
 
 Nigh to some tree bole where the soft earths cling, 
 
 And watch all night as children watch for fairies, 
 If I may see thy sudden bloom upspring. 
 
 It will be vain, for in one moment's winking 
 From arduous waiting, I awake shall start 
 
 And find before me, as with fear half shrinking. 
 The Bloodroot's eye searching out all my heart. 
 
 77 
 
ATONEMENT 
 
 THERE is no creed or dogma that can lift 
 A sunken, sinful soul. 
 Salvation is no charitable gift, 
 Or miser's niggard dole. 
 
 Upon the waters of tempestuous life, 
 
 The soul must float alone, 
 By its own penitence and bitter strife. 
 
 Must for itself atone. 
 
 78 
 
THE LAKE 
 
 " TVJ E K-kek-gonce-se-mint-te-gon , 
 *- ^ That my bark has floated on. 
 Never more the blade I'll dip 
 And across thy wavelets slip; 
 Or with widening wake shall trace ' 
 Silver fans to hide thy face. 
 Never more at dusk or dawn, 
 Nek-kek-gonce-se-mint-te-gon . 
 
 Never more thine echoes clear. 
 
 Ten sweet calls, salute mine ear; 
 But in memory shall last 
 That rare Autumn of the past, 
 With its Indian-summer haze 
 Softer than a woman's gaze. 
 Waters pure as Helicon, 
 Nek-kek-gonce-se-mint-te-gon . 
 
 •This name is the Ojibwa for '"Little-ottei-tail-lake, and is 
 here spelled phonetieally from the sound that I have heard. 
 
SONG 
 
 ONLY a dream, I care not, 
 If it be only so; 
 For, in the life, I dare not 
 Whisper so fondly low: 
 With a laugh she might break my heart. 
 If I wooed in the light of day: ^ 
 Yet in dreams she smiles as she sits apart; 
 But she never hath said me nay. 
 
 Only a dream, no matter, 
 
 If it be life to me; 
 Daylight but comes to scatter 
 
 Scenes where I long to be. 
 Thus ever I seek her face, 
 
 And ever it fades away. 
 As I slip from the light of the darkness. 
 
 Into the dark of the day. 
 
 80 
 
TO MY CHILDREN 
 
 TO you, my verse, I sing this lullaby; 
 For are you not the children of my heart ? 
 Something of me, the laughter and the sigh, 
 A sense we know, from others far apart. 
 
 You, you are all the progeny I own; 
 
 Such wilful babes, that with your prattle soothe 
 My mind, when otherwise my lips might moan ; 
 
 You make the crooked pathway straight and smooth. 
 
 I think I am a parent who has brought 
 This brood of noisy youngsters to a wild. 
 
 Where passers, careless, nod; but with no thought. 
 That one, perchance, may be a best-loved child. 
 
 A little cripple with uneven feet. 
 
 And gait uncertain, but to me so dear. 
 
 For that its eyes and smile and lips repeat 
 Something I knew of in a long past year. 
 
 Good, bad, indifferent, yet I love you all. 
 
 Because ye are mine own, my flesh and blood; 
 
 So shall I, till I hear the final call. 
 
 And pay my obolus and cross the flood. 
 
 81 
 
THE CLAYMORE— A.D. 1788 
 
 W! 
 
 'HAT is my story ? 
 A blaze of glory, 
 A gleam, a flash and a deadly stroke, 
 The battle's thunder, 
 A pale face under, 
 Life rent asunder 
 In a pall of smoke. 
 
 And 0, how brightly 
 
 The forges nightly 
 Shone as they welded us true and strong; 
 
 For the beacon's light 
 
 On the hills at night 
 
 Were shining bright 
 To the gathering throng. 
 
 O, for the raid 
 
 With the shining blade. 
 And the deed that lives in the story told ; 
 
 For the arms to wield 
 
 The sword and shield 
 
 On the bloody field, 
 As in days of old. 
 
 82 
 
Rusted with stains 
 
 From the Southron's veins, 
 
 An idle relic, a useless brand ; 
 For the days are fled 
 When true hearts bled — 
 And the King is dead 
 
 In a distant land. 
 
 No more together 
 
 O'er hill and heather 
 The clans shall gather to greet their king, 
 
 For the broad bright blade 
 
 Its part has played, 
 
 And away is laid 
 Where the cobwebs cling. 
 
 93 
 
SIR WILLIAM VAN HORNE 
 
 WHERE shall those feet tread on the unknown way, 
 That here explored, untiring, our dull sod ? 
 What shall that mind discover and survey 
 Upon the illimitable fields of God ? 
 
 Must we not feel that swift from star to star. 
 From station unto station, that great soul, 
 
 An emigrant, shall reach from worlds afar, 
 
 Through wide-flung portals. Being's perfect goal! 
 
 84 
 
THE HAWTHORN TREE 
 
 NO gloomy sepulchre for me. 
 Make ashes of me when I die, 
 Then take them to the "Hawthorn tree 
 ^ And scatter to the open sky, 
 The dust that would be free. 
 
 Thus, when each spring returns so fair. 
 Richer may glow the slopes of grass, 
 
 Just for the very love they bear 
 
 For one who never more may pass, 
 
 Whose spirit lingers there. 
 
 85 
 
SONNETS 
 
COLUMBUS 
 
 AS some strong soul that launches from life's shore. 
 Fearless, yet awed, upon the silent, wide 
 Ocean of all eternity, whose tide 
 Laps a new kingdom when the voyage is o'er. 
 
 So thou, Columbus, fearing not the roar 
 Of unknown billows, stood prophetic eyed 
 On thy frail deck, until at last they cried 
 
 "Land! land!" and a new world lay stretched before. 
 
 Thou set'st upon earth's brow a golden crown, 
 The bright tiara of the Occident, 
 The splendid goal of freedom was thy gift. 
 
 Would that some spirit hearing thy renown. 
 Might hitherward return the path it went, 
 And with such tidings wearied hearts uplift. 
 
CHAMPLAIN 
 
 FROM the far Breton shore, there sped one day, 
 White- winged, prayerful, steadfast, a strong so«l 
 That heeded not of night, or storm, or dole; 
 But with great purpose cleft tempestuous spray. 
 
 Nature was impotent that flight to stay ; 
 
 The powers of Neptune lost their mad control : 
 So thus the seabird fluttered to its goal, 
 
 The rock-walled waters of a magic bay. 
 
 There Champlain stood as one whose arm could win 
 The glory of the ages; with God's gift 
 The eye to pierce the dull immediate haze, 
 He caught the vista of the golden ways 
 Posterity must march ; there did he lift 
 
 Alone, the latch of Empire and strode in. 
 
 90 
 
IMPATIENCE 
 
 O, tardy hours! speed swiftlier in thy flight! 
 Wait not the slow calm journey of the sun. 
 But pass in clustered legions. Let each one 
 
 Spread its three score of dainty wings. The night 
 
 Is weary to the eyes that long for light. 
 
 O, lagging time ! too slow thy course doth run 
 To him, who waits another day begun; 
 
 Haste like the bird outstripping keenest sight. 
 
 Why do I pray thee thus to hurry by, 
 
 Shrinking still less life's short and slender thread 
 Because she waiteth, whose dear lips have said 
 
 "Come," and the hour to meet her draweth nigh; 
 And I, though sinner, like a saint, despise 
 The weary time 'twixt me and paradise. 
 
 91 
 
SHE KNOWETH NAUGHT 
 
 SHE knoweth naught of me by human sign, 
 Nor I of her, and yet we calmly wait. 
 Mayhap in vain, the bidding of our fate. 
 She knoweth naught: for unto her no line. 
 Nor single word of love from pen of mine, 
 Goeth to tell her of my lonely state. 
 Nathless, in spirit we communicate, 
 And in swift dreams each other's thoughts divine. 
 So upon unseen parchment I indite 
 Fond messages to her and she to me. 
 In sleep she readeth what I fain would write. 
 And in night visions her sweet thoughts I see. 
 
 Thus oft from heart to heart some message slips, 
 Penned by no fingers, uttered by no lips. 
 
 92 
 
METIS, 1885 
 
 HOW many buffets must the bondsman bear, 
 Till in just anger he return the blow 
 With a swift stroke that lays the tyrant low ? 
 How long must he the galling fetters wear, 
 Till it be well that he arise and dare 
 
 To rend and cast them, counting each his foe 
 Who would subdue within his breast the glow 
 Of equal manhood that is kindled there ? 
 How long a people mutely suffer wrong ? 
 
 How long be suppliant ere they make demand ? 
 How long be spurned, till in a surging throng 
 
 They gather, stem of purpose, strong of hand, 
 To throttle the oppressor of the land. 
 
 And live immortal in their country's song ? 
 
 93 
 
NOVEMBER 
 
 AH me! the days die young and nights grow old, 
 In this the eleventh hour of the year. 
 
 Faded are maple tints. The placid mere 
 Reflects no more the crimson and the gold 
 Of the year's sunset. Through the barren wold 
 
 The snowflakes wander like the ghosts of leaves. 
 
 Nature, indeed, is desolate and grieves 
 Among the sighing branches that uphold 
 Naught but blown fragments of some ruined nest; 
 
 Then turns a fair face to the bluff caress 
 
 Of a new season. O, Forgetfulness! 
 Methinks thou art a sad world's dearest guest. 
 
 So much remembrance is too much regret. 
 
 We love, we lose, we weep and we forget. 
 
 94 
 
TOIL 
 
 I FIND not pleasure in the bane of toil, 
 Nor great reward in labour bravely done, — 
 Smug egotism's flattery;— I, for one, 
 Sigh not for plough or spade to turn the soil. 
 And reap rich harvestings of corn and oil, 
 
 Beneath the fierce glow of the noonday sun : 
 Nor hear I music in the ceaseless run 
 Of busy mills; nor seek I ocean's spoil. 
 
 Why should I love that given me as a curse ? 
 Nay, give me idleness to dream away 
 The moments that my dreams make happiness: 
 I hate the cant that fawns with a caress 
 Upon the fate that rules its little day— 
 
 I love not labour even making verse. 
 
 95 
 
DIALECT VERSES 
 
SHAKESPEER AT DEAD-HOSS CRICK 
 
 (A romance of the North- West) 
 
 IT wuz way out west o' the praree, 
 Whar the mountains begins to raise, 
 Pokin' holes in them snowy blankets 
 Uv clouds that acrost 'em lays. 
 
 We wuz washin' down in the gulches, 
 
 An' the culler wuz commin' well: 
 An' the fellers wuz crowdin' from east and we^, 
 
 Till the place wuz es full es hell. 
 
 I've bin in some dandy places, 
 
 Whar things wuz a kinder hot: 
 But I never, in my hul mortal days. 
 
 Struck so near to the real old spot. 
 
 It aint no use to tell yer 
 
 The names uv the boys that wuz thair: 
 But they wuz the hardest crowd uv pills 
 
 That ever wuz straight an' squar. 
 
 99 
 
I mean thar wam't no skulkin,' 
 
 An' shootin' behind a plank: 
 Er plantin' a cold deck up on a pal, 
 
 An' standin' in with the bank. 
 
 Thar wuz plenty uv cold-decks planted, 
 
 An' plenty uv shootin' done: 
 But the fust wuz all in the way uv biz 
 
 An' the other wuz straight es a gun. 
 
 Ef thar wuz a row, it wuz up-an'-up, 
 An' the fust that draw'd cud bark, 
 
 An' we gen'ly lifted the other chap. 
 An' planted him out in the dark. 
 
 But I wuz agoin' to tell yer 
 
 A thing that occurr'd one night, 
 
 Jes' to show yer the kinder chaps them wuz, 
 In their trew an' proper light. 
 
 The biggest strikes wuz by Dead-Hoss Crick, 
 
 An' thar, on a summer's day. 
 We wuz all at work, when we heered the bells 
 
 Uv the mule teams up the way. 
 
 In another minit they come in sight, 
 
 A-joggin' down the road: 
 An' I reckon it made them boys' eyes stare 
 
 To see what they had fer load. 
 
 100 
 
They was sittin' on trunks an' boxes, 
 
 An' bumpin' right along — 
 A gal, four men, an' a woman, 
 
 An' the gal wuz singin' a song. 
 
 An' lookin' es pleased an' happy 
 
 Es if ridin' a Pulman car: 
 An' when she ketched sight uv the boys' red ahirttf. 
 
 She hollered out "Thar they are." 
 
 An' kep' on clappin' her little ban's, 
 
 An' laffin' jes' like a bird: 
 I guess them boys jes' thought that laff 
 
 The sweetest they'd ever heard. 
 
 Fer they all quit work, an' foller'd 
 Them teams, with their starin' eyes, 
 
 Till they turned the corner at Tucker's dam. 
 An' then, I think, the skies 
 
 Grow'd jes' a trifle darker, — 
 
 Though the sun wuz a kinder strong, — 
 An' I noticed that some o' the younger boys 
 
 Didn't work, that day, so long. 
 
 When I come down from the gulch that night» 
 
 I was tired an' wet an' mad: 
 Fer I hadn't got quite the pile o' dust 
 
 That I thought I oughter had. 
 
 lOl 
 
An' when I come to the "Dead-Hoss House" 
 
 (The biggest bar in the town) 
 The boys wuz standin' in threes an' fours 
 
 A-jawin' each other down. 
 
 I hadn't heered no shootin', 
 
 An' no one wuz givin' chin ; 
 An' they all wuz lookin' so ser'us like, 
 
 That I couldn't take it in. 
 
 So I jes' turns into the bar an' calls 
 
 Fer a finger of whiskey white, 
 When the slinger sez, es he antied the stuff, 
 
 "Er ye goin' to the show to-night ?" 
 
 An' thar, hung up on the bar-room wall, 
 An' printed in black an' yeller, 
 
 I reads the bill uv the play that night: 
 It wuz Shakspeer's play "Otheller". 
 
 I knowed it es soon es I seen the name, 
 
 Fer I'd seen it onct before 
 Way down in Frisco', in '62, 
 
 The year I jined the war: 
 
 But the boys know'd nuthin' better 
 
 Than the snidest nigger show, 
 Er a dance hall in behind a bar, 
 
 With a faro bank below. 
 
 102 
 
So them wuz the player people 
 
 That passed us that very day, 
 An' I snicker'd to think how the boys would stare 
 
 When they seen a fust-class play. 
 
 That hall wuz crowded fer standin' room. 
 An' they scooped the dust, you bet: 
 
 An' lots uv the boys give double weight, 
 Fer that laff wuz a-ringin' yet. 
 
 The boys wuz rather startled 
 
 When they seen the nigger coon, 
 What jumped with the Gran' Cook's dater, 
 
 But they took to him pooty soon. 
 
 But they wuz down on the feller 
 
 What scoopt the nigger in. 
 An' hissed an' hollered so loud at last 
 
 Ye could hardly hear him chin. 
 
 I seen the boys wuz nervus, 
 
 An* a kinder wicked too : 
 So I edges my way along to see 
 
 Jes' what they wuz goin' to do. 
 
 The play wuz about nigh over, 
 
 Es well es my mem'ry went. 
 An' the laffin' gal wuz lyin' asleep 
 
 In a bed like a little tent. 
 
 103 
 
When in jumps the nigger feller, 
 
 A-ravin', full's a goat, 
 An' chuckin' a bowie-knife on the floor, 
 
 He grips her 'roun the throat. 
 
 She jes' gave one little holler: 
 
 But that wuz mor'n enufF: 
 Fer I know'd them boys wuz nervus, 
 
 An' wouldn't stand no guff. 
 
 It wuz ping — ping — ^ping -es quick es flash, 
 An' the nigger, he fell back dead: 
 
 An' the gk\ lep' up with a skeert, white face. 
 An' lifted his lifeless head. 
 
 An' called out "Father, father!" 
 
 An' kiss'd his eyes an' lips: 
 But when she seen them stains uv blood 
 
 A rednin' her finger tips. 
 
 She jes' riz up like a spectre, 
 
 Es white an' es cold an' tall, 
 That a shiver went right through every man 
 
 That wuz standin' in that hall. 
 
 Her voice wuz low, but every word 
 Wuz es clear es a bell at night: 
 
 "May his red blood drip forever 
 Before his murderers' sight." 
 
 104 
 
Thar warn't no talk uv lynchin', 
 
 For we wnzn't up to fun: 
 It wuz rough on her, but es for them. 
 
 We know'd how the thing wuz done. 
 
 That night, es I rolled my blankets out, 
 
 I found three bags uv dust: 
 An' I knowed the boys what put them thar. 
 
 An' they know'd I'd keep their trust. 
 
 I sometimes wonder ef that thar gal 
 
 Can ever sing or lafF: 
 Perhaps she don't an' perhaps she do: 
 
 Fer she don't know only half. 
 
 She don't know that me an' another chap. 
 
 In the early momin' light. 
 Went up the road by Tucker's dam. 
 
 Where fust she come in sight, 
 
 An' found three bodies lyin' 
 
 A-restin* peacefully, 
 Jes' like three miners sleepin', 
 
 Under a cedar tree. 
 
 She don't know that they luv'd her. 
 
 An' I guess she never will: 
 But them wuz the kinder tuffs that worked 
 
 In the gulch by Dead-Hoss Hill. 
 
 105 
 
That's all I know uv Shakspeer, 
 
 An' it's all I want to know: 
 I've never bin to a play since then, 
 
 An' I never want to go. 
 
 They say he's made lots uv heroes: 
 Well, gimme my ch'ice an' pick, 
 
 Ad' I'll take the three he made that night 
 In the gulch at Dead-Hoss Crick. 
 
 106 
 
THE CRITIC OF THE PILOT MOUND 
 
 I AIN'T got nuthin' to talk of, 
 An' I never wuz much on a speech, 
 Besides I've given up jawin' 
 
 Of things that is out o' my reach. 
 
 An' I reckon thar ain't no profit, 
 
 That any of us can see, 
 Repeatin' sumthin' some other chap 
 
 Sez slicker ner you er me. 
 
 But thar's sometimes a powerful feehn' 
 
 A-movin' around within, 
 A-forcin' a quiet feller like me. 
 
 To get on his feet an' chin. 
 
 An' if he's got sumthin' to holler, 
 Sumthin' that's good an' true. 
 
 P'raps it'll bear repeatin', 
 
 Ef he puts it a way that's new. 
 
 I never wuz no great student, 
 
 Studyin' ain't in my line, 
 Ranchin' out on the praree, 
 
 Er blastin' down in the mine. 
 
 107 
 
Yet I see a heap o' beauty — 
 
 Poetry you would say- 
 In the things that's passin' around me 
 
 Pretty nigh every day. 
 
 Yet I never thought of askin' 
 
 The question, what natur' meant, 
 
 Lay in' the praree out on the flat 
 An' the mountain up like a tent ? 
 
 An' I don't think natur' reckoned 
 Herself, on the reason why. 
 
 When she put the green in the forest, 
 An' the blue up thar in the sky. 
 
 D'ye think when I hear the singin' 
 Of birds in the early spring, 
 
 Er watch a hawk in the twilight. 
 Afloat on its steady wing, 
 
 That I want to collar the critters, 
 
 An' tear 'em apart to see 
 Jest what has produced that music, 
 
 Er the power to float so free ? 
 
 D'ye think 'cos a man's a doctor. 
 An' knows how each muscle moves. 
 
 He kin get a tenderer feelin' 
 
 From the hand of the gal he loves ? 
 
 108 
 
Thar's a sayin' that "knowledge is power", 
 An' I don't say it ain't no such : 
 
 But haven't you seen some fellers 
 
 That pretty nigh know'd too much — 
 
 Filled to bustin' with knowledge, 
 
 Latin an' French an' Greek: 
 Yet couldn't aheerd the talkin' 
 
 Of fogs in the cedar creek ? 
 
 I didn't come here to be sassy, 
 
 An' say that a man's a fool, 
 Fer knowin' mor 'n I know myself 
 
 Of things that ye learn in school. 
 
 For school is a powerful blessin' 
 
 To boys in the winter spell, 
 Readin' an' learnin' to cypher, 
 
 An' — courtin' the gals as well. 
 
 Lamin's a thing I've wished fer 
 
 Many an' many a trip, 
 When I've heerd the fellers talkin' 
 
 0' things that wuz past my grip. 
 
 Fer I've thought ef I'd the knowledge 
 They wuz slingin' around so loose 
 
 Fer no partic'lar purpose, 
 I'd put it to better use. 
 
 109 
 
Yet I ain't got any envy 
 
 Of fellers that knows a pile, 
 
 Fer who knows, a heap o' lamin' 
 Mebbe would cramp my style. 
 
 But here's the idee that strikes me, 
 When I'm lis'nin' to lamed talk, 
 
 That it don't get onto the beauties 
 That's plain es a piece of chalk. 
 
 Huntin' around fer sumthin' 
 
 That does'nt amount to shucks, 
 
 No more ner a weed on a mountain— 
 Sumthin' they calls a "crux." 
 
 Cruxes is puzzles, they tell me, 
 Then cruxes be damned, sez I, 
 
 Give me the wide bright river, 
 Give me the open sky. 
 
 Out in the long swift rapid. 
 
 The track may be kinder queer: 
 
 But keep yer eye on the river. 
 
 An' yer arm'll know how to steer. 
 
 But if ye git feelin' nervous 
 With eyein' one nasty spot, 
 
 The chances is ten to nuthin' 
 That you an' yer load's upsot. 
 
 110 
 
'Cos why? When the stream's arushin' 
 Like thought from a mighty mind, 
 
 Thar ain't no time fer viewin' 
 The bubbles that's left behind. 
 
 They wuz part of old natur's pictur' : 
 But what matter fer you to know 
 
 Ef they wuz the risin' of nat'ral gas, 
 Er the breath of a rat below ? 
 
 Jist a word to the students of writers 
 Who hev writ the swaggerest things: 
 
 Don't lose the beauty of flyin' birds, 
 Dissectin' their cold ded wings. 
 
 Look out on them mountain ranges 
 An' the clouds that acrost 'em float, 
 
 What matter is it to you er me, 
 Ef that speck es a bar er goat ? 
 
 Be keerful, a-huntin' fer little parts, 
 That they don't so fill yer soul, 
 
 That it won't hev room when yer finished. 
 To take in the mighty whole. 
 
 Ill 
 
"THE INJUN" 
 (An incident in the Minnesota Massacre of 1862). 
 
 YE say the Injuns' all alike, 
 A bad an' sneakin' lot: 
 An' ain't no use fer nuthin' 
 
 So the cusses should be shot ? 
 
 Well, p'raps they is, an' p'raps they ain't, 
 
 A lazy, wuthless crowd : 
 Yet durn my skin ef I kin see 
 
 Why white men chin so loud. 
 
 Ef some o' them poor devils kicks 
 'Cause things ain't run quite squar', 
 
 An' jumps an Indian agent's ranch, 
 An' yanks his bloomin' har, 
 
 Thar ain't no thought uv causes 
 
 An' no one cares a cuss, 
 It's jes' call out the Blue Coats, 
 
 An' give them sumthin' wuss. 
 
 112 
 
Thar's good an' bad in Injun, 
 
 An' thar's good an' bad in White: 
 
 But, somehow, they is alius wrong, 
 An' we is alius right. 
 
 But I'm an old, old timer, 
 I've jes' bin here so long, 
 
 That I kin mostly alius tell 
 
 The ones that's right an' wrong. 
 
 An' ye can bet yer sainted life, 
 When things get steamin' hot. 
 
 That some white fool or knave has lit 
 The fire that biles the pot. 
 
 Ye think the Injun isn't squar'? 
 
 That's jes' whar ye mistake: 
 Fer bein' true to them that's true, 
 
 The Injun scoops the cake. 
 
 Fer I kin tell ye what occurr'd 
 
 Way back in 'sixty-two 
 When things in Minnesota State 
 
 Wuz lookin' kinder blue. 
 
 The Sioux wuz up an' on the shoot 
 A-slingin' round their lead, 
 
 An' scalpin' every mother's son 
 That wuzn't bald or dead. 
 
 113 
 
Thar warn't a livin' Yankee- 
 
 An' lots wuz brave an' bold — 
 That would have crossed them plains alone 
 Fer a waggon load uv gold. 
 
 'Cause why ? We know'd the Guv'ment 
 
 Wuzn't treatin' Injuns fair: 
 That's why they riz an' painted things, 
 
 An' raised the settlers' hair. 
 
 That summer a fur-trader 
 
 Came up from Montreal, 
 An' on his way up to Garry 
 
 He landed at Saint Paul. 
 
 An' all the guides an' hunters said 
 
 He couldn't cross the plains, 
 Fer them thar painted devils 
 
 Wuz layin' low fer trains. 
 
 He only laffed, an' said he know'd 
 
 The Injuns all his life, 
 An' he wuz goin' to mosey through 
 
 An' take along his wife. 
 
 An' she, you bet, wuz plucky, 
 
 An' said she'd go along, 
 Fer Injuns only went fer them 
 
 As alius done 'em wrong. 
 
 114 
 
Now I should smile .... 'twuz riskey — 
 
 An' all the fellers said 
 The chances of their gettin' through 
 
 Wam't wuth an ounce uv lead. 
 
 But sure's yer bom they started, 
 Right out the northern trail, 
 
 Aboard a praree schooner 
 With a Texan steer fer sail. 
 
 An' right a-top that creekin' cart, 
 
 Upon the highest rack, 
 That trader nailed a bloomin' rag — 
 
 An English Union Jack. 
 
 So that he'd gone and done it, 
 f- ' Es stubborn es a mule: 
 An' knowin' fellers said we'd seen 
 The last of that damn fool. 
 
 They wuzn't long upon the trail 
 
 Before a band of Reds 
 Got on their tracks, an' foller'd up, 
 
 A-goin' to shave their heads. 
 
 But when they seen that little flag 
 f^', A-stickin' on the cart, 
 They jes' said, "Hudson Bay. Go on. 
 "Good trader with good heart." 
 
 115 
 
An' when they struck the river, 
 
 An' took to their canoe, 
 'Twuz that thar bit uv culler 
 
 That seen 'em safely through. 
 
 Fer thar that cussed little rag 
 
 Went floatin' through the State — 
 
 A-flappin' in the face uv death. 
 An' smilin' right at fate. 
 
 That wuz the way them 'tarnal fools 
 Crossed them thar blazin' plains, 
 
 An' floated down the windin' Red 
 Through waves with bloody stains. 
 
 What give that flag its virtoo ? 
 
 What's thar in red an' blue, 
 To make a man an' woman dar' 
 
 What others dasen't do ? 
 
 Jes' this — an' Injuns know'd it — 
 That whar' them cullers flew, 
 
 The men that lived beneath them 
 Wuz mostly straight an' true. 
 
 That when they made a bargain, 
 'Twuz jes' as strong an' tight 
 
 As if 't were drawn on sheep-skin 
 An' signed in black an' white. 
 
 116 
 
That's how them Hudson traders done 
 Fer mor'n two hundred year: 
 
 That's why that trader feller crossed 
 Them plains without a fear. 
 
 An' jes' so long es white men 
 Don't try some little game 
 
 To euchre out the red man, 
 So long he will act the same. 
 
 But when the men beneath that flag 
 
 Tries any monkey ways, 
 Then, good-bye, old time friendship, 
 
 Fer the Injun's goin' ter raise. 
 
 But jes' believe me, wunst for all, 
 To them that treats him fair. 
 
 The Injun mostly alius wuz. 
 And is, and will be, square. 
 
 117 
 
A CRY FROM THE SASKATCHEWAN 
 March 1885 
 
 MY pale-face brothers, I am no longer young 
 And hot of blood like the young buffalo 
 Seeking a foe. The wind, long winters past, 
 That rocked the cedar and pine that made your cradles. 
 Drifted the tossing snow flakes in my hair 
 And cooled the stormy passions in my breast. 
 
 More than a thousand moons I've seen take shape. 
 Like to fair, slender daughters of your race, 
 That love rounds into perfect symmetry. 
 Yes! I am old, and soon shall lay me down, 
 And calmly wait the unseen messengers 
 Who will clasp my hands and make me young again, 
 And bear me to wide plains, and forests deep. 
 That shall for ever bud and blossom untilled. 
 
 brothers, I have ever been your friend 
 
 1 have not sat within the Shabandoan 
 In moody silence, when the barking dogs 
 Told me some stranger to my race appeared. 
 
 118 
 
Nay! 1 have arisen, and come with open hands 
 To meet him, and make him welcome to my fire, 
 And laid the fairest matting for his rest. 
 And with these hands that knew not how to serve, 
 Have I prepared the best that stream or plain 
 Could yield, to prove the friendship that I bore. 
 
 Upon these withered hands is there a stain 
 Of the bright life-blood of your favoured race ? 
 Ay, one, and only one. It is a tale 
 So short it scarce can weary. 
 
 He came to us, 
 Lost, frozen, starving, and I said, "O Son, 
 Whether there be scant or plenty you shall share." 
 And all the native skill I had to cure 
 And soothe the ills that do befall my race 
 I lavished on him: and he lived with us. 
 And all the arts that you call rude, he learned. 
 His hand could set the snare, could carve the pipe. 
 Could bend the bark to the swan-breasted craft, 
 Could dip its cedar wing in treacherous waves 
 Of giddy rapids, and bring it safely curving 
 Up the swift-backing eddy, where he could poise 
 His spear a moment, like a fatal shaft 
 From the Great Spirit's quiver: then strike and lift 
 With one continuous unerring motion. 
 From the blood-dabbled wave, the river chieftain. 
 All this, and more, these lips and hands of mine 
 Taught him, as though he were my flesh and blood. 
 
 119 
 
One child I had, more than the rest I loved, 
 Her mother's latest love and pain and joy, 
 Made sacred by the life-blood of that mother, 
 Splashed on its little face one wild dark night 
 When my tribe's deadly foe came down on us. 
 She grew like the red willow swaying in the wind, 
 As lithe, as strong, as supple. Oh ! her lips 
 Were like the rich frost-darkened berry unplucked : 
 Her eyes, such as I've seen when suddenly. 
 In the deep winding of a forest trail. 
 In early spring I have met a startled doe 
 Wandering alone — I could not wing a shaft — 
 The same sweet eyes in wonder, fear and love. 
 
 He left us to go eastward to his people, 
 And come again when our long pointed shoes 
 Would make swift knifelike slashes on the bosoms 
 Of glistening snow-drifts: but, when he was gone, 
 I found her moaning near the river bank, 
 And gazing in the waters and drawing nigher. 
 And looking over into a foaming pool 
 Where once I saw whirl for a moment, and crush, 
 A bark canoe, and a great chieftain's arms 
 Thrown upward, and then pass away for ever. 
 
 I caught her arm and looked within her eyes. 
 And they were like her mother's, when first she knew 
 A son of hers might some day go to battle: 
 Except that these swam with cloud-shadowed tears, 
 And those with drops that glistened in the sun. 
 
 120 
 
I said no word : but to her brother's care 
 
 I gave her. Then with quiver full, and tomahawk, 
 
 And hunting knife keen-edged, alone I went 
 
 More swiftly than a winged arrow, or flight 
 
 Of southern-flying crane: upon his trail. 
 
 But he had travelled with a coward heart 
 
 That lent swift wings unto his flying feet: 
 
 But mine were borne by hurricanes of hate. 
 
 And on the second day, as I pressed through 
 
 The last thick willow growth of a great swamp. 
 
 There stood he, a score of bow lengths from my hand. 
 
 His ear had caught the sound of breaking stems. 
 
 And turning full about, his swart face grew 
 
 Like a last summer's sapless, sun-dried leaf: 
 
 While round the haft of a knife that once was mine, 
 
 His fingers made a quick convulsive clasp. 
 
 That proved him traitor, I was in no mood 
 
 To even the odds of fight that favoured me. 
 
 I flashed a long, barbed arrow from the sheath. 
 
 And running forward, set it in the string. 
 
 And drew it, with the strength of Nana, to the head: 
 
 But all too madly, for like a withered rush. 
 
 The bow snapt, and the barb drew back and tore 
 
 A furrow in my hand that spurted blood. 
 
 He gave a mocking laugh, for now the odds 
 
 Were even, and he was young and broad and strong. 
 
 I stopped not: had the arrow sped aright, 
 
 I think my blade would have drunk blood as soon. 
 
 He made a blow or guard, I know not what, 
 
 121 
 
But I was blown upon him like a pine 
 Reft from a mountain, and he fell without a cry. 
 I tore the bleeding trophy from his head, 
 And turned me back unto my desolate camp. 
 
 The sun was going down behind the hills. 
 
 As I strode to my wigwam. Entering there 
 
 I found her sitting, rocking to and fro 
 
 And chanting o'er a charm of beads and shells. 
 
 She turned with lips apart like one athirst. 
 
 I knew not what I did, for still I raged. 
 
 And throwing down the tuft of bloody hair, 
 
 Nigh to her, then paced me to the door. 
 
 And turning, said, half fiercely: "Minnota! Child! 
 
 A lock of lover's hair I bring you back." 
 
 She was my race, my blood in very truth! 
 
 She made no moan, nor cry, nor any sign 
 
 Of her intent: but reaching slowly cut. 
 
 Picked up the shrivelling skin and gazed at it 
 
 For one long moment: then into my eyes: 
 
 Then letting slip back from her shining shoulders 
 
 That were red golden with a shaft of flame 
 
 Shot from the hills, the blanket that was caught 
 
 Across her bosom, she with her left hand laid 
 
 The lock beneath the swelling of her ripening breast. 
 
 And swinging her right arm with a swift flash. 
 
 Pinned it there with a bright blade, and fell back. 
 
 122 
 
Can I tell more ? Alas, there is no more. 
 
 The sun of my life went down behind those hills, 
 
 And left me naught but twilight and dark night. 
 
 Oh ! I was like a mountainside bereft 
 
 Of its fresh verdure by a summer frost. 
 
 I planned a terrible revenge for this, 
 
 That would have swollen a river high with blood: 
 
 But once, a motherless infant of your race 
 
 Smiled in my face and turned me from my purpose. 
 
 'Tis thus, O my white brothers, I have not 
 
 Done one of all your race a single wrong. 
 
 How many of your race have injured mine. 
 
 And who of mine have made a red return, 
 
 I know not; — but that wrongs for ever cry. 
 
 But I am old and guided not by passion, 
 
 For I striven to learn and know your ways. 
 
 I have loved many of you, as my own : 
 
 I would my race could at a single bound. 
 
 Leap the great ocean of change that you have crossed 
 
 After a thousand years of buffetings. 
 
 I know of your traditions but an echo. 
 
 Yet if it be the truth, it tells me this: 
 
 That you have come through gradual years of change 
 
 To commune now with strange mysterious powers, 
 
 From the high pinnacle where I see you stand. 
 
 Like a long journey from the Eastern plain 
 
 For ever rising higher to the West, 
 
 You walk where mountains lift their snowy heads 
 
 123 
 
And see forever the golden sides of clouds. 
 I would that we could stand beside you there: 
 But the way is long and weary to our feet: 
 And we must rest upon a thousand slopes, 
 Before we touch the mountains where you dwell. 
 
 0, my white brother, you have wronged us much — 
 
 Mayhap unwittingly, yet are we wronged. 
 
 Doth not the glancing arrow from the bow 
 
 Of thine own kin, bury its fatal fang 
 
 As deep as though it bore a foeman's hate ? 
 
 But there are those who hate — I know not why — 
 Whose lives seem nothing but a poisonous scorn 
 Of all things time and custom make revered : 
 Others, who say they truly pity us, 
 But that we idly stand upon the way 
 Of their Great Spirit, Progress, a new God, 
 Who like the shrieking, fire-breathing demon, 
 That drags your luxury across the earth, 
 Mangles the child that wondering stands to gaze. 
 
 Far back before my earliest memory. 
 Before my father's, came people of your race, 
 With twofold object. Some there came to trade 
 And give in barter for fur-coated skins, 
 Clothing and food, and swift death-breathing weapons, 
 And deftly fashioned snares, whereby we brought 
 Great store of wealth and happiness to them: 
 Who gave us value as they counted worth. 
 
 124 
 
And there came others garmented in black, 
 Who sought no recompense for what they gave. 
 They told us of a new God, and his Son 
 Who died that we might live forever anew 
 In some fair after-life. 
 
 And those who bought 
 Our beaver-skins were also of this faith. 
 And we believed them and were satisfied. 
 And there came many who joined their lives with ours, 
 Who brought from you some learning of your race, 
 Who caught from us the love of boundless freedom, 
 And these two races side by side, perchance, 
 Were walking slowly towards your higher life. 
 
 Yet, I can see not that the new belief 
 Is better or purer than the one we held. 
 We worshipped one great everlasting Spirit, 
 Who, like a chief, ruled lands beyond the grave. 
 We strove to quell within the throbbing breast 
 All trembling fear, and fit ourselves to join 
 In the heart-lifting dangers that rejoice 
 Our fathers in the happy hunting grounds. 
 
 We taught a stem creed, giving blood for blood. 
 Blood for a broken word: it was the one, 
 The only final penalty for wrong. 
 The culprit was not hedged or fenced about 
 With laws so nicely intertwined and set, 
 That each might counteract the other's worth, 
 Nor any new law made we, seeming strong, 
 
 125 
 
Tagged like a new line to a rotten one, 
 Which latter, breaking at the ravelled flaw. 
 Gave freedom to the captive struggling fish : 
 Our laws were simple with full swift effect. 
 
 And now I think you weary of and chafe 
 Against the doctrines that you taught us first, 
 The doctrines of your mild, peace-loving Christ, 
 Who wore upon his brow a crown of thorns. 
 And you have made yourselves another Christ, 
 This Progress, crowned with iron, and fire and gold: 
 And all who will not turn and follow him. 
 Must fall beneath his iron feet, and die. 
 
 There came a time when many of your race 
 
 Builded their wigwams on the eastern rim 
 
 Of our great prairie stretching like a world : 
 
 Builded upon the bank of a broad stream. 
 
 And among those were some who joined with us 
 
 As others had : and so we lived in peace. 
 
 Then came a day, when we were told that these. 
 
 Our own true brothers bound to us by blood, 
 
 Had risen in wrath, and broken some new fetter 
 
 That you had made to bind them to one spot; 
 
 But you had ever spoken kind words to us. 
 
 And so we lifted not a hand to strike. 
 
 And you picked up the broken fetter that fell, 
 
 And welded it for those who fled not west. 
 
 But your new Christ followed, followed, followed. 
 
 126 
 
And then, at last, you came unto our doors, 
 
 Gorgeous in dress of crimson, blue and gold, 
 
 And held out to us, on sharp points of steel, 
 
 A bond by which we madly gave to you 
 
 Our fair illimitable hunting ground : 
 
 And got scant meal, that leaves the belly starved, 
 
 And a small plot where we may make our graves. 
 
 I know but little of your past traditions: 
 But I have heard, that for a thousand years 
 Your people have been skilled in making bonds 
 And keeping them— if profit lay therein. 
 O, my white brothers, glad am I this arm 
 Is weak, and that my blood is slow and cold : 
 For I have smoked with you the pipe of peace, 
 And I have held your hands within my own, 
 And called you my white brother and my friend : 
 So will I die and violate it not. 
 But my eyes are opened, and though very dim, 
 See both together, the future and the past. 
 
 Why did you come not to us first and say, 
 "My brothers, in our land beyond the waves 
 Our wives and children gasp for the pure air 
 In crowded wigwams: and the chiefs who rule, 
 Would bind a starving beggar if he dared 
 To fill his cavernous belly with the food 
 That his own hand had slain upon the hills." 
 Why came you not thus, saying openly : 
 "Give us some portion of your boundless plains, 
 
 127 
 
Your forests, lakes and streams: and we will come 
 And build a nation by your side, and teach 
 Your children what they care to learn of us: 
 And draw the limit line that shall divide 
 Our people from your people, our land from yours — 
 Only to mark the ownership — for our hands 
 Will stretch across to yours, our grateful hearts 
 Be ever with you in your wandering camps." 
 Would we have turned you from us ? I trow not. 
 Have we not given you all, for leave to die? 
 
 I know not of myself: but of my race 
 
 One, who deep learned the symbols of your tongue, 
 
 Told me, that in those wondrous knowledge leaves 
 
 That bud and bloom and wither every sun 
 
 Among your people, there are ungrateful words 
 
 Calling us a useless and a dying race. 
 
 That soon must pass and leave the land to you. 
 
 Yes! O my brothers, we are a dying race. 
 Dying of the very poison that you brought 
 And bartered with us for our native wealth. 
 Then turned you homeward to warm luxury. 
 Leaving us stretched upon the frozen plain — 
 Dying of the diseases, O my brothers! 
 That you have brought into our stainless blood. 
 
 Hark! O my brothers, I hear a cry, a shriek, 
 And there are crimson stains upon the snow. 
 There will be pools of blood in the spring grass. 
 
 128 
 
See, the half-brothers of my blood once more 
 Have broken their fetters, and set the arrow straight, 
 And drawn it to the head — I hear it sing — 
 Stand back! or many of your race shall weep. 
 
 I have no part in this, I am too old : 
 
 But I have many sons, and their sons' sons. 
 
 I know not whether they will cast themselves 
 
 Upon the glittering edge of strife, and die, 
 
 Like their forefathers in the golden past: 
 
 Or whether they will fold their hands and sicken, 
 
 And drop like rotting branches, one by one. 
 
 I see the cloud that blackens in the East, 
 
 I hear the murmur of the coming storm 
 
 Of blinding hail borne on a pitiless wind. 
 
 But, O my brothers, the storm winds of these plains 
 
 Blow not one way alone, but turn and whirl. 
 
 Sweeping from east to west, then back again. 
 
 And smiting every face with their wild hands. 
 
 And this storm raging westward shall return 
 
 And jagged lightning strike all sides alike. 
 
 Oh! the Ocean will thirst for the cool, fresh rivers. 
 For the streams will be salt with the tears of women. 
 
 129 
 
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