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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
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 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU
 
 SONGS OF 
 AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 BY 
 
 CLIVE PHILLIPPS-WOLLEY 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE' ' THE CHICAMON STONE' 
 
 ' GOLD GOLD IN CARIBOO ' ETC. 
 
 LONDON 
 SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 
 
 1902 
 
 [All rights reserved]
 
 PR 
 
 0,03 
 
 TO MY WIFE, 

 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 FOREWORD I 
 
 TO MY WIFE 4 
 
 A SONG OF THE AXE 6 
 
 TO BURNABY AND THE CORRESPONDENTS . . . 8 
 
 IS CANADA LOYAL? lO 
 
 ODE FOR THE DIAMOND JUBILEE . . . . I3 
 
 THE KOOTENAY PROSPECTOR 1 6 
 
 THE WESTERN PIONEER 22 
 
 OUR WESTERN GIRL 26 
 
 A CHRISTMAS GREETING 29 
 
 TRAWLING OUT 3^ 
 
 THE CHAIN OF EMPIRE 34 
 
 A WESTERN YACHTING SONG 41 
 
 THE SEA QUEEN WAKES 44 
 
 THE U.E. LOYALISTS 47 
 
 SONG OF THE WIFE 5 1 
 
 FOOLED 58 
 
 FEBRUARY 22 65 
 
 A CONTRAST 68 
 
 THE COLONISTS' PRAYER 72
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 strathcona's cavaliers 75 
 
 AN invitation 79 
 
 TO Britain's ' grand rounds ' . . . .82 
 
 THE troubadour OF SPRING 86 
 
 THE WORTH OF THE PRIZE 89 
 
 SEED CORN 95 
 
 TO DR. GEORGE 99 
 
 A barbarian's LITANY IO3 
 
 NIGHT ON THE FRONTIER . . . . . 106 
 
 FAILED? IIO 
 
 ENGLAND'S DAY II4 
 
 THEIR TESTAMENT II7 
 
 IN MEMORIAM I20 
 
 RUSSIAN SONG I23 
 
 LONELY I WANDER 1 25 
 
 THREE TABLEAUX I27 
 
 TABLEAU ......... 129 
 
 THE BLOOMING OF THE ROSE I3I
 
 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 ' Hast thou no other blessing, O my father, 
 For me thine hunter ? ' It was Esau's cry, 
 
 Who left his brother all the gear to gather. 
 To tramp free hills and sleep beneath blue 
 sky. 
 
 And Isaac answered, ' Esau, all is given : 
 
 The right to rule ; the gold and easy days : 
 Thine the wild lands, made rich by dews of 
 heaven ; 
 The sword to keep — free feet, to break new 
 ways. 
 
 B
 
 2 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 ' No g-ilded cage to cramp thy splendid muscle, 
 No ceaseless striving for an empty gain, 
 
 But strength to throw a new world in the tussle 
 That makes Man master, and rough places 
 plain. 
 
 ' Game of a thousand hills for herded cattle ; 
 
 Sweet-scented hemlock for thy weary head ; 
 The wind for harper ; for thy pastime, battle ; 
 
 And for thy record, " In all lands he led." 
 
 * And at the last, when Jacob's yoke is breaking, 
 When all thy hard-won empires call him 
 "lord," 
 
 A startled world, its greedy dreams forsaking, 
 Shall see thy brother leaning on thy sword.'
 
 FOREWORD 3 
 
 Colonial Esau ! wouldst thou change thy 
 pottage 
 For Jacob's birthright, morning air for 
 smoke — 
 Take Jacob's palace for thy backwoods cottage, 
 His fettered feet for thine which know no 
 yoke — 
 
 His victories won for thy delight in winning. 
 His wedded fortunes for the fate you woo. 
 
 His work well ended for thy work beginning, 
 Memories of deeds for deeds still left to do ? 
 
 B 2
 
 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 TO MY WIFE 
 
 On a mist-hidden ridge of the mountain 
 
 Where the chamois and ttv live alone, 
 Lies a hunter who watches the fountain, 
 
 And the stars watch the hunter, mine own. 
 There's just room for his rifle beside him, 
 
 Just room for his guide at his feet ; 
 Some two dozen inches divide him 
 
 From death, and eternity, sweet. 
 The mountain with gray hoary fingers 
 
 Points up to the heaven above : 
 He kneels to his God first — then lingers. 
 
 And wistfully dreams of his love. 
 The torrent that rages beneath him 
 
 Just makes itself heard in a moan.
 
 TO MY WIFE 5 
 
 While the thunder-clouds, stooping, enwreath 
 him 
 
 And curtain his pillow of stone. 
 The lightning that gleams on his face, girl, 
 
 Finds a smile born of thinking of thee ; 
 And the storm wind that swept o'er the place, 
 
 girl, 
 
 Took a love message over the sea : 
 For soft grows the pillow of stone, dear, 
 
 All the mountain with beauty is rife ; 
 There is nothing for him to bemoan, dear. 
 
 Who can trust in his God and his wife.
 
 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESA U 
 
 A SONG OF THE AXE 
 
 When winter winds storm, and the snow-flakes 
 swarm, 
 
 And the forest is soft to our tread ; 
 When the women folk sit by their fires fresh lit, 
 
 Oh, ho, for the tuque of red ! 
 With our strong arms bare, it 's little we care 
 
 For politics, rates, or tax ; 
 Let the good steel ring on the forest king — 
 
 Oh, ho, for the swing of the axe ! 
 
 Your diamonds may glitter, your rubies flame, 
 
 Our gems are but frozen dew ; 
 Yet yours grow tame, being always the same, 
 
 Ours every night will renew.
 
 A SONG OF THE AXE ^ 
 
 Let the world rip : tighten your grip, 
 Make the blades glitter and shine ; 
 
 At it you go, swing to each blow, 
 And down with the pride of the pine. 
 
 For the trees, I ween, which have long grown 
 green 
 
 In the light of the sun and the stars, 
 Must bend their backs to the lumberer's axe, 
 
 Mere timber and planks and spars. 
 Then oh, ho, ho, for the carpet of snow, 
 
 Oh, ho, for the forest of pine ! 
 Wealth shall be yours, with its business and 
 bores, 
 
 Health and hard labour be mine.
 
 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 TO BURNABY 
 AND THE CORRESPONDENTS 
 
 Poets, a verse where tears shall somewhat soften 
 The pride a soldier nation can but feel, 
 
 That he who sought and vanquished death so 
 often 
 Should die as he would wish to die, by steel. 
 
 Soldiers, a wreath, a wreath of laurels gory, 
 For those who shared your lives, your dangers 
 shared. 
 
 To set your fame in their immortal story, 
 
 Daring themselves whatever you have dared.
 
 TO BURNABY AND THE CORRESPONDENTS 9 
 
 First in the fight, heralds of fame in battle, 
 Comrades in death, their pens with Hfe blood 
 wet, 
 
 No wonder if war's music and war's rattle 
 Ring in the lines of their despatches yet. 
 
 • • • • • • 
 
 A handful to ten thousand, in your keeping 
 The army's safety — more your country's 
 fame — 
 You stood, the desert's knighthood o'er you 
 sweeping, 
 A rock of valour islanded in flame. 
 
 Has Arthur's spirit fled ? Nay ! statesmen 
 blunder. 
 
 But knights and troubadours are with us still ; 
 We vacillate at home — the battle's thunder 
 
 Finds us still lords of an unshaken will !
 
 lo SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 JS CANADA LOYAL? 
 
 Is Canada loyal ? Who dares to ask ? Are 
 
 yotir colonists' veins 
 Ducts for some colourless fluid, or red with the 
 
 blood that stains 
 The bosom of all the earth from Plassy to 
 
 Abraham's Plains ? 
 
 Blood that is hot from the north, fresh with 
 
 the salt of the sea, 
 Strong- with the strength of sires who have 
 
 never been aught but free ; 
 True with the truth of those whose creed has 
 
 been loyalty.
 
 IS CANADA LOYAL? ii 
 
 We, who have won you a world, from the Pole 
 
 to the Boundary Line, 
 Through the Land of the Lakes in the east, to 
 
 the land of the Douglas Pine, 
 Hewing our road with the axe, winning our 
 
 wealth in the mine — 
 
 Have we seemed to forget ? Here where our 
 
 furthermost fleet 
 Rides on the selfsame wave that rolls to the 
 
 Russian's feet, 
 Named in the name of the Queen is the town 
 
 where our Parliaments meet. 
 
 God ! how we love you still ! Do you think 
 
 in the hours of gloom 
 There comes no whisper of home ? Look where 
 
 our dead find room ! 
 Are those native flowers you find, heather and 
 
 rose and broom ?
 
 12 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 Those who have stayed may not hear the beat 
 
 of their hearts in the crowd : 
 We of the prairies hear, and are not to be 
 
 bought or cowed. 
 British in Britain's van, have we no right to 
 
 be proud ? 
 
 War ? We would rather peace ; but, mother, 
 
 if fight you must. 
 There be none of your sons on whom you can 
 
 lean with a surer trust ; 
 Bone of your bone are we, and in death would 
 
 be dust of your dust.
 
 13 
 
 ODE FOR THE DIAMOND JUBILEE 
 
 With throats unsteady, eyes by love made 
 dim, 
 O Queen, the people of your last vedette 
 Turn towards their home and lift their hearts 
 to Him — 
 Hearts that cannot forget. 
 
 We who have known no master — who were 
 hurled 
 
 By the old Wander Spirit of your seas 
 Into wild space to found another world — 
 
 We, mother, bend our knees —
 
 14 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 Not for ourselves. We scarce find time to pray, 
 Breaking new lands where feebler folk may 
 glean — 
 
 Prayers for the night, deeds for our waking day. 
 Only 'God save our Queen.' 
 
 God save the Queen. Our dimpled children sing 
 The same grand anthem with dear baby 
 breath 
 
 That rang to heaven when Allan Wilson's ring 
 Taught men the pride of death. 
 
 God save the Queen. From formless isles 
 where wind 
 Storm-shadowed pathways of the homing seal 
 Through driven spume, through fog banks 
 murk and blind, 
 God hears the same appeal.
 
 ODE FOR THE DIAMOND JUBILEE 15 
 
 Thy workers' voices many million strong 
 
 Bear to God's throne the prayer of sixty years ; 
 
 From wan white lips — through nights by pain 
 made long 
 A deeper note He hears. 
 
 O Oueen, thou knowest we have lived and died 
 
 To set thy name all royal names above ; 
 Sweet-hearted woman, more than Britain's 
 
 pride 
 
 Thou countest Britain's love. 
 
 Therefore to-morrow sons who stand apart 
 In every realm within the Almighty's ken, 
 
 Hearing the throb that shakes a nation's heart. 
 Shall swell our Great Amen.
 
 1 6 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 THE KOOTENA V PROSPECTOR 
 
 Lay that there in the shadow — for God's sake 
 
 don't call it him ; 
 That bundle of frozen clothing, we found in 
 
 the drift, ain't Jim. 
 Not Jim as I knew, my partner — ^Jim fit and 
 
 strong as an ox, 
 That thing, without muscle or movement, and 
 
 as limp as my sodden socks ! 
 Leave that alone in the shadow, an' pile a log 
 
 on the fire. 
 Jim's gone, I guess, where the sparks go, a' 
 
 climbin' higher and higher.
 
 THE KOOTENA Y PROSPECTOR 17 
 
 Not that they gets there neither. That log" 
 
 sucked sunlight and dew 
 In bygone springs when it budded, where the 
 
 yellow snowdrops grew. 
 And now it's goin' to nothin' but ash an' a 
 
 feeble spark 
 That wavers away towards heaven and goes 
 
 out, of course, in the dark. 
 Climbin' ! is that all we're made for, like the 
 
 armies of silent pine 
 Which climb and climb on for ever from the 
 
 gulch to the timber line ? 
 Not one in a million gets there ; when they do 
 
 they wither and die. 
 See them ? whitened, withered, wind-twisted, 
 
 corpse-trees in a winter sky. 
 
 • ••••# 
 
 Prospectin' ! that's what they call it. Hard 
 labour, an' hunger an' cold — 
 
 c
 
 1 8 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 That's what prospectin' is, mates — a hunt for 
 
 a devil — gold ! 
 Gold as buys women and whisky — hands shaky 
 
 and eyesight dim, 
 An' a lot of bummers to suck you dry, but 
 
 never a pal like Jim. 
 
 • • • • • • 
 
 That wasn't the way as Jim talked ? No, that 
 
 wasn't the way Jim thought. 
 He worked 'cos he loved the labour ; he was 
 
 born to fight, so he fought. 
 He loved the hardship, the danger ; black 
 
 canyon or shifting glide — 
 I've seen him laugh at the risks he took at the 
 
 very place where he died. 
 
 An' it was a game worth playing, alone, at the 
 heart of the world,
 
 THE KOOTENAY PROSPECTOR 19 
 
 Where the mighty snowslides thundered an' 
 
 the long- gray vapours curled, 
 When we, mere pigmies, ventured to storm 
 
 Creation's hold ; 
 Staked our lives on the blindest bluff, an' played 
 
 the World for her gold ; 
 Climbed to the Throne of Mornin' ; sank shafts 
 
 to the roof of Hell, 
 Till the hot air scorched our faces, an' water 
 
 hissed as it fell ; 
 Worked like men in the daytime ; slept 'neath 
 
 the sweet-breathed trees. 
 Lulled by the drone of the foamin' crik and the 
 
 song of the chickadees. 
 We had great things then for our comrades, 
 
 the Forces of Earth for foes ; 
 There's one of us down in the battle, an' another 
 
 don't care when he goes. 
 
 02
 
 20 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 They laughed in our face in the cities, the fat 
 
 smug cities back east, 
 Thought we were both of us luny, something 
 
 half man, half beast. 
 Cities ! My God ! we build 'em. Do you mind 
 
 how Rossland rose ? 
 Do you mind the first log shanty we built 
 
 amongst the snows ? 
 Do you mind how two years later their iron 
 
 horses raced 
 From north and south the Boundary Line to the 
 
 goal that he had placed ? 
 And now there are twice three thousand where 
 
 then there were no but three, 
 But devil a one in Rossland town has heered 
 
 of Jim or me. 
 
 • • • • • • 
 
 Do you mind the fire at Kaslo, or the storm 
 that drowned her out ?
 
 THE KOOTENAY PROSPECTOR 21 
 
 We warmed our hands at the blazing- shacks 
 
 and rebuilt in a water spout. 
 Do you mind ? Ay ! ay ! you mind it, and 
 
 that., my God, is the end, 
 Nerveless, speechless, sightless, and deaf to 
 
 the voice of its friend. 
 No ! no ! it is not in reason ; I know that the 
 
 heavens are far, 
 But |I don't believe that the sparks go out ; 
 
 I know that they reach the star.
 
 22 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 THE WESTERN PIONEER 
 
 I CAN hear the willows whisperin', 'way down 
 
 the Arctic Slope, 
 
 Every shiverin' little leaflet gray with fear ; 
 
 There's no colour in the heavens, and on earth 
 
 there seems no hope. 
 
 And the shadow of the winter's on the year. 
 
 An' it's lonesome, lonesome, lonesome, when 
 the russet gold is shed. 
 An' the naked world stands waitin' for the 
 Doom, 
 With the northern witch-fires dancin' in the 
 silence overhead, 
 An' my camp fire just an island in the gloom.
 
 THE WESTERN PIONEER 23 
 
 When the very bears are hidin' from the Terror 
 that's to come, 
 xA-n' the unseen wings above me whistle south, 
 When, except the groanin' pine trees and the 
 willows, nature's dumb. 
 And the river roadway freezes to its mouth. 
 
 But I cannot strike the home trail : I would 
 not if I could, 
 An' I want no other's smoke across my sky ; 
 When I drop, I'll drop alone, as alone I've 
 alius stood. 
 On the frontier where I've led, let me die. 
 
 I wouldn't know men's language : I couldn't 
 think their thought, 
 I couldn't bear the hurry of mankind, 
 Where every acre's built on, where all God 
 made is bought. 
 And they'd almost make a hireling of the wind.
 
 24 SOJVGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 I've been alius in the lead since I grew grass 
 high, 
 Since my father's prairie schooner left the 
 Known 
 For a port beyond the sky-line, never seen by 
 human eye, 
 Where God and God's creation dwell alone. 
 
 'Way back I heard men callin' ; one woman's 
 voice was fond, 
 An' the rich lands towards harvest murmured 
 ' Rest ; ' 
 But a sweeter voice kept callin', from the 
 Unexplored Beyond, 
 A wild voice in the mountains callin' 'West.' 
 
 I heard it in the foot hills — then I climbed the 
 great Divide 
 In the canyon — and I faced the rapids' roar ;
 
 THE WESTERN PIONEER 25 
 
 In the little breeze at dawnin', in the dusk at 
 eventide, 
 The voice that kept a callin' went before. 
 
 My crooked hands are empty : my six-foot 
 frame is bent, 
 There ain't nothin' but my trail to leave behind, 
 An' the voice that I have followed has not told 
 me what it meant. 
 An' the eyes that sought a sign are nearly 
 blind ; 
 
 But I hear it callin' still, as I lay me down to rest, 
 An' I dream the voice I love has never lied. 
 
 That I hear a People comin', the Great People 
 of the West, 
 An' maybe 'twas His voice callin' me to guide.
 
 26 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 OUR WESTERN GIRL 
 
 Where the sage brush rolls in an infinite flood 
 
 As far as the eye can see, 
 Where the strong air works like wine in the 
 blood 
 
 As you ride through flowers to the knee ; 
 
 Where the width of a world, unfenced, unwon, 
 
 Waits always the men who dare, 
 And the galloping hoofs of your unshod dun 
 
 Ring the knell of that old knave Care ; 
 
 There's a girl to be wooed if your hand be strong, 
 To be won if your heart be true,
 
 OUR WESTERN GIRL 27 
 
 A girl with a laugh like a lavrock's song, 
 And eyes of the Viking blue. 
 
 When the hounds run mute and the best men 
 ride, 
 
 And the wolf's life hangs on his speed, 
 There's never a man in the country side 
 
 Can live with that girl in the lead. 
 
 Her brown hair kissed by the morning sun 
 
 Blows wild in the prairie breeze ; 
 Her eyes are French in their wayward fun, 
 
 But deep as the English seas ; 
 
 Her dear little hands are as brown as a nut, 
 Not baby things merely for show. 
 
 But light on the bridle and firm on the butt. 
 And tender — as sufferers know.
 
 28 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 A girl she is when the skies are bright, 
 A woman when life goes wrong ; 
 
 Sweetness in sunshine — in darkness, light ; 
 Saucy and straight and strong.
 
 29 
 
 A CHRISTMAS GREETING 
 
 Shake ! cries a voice from the mountain ; 
 
 Shake ! shouts a voice from the mine ; 
 Shake ! let the hands of brothers 
 
 Meet over the Boundary Line — 
 
 Hands that as hands of children 
 Clasped round one mother's knee ; 
 
 That old old love they look back to, 
 That country over the sea ; 
 
 Hands that as hands of workers 
 
 Have twisted the world to their will — 
 
 Have caught the angel of thunder, 
 And set him to drive a drill.
 
 30 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 The wealth of the world's in their pocket, 
 The trade of the world is theirs, 
 
 Their ships can unloose it or lock it, 
 
 The Powers may grumble. Who cares ? 
 
 Shake ! Let the hand of England 
 Go out to the hand of The States ; 
 
 Let the hands which rule the nations 
 Meet in one grip — as mates. 
 
 Why should we stand asunder — 
 We ! men of one speech, one birth ? 
 
 Shake ! and God only under. 
 Be absolute Lords of the Earth.
 
 31 
 
 TRAWLING OUT 
 
 Green-gray is the sea of sage brush ; gray- 
 green are the waves of the sea ; 
 
 Gray-green are the hemlock and cedar ; and 
 gray is the heart in me. 
 
 The forests are armies of giants, dumb giants ; 
 
 here no birds sing, 
 Here dance no lights with the shadows, no ivy 
 
 or clematis cling. 
 
 The mountains are haunted, silent ; words die 
 
 on the lips unsaid ; 
 The wolf is howling with hunger ; hunger 
 
 wheels on wide wings overhead.
 
 32 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 I crawl towards the far horizon, an atom 
 
 drifting through Space, 
 Past the bones and the buffalo wallows, by the 
 
 trails of a vanished race. 
 
 And I long for the choir of skylarks, for the 
 
 coo of the mating dove, 
 For the liquid note of the throstle's throat, for 
 
 the songs of the land I love. 
 
 For the hum of the mighty cities, for the faces 
 
 which come and pass. 
 For the voices of spring when streamlets sing, 
 
 and the murmur of life in the grass, 
 
 For the sweet sweet breath of the beanfields, 
 the scent of the fresh-turned sod. 
 
 For arms which wait by my cottage gate, and 
 the bells which cry to God.
 
 TRAWLING OUT 33 
 
 I am man, and the world is mighty. Should 
 
 I die thus alone outcast, 
 Would my soul in the end find the soul of a 
 
 friend, and win to its love at last ?
 
 34 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 THE CHAIN OF EMPIRE 
 ROSS BAY CEMETERY, BRITISH COLUMBIA 
 
 Through gray salt grass, the April breezes 
 creep ; 
 To your still feet the long blue rollers swing ; 
 The drowsy sea fowl mutter in their sleep ; 
 Above your headstones honeysuckles cling, 
 Flowers of your Eastern home, your English 
 spring. 
 
 Silent your camp ! The last camp on that trail 
 
 Worn between oceans by your tireless feet ; 
 Yet where a new sea spreads, where dry lands 
 fail.
 
 THE CHAIN OF EMPIRE 35 
 
 Where East and West, where old and new 
 
 worlds meet, 
 Your gray nurse welcomes you, your work 
 
 complete. 
 
 Wayfaring children, gathered round her breast, 
 
 Your sea nurse murmurs in your slumbering 
 
 ears 
 
 The same brave song that stirred or lulled to rest 
 
 The stormy hearts of those, your sires and 
 
 peers. 
 Vikings, and Conquerors, and Pioneers, 
 
 Whose oaken keels ploughed roads through 
 
 seas unknown. 
 To shores unnamed, till English swords had 
 
 writ 
 Some word of Empire on them. Far and lone 
 
 D 2
 
 36 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 Like fledgling eagles, England's outposts sit. 
 'Twas theirs to win ; it has been yours to knit. 
 
 Through black battalions, whence the Wood 
 
 Lords creep, 
 Whitening with age, towards the peaks of 
 
 God ; 
 O'er dizzy fields, where snow slides plough and 
 
 reap ; 
 Through those lone lands, where Time and 
 
 Death abode 
 With Nature brooding, till your brave feet 
 
 trod, 
 
 Ye drave your way. Now red from main to main 
 Your camp fires smoulder still. Around them 
 grow 
 The home fires of your people, one long chain
 
 THE CHAIN OF EMPIRE 37 
 
 Through apple bloom, and gold of corn, and 
 
 snow, 
 The chain of love — the only chain they know. 
 
 Where were you when the Spirit called you 
 forth ? 
 Dreaming, in old world gardens sweet with 
 stocks, 
 Or, 'mid the purple heather of the North 
 
 Watching the wanderings of your half wild 
 
 flocks. 
 Till some white gull's wing glistened o'er the 
 rocks 
 
 And took your eyes out seaward, where the wind 
 Filled the strong sails, and mocked your idle 
 
 rest ? 
 How could you, Viking-bred, have stayed 
 
 behind.
 
 38 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 You who had sucked at that old mother's 
 
 breast, 
 Whose children win the world, from East to 
 
 West? 
 
 How could you go ? Whilst Spring with cuckoo 
 calls, 
 With all the music in which wood -birds woo, 
 With hymning larks, and hedgerow madrigals 
 Girlish with sunshine, sweet with cushats' 
 
 coo, 
 Bade you to dream ; how did you dare to do? 
 
 Nay rather, could you stay ? Through warm 
 red loam 
 Ran the sea rovers' path. A wild salt scent 
 Blown over seas, pierced through the apple 
 bloom ;
 
 THE CHAIN OF EMPIRE 39 
 
 The dove's soft voice with Ocean's call was 
 
 blent. 
 You could not stay ; you could not be content. 
 
 How could you rest ? whilst thick on every hand 
 
 The air grew foul with smoke, men cried for 
 
 bread, 
 
 With half a world untrod, they prayed for land, 
 
 For room to breathe, for leave to work and 
 
 wed. 
 They needed leaders. God be praised, you 
 led. 
 
 What was it that ye slew ? An old world's 
 
 gloom. 
 What won ? A staunching of sweet woman's 
 
 tears ; 
 Bread for the children ; for the strong men, 
 
 room ;
 
 40 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 Empire for Britain ; for your failing- years 
 Rest, in the front rank of Her pioneers. 
 
 O seed of Empire ! Stones on which we set 
 That Greater Britain, which is yet to be ; 
 
 Here, where the furthest West and East are 
 met. 
 Sleep, whilst your old nurse croons for lullaby. 
 Thanks of a Realm, that owes you Unity.
 
 41 
 
 A WESTERN YACHTING SONG 
 
 Oh, my dainty coquette has her white sails set, 
 She curtsies and bends to the Breeze. 
 
 Come along ! come along ! is this wild lover's 
 song, 
 But the kiss that she takes is the Sea's. 
 
 Coquette to the core, she mocks at the shore 
 As she sees its green knolls go by. 
 
 Though she lies there at rest when the savage 
 south-west 
 Makes the spume and the black clouds fly. 
 
 But the shore is too safe for my white-winged 
 waif. 
 The voice of the breeze too sweet ;
 
 42 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 She is filled with the pain of the restless main 
 In the month when the seasons meet. 
 
 'Tis an April breeze treads the April seas ; 
 
 April ! sings bird to mate ; 
 So she long's to go, and she longs to know ; 
 
 She is woman, and will not wait. 
 
 She yearns to be kist by the violent mist 
 That coils round the mountain's feet ; 
 
 She must race till she rest in the dream-loving 
 west, 
 Where the blue and the deep blue meet. 
 
 So I give her her will, and her strong sails fill 
 
 With innocent sweet desire, 
 While the Lord of the Day strikes the gun- 
 barrel gray 
 
 Of the waves with his shafts of fire,
 
 A WESTERN YACHTING SONG 43 
 
 Till the fields of the sea glow a mystery 
 
 Of sapphire and golden green, 
 Threaded and lined by that artist the wind 
 
 In a dazzle of damascene. 
 
 All the merry day long the Sea gives her song, 
 And she drinks of his strong sweet brine ; 
 
 While her lover the Breeze brings her odour of 
 trees, 
 ,But the heart of coquette is mine.
 
 44 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 THE SEA QUEEN WAKES 
 
 The flying squadron, which together with the existing 
 available squadrons with which it is proposed to join it will 
 form the most powerful fleet of war vessels ever put afloat. 
 Excerpt from the ' Colonist,^ January ii, 1896. 
 
 She wakes ! in the furthest West the murmur 
 has reached our ears. 
 
 She wakes ! in the furthest East the Russian 
 listens and fears — 
 
 She wakes ! the ravens clamour, the winds cry- 
 overhead ; 
 
 The wandering- waves take up the cry, ' She 
 wakes whom Nations dread ! ' 
 
 At last, ye have roused the Sea Queen ; at last, 
 
 when the World unites 
 She stirs from her scornful silence, and wakes 
 
 to Her last of fights.
 
 THE SEA QUEEN WAKES 45 
 
 Alone, with a World against Her, She has 
 
 turned on the snarling crew. 
 No longer the Peaceful Trader, but the Viking 
 
 North Seas knew. 
 
 She calls, and Her ships of battle — dragons Her 
 
 seas have bred — 
 Glide into Plymouth harbour, and gather round 
 
 Beachy Head. 
 She wakes ! and the clang of arming echoes 
 
 through all the Earth, 
 The ring of warriors' weapons ; stern music of 
 
 soldiers' mirth. 
 
 In the world there be many nations, and there 
 
 gathers round every Throne 
 The strength of earth-horn armies, but the sea 
 
 is England's own.
 
 46 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 As She ruled, She still shall rule it, from 
 
 Plymouth to Esquimalt, 
 As long as the winds are tameless — as long as 
 
 the waves are salt. 
 
 This may be our Armageddon : seas may purple 
 
 with blood and flame 
 As we go to our rest forever, leaving the world 
 
 a name. 
 What matter? There have been none like us, 
 
 nor any to tame our pride ; 
 If we fall, we shall fall as they fell, die as our 
 
 Fathers died — 
 What better ? The seas that bred us shall 
 
 rock us to rest at last. 
 If we sink with the Jack still flying nailed to 
 
 the Nation's mast.
 
 47 
 
 THE U.E. LOYALISTS 
 
 There is a voice in the markets — the voice of 
 
 the Little Men, 
 Whose pulses beat in their pockets, whose 
 
 black blood flows in the pen ; 
 Men they be of the Present, who had no share 
 
 in our Then. 
 
 These whisper of annexation, and a shudder 
 
 creeps over the sod 
 Wherever our best blood dyed it, wherever a 
 
 Loyalist trod, 
 Lest the land they won for Eng-land should at 
 
 last take Greed for its God.
 
 48 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 But the pines which have lived for ever sing a 
 
 songf of the elder years, 
 Strong with the strength of manhood, liquid 
 
 with woman's tears — 
 A song that they learned in the old time from 
 
 Virsfinia's Cavaliers. 
 
 The waves which know the English still shout 
 
 that song round Maine, 
 Of love revealed in sacrifice, of courage proved 
 
 by pain. 
 Of the burden borne for England, and the 
 
 strength that stood the strain. 
 
 It was autumn : the swamps were crimson 
 where the maples died in flame. 
 
 Crimson the fields with slaughter, and crimson 
 men's brows with shame ; 
 
 A cloud hung over the pine-woods, and a cloud 
 ■ on the English name —
 
 THE U.E. LOYALISTS 49 
 
 For she who had held her eyry at the gates of 
 
 the Inner Main, 
 Whilst Eliott mocked the Frenchman and 
 
 laughed in the beard of Spain, 
 Who lit the seas with her foemen's fleets, and 
 
 glutted hell with their slain — 
 
 She who alone, unaided, had brought the East 
 
 to its knee, 
 Whose merchants builded empires, whose 
 
 Vikings swept the sea, 
 Had sold her soul for a trader's toll, forgetting 
 
 her sons were free ; 
 
 Had hardened her heart to her children ; was 
 
 deaf to the voice of Pitt, 
 Who had led her in love from her ashes to the 
 
 throne where sea-gods sit, 
 Till the swords which rebuilt her Empire were 
 
 drawn to dismember it — 
 
 £
 
 so SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 Till those who would not betray her, who 
 
 loathed the deed of Lee, 
 Had to choose between their England and 
 
 death on the gallows-tree — 
 It was ' Loyalist lands for the Rebels ; short 
 
 shrift for the Refugee.' 
 
 There were thirty thousand loyal, there were 
 
 thirty thousand tried ; 
 And a man may face starvation, but not with a 
 
 wife at his side. 
 And this way pleaded Prudence, and that way 
 
 pleaded Pride. 
 
 But our ladies' lips were loyal, our ladies' hearts 
 
 were high. 
 And their song was a call to battle, though it 
 
 closed in a woman's sigh, 
 This song first sung in a homestead as Butler's 
 
 men went by.
 
 SI 
 
 SONG OF THE WIFE 
 
 It's hard to leave the land we loved, the land 
 your fathers won ; 
 
 It's hard to think the dear old days, our sweet- 
 heart days, are done ; 
 
 It's hard to think the men you ruled will never 
 know our son. 
 
 I know the field where corn-sheaves stand with 
 
 Robin's blood is wet : 
 I mind a thousand childish things that you, old 
 
 man, forget ; 
 But, Dick, if we be old and gray, our hearts 
 
 are English yet. 
 
 E 2
 
 52 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 Do you mind the lanes, the bonny lanes ? How 
 
 sweet the hawthorn smelt ! 
 Do you mind the church, the dear old church, 
 
 where you and I once knelt ? 
 Do you mind the name you gave me, Dick, and 
 
 the honour that it spelt? 
 
 Do you mind the vows we plighted when these 
 
 dim eyes were blue ? 
 Do you mind a time in all these years that 
 
 you've had cause to rue ? 
 If not, Dick, be the man you are — as I've been 
 
 true, be true. 
 
 • " • • • • 
 
 They left the homes of their fathers, by sorrow 
 
 and love made sweet ; 
 Halls that had rung a hundred years to the 
 
 tread of their people's feet ; 
 The farms they had carved from the forest 
 
 where the maples and pine-trees meet.
 
 SONG OF THE WIFE 53 
 
 He left his years of manhood, he left his place 
 
 of pride ; 
 And she, she left the little room where her first 
 
 baby died. 
 Ah, God ! how each familiar thing- to that fond 
 
 mother cried ! 
 
 The rebels held our homesteads ; ' Ours ' laid 
 
 them down in the moss. 
 The world was loud with their triumph ; the 
 
 woods were dumb with our loss. 
 They sat on the throne as victors ; the throne 
 
 of our love was a cross. 
 
 'Mid slow, soft-footed things that creep at the 
 
 edge of the eve and dawn, 
 The women went with their young ones, as a 
 
 doe goes by with her fawn, 
 While the men they loved went on before, guns 
 
 ready and sabres drawn.
 
 54 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 They passed down the silent rivers which flow 
 
 to the mighty lake ; 
 They left what they'd made for England (but 
 
 those who have made can make), 
 And founded a new dominion for God and their 
 
 country's sake. 
 
 • ■•••• 
 
 Ay, talk of annexation, and our men may lend 
 
 their ears 
 When your land has matched the courage of 
 
 Brock's baby volunteers — ^ 
 When your land has writ its story in men's 
 
 blood and woman's tears. 
 
 But whilst the Jack is waving, and the land we 
 
 love replies 
 In the red and white of orchards, in our blue 
 
 Canadian skies, 
 
 ' There were volunteers of ten in Brock's troops.
 
 SONG OF THE WIFE 55 
 
 If a man dare call us ' traitors ' — by the God of 
 Heaven ! he lies. 
 
 HISTORICAL NOTE 
 
 Looking back from the Peace of Versailles (1782), a man 
 of that day would have been reminded of the depth of 
 England's humiliation before Pitt, her ' idol and the terror 
 of France, had raised his country to the height of glory ' — 
 would have heard in fancy the cannon of the Tower and the 
 bells of the Abbey proclaiming the victories of Clive in 
 India ; of those great sea captains, Rodney, Anson, and 
 Howe ; or of gallant Sir George Eliott, who kept the Rock 
 three years against the power of France and Spain. 
 
 In the period upon which he looked back there would 
 be much to make an English heart swell with pride ; but 
 the deed of his own day was finer than any done in the days 
 of Pitt as an example of what men of our blood will do and 
 suffer for England. 
 
 In 1776 an attempt to levy a certain tax drove our 
 American Colonists into revolt. In 1782 that revolt ended 
 in the separation of the United States from England. From 
 the first the Colonists were unanimous in resenting the 
 imposition of the tax, but were divided as to the means for 
 obtaining redress of their grievances. Some relied upon the 
 influence of such men at home as Pitt, Burke, and Fox, and
 
 56 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 upon constitutional measures ; others, loud-tongued, and 
 more loyal perhaps to their own interests than to any 
 sentiment, clamoured for separation. 
 
 Through the long years of the war the Loyalists fought, 
 against their neighbours and their own interests, for a 
 country many of them had never seen, and at the end of the 
 war they had their reward. The Liberty men prevailed. 
 
 Before the war, the Loyalists were for the most part 
 leading men in their several Colonies, rich in lands and in 
 repute. At the end of the war it is recorded that the New 
 York Legislature enacted that ' all Loyalists found within 
 the States should be adjudged guilty of misprision of high 
 treason, and that all such were for ever ineligible as voters, 
 and disqualified from enjoying any legislative, judicial, or 
 executive office ; ' that Massachusetts denounced death 
 against 380 of her people, without judge, jury, opportunity 
 of defence, or benefit of clergy, because they were reported 
 to be Loyalists ; that such men as the Doanes, Sewalls, 
 Robinsons, and others were tarred and feathered ; and that, 
 generally. Loyalists were driven out, their homes confiscated, 
 and Indians even set upon their track to hound them down, 
 because they had loved England more than they had loathed 
 oppression. And yet, in spite of all this, marvellous as it 
 may seem, very few flinched. These men who had fought 
 for England were ready to suffer for her. To the number 
 of 30,000 they set their faces to the North, and, wandering 
 down rivers and through forests, settled round the Lake 
 Ontario and founded Upper Canada. England showed her 
 appreciation of their devotion by voting 10,000,000/. to 
 repair their losses : Canada showed the quality of her love
 
 SONG OF THE WIFE 57 
 
 by the fact that not one in ten of the United Empire 
 Loyalists either asked for this aid or took it. 
 
 But they took the badge which the Mother Country gave, 
 and wear it with pride to-day ; and it is well that those who 
 talk of annexation should know what the letters U.E. mean, 
 and that not only in Ontario (Canada's heart), but all through 
 the Dominion, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the spirit of 
 the United Empire Loyalists still lives and has to be counted 
 with.
 
 58 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 FOOLED 
 
 Night in the pines ! in the black bull-pines 
 On the height of the bleak divide, 
 
 Where the year-long gloom of the sullen north 
 And the snows of the last fall bide ! 
 
 Tracks in the snow of the wandering bear, 
 
 The hoot of a questing owl, 
 Sobbing of winds that have lost their way — 
 
 From the lake, a gray wolfs howl ; 
 
 Flakes that hiss in my dying fire. 
 
 Thoughts that burn in my brain, 
 ' Have I bartered my soul for the world's desire 
 
 To get me a bond slave's chain ? '
 
 FOOLED 59 
 
 I see the fires of a thousand camps 
 From the Randt to the Arctic Slope, 
 
 Strung- over the world like a line of lamps 
 On the endless road of Hope. 
 
 I heard the song of a thousand creeks 
 Washing coarse gold from the hill, 
 
 The day-long beat of the pack train's feet, 
 The monotonous ring of the drill. 
 
 The mist rolled off from the red-brown fern 
 As I rose with the dew in my hair ; 
 
 Sodden and stiff with a long day's toil, 
 I crept half dead to my lair ; 
 
 My body stained with the rust-red drip 
 Which dropped from my master's hold, 
 
 My soul dyed red with a deeper stain. 
 The stain of that devil — Gold.
 
 6o SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 My loins grew bent, my hands grew crooked, 
 
 My eyes grew blear and dim, 
 Away from the light of the blessed day 
 
 In the holes where I followed Him. 
 
 Toiling for millions I could not use, 
 While the life I might use went by, 
 
 What wonder the Devil laughs loud to-night 
 As he watches his bond slave die ! 
 
 Ho ! ho ! is that only the questing owl ? 
 
 Or is it the Thing I sought? 
 TheThing that promised ' the world fenced-in '- 
 
 That, promising all, gave nought — 
 
 The Thing that blinks in the river sand, 
 That glares from the night-black shaft ? 
 
 Was it the call of a hunting owl, 
 Or was it a devil laughed ?
 
 FOOLED 6i 
 
 There were brave days too, when my birch canoe 
 Shot down along- streams unknown, 
 
 Where the alders budded, a rose gray fringe,' 
 And the great fish flashed and shone. 
 
 When I climbed from the hot lush cedar woods 
 To the snows of the mountain goat, 
 
 Nature was with me in many moods — 
 /had only eyes for ' float.' ^ 
 
 I heard no sigh in the stately trees, 
 
 No voice from the God above ; 
 I asked no pleasure, I sought no ease ; 
 
 I laughed at the dear word ' love.' 
 
 That was for fools in the world below. 
 The world I would have and hold, 
 
 With all that it knew or I cared to know. 
 When I'd won me the key to it — Gold. 
 ' ' Float ' is detached fragments of a mineral-bearing reef.
 
 62 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 Hog-like I rooted where wild flowers cling ; 
 
 I drilled the Earth to her core ; 
 I found her sweet as a maid in spring, 
 
 I left her a brazen whore. 
 
 Lurid and loud the smelter rose 
 
 In the place where the Douglas ^ grew, 
 
 From the scented silence of forest moss, 
 Till it rocked and dreamed in the blue. 
 
 Then the men swarmed in, and the wild things 
 went. 
 
 And the voices of birds grew still, 
 And the ring of the builder's tool was blent 
 
 With the miner's blasts in the hill. 
 
 Men felled God's forests ; His rocks they 
 scarred ; 
 The silence of God they broke ; 
 
 ' Douglas pine.
 
 FOOLED 63 
 
 His beauty they changed to a builder's yard, 
 His sun they veiled with their smoke. 
 
 From the heart of the place came a roaring 
 sound 
 
 Of engines men build and weld, 
 A throb and a beat and a liquid heat, 
 
 And the scream of a power hard held, 
 
 The upward leap of ravenous flames. 
 
 The ceaseless whir of the wheels. 
 The livid hues of the molten rock 
 
 That writhes like a thing that feels. 
 
 'Twas red, warm red, gold red all day ; 
 
 It was red, blood red all night ; 
 No pale priest's prayer could fright men there, 
 
 No God's sword reach to smite !
 
 64 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 Let me crawl back to the world I know, 
 Where the brute men strove and bled ; 
 
 Give me fires of hell for your fields of snow ; 
 It is silence and sight I dread. 
 
 Thy skies, Lord Christ, are cruel clear, 
 
 Thy snows too saintly white ; 
 I cannot bide on the mountain side, 
 
 I dare not die in the night. 
 
 The Great Assayer will rack my soul 
 
 From crucible to cupel ; 
 I have learned the value of gold on earth — 
 
 ' Ho ! ho ! you shall learn it in hell.'
 
 65 
 
 FEBRUARY 22 
 
 The sou'-west harps and the great pines sway ; 
 
 It is winter, and the young- Spring waits ; 
 The sun is bHnd with the freezing spray, 
 The snow storms drive and the woods grow 
 gray, 
 
 And the gray seas roar through the Straits. 
 
 There are sobs in the wind and wrecks in the 
 night ; 
 It is winter, and the young Spring waits ; 
 The snow peaks frown and the wolds grow 
 
 white, 
 The sun has no warmth and the day no light, 
 And the sea bird screams to its mates. 
 
 F
 
 66 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 In the shifting- gloom the pale ghosts crowd ; 
 
 It is winter, and the young Spring waits ; 
 There are voices we loved in the flying cloud, 
 The earth is a tomb and the sky a shroud, 
 
 And the mourners stay at the gates. 
 
 But the gray fog breaks and the strong sun 
 shines ; 
 
 It was winter, but the young Spring came. 
 With colour in the grass and scent in the pines, 
 With sweet young leaves on the eglantines. 
 
 And a thoug^ht of a sweetheart's name, 
 
 Brown buds in the oak and life in the rain, 
 
 Sap in the willow and birds to sing, 
 A diamond dazzle on mead and main. 
 The cry and the clang of the wild fowl's skein, 
 The lowing of cattle and beat of wing.
 
 FEBRUARY 22 67 
 
 The far peaks glow, the dumb streams flow, 
 
 The fierce waves kiss and cling ; 
 There's a God above and a girl below. 
 And the world is glad, for her children know 
 It is Spring I it is Spring ! it is Spring ! 
 
 F 2
 
 68 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 A CONTRAST 
 
 {Vancouver, May 17S7) 
 
 Sun and a dreamy breeze ; the sweet strong 
 
 scent of the brine ; 
 The song of a world that waits, crooned by the 
 
 swaying pine ; 
 i^Or rain that was heavy and soft, and maddened 
 
 the Earth like wine. 
 
 Feet that stole through the moss ; sun-warmed 
 
 shadows that crept 
 Over the sleeping hills, over the trees that slept ; 
 Or an idle Indian's sail that gleamed where the 
 
 salmon leapt.
 
 A CONTRAST 69 
 
 A land of uncounted time, of careless infinite 
 
 / 
 
 rest, 
 .Where the stir, if stir there was, was the stir 
 
 of a dreamer's breast, 
 That rose with the rise and fall of the golden 
 
 heart of the West. 
 
 By a measureless unsailed sea, whose ways 
 
 were travelled and known, 
 By the migrant herds of the whale and the seals 
 
 of the Arctic zone, 
 A world as its Maker made it, unpeopled, 
 
 unspoiled, alone. 
 
 {Vancouver, May 1887) 
 
 Scent of the new-sawn cedar, scars on the 
 
 bosom of Earth, 
 The fretful song of the saw as it grinds through 
 
 the giant's girth,
 
 70 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 Ruin and waste of woodland, the throes of a 
 town at birth. 
 
 Growths that thrust through the sidewalk, 
 growths forced back by the fence, 
 
 The rankness of virgin forest, deep rooted, 
 prodigal, dense. 
 
 The clamour of man and Nature, silent — inert 
 — immense. 
 
 Feet on the sidewalk eager, noisy, confident, 
 
 quick, 
 Where the deer stole by in the moonlight, and 
 
 the wapiti used to pick 
 Their damty steps on the carpet moss-woven, 
 
 soundless, and thick. 
 
 The voice of Nature silenced, save for the frogs 
 in the fen.
 
 A CONTRAST 7 1 
 
 Claiming their ancient holding's, monotonous, 
 
 manifold — then 
 The scream of the locomotive, the voices and 
 
 homes of men.
 
 72 SOATGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 THE COLONISTS' PRAYER 
 February 1901. 
 
 We be rude men, O Lord, who in lone woods, 
 Having learned the lessons that Thy moun- 
 tains teach, 
 
 Hold silence worthier, in our earnest moods, 
 Than easy-flowing speech. 
 
 Nay, more, O Lord ! The stricken of our race 
 Are taught to close the lips and lift the 
 head ; 
 Only the sea keens round our burial place, 
 
 Dry-eyed we face our dead.
 
 THE COLONISTS' PRAYER 73 
 
 As men who burst, unthinking, on the sea, 
 Or climb the crags from which the mornings 
 glide, 
 
 Blinded and dumb, we bend a nation's knee, 
 By Her who was Our Pride. 
 
 There be no words to Nature's greatest songs. 
 There be no words for Britain's greatest woe ; 
 
 But Thou, to Whom the secret heart belongs, 
 Thou, Britain's God, must know 
 
 How Britain loved Her ; how our heads went 
 higher 
 When, in strange lands, the singing of Her 
 name. 
 In that old song which breathed our hearts' 
 desire, 
 Set every cheek aflame ;
 
 74 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 And Thou, who countest Nature more than Art, 
 Who seest what is not patent to the crowd, 
 
 Thou know'st the unuttered sorrow of the heart 
 Is truer than the loud 
 
 Sweet Minster music. Therefore, Father, heed 
 The motherless children of the northern sea, 
 
 Who cry to Thee in this their bitterest need, 
 Asking no gift of Thee 
 
 For their own profit chiefly, but Her sake. 
 Who, being the very Spirit of Britain, willed 
 
 Her scattered Empire one sound whole to make, 
 With every discord stilled. 
 
 Weld us in one, with Thee, O Lord, for Head ; 
 
 Call in Her children from all seas, all lands. 
 And in Her memory, round their Mother's bed 
 
 For ever join their hands.
 
 75 
 
 STRATHCONA'S CAVALIERS 
 
 Do you hear the spurs a-ringing through the 
 wide nor'-west, 
 Where our prairie cattle scrape away the 
 snow ? 
 Do you hear the hearts a-beating of our bravest 
 and our best, 
 Though Fahrenheit marks forty-five below ? 
 
 Do you hear the crisp snow crunching on twilit 
 northern trails ? 
 Do you see the homing shadows cross the 
 white ?
 
 76 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 Jewel bright the Arctic moonlight, but it's death 
 to him who fails 
 To keep his tired feet moving through the 
 night. 
 
 These have heard the Voice a-calling, the Voice 
 they've known for years, 
 The Voice that stirs the hearts of such as 
 these ; 
 And they're coming from the Lone Lands, 
 Strathcona's Cavaliers, 
 To the aid of Her who bred them over seas. 
 
 They be wardens of our marches, the pilgrims 
 of our plains. 
 The woodsmen from waste places in the 
 West,
 
 STRATHCONA'S CAVALIERS 77 
 
 With the blood of Rupert's riders running redly 
 through their veins, 
 And the only thing the devils dread is rest. 
 
 Take and tire them if you're able ; lose or lick 
 them if you can ; 
 Find something they won't venture or can't 
 ride ; 
 Let the bronco buck its skin off, we're prepared 
 to bet our man 
 Will be found securely sitting on its hide. 
 
 They have held uncounted cattle when the 
 nights were dark as doom, 
 They have played with Arctic rapids for their 
 lives,
 
 78 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 They have known the pinch of hunger, and the 
 chill of forest gloom, 
 And the struggle where the strong alone 
 survives. 
 
 From the blood that you have lent us take the 
 best that we have bred, 
 Taught and tempered where men have to 
 stand alone ; 
 As Strathcona's heart their hearts are ; if you 
 count them with your dead, 
 You shall count them in the front rank of 
 your own.
 
 79 
 
 AN INVITATION 
 
 We have broken the trail from East to West, 
 We have clambered the Great Divide, 
 
 We have cut our road through the mountain's 
 crest. 
 And the gates lie open wide. 
 
 We have won our way to The Young Man's Land 
 From the haunts of creeping greed, 
 
 Where they reckon a man by his gold in hand, 
 And not by the worth of his deed. 
 
 We have ploughed our deserts, reaped our snow, 
 We have stormed the New World's hold,
 
 8o SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 We have staked our lives on a gambler's throw, 
 And the least we have won is gold. 
 
 Now, if ye dream as your Rupert dreamed. 
 
 If ye dare as our Douglas did, 
 When our world an ocean of mountains seemed. 
 
 When her golden heart lay hid ; 
 
 If ye need space for your crowded race, 
 We have won you lands to spare. 
 
 And the greatest ocean on all Earth's face 
 Waits for ships with your British ware. 
 
 If ye cry for bread, lo ! our prairie land 
 Brims over with golden grain ; 
 
 If ye yearn for the help of a brother's hand, 
 Ye'll not yearn here in vain.
 
 AN INVITATION 8i 
 
 We bid you welcome and enter in, 
 To work as your fathers wrought, 
 
 If ye keep the faiths of your Saxon kin. 
 And the laws our Begbie taught.
 
 82 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 TO BRITAIN'S 'GRAND ROUNDS' 
 
 You have heard your sentries challenge 
 
 From every seaward head : 
 You have found young nations growing 
 
 Wherever we sowed our dead. 
 
 You have felt the Heart of Empire 
 In the far lands, throb and stir ; 
 
 You have seen eyes flash a welcome 
 That but late grew dim for Her. 
 
 You have learned how men forgotten 
 
 In the time of need forget ; 
 You have seen Your Builders building— 
 
 Their lives are the stones they set.
 
 TO BRITAIN'S 'GRAND ROUNDS' 83 
 
 You have tried the Chain that binds us, 
 Have you found its links unworn ? 
 
 The Chain that binds Earth's wand'ring race 
 To the Home where it was born ; 
 
 The Chain that the Children fashioned, 
 
 From the love of early years. 
 Love inborn, tempered, tested, 
 
 By distance, and time, and tears. 
 
 You have heard — can You read the meaning- 
 
 Of the voiceless cry, the throe 
 That shakes our camps from Earth's red heart 
 
 To plains of the sunless snow ? 
 
 If You can, take the Children's message : 
 
 * By deeds we do and have done, 
 By the love we bear for England, 
 
 By our Oath to the Great Queen's Son ; 
 
 G 2
 
 84 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 ' By the fame that we share in common, 
 By the blood we were proud to shed, 
 
 By those that sleep in God's keeping, 
 Our own, and our Royal Dead — 
 
 ' Hear now our heart's cry and help us, 
 
 Great Son of Her Royal Son, 
 Pray Your Father gather His people. 
 
 And make of His Nations — One. 
 
 * And if he needs soldiers, send us 
 Seed corn from Home we may sow ; 
 
 Since love comes of knowing, blend us 
 Only with Britons who know.' 
 
 To pass. Grand Rounds, with this password, 
 While the World's Way rocks and rings. 
 
 And your sea beasts bay a welcome 
 To the Son of our Sea-throned Kings.
 
 TO BRITAIN'S 'GRAND ROUNDS' 85 
 
 The links in the girdle of Empire — 
 
 Love, law, mother-tongue, Britain's fame — 
 
 Are clasped here and clinched for ever, 
 By us with His Mother's name.
 
 86 SOATGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 THE TROUBADOUR OF SPRING 
 
 One moment, from black-purple cloud, 
 
 Shrills throug-h the wood of bone-white limbs, 
 
 The bitter East : then sweet and loud, 
 And full of faith and fearless, swims 
 The wildest of the thrush's hymns. 
 
 High on the summit of the larch, 
 
 He mocks the storms that round him beat ; 
 
 Breasts all the bitterness of March, 
 Because behind the driving sleet 
 He hears young April's dancing feet.
 
 THE TROUBADOUR OF SPRING 87 
 
 He sees, beyond the present gloom, 
 The hawthorn in white broidery drest, 
 
 Primrose and daffodil in bloom, 
 
 And, lit by sunlight from the West, 
 The blue eggs in his lady's nest. 
 
 He sings, and over all the earth, 
 On waters wild, in forests drear. 
 
 The men who share his English birth, 
 See, through a sunlit April tear. 
 All that once was, still is, most dear. 
 
 Softer the stock dove's drone may be. 
 The bard of eve more sweetly sing, 
 
 The lark's be Heaven's own minstrelsy ; 
 
 From England's Heart /iw brave songs spring, 
 She hails him Troubadour of Spring.
 
 88 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 Take all the songs for aching- ears, 
 
 For wearied brains and hearts that long, 
 
 But leave me in my waning years 
 
 The voice I loved when I was strong, 
 The challenge of the thrush's song.
 
 89 
 
 THE WORTH OF THE PRIZE 
 
 An American publication seriously debated the value of 
 a discoverer's success to him, should he succeed in reaching 
 the North Pole. 
 
 Shame on this pitiful cry, ' How much will the 
 
 prize be worth 
 In dollars and cents to the seaman who wins to 
 
 the Furthest North ? ' 
 Sea that was nurse to our nation, that cradled 
 
 us, buried our dead. 
 Are the men that we breed to-day such men as 
 
 our best days bred ? 
 Can it be that as we wax older, our hearts, like 
 
 the earth's, grow cold, 
 And we put a price on the priceless, and sell 
 
 what men never sold
 
 90 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 When the song they loved was the humming 
 
 of unknown seas at their keel, 
 When travel was no mere drumming, when the 
 
 noblest metal was steel, 
 When the peers of earth's northern races were 
 
 clean from the market's mud, 
 And the price of a nation's honour was paid 
 
 not in coin but blood ? 
 
 Not for a hireling's wages were the triumphs 
 
 of Britain won, 
 More She cared for the Doing, than the gain 
 
 of the Deed when done ; 
 Those who first made us a nation, when man 
 
 was no mere machine 
 (With a Stock Exchange quotation) to gather 
 
 with hands unclean 
 The profits of scheming and lying, believed to 
 
 their hearts' last throb
 
 THE WORTH OF THE PRIZE 91 
 
 A man's life was better than dying a multi- 
 millioned snob. 
 
 The strength that is ours, O Sea ! we drew from 
 
 thy generous breast. 
 True lover who asks no fee, companion who 
 
 knows no rest, 
 Sing us our nursery song to draw us as then 
 
 you drew 
 When your ways were yet to find, and the 
 
 ravens of Norway flew 
 In the wake of our wandering ships, when our 
 
 heroes' eyes were bright 
 Not with the greed of gold, but with varying 
 
 deep sea light. 
 When the cheeks of our men were red, not 
 
 with the strong wind's flame. 
 But the kisses of her they loved, the sea bride 
 they could not tame.
 
 92 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 Nothing they knew of markets or the miser's 
 
 sordid joys ; 
 When their beards grew white with weather, 
 
 they died with hearts Hke boys'. 
 
 What will the prize be worth ? Did the men 
 
 of the ' Mayflower ' dream 
 Of your seventy million men, and your blatant 
 
 eagle's scream ? 
 They scattered what they had gathered to 
 
 follow a Holy Grail, 
 Leaving the things that perish for the faith in 
 
 which none fail. 
 They steered for the great unknown, for the 
 
 sake of a simple creed 
 Which taught that their God would find all 
 
 things that a man should need. 
 They were bred so free, your fathers, that they 
 
 would not serve their sire ;
 
 THE WORTH OF THE PRIZE 93 
 
 And ye, will ye only venture when ye weigh 
 and count your hire ? 
 
 When the god we served was Odin, the price 
 
 we asked was fame. 
 But we learned of a higher courage and bent 
 
 to a Nobler Name ; 
 We learned that to perfect manhood fame 
 
 smacked too much of price, 
 That the crown of the Anglo-Saxon was mute 
 
 self-sacrifice. 
 
 Surely ye lay up treasure where the mean man 
 
 may break in ? 
 Surely ye choose a contest in which mongrel 
 
 folk must win ? 
 Back ! from the feet of Mammon to the knees 
 
 of your fathers' God. 
 Back ! from the market byways to the trails 
 
 your kinsmen trod.
 
 94 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 The world's map is your ledger ; write there as 
 
 your fathers wrote, 
 Wherever a man could clamber, wherever a 
 
 ship could float. 
 Is it better, think ye, to grovel, to gather The 
 
 Thing Accurst, 
 Or die in touch of the World's last goal, 
 
 beggared, forlorn, hwt Jirsf^
 
 95 
 
 SEED CORN 
 
 ' It's but for a year or two, sweetheart ; a year, 
 
 at the utmost twain, 
 And then, rich with the gold of our getting, we'll 
 
 sail back home again. 
 It's six days over the ocean, and six over 
 
 mountain and plain, 
 And who that had courage to venture, ever 
 
 adventured in vain ? 
 The may will be sweet in the meadows, and 
 
 welcoming hands will wait 
 To cling to our hands, my darling, when we 
 
 drive to the old white gate.
 
 96 SO/^GS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 It is only a twelve days' journey ; it's only a 
 
 twelvemonths' play ; 
 It's May, and the hope time, Mary ! It will surely 
 
 be always May.' 
 
 The waves sang them, ' Westward to fortune ; ' 
 
 but somewhere a seamew cried, 
 * Farewell to you, seed corn of England.' Closer 
 
 she clung" to his side — 
 Through gloom of forests gigantic, by the wan 
 
 gray waves of the lake, 
 She answered their ' Never, never,' with ' Only 
 
 a year for his sake.' 
 With a laugh for long years she laboured, 
 
 making pretence to play 
 At the ' chores ' that withered her beauty and 
 
 wore her young heart away. 
 Until Hope crept into the forest, and one who 
 
 lurked at the door
 
 SEED CORN 97 
 
 Heard a wife to a husband whisper, * Only a 
 year or two more.' 
 
 The years stole past whilst they laboured 
 
 unnoticed on moccasined feet, 
 And one by one to the silence passed the 
 
 comrades they longed to meet, 
 Till the lad and lass who started with a cheer 
 
 from the old white gate. 
 Had they come home crowned as victors, would 
 
 have won their crowns too late. 
 The lines came into his forehead, and the spring 
 
 went out of his stride ; 
 The blue was washed from a woman's eyes, 
 
 the laugh of a young heart died. 
 If you fix your eyes on the sky line, you see 
 
 not the road you roam : 
 These saw but the fields of England, they heard 
 
 but the songs of home. 
 
 H
 
 98 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 There's a farm where the buffaloes pastured, 
 
 a patch from the forest torn, 
 Where the flag of his mother country waves 
 
 over the rip'ning corn ; 
 There's a piece in the world's mosaic, a thought 
 
 in a new world's brain, 
 A haunting presence of England in city and 
 
 forest and plain ; 
 There are trails that his feet have trodden. — 
 
 Though she lies under the sod. 
 The love that she bore for her mother-land, 
 
 her faith in that land's God, 
 These linger. The seed corn sees not the 
 
 wealth of the waving field ; 
 The Sower alone at His harvest shall measure 
 
 the cost and yield.
 
 99 
 
 TO DR. GEORGE 
 
 Gray and ghostly willow fringes, flame to 
 
 crimson at the tips, 
 Where a sun that has some heart in, through 
 
 the waking forest slips ; 
 
 High above us, on Mount Sicker, I can hear 
 the blue grouse hoot, 
 
 Birds are calling, rivers glitter, buds are burst- 
 ing, grasses shoot ; 
 
 On the pine stump, by our shanty, Dawson's 
 tattered map lies spread. 
 
 And my partner with his finger marks the foot- 
 steps of the dead. 
 
 H 2
 
 lOO SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 * Spring,' he says, ' mate ; time to quit it, for 
 
 the barren lands and hoar. 
 Where the Earth's heart freezes soHd and the 
 
 mighty bull moose roar, 
 
 ' Where through silent spaces, silent, reckless 
 
 bands of hardfists hold, 
 By this here map, and the compass, their course 
 
 to the northern gold, 
 
 ' With a laugh and a curse at the danger, while 
 
 down the Arctic Slope, 
 Are two of the best ahead of the boys. Doctor 
 
 George and Hope.' 
 
 • • • ■ • • 
 
 Hope she has fooled us often, but we follow her 
 
 spring call yet. 
 And we'd risk our lives on his say so, and steer 
 
 the course he set ;
 
 TO DR. GEORGE loi 
 
 Down the Dease and the lonely Liard, from 
 
 Yukon to Stickine, 
 There's always a point to swear by, where the 
 
 little Doctor's been, 
 
 Who made no show of his learning, but, Lord ! 
 what he didn't know 
 
 Hadn't the worth of country rock, the sub- 
 stance of summer snow. 
 
 I guess had he chosen, maybe, he'd have quit 
 
 the noise and fuss 
 Of cities and high palavers, to throw in his lot 
 
 with us. 
 
 He'd crept so close to nature he could hear 
 
 what the Big Things say. 
 Our Arctic nights and our Northern lights, 
 
 our winds and pines at play.
 
 102 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 He loved his work and his work-mates, and ail 
 
 as he took for wage 
 Was the name his brave feet traced him, on 
 
 Northland's newest page. 
 
 That, and the hearts of the hardfists, though 
 
 I reckon for work well done. 
 He who set the stars for guide lights will keep 
 
 him the place he won ; 
 
 Will lead him safe through the passes, and 
 
 over the Last Divide, 
 To the Camp of Honest Workers, of men who 
 
 never lied, 
 
 And tell him, the boys he worked for say, 
 
 judging as best they can. 
 That 171 lands which try manhood hardest, he was 
 
 tested and proved a man.
 
 103 
 
 A BARBARIAN'S LITANY 
 
 * From battle and murder, and sudden death, 
 Save us, good Lord,' the preacher salth, 
 And the people pray, ' Amen.' 
 
 From the long slow rot of a coward's peace, 
 When knaves run riot and sins increase ; 
 From the breed of deceitful men ; 
 
 From a church whose priesthood is too polite 
 To damn the wrong and uphold the right. 
 Or give men a clean-cut creed ; 
 
 Not a murmurous muddle which choirs intone. 
 But the words of the Thunder written on stone. 
 Plain laws for plain men to read ;
 
 I04 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 From a world where the lowest come uppermost, 
 Where the voice of Wisdom is drowned and lost 
 In the howl from the slums and gaol ; 
 
 Where ignorance guides ; where told-by-the- 
 
 head 
 Majorities lead, and the world is led, 
 And the dog is wagged by its tail ; 
 
 Where Science scoffs at the Creed of Christ ; 
 Where Virtue is vulgar, and Beauty priced, 
 And some moneyed cad is the buyer ; 
 
 Where damages cover a husband's shame ; 
 Where the oldest title and noblest name 
 Is for sale to the Company liar ; 
 
 Where the London market 's the final court 
 To which the kings of the world resort. 
 Whilst tolerance and compromise
 
 A BARBARIAN'S LITANY 105 
 
 Blur the Commandments and blend the breed 
 With every rabble whose god is greed, 
 Whose weapons are fraud and lies. 
 
 At the price of battle and sudden death, 
 Save us, good Lord, here is one man saith ; 
 Give us back the bloodthirsty man. 
 
 Take their arbitrations and cozening words, 
 Give us back our faith and our fathers' swords, 
 And let those of us keep who can.
 
 io6 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 NIGHT ON THE FRONTIER 
 
 Night closes in. The thousand lights that 
 played 
 Gem-bright and warm upon the daylit sea 
 Are dead. Ghost clouds with mantles frayed, 
 Laden with tears, stoop earthwards wearily, 
 And I, Lord, am afraid. 
 
 The pines that were sun-filled, and tuneful 
 swayed 
 To the dance music of the merry morn, 
 Stand stark as men beside a grave new made, 
 Pointing lean fingers from a world forlorn, 
 Bidding Man be afraid.
 
 NIGHT ON THE FRONTIER 107 
 
 The Sun lied to me. All seemed known and 
 near, 
 Earth, Sky, and Sea for me their gifts dis- 
 played ; 
 Me, the World's centre, all things held me dear. 
 They bade me laugh, who should have knelt 
 and prayed. 
 
 How could I be afraid ? 
 
 And now ! My lonely littleness ! That cry, 
 
 Some homing seabird's, on wan waves delayed 
 Just at the shadow's edge, is a reply 
 
 To my heart's terror. Wherefore have I 
 strayed 
 
 Who am so sore afraid ? 
 
 I dare not think. The darkness hems me 
 round ; 
 The things I dreamed were lifeless leave their 
 place.
 
 io8 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 Speak without voices, move without a sound ; 
 Crowds that I know not fill all-circUng' space, 
 I almost see Thy Face. 
 
 Curtained by Life, they could not enter in, 
 The World's narcotics drugged the victim 
 laid 
 On the World's altar. The great city's din 
 Deafened his ears. A glittering veil was 
 made 
 
 For eyes that sight afFrayed. 
 
 There was one heart that was my own heart's 
 twin, 
 No stronger and no greater than my own ; 
 If I must leave The Known and strive to win. 
 So weak a thing, to such a vast unknown, 
 Bid me not come alone ;
 
 NIGHT ON THE FRONTIER 109 
 
 But if Thou canst, for feeble feet that err, 
 Find throug-h the maze of worlds that Thou 
 hast made, 
 A trail to lead me back again to her 
 
 Who strove to make me love Thee whilst she 
 stayed, 
 
 I might not be afraid.
 
 no SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 FAILED f 
 
 * Fight ! ' When the spring sun shone — and, 
 after hail, 
 The whole world, braced, felt all the blood 
 of youth 
 Surge towards the sun — you fought. Truth 
 could not fail, 
 
 And you relied on Truth. 
 
 Silent you fought, when summer sapped your 
 cheek, 
 Dried all the dew, and made the song birds 
 still. 
 Victory were worthless if the foe were weak. 
 And you were strong of will.
 
 FAILED ? Ill 
 
 Wearied you fought, in autumn's failing- light, 
 
 The losing fight man is not meant to win, 
 It may be God will otherwhere requite — 
 Is Truth as strong as Sin ? 
 
 Still fighting blinded on your loosened knees, 
 With swordless hands scarce strong enough 
 to pray, 
 Whilst Darkness gathered, and through groan- 
 ing trees 
 
 A man's soul passed away. 
 
 Failed ? Ay ! You could not win, yet bore the 
 stress — 
 Turned not the flood, but stayed awhile the 
 tide- 
 Failed where to fail was God-like. Is success 
 Worth that for which you died ?
 
 112 SOJVGS OF A A' ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 ' Men did not mark you.' Do men mark the 
 coal 
 Piled in the furnace ? It begets the steam 
 That drives the roaring- world towards its goal — 
 To be, man need not seem. 
 
 ' You did not win.' Did England ever yet 
 Win the first round ? Were you not English 
 bred? 
 Time ! Back to your Great Second's knees, 
 and set 
 
 Your eyes beyond the Dead. 
 
 ' One man against a thousand ! ' Glorious odds ! 
 Think you the gods who watch are less than 
 men ? 
 If men love stubborn courage, shall the gods 
 Give you cold welcome, when.
 
 FAILED? 113 
 
 Beaten and broken in a hopeless fight, 
 
 Wounds all your winnings, all your boast 
 ' I tried,' 
 You stagger from Earth's darkness to that 
 light 
 
 For which you fought and died ? 
 
 You were not meant to win. God chose to pay 
 
 Your life the price of some position won. 
 What is it to the soldier, if the day 
 Sets on his duty done ? 
 
 And if there be no crown, is that you lost 
 
 So priceless, now you see it from your goal ? 
 Is that they won, worth half the work it cost ? 
 You may have won your soul.
 
 114 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 ENGLAND'S DA V 
 
 When every sea is sounded, 
 When every land is sown, 
 
 Each furthest headland rounded, 
 Each soaring summit known ; 
 
 When the forces of Creation 
 And the Elements pay toll, 
 
 And the stars sing salutation 
 To the Jack at either Pole ; 
 
 When every human burden 
 Finds an Englishman to bear, 
 
 Each quest that gives no guerdon. 
 An Englishman to dare ; ;
 
 ENGLAND'S DAY 115 
 
 When all man's laws are stable, 
 
 And no man's withers wrung, 
 When the thousand sons of Babel 
 
 Praise God in Shakespeare's tongue ; 
 
 When the broken hearts are mended, 
 And the hungry mouths are fed, 
 
 The world's last labour ended, 
 And woman's last tear shed ; 
 
 When we've broken every fetter, 
 When the world is filled with light. 
 
 When there's nothing left to better. 
 And there's no one left to fight ; 
 
 When we've drained the cup of sadness, 
 Touched the topmost rung of fame, 
 
 Taught the world to throb with gladness 
 At the whisper of our name ; 
 
 I 2
 
 no SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 When all the trails are broken, 
 And all the wrong's set right, 
 
 And all God's message spoken, 
 Then, Englishmen, Good night.
 
 117 
 
 THEIR TESTAMENT 
 Feb. 21 St, 1900 
 
 Why is it that ye grieve, O weak in faith ! 
 Who turn towards High Heaven upbraiding 
 eyes ? 
 Think ye that God will count your children's 
 death 
 Vain sacrifice ? 
 
 Half-mast your flags ! Nay ! fly them at the 
 head. 
 We reap the harvest where we sowed the 
 corn. 
 See, from the red graves of your gallant dead 
 An Empire born !
 
 11 8 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 Do ye not know ye cannot cure a flaw 
 Unless the steel runs molten-red again ; 
 
 That men's mere words could not together draw 
 Those who were twain ? 
 
 Do ye not see the Anglo-Saxon breed 
 Grew less than kin, on every continent ; 
 
 That brothers had forgotten, in their greed. 
 What * brother ' meant ? 
 
 Do ye not hear from all the humming wires 
 Which bind the mother to each colony, 
 
 How He works surely for our best desires 
 To weld the free, 
 
 With blood of freemen, into one Grand Whole, 
 To open all the gates of all the Earth ? 
 
 Do ye not see, your Greater Britain's soul 
 Has come to birth ?
 
 THEIR TESTAMENT 119 
 
 Do ye not hear above the sighs, the song 
 
 From all those outland hearts, which peace 
 kept dumb : 
 
 ' There is no fight too fierce, no trail too long, 
 When Love cries, " Come ! " ' 
 
 Can ye beat steel from iron, in the sun ? 
 
 Or crown Earth's master, on a bloodless field ? 
 As Abram offered to his God, his son. 
 
 Our best -we yield. 
 
 And God gives answer. In the battle smoke, 
 Tried in war's crucible, washed white in tears, 
 
 The Saxon heart of Greater Britain woke. 
 One for all years. 
 
 Lift up your eyes. Your glory is revealed. 
 
 See, through war's clouds, the rising of your 
 sun ! 
 Hear ye God's voice. Their testament is sealed, 
 
 And ye be one.
 
 120 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 IN ME MORI AM 
 A. S. L. {Rector of Fairford) 
 
 Down the dim aisle through Diirer's window 
 floats 
 The laughing sunshine of the early spring, 
 In floods of colour ; while the throstles sing 
 
 As if their very souls were in their throats. 
 
 Fair Colne laughs by, and yet the bells swing 
 slow. 
 
 In mourning measure : every head is bent ; 
 
 Blinded with tears is every eye ; our Lent 
 Lingers through Easter ; God, why is it so ?
 
 IN MEMORIAM 121 
 
 Year after year, our Easter offerings lay, 
 
 Lord, at Thine Altar ; music, flower, and 
 
 song, 
 White lily wreaths, the organ's thunder 
 strong 
 To swell Thy praise, O Christ ! on Easter Day. 
 
 Year after year, the music of his voice 
 Told the old story with a poet's fire, 
 Clothed the old truths with colour, led the 
 choir. 
 
 Taught us ' to worship was but to rejoice.' 
 
 As men who gaze into spring's azure sky. 
 Where some sweet skylark sings far out of 
 
 sight. 
 So stand we gazing, if perchance we might 
 Hear, though far off, our brother's last ' Good- 
 bye.'
 
 122 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 O sweet dumb lips, which once were gates of 
 song, 
 Sing to us still, the while our path is trod 
 Leading through trouble (it may be) to God ! 
 Where thou art gone before, we pray to be ere 
 long.
 
 123 
 
 RUSSIAN SONG 
 
 Ye rippling waves of golden corn, full ears, 
 And reapers singing merry 'mid the grain, 
 
 Be still, nor move these heavy eyes to tears ; 
 What once brought joy, now brings me only 
 pain. 
 
 Whilst she still lived, sweet soul, now shrined 
 in heav'n, 
 Labour was sweet — alas ! 'tis bitter now ; 
 Wealth worthless if to her it is not given ; 
 Then rest, ye reapers — labourers, leave the 
 plough.
 
 124 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 Ah me ! there is no light upon the sheaves, 
 The music of the summer breeze has fled ; 
 
 In summer's place are winter and dead leaves — 
 Why should I labour still, while love lies 
 dead ?
 
 125 
 
 LONELY I WANDER 
 February 21, 1900 
 
 Lonely I wander, while the white road glistens 
 In flinty brilliance through the mists afar ; 
 
 Still is the Night : the very Desert listens 
 For some God's voice — star whispering to 
 star. 
 
 In royal calm Night sweeps along the sky, 
 In silver clouds the dreaming Earth is set ; 
 
 Peace reigns supreme : mine is Earth's only 
 sigh. 
 What do I wait for ? What do I regret ? 
 
 I wait for nothing. Having drained Life's lees, 
 I hope for nothing : nothing I regret.
 
 126 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 I only ask to lie beneath the trees, 
 
 To pass through dreams to lands where men 
 forget. 
 
 I ask for Sleep — for Sleep, but not for Death ; 
 Not that chili silence which is this Earth's 
 doom. 
 But Slumber, warm with life, stirred by sweet 
 breath, 
 A summer slumber in the greenwood's gloom. 
 
 Where some girl's voice sings to the drowsy 
 ear 
 Songs of young love — low songs whose 
 slow refrain 
 The green leaves murmur through the endless 
 year — 
 * Dreams without waking ! Love without 
 love's pain.'
 
 127 
 
 THREE TABLE AUK 
 
 Isolation 
 
 * Dreaming- she sat, while every tide that 
 
 turned 
 Bore to her feet rich wares from over seas ; 
 But though her hearth fires ever brighter burned, 
 Her strong sons wandered from the Mother's 
 
 knees, 
 Until, with half a world beneath her throne, 
 The Mother stood or seemed to stand alone.' 
 
 The Gathering 
 
 * 'Twas Envy's chance, and the red sword of 
 
 War 
 Shadowed the Throne. A jealous world grew 
 dumb,
 
 128 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 Waiting the blood-red setting of our star ; 
 But ere her proud lips deigned to whisper, 
 
 "Come," 
 From all earth's quarters — north, south, east, 
 
 and west, 
 The Eaglets gathered round the Eagle's nest.' 
 
 Imperial Federation 
 
 ' Ay ! fly the dear old Flag — let trumpets 
 
 sound ! 
 Those who would crush the rose, have clasped 
 
 its thorn ; 
 They came to break ; and but more surely 
 
 bound — 
 To slay, and saw a Greater Britain born. 
 Whose boast is this — all ancient boasts above — 
 Stronger than swords of steel are bonds of 
 
 love.'
 
 129 
 
 TABLEAU 
 
 (Girl dreaming in picture gallery — sleeps — ancestors step 
 out of frames and dance minuet.) 
 
 I WONDER if it's really true that you are only 
 
 paint, 
 That every beau's an angel now, and every flirt 
 
 a saint ? 
 The river sings its old song ; the moon begins 
 
 to set ; 
 The night is sweet, as nights were then, with 
 
 rose and mignonette. 
 The very floor beneath my foot once knew your 
 
 flying feet, 
 When you were all a man should be, and you, 
 
 dear, all that's sweet. 
 
 K
 
 I30 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 I wonder if I really am, and if you only seem ; 
 Or if it's really you who wake, and really I who 
 
 dream ; 
 And if when all the house is dumb, and men in 
 
 sleep forget, 
 You dance your stately dances still, gavotte 
 
 and minuet.
 
 131 
 
 THE BLOOMING OF THE ROSE 
 
 I HEARD a voice that babbled round the world, 
 Saying that England's rose would bloom no 
 more ; 
 
 That England's Union Jack was furled, 
 
 And England's manhood rotten to the core ; 
 
 That if She called. Her children would not come. 
 
 I heard no answer — English lips were dumb. 
 
 I heard a voice that cried from over sea 
 Of English Esaus, outlanders who make 
 
 New worlds, saying, ' We would be free : 
 Will you not answer, Mother, for our sake ? ' 
 
 And still no voice, but the dumb lion stirred, 
 
 And watching nations whispered, ' She has 
 heard,'
 
 132 SONGS OF AN ENGLISH ESAU 
 
 Aye, She had heard, and all Her lion brood 
 Moved in their lairs, and there were hurrying- 
 feet 
 On the long trails that run throughout the wood, 
 While from Earth's edges to the Judgment 
 Seat 
 Came voices crying, * We who rule the sea 
 And teach the lands, shall not our sons be free ? ' 
 
 And then the Red Rose bloomed, and the world 
 woke 
 
 To see the thorns in which our Rose is set ; 
 The patient silence of our Britain broke 
 
 And blossomed into flame — the bayonet 
 Drove up the heights, as drives a northern sea, 
 Strong as our people, as our people free. 
 
 We seek not fame. Earth has no higher rung 
 For English feet to climb to. O'er our Dead
 
 THE BLOOMING OF THE ROSE 133 
 
 Waves and the winds of all the world have sung 
 
 The master songs of triumph — all is said 
 When on the headstone of her noblest son 
 England has written these two words, ' Well 
 done.' 
 
 Ye cannot see the wind that moves our ships, 
 The blood of Earth that makes our roses red, 
 
 The pride beyond all speech that seals our lips, 
 The height beyond men's hope of England's 
 Dead ; 
 
 And canjvf' measure, ye outside our gate, 
 
 The love of Britons that makes Britain great ? 
 
 PRINTED BY 
 
 SPOTTISWOODE AND CO. LTD., NEW-STREET SQUARE 
 
 LONDON
 
 NOVELS BY OLIVE PHILLIPPS-WOLLEY. 
 
 THE CHICAMON STONE: 
 
 A LEGEND OF THE YUKON BASIN. 
 Crown 8vo. 65. 
 
 PUNCH. — ' " The Chicamon Stone " is a succession of pictures of one 
 of the weirdest parts of the world. In power, in simplicity, in occasional 
 grandeur, it is worthy of the theme. My Baronite, brought up on Fenimore 
 Cooper, ruefully admits what a stagey creature he was compared with Clive 
 Phillipps-WoUey. ' 
 
 PALL MALL GAZETTE.—' "The Chicamon Stoiie " is a book that 
 once begun will be most reluctantly relinquished until it is finished, and 
 finally it is a story that every healthy-minded English boy will read with 
 unbounded delight.' 
 
 ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS.-' There are books of adventure 
 and books of adventure, but " The Chicamon Stone" is among those that 
 should be read. . . . There is not a dull page in the whole volume.' 
 
 MANCHESTER GUARDIAN.-' A bracing tale of the forests and 
 snows, and the rough, resourceful men who know them as a citizen knows 
 his streets. . . . Mr. Wolley has a good vigorous style, so that, having 
 chosen his scene and found his story, he can tell it well." 
 
 PILOT. — 'This is a delightful book of stirring adventure, one of the 
 best we have read for some time. . . . Never for a moment does the 
 interest flag.' 
 
 ONE OF THE BROKEN BRIGADE. 
 
 Crown 8vo. 6y. 
 
 PALL MALL GAZETTE.—' A wholesome, stirring, lovable book . . . 
 one of those stories which you read and keep to read again.' 
 
 WORLD. — ' Much better than anything of this author's with which we 
 are acquainted. It is indeed a story almost painfully interesting and touch- 
 ing. . . . Brisk adventure and continual variety of character and incident 
 mark the progress of the story.' 
 
 MANCHESTER GUARDIAN.—' A good story well told.' 
 
 ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS.—' The book is full of interest, 
 but its chief value will be the lesson it affords to those who go forth with a 
 light heart to far-away lands, under the impression that prudence and 
 caution are not as necessary safeguards there as they are at home.' 
 
 LEEDS MERCURY.— 'A touching tale of devotion and sacrifice, 
 finely conceived and worked out, and the storj- and fate of Noe will long 
 live in the recollection of the most i/oi-/ reader.' 
 
 London : SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 Waterloo Place, S.W.
 
 SECOND IMPRESSION. Small crown 8vo. 5^-. 
 
 SONGS OF ACTION, 
 
 By A. COZSTAlSr DOYLE. 
 
 PRESS OPINIONS. 
 
 PUNCH.— 'Dr. Conan Doyle has well named his verse "Songs of 
 Action." It pulsates with life and movement, whether the scenes be laid 
 on sea or land, on ship or on horseback.' 
 
 WORLD.—' Dr. Conan Doyle has the gift of writing good rattling 
 songs with all the swing of Rudyard Kipling. . . . His songs are full of 
 high spirits and " go." ' 
 
 Mr. QuiLLER Couch in the SPEAKER.—' You may like them or 
 not ; you may think they were as easy to write as they are hard to get 
 out of your memory ; I make bold to promise that you will find it difficult 
 to shut your memory upon them.' 
 
 PALL MALL GAZETTE.— 'We congratulate Dr. Doyle on a volume 
 that will add to his reputation.' 
 
 ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS.— 'Some of the most stirring 
 rhymes of this age of new-awakened " Imperialism." Two little pieces in 
 particular, "The Song of the Bow," and " A Ballad of the Ranks," deserve 
 to become classics of their kind.' 
 
 WESTMINSTER GAZETTE.—' Dr. Conan Doyle's songs are happily 
 named. They are full of movement, and are for the most part moving. 
 Especially full-blooded and buoyant are the hunting songs.' 
 
 MANCHESTER GUARDIAN.—' Reveals a fresh poetical talent to the 
 admirers of his tales. . . . Dr. Doyle has his own note, a rhythm that never 
 fails to suggest music, an admirable simplicity, disdainful of mannerisms 
 and conventional rant.' 
 
 BOOKMAN. — 'There is no question but that, if Mr. Kipling be first 
 favourite with the soldiers, Mr. Doyle should be their Laureate's lieutenant, 
 and that huntsmen and golfers should have his songs in their hearts and 
 upon their lips.' 
 
 LITERATURE.—' That Dr. Conan Doyle could write good, stirring 
 verse he showed long ago. . . . The volume shows his versatility, and will 
 give real pleasure to all who still possess healthy emotions to be moved by 
 ringing metres and themes to suit.' 
 
 GLOBE. — 'Dr. Doyle's "Songs" are songs of movement. They have 
 fluency, they have vigour, they have force. Everybody should hasten to 
 make acquaintance with them.' 
 
 DAILY CHRONICLE.— ' Almost without exception "rattling good 
 verses." They ought to be a godsend to the reciter, who, we trust, will 
 appreciate them.' 
 
 DAILY TELEGRAPH.— ' There is spirit and animation, the rush 
 and glow of young blood about his poems — always a pulsating sense of life.' 
 
 London: SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 Waterloo Place.
 
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