Clive Phillips-Woolley of Someno!^ 
 
 put beautiful thoughts into an ode 
 
 and earned a knighthood. 
 
 1 T.M.L, 
 
Songs from a 
 Young Man's Land 
 
 By 
 
 CLIVE PHILLIPPS-WOLLEY 
 
 Author of "One of the Broken Brigade," "The Chicamon Stone,' 
 "Gold, Gold in Cariboo," etc. 
 
 TORONTO : 
 
 THOMAS ALLEN 
 
 PUBLISHER 
 
f,i> 
 
 ■A ., 
 
 /i^b' 
 
 Copyrighted Canada, 1917 
 
 By 
 
 THOMAS ALLEN 
 
 PRINTED IN CANADA 
 
DEDICATION 
 
 To the memory of Lieutenant-Commander Clive 
 Phillipps-Wolley, R.N., and those others from Cana- 
 da, who Hke him have given their lives for their coun- 
 try in this war, this volume is humbly dedicated by 
 one who when the war came was found to be too old 
 and too crippled to be of any use in the only place 
 where a man should be. 
 
 Perhaps to some who have fought and survived, 
 these verses may bring back some of the local colour 
 of the homes they fought for. 
 
 Clive Phillipps-Wolley. 
 
 W^: a} 
 
PREFACE 
 
 This volume contains a re-issue of my ''SONGS OF 
 AN ENGLISH ESAU" which had gone out of print, 
 and was unobtainable either in Canada or England. 
 The kind prejudice of my Western neighbors is to be 
 blamed for the pressure brought to bear on the publish- 
 er for its reproduction. The other half of the volume 
 consists of my later verse most of which has had the 
 honour to appear from time to time in such publications 
 as the Spectator, the Navy, my old friend The Week, 
 and other local papers to which I tender my thanks for 
 allowing it to reappear here. 
 
 In extenuation, I can only plead that it was the 
 generous recognition of one of these that ever made 
 me write verse at all. 
 
 Clive Phillipps-Wolley. 
 
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 the hills and sleep beneath the 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. 
 
 "No gilded 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!" 
 
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 ? 
 
 10 
 
CONTENTS PAGE 
 
 FOREWARD .... 
 
 9 
 
 Songs from a Young Man's La 
 
 nd . 
 
 To My Wife 
 
 15 
 
 A Song of the Axe . 
 
 16 
 
 To BURNABY AND THE CORR 
 
 espondents 17 
 
 Is Canada Loyal 
 
 18 
 
 Ode for the Diamond Jubh 
 
 .EE . . 20 
 
 The Kootenay Prospector . 
 
 22 
 
 The Western Pioneer 
 
 25 
 
 Our Western Girl . 
 
 27 
 
 A Christmas Greeting 
 
 28 
 
 Crawling Out 
 
 29 
 
 The Chain of Empire 
 
 31 
 
 A Western Yachting Son 
 
 G . . 34 
 
 The Sea Queen Wakes 
 
 36 
 
 The U. E. Loyalists 
 
 38 
 
 Fooled ... 
 
 45 
 
 February 22nd . 
 
 49 
 
 A Contract 
 
 50 
 
 The Colonist's Prayer 
 
 52 
 
 Strathcona's Cavaliers 
 
 54 
 
 An Invitation . 
 
 56 
 
 To Britain's ''Grand Roun 
 
 ds" . . 57 
 
 The Troubadour of Sprin( 
 
 J . . 59 
 
 The Worth of the Prize 
 
 60 
 
 Seed Corn 
 
 63 
 
 To Doctor George 
 
 65 
 
 ^ A Barbarian's Litany 
 
 67 
 
 Night on the Frontier 
 
 69 
 
 Failed? 
 
 71 
 
 England's Day 
 
 73 
 
 Their Testament 
 
 75 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 17 
 
 Russian Song . 
 
 78 
 
 11 
 
 
Lonely I Wander 
 
 Three Tableaux 
 
 Tableau . 
 
 The Blooming of the Rose 
 
 Spring in Hiding 
 
 The Mortgaged Farm 
 
 Dawn at Pier Island 
 
 A Sou'-West Storm 
 
 Autumn Salmon Run 
 
 Canada^s Emblem 
 
 Christmas Greeting 
 
 Boatman's Song 
 
 Heard at the Club 
 
 Canada's Spring 
 
 Jubilee Hospital 
 
 The Colonist's Cry 
 
 Suggestion 
 
 Tu Quoque 
 
 Rondeau 
 
 Coronation Hymn 
 
 In Memoriam . 
 
 To Sir Henri Joly de Lotbiniere 
 
 To Sir Wilfrid 
 
 To Harold Begbie 
 
 Indian's Monologue 
 1914— 
 
 To THE French Canadians 
 
 Canada, Come! 
 
 To THE Daughters of the Empire 
 
 Maple Leaves .... 
 
 Sir Charles Tupper, k.c.m.g. 
 
 To THE Papers and Politicians 
 
 "Scrapped'' .... 
 
 A Russian Rake .... 
 
 12 
 
SONGS FROM 
 A YOUNG MAN'S LAND 
 
 13 
 
TO MY WIFE . , . 
 
 On a mist-hidden ridge of the mountain, 
 
 Where the chamois and tiar Hve 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; 
 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, 
 
 If Love be the lodestar of life; 
 There is nothing for him to bemoan, dear. 
 
 Who can trust in his God and his wife. 
 
 15 
 
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. 
 Let the world rip, tighten your grip, 
 
 Make the blades glitter and shine; 
 At it you go, swing to the 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! 
 
 16 
 
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. 
 
 First in the fight, heralds of fame in battle, 
 
 Comrades in death, their pens with life-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! 
 
 17 
 
 2 Y.M.L. 
 
IS CANADA LOYAL? 
 
 Is Canada loyal ? Who dares to ask ? Are your colon- 
 ists' 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. 
 
 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 further- 
 most 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. 
 
 18 
 
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 ? 
 
 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!. 
 
 19 
 
ODE FOR THE DIAMOND JUBLIEE 
 
 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 
 
 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 the 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. 
 
 Thy workers' voices, many millions 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. 
 
 20 
 
O Queen, 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! 
 
 21 
 
THE KOOTENAY 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 
 
 aint Jim; 
 Not Jim as I knew, my partner, Jim fit and strong as 
 
 an ox. 
 That thing without muscle or movement, and limp as 
 
 my sodden socks! 
 Leave that alone in the shadow, and pile a log on the 
 
 fire — 
 Jim's gone, I guess, where the sparks go a-climbin' 
 
 higher and higher; 
 Not that they gets there neither. That log sucked sun- 
 light and dew 
 In bygone springs when it budded, where the yellow 
 
 snowdrops grew; 
 And now it's goin' to nothin' but ash and 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 get there. When they do they 
 
 wither and die. 
 See them! white, withered, wind-twisted, corpse trees 
 
 in a winter sky! 
 
 22 
 
Prospectin' ! that's what they call it. Hard labour an' 
 
 hunger an' cold — 
 That's what prospectin' is, mates: a hunt for a devil, 
 
 gold- 
 Gold as buys women and whiskey, hands shaky and 
 
 eyesight dim; 
 A lot of bummers to suck you dry, but never a pal like 
 
 Jim. 
 
 That wasn't the way as Jim talked. That wasn't the 
 
 way Jim thought. 
 He worked 'cause he loved the labour; he was born 
 
 to fight, so he fought. 
 He loved the danger, the hardship, black canyon and 
 
 shifting slide — 
 I seed him laugh in the face o' death right there where 
 
 you say he died. 
 
 An' it was a game worth play in', alone at the heart of 
 
 the world, 
 Where mighty snowslides thundered an' 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' ; sunk 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 foaming crik an' songs of 
 
 the chickadees. 
 
 23 
 
We had great things then for our comrades, the Forces 
 
 of Earth for foes — 
 There's one of us down, and another don't care a 
 
 curse when he goes. 
 
 They laughed in our face in the cities — the fat smug 
 
 cities back east — 
 Thought we were both of us loony, somethin' half man, 
 
 half beast. 
 Cities ! my God, we build 'em. Do you mind how Ross- 
 land rose? 
 Do you mind the first log shanty we built among the 
 
 snows ? 
 Do you mind how two years later their iron horses 
 
 raced 
 From north and south "the Boundary" to the goal that 
 
 we had placed? 
 An' now there are twice three thousand where then 
 
 there were none but three, 
 An' 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? 
 We warmed our hands at the blazing shacks and rebuilt 
 
 in a waterspout. 
 Do you mind — Ay, ay, you mind it, and that, my God, 
 
 is the end — 
 Nerveless, speechless, sightless, and deaf to the voice of 
 
 his 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. 
 24 
 
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. 
 
 When the very bears are hidin' from the Terror that's 
 to come, 
 An' 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, as a leader, 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. 
 
 25 
 
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 ; 
 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' 'twas His voice maybe callin' me to guide. 
 
 26 
 
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 — 
 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. 
 
 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. 
 
 27 
 
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. 
 
 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 ! 
 
 28 
 
CRAWLING OUT 
 
 Green-gray is the sea of sage brush, gray-green as the 
 
 waves of the sea ; 
 Grey-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 Hghts with the shadows, no ivy or 
 
 clematis cHng. 
 
 The mountains are haunted, silent; words die on the 
 
 lips unsaid; 
 The wolf is howling with hunger; hunger wheels on 
 
 wide wings overhead. 
 
 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. 
 
 29 
 
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. 
 
 I am man, and the world is mighty. Should I die thus 
 
 a lone outcast. 
 Could I find the goal where that other soul will be one 
 
 with mine at last? 
 
 30 
 
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. 
 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 un- 
 known. 
 
 To shores unnamed, till English swords had writ 
 Some word of Empire on them. Far and lone 
 
 Like fledgling eagles, England's outposts sit. 
 
 'Twas theirs to win — it has been yours to knit. 
 
 31 
 
Through black battalions, whence the Wood Lords 
 creep, 
 Whitening with age, towards the peaks of God ; 
 O'er dizzy fields, where snowslides 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 
 
 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. 
 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 ? 
 
 32 
 
Nay rather, could you stay ? Through warm red loam 
 Ran the sea rover's path. A wild salt scent 
 
 Blown over seas, pierced through the apple bloom ; 
 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 ; 
 Empire for Britain ; for your failing years 
 Rest, in the front rank of Her pioneers. 
 
 O seed of Empire! sown as Britain sows 
 
 With lavish hand, broadcast from East to West, 
 
 Sleep! whilst the harvest of your effort grows; 
 
 Sleep! knowing that your mother England knows; 
 Sleep! knowing that She sows but of Her best! 
 
 33 
 
 3Y.M.L. 
 
A WESTERN YACHTING SONG 
 
 Oh, my dainty coqueette 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; 
 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 longs to go, and she longs to know; 
 
 She is woman, and will not wait. 
 
 She yearns to be kist by the violet 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, 
 
 34 
 
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 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. 
 
 35 
 
THE SEA QUEEN WAKES 
 
 The flying squardon, which together with the existing avail- 
 able 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 11, 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 over- 
 head; 
 
 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 jfights. 
 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. 
 
 36 
 
In the world there be many nations, and there gathers 
 round every Throne 
 
 The strength of earth-born armies, but the sea is Eng- 
 land's own. 
 
 As She ruled, She still shall rule it, from Plymouth to 
 Esquimau, 
 
 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 for ever, 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. 
 
 37 
 
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 England should at last take 
 
 Greed for its god. 
 
 But the pines which have lived for ever sing a song of 
 
 the elder years. 
 Strong with the strength of manhood, liquid with 
 
 woman's tears — 
 A song they learned in the old time from Virginia'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. 
 
 38 
 
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 — 
 
 For she who had held her eyry at the gates of the 
 
 Inner Main, 
 Whilst Elliott 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 fVikings 
 
 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 — 
 
 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." 
 
 39 
 
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 : 
 
 SONG OF THE WIFE 
 
 It's hard to leave the land we love, the land your fathers won; 
 It's hard to think the dear old days, our sweetheart days, are 
 
 done; 
 It's hard to think the men you ruled will never know our son, 
 
 I know the field where com-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! 
 
 Do you mind the lanes, the bonny lanes? How sweet the haw- 
 thorn 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? 
 
 40 
 
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 home 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 
 
 maple and pine trees meet. 
 
 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. 
 
 41 
 
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 coun- 
 try'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 Cana- 
 dian skies, 
 
 If a man dare call us ''traitors" — by the God of 
 Heaven, he lies ! 
 
 *There were volunteers only ten years old in Brock's regi- 
 ment. 
 
 42 
 
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 canon 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 
 Elliott, 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 
 done 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 the American 
 Colonists into revolt. In 1782 that revolt ended in the separa- 
 tion 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 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 against 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 w^ere for the most part lead- 
 ing men in their several colonies, rich in lands and in repute. 
 At the end of the war it is recorded that the New York Legis- 
 lature enacted that "all Loyalists found within the States should 
 be adjudged guilty of misprison of high treason, and that all such 
 were for ever ineligible as voters and disqualified from en- 
 joying any legislative, judicial, or executive office"; that Mas- 
 sachusetts denounced death against 380 of her people without 
 judge, jury, opportunity of defence, or benefit of clergy, be- 
 cause they were reported to be Loyalists; that such men as the 
 Doanes, Sewalls, Robinsons, and others were tarred and feath- 
 
 43 
 
cred; 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 
 Lake Ontario and founded Upper Canada. England showed 
 her appreciation of their devotion by voting ilO,000,000 to repair 
 their losses : Canada showed the quality of her love 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. L. 
 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. 
 
 44 
 
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 wolf's 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?" 
 
 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 hear 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. 
 
 45 
 
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 ! 
 
 When I climbed from the hot lush cedar woods 
 
 To the snows of the mountain goat, 
 Nature was with me in many moods — 
 
 I had only eyes for "float."* 
 
 I heard no sigh in the stately trees. 
 
 No voice from the God above ; 
 1 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. 
 
 "Ho! Ho!" Is that only the questing owl? 
 Or is it the Thing I sought ? 
 The Thing that promised "the world fenced in" — 
 That, promising all, gave nought — 
 
 *Float is the prospector's term for detached fragments of a 
 reef — or quartz vein. 
 
 46 
 
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? 
 
 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. 
 
 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, 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 blast in the hill. 
 
 Men felled God's forests ; His rocks they scarred ; 
 
 The silence of God they broke ; 
 His temple 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. 
 
 47 
 
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 ; 
 
 'Twas red, blood red, all night ; 
 No pale priest's prayer could fright men there, 
 
 No God's sword reach to smite. 
 
 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 !" 
 
 48 
 
FEBRUARY 22nd 
 
 The Sou'-West harps and the great pines sway; 
 
 It is winter and the young Spring waits ; 
 The sun is blind with the freezing spray, 
 The snowstorms drive and the woods grow gray, 
 
 And the gray seas roar through the Straits. 
 
 The wolf -winds harry the wrecks by night ; 
 
 It is winter and the young Spring waits ; 
 The snow peaks frown and the w^olds grow white, 
 The sun has no warmth and the day no light, 
 
 And the sea bird screams to its mates. 
 
 In the shifting gloom life's shadows crowd; 
 
 It is winter and the young Spring waits; 
 Lost loves go by in the flying cloud, 
 Earth is a tomb and the sky its shroud, 
 
 And the mourners stay at the gates. 
 
 But the gray fog breaks, the strong sun shines; 
 
 It was winter, but the young Spring came 
 With sheen of grass and scent in the pines. 
 With baby leaves for the eglantines. 
 
 And a thought of a sweetheart's name. 
 
 Buds for the oak and life in the rain. 
 
 For purpling brakes where mad birds sing; 
 An elfin glamour on mead and main. 
 The clang and cry of the wild fowls' skein 
 Beating north on passionate wing. 
 
 The freed streams flow, the peaks are aglow, 
 
 In the sunlight the little waves sing; 
 There's a God above and a girl below, 
 The world is glad, for her children know 
 It is Spring, it is Spring, it is Spring! 
 
 49 
 
 4 T.M.L. 
 
A CONTRAST 
 Vancouver, May, 1787 
 
 Sun and a dreamy breeze ; the sweet strong scent of the 
 
 brine ; 
 The song of a world that waits, crooned by the swaying 
 
 pine ; 
 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 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 tra- 
 velled 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. 
 
 50 
 
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 — 
 Ruin and waste of woodland, the throes of a town at 
 
 its 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, im- 
 mense. 
 
 Feet on the sidewalk eager, noisy, confident, quick, 
 Where the deer stole by in the moonlight, and the 
 
 wapiti used to pick 
 Their dainty steps on the carpet, moss-woven, sound- 
 less and thick. 
 
 The voice of Nature silenced, save for the frogs in the 
 fen, 
 
 Claiming their ancient holdings, monotonous, mani- 
 fold — then 
 
 The scream of the locomotive, the voices and homes of 
 men. 
 
 51 
 
THE COLONISTS' PRAYER 
 (February, 190 1) 
 
 We be rude men, O Lord, who in lone woods, 
 
 Having learned the lessons that Thy mountains 
 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. 
 
 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! 
 
 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 
 
 52 
 
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. 
 
 53 
 
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 f ahrenheit marks forty-five below ? 
 
 Do you hear the crisp snow crunching on twilit north- 
 ern trails? 
 Do you see the homing shadows cross the white ? 
 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 heart 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, 
 With the blood of Rupert's riders running redly 
 through their veins. 
 And the only thing the devils dread is rest. 
 
 54 
 
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 weie 
 dark as doom, 
 They have played with Arctic rapids for their lives. 
 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. 
 
 55 
 
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. 
 
 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. 
 
 We bid you welcome to enter in. 
 
 To work as your fathers wrought. 
 If ye keep the faiths of your Saxon kin. 
 
 And the laws our Begbie taught. 
 
 56 
 
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. 
 
 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 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 so, 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; 
 
 57 
 
"By the fame we share in common, 
 By blood we were proud to shed, 
 
 By our folk in God's safe keeping, 
 Our own, and our Royal Dead — 
 
 ''Hear now our hearts' 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." 
 
 So 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. 
 
 The links in the Chain of Empire — 
 Love, law, mother-tongue, our fame — 
 
 Are clasped here and clinched for ever, 
 By us with His Mothers name! 
 
 58 
 
THE TROUBADOUR OF SPRING 
 
 One moment, from black-purple cloud, 
 
 Shrills through 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. 
 
 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, and forests drear, 
 
 The men who share his English birth 
 See, through a sun-lit 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 his brave songs spring. 
 She hails him Troubadour of Spring! 
 
 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. 
 59 
 
THE WORTH OF THE PRIZE 
 
 An American publication seriously debated the value in 
 dollars and cents 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? 
 Do our hearts grow cold with age, as the heart of 
 
 earth grows cold. 
 That we put a price on the priceless, and sell what men 
 
 never sold 
 When the song they loved was the humming of un- 
 known 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 Bri- 
 tain 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 
 
 60 
 
The profits of scheming and lying, beheved to their 
 
 hearts' last throb 
 A man's life was better than dying a multi-millioned 
 
 snob. 
 
 The strength that is ours, O Sea! we drew from your 
 
 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 wine's flame 
 But the kisses of her they loved, that sea they could 
 
 never tame. 
 Nothing they knew of markets or the miser's sordid 
 
 joys; 
 When their beards grew white with weather, they died 
 
 with hearts like boys'. 
 
 What will the prize be worth? Did the men of the 
 
 "Mayflower" dream 
 Of your seventy million men, and your blatant eaglets 
 
 scream ? 
 They scattered what they had gathered to follow a 
 
 Holy Grail, 
 Leaving the things that perish for the faith in which 
 
 none fail. 
 
 61 
 
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 ; 
 And ye, will ye only venture when ye weigh and count 
 
 your hire ? 
 When the god we served was Odin, the prize we asked 
 
 was fame. 
 But we learned of a higher courage and bent to a 
 
 Nobler Name; 
 Learned that to perfect manhood fame smacked too 
 
 much of price 
 That the crown of the Anglo-Saxon was mute self-sac- 
 rifice. 
 
 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 kins- 
 men trod. 
 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, but first? 
 
 62 
 
SEED CORN 
 
 "It's but for a } ear 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. 
 It is only a twelve days' journey; it's only a twelve- 
 months' 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 
 
 w^aves of the lake, 
 She answered their "Never, never" with "Only a year 
 
 for his sake." 
 With a laugh for long years she laboured, making pre- 
 tence 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 
 Heard a wife to a husband whisper, "Only a year or 
 
 two more." 63 
 
The years stole past while they laboured unnoticed on 
 
 moccasined feet, 
 And one by one to the silence passed the comrades they 
 
 longed to meet, 
 Till the lad and the 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. 
 
 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 of 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. 
 
 64 
 
TO DOCTOR GEORGE 
 
 Gray and ghostly alder thickets flame to crimson at 
 the tips 
 
 Where a sun that has some heart in't through the wak- 
 ing forest slips. 
 
 High above us, on Mount Sicker, I can hear the blue 
 
 grouse hoot — 
 Birds are calling, rivers glitter, buds are bursting, 
 
 grasses shoot. 
 
 On the pine stump by our shanty, Dawson's tattered 
 
 map lies spread, 
 And my partner with his finger marks the footsteps 
 
 of the dead. 
 
 "Spring," he says, "mate! time to quit it, for the barren 
 
 lands and hoar 
 Where the earth's heart freezes solid and the mighty 
 
 bull moose roar; 
 
 "Where through endless silent spaces reckless bands of 
 
 hardfists plod 
 By this map and by the compass to the gold they make 
 
 their god." 
 
 With a laughing curse for danger if across the Arctic 
 
 Slope 
 Lead the two our fellows follow, he who made this 
 
 here, and Hope — 
 
 Hope who fools them, whom they follow heark'ning 
 
 to her spring-call yet. 
 And the Doctor on whose say-so lives like theirs are 
 
 lightly set. 
 
 65 
 
 5 Y.M.L. 
 
Down the Dease and lonely Liard, northward from the 
 
 grim Stickine, 
 There's a way for such as they be where the little 
 
 Doctor's been, 
 
 Who made nothing of his learning. Lord ! the things 
 
 he didn't know, 
 Would assay no more than mica, are not worth their 
 
 weight in snow! 
 
 Still I think if they'd have let him, he'd have quit the 
 
 noise and fuss 
 Of their scientists and cities to chuck in his lot with 
 
 us, 
 
 For he*d crept so close to Nature, he could hear the 
 
 Big Things speak. 
 Hear the hymn of Arctic midnights, of the stars about 
 
 the peak. 
 
 Aye, and yet he loved his workmates, took the hard- 
 fist's heart for wage, 
 
 While his tired feet wrote his record on the north 
 land's newest page. 
 
 And although the trails ain't charted away up where he 
 
 has gone 
 I should guess its even betting he won't travel far alone, 
 
 But that One as knows will meet him, One he served 
 
 will act as Guide 
 To the camp of honest workers, men as never shirked 
 
 or lied; 
 
 And we'd like to put on record if so be mere miners can 
 That in lands which try men hardest. Doc. was tried 
 and proved a man ! 
 
 66 
 
A BARBARIAN'S LITANY 
 
 "From battle and murder and sudden death, 
 Save us, good Lord," the preacher saith. 
 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 ; 
 
 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; 
 
 67 
 
Where the London market's the final court 
 To which the kings of the world resort, 
 Whilst tolerance and compromise 
 
 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 ! 
 
 68 
 
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. 
 
 The Sun lied to me. All seemed known and near, 
 
 Earth, Sky, and Sea for me their gifts displayed; 
 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, 
 Speak without voices, move without a sound ; 
 
 Crowds that I know not fill all-circling space, 
 I almost see Thy Face. 
 
 69 
 
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; 
 
 But if Thou canst, for feeble feet that err. 
 
 Find through 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 ! 
 
 70 
 
FAILED? 
 
 "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. 
 
 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 groaning 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? 
 
 "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. 
 
 71 
 
"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 w^elcome, when. 
 
 Beaten and broken in a hopleless fight. 
 
 Wounds all your winnings, all your boast *T 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! 
 
 12 
 
ENGLAND'S DAY. 
 
 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; 
 
 When all men'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; 
 
 73 
 
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; 
 
 When all the trails are broken, 
 And all the wrongs set right, 
 And all God's message spoken, 
 Then, Englishmen, Goodnight ! 
 
 74 
 
THEIR TESTAMENT 
 
 (Feb. 2ist, ipoo) 
 
 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! 
 
 Do ye not know ye cannot cure a flaw 
 
 Unless the steel run molten-red again ? 
 That men's mere words could not together draw 
 Those vv^ho 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? 
 
 75 
 
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. Your testament is sealed, 
 And ye be one ! 
 
 76 
 
IN MEMORIAM 
 
 (AS.L. (Rector of Fairford) ) 
 
 Down the dim aisle through Durer'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? 
 
 Year after year, our Easter offerings lay, 
 
 Lord, at Thine Altar ; music, flower, and song. 
 White lilly 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" 
 
 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. 
 
 77 
 
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. 
 
 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 ? 
 
 78 
 
LONELY I WANDER 
 
 (Translation from Lermontof) 
 
 Lonley 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. 
 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 chill 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!" 
 
 79 
 
THREE TABLEAUX 
 
 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 
 Threatened the Throne. A jealous world grew dumb. 
 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 
 
 80 
 
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. 
 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 ? 
 
 81 
 
 6 Y.M.L. 
 
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." 
 
 A3^e, 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 all 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. 
 
 82 
 
We seek not fame. Earth has no higher rung 
 For English feet to climb to. O'er our Dead 
 
 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." 
 
 They 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 can they m^easure, they outside our gate. 
 
 The love of Britons that makes Britain great? 
 
 83 
 
SPRING IN HIDING 
 
 Are you hiding from us, Springtime, hiding in the 
 slashing? 
 Coming from the mountain, I saw your tracks go 
 down 
 In among the willow swamps, I heard your young feet 
 splashing, 
 Saw — among the alder stems — the glitter of your 
 gown : 
 
 Found — upon a snow drift — toys you dropped in run- 
 ning, 
 
 Cups of pale anemone, full of fairy fire : 
 On the mossy benches, where the deer were sunning. 
 
 Almost caught a glimpse of you, clad in green attire: 
 
 All but caught you peeping; caught the corner lifted 
 Of that dainty veil you weave, of cedar lace and 
 mist; 
 The shadow of your flying robe across the plough land 
 drifted, 
 The ridges blushed to purple which your little feet 
 had kist. 
 
 The catkin told your secret. He was bursting, dear, to 
 tell it, 
 And the dimpled baby brooklet just chuckled it 
 aloud, 
 All the fog grew opal-tinted and a miracle befel it — 
 Was it just a common rainbow, or your smile behind 
 the cloud? 
 
 84 
 
Ah, then, won't you come, coquette? Must we weary 
 for you yet? 
 Won't you teach the world a quickstep, put a rose 
 behind its ear? 
 Won't you sing us all the silly songs that coax us to 
 forget ? 
 Sow a hope in every bosom and a rainbow in each 
 tear? 
 
 85 
 
THE MORTGAGED FARM 
 
 The orchards have come to bearing. In billows of rosy 
 bloom 
 
 Nestles the Settler's homestead. The fringes of gorse 
 and broom 
 
 Glow golden against the sapphire. The meadows that 
 seaward sweep, 
 
 Tuneful with bells and drowsy with bleatings of full- 
 fed sheep, 
 
 Are sweet with the clover's incense — roses climb to the 
 eaves — 
 
 Drunken with sweets, the sea winds sleep in the maple 
 leaves. 
 
 And you have bought up the mortgage ? Man, but that 
 
 was not dear! 
 A dollar we'll say per acre, and twenty for ever year 
 It took those two to clear it. That matters but little 
 
 now, 
 She has the peace she prayed for, and he has rest from 
 
 the plough. 
 And you? Being free from a mortgage, you'll make 
 
 the old farm pay. 
 Managed by modern methods, worked in a business 
 
 way. 
 
 Let us go back to the slashing where you heard the 
 
 pheasant crow, 
 Where under the fallen giants the dog-tooth-violets 
 
 grow, 
 Deers-foot and ladies slippers, the only flowers which 
 
 grew 
 
 86 
 
To deck my lady's parlour when that old house was 
 
 new: 
 When he was digging ''borders," and she, with 
 
 mother's care, 
 Tending her ''slips" from England, the planting of each 
 
 a prayer 
 For a home like that home she came from — There is 
 
 the fight he won : 
 Here is the field he died on, the work that he left half 
 
 done. 
 
 Can you not see them bending over the crosscut saw, 
 Love their only possession, labour their daily law — 
 The Douglas leaning slowly, its topmost limbs asway. 
 To rush to earth a ruin, in clouds of woodland spray — 
 See them, close together, their own lives on the wane, 
 Counting the years her roses will take to her window 
 
 pane — 
 See the dreams that they lived for, the pictures fancy 
 
 drew 
 Of fields they never finished, of folds they never knew ? 
 
 Aye, you have bought a bargain with human lives 
 thrown in. 
 
 Their fields to bear the harvests your reaper folk shall 
 win. 
 
 But the dream v. hich those folk fashioned has not been 
 bought or sold! 
 
 When Spring is most impassioned, when gorse is virgin 
 gold. 
 
 When grass is living emerald and evening seas afire. 
 
 When pines are full of music as youth with love's de- 
 sire, 
 
 87 
 
You shall feel an unseen presence, shall hear a heart 
 
 in tune 
 With the glory of her roses, with the peace of early 
 
 June — 
 You shall balance fact with fiction, their dream against 
 
 your dross 
 The profits of your purchase, the requitals for their 
 
 loss! 
 
 88 
 
DAWN AT PIER ISLAND 
 
 The thresher pack went roaring through the night 
 Chasing the salmon shoal. The ghostly moon 
 
 Gleamed on lean fins, that stood a fathom's height 
 Above the flood, and in Night's dark mid-noon 
 I heard the sea things move, seals bark and owlets 
 croon. 
 
 Then came white dawn, baptizing branch and bole 
 With an unearthly splendour. Dark forms crept 
 
 On velvet feet to covert. Slowly stole 
 
 A smile o'er Earth's dear face, as if she kept 
 
 Her lids a moment closed, tho' she no longer slept. 
 
 From restless ripples which had cradled him 
 A romping zephyr sprang, and, laughing, set 
 
 My baby orchard moving to his whim — 
 Each dryad curtsied, every coronet 
 Bowed as it danced its morning minuet. 
 
 From the deep clover, one strong challenge note 
 Woke all God's choristers. On every spray 
 
 Some sweet bird-angel swelled its tiny throat. 
 Nature arose and bent herself to pray — 
 Amongst His flowers God walked and blest His 
 breaking day. 
 
 Then rose a sound of lowing from the byres ; 
 
 The hearth smokes mounted heavenward, coil on 
 coil; 
 Then came the clink of cans, the creak of tyres ; 
 The crows sedately sought their morning spoil. 
 And even laggard man went whistling to his toil. 
 
 89 
 
A SOU'-WEST STORM 
 
 From the brooding gloom of the wild Sou'-West 
 
 The scattering black duck come, 
 While the wheeling mallards drop in to rest 
 In the whisp'ring sedge where they had their nest, 
 
 And our loosened shingles hum. 
 
 There's a threat in the tops of the swaying trees, 
 
 And the sea's skin seems to crawl, 
 The sheep and the cattle are ill at ease, 
 A blind swell travels before the breeze 
 
 And tosses my anchored yawl. 
 
 Oh, heavy the drops on the barn roof ring, 
 
 Stars spatter on ev'ry pane, 
 Across the mist goes a found'ring wing 
 Blown out of the sky — the salt sprays sting 
 
 And the lights begin to wane. 
 
 On the sodden pastures the splashes spread, 
 
 Wide stretches of cheerless gray; 
 In the hollow tree the coon is a'bed, 
 The murdering mink to his cave has fled. 
 
 And the fish have fled the bay. 
 
 Then the wind that is wet with an old world's tears. 
 
 That mourns for millions dead. 
 Grown mad with the woe of a thousand years. 
 Burdened with prayers that no kind God hears, 
 
 Shrieks like a soul in its dread ! 
 
 90 
 
All Life cowers dumb while the dead trees cry, 
 
 The long dead kings who have stood 
 Through countless years with their crowns in the sky, 
 They totter and fall and the wind sweeps by 
 
 And Hell is loose in the wood. 
 
 But the trees may crash and the house walls throb 
 
 And the loosened shingles hum; 
 The Heavens may rave, and the wet winds sob, 
 For faith has a cache that no winds may rob — 
 
 She knows that Spring will come! 
 
 91 
 
AUTUMN SALMON RUN 
 
 Vague space, and in the hush, Dawn's pencil drew 
 On the damp clouds of darkness, line by line, 
 
 Peaks and vast headlands, while a fresh wind blew 
 Sharp with the stinging kisses of the brine 
 Pungent with perfume of the sun-burnt pine — 
 
 Through drifting veils of filmy forest smoke 
 Filtered the rose-pink promise of the day. 
 
 The sea plains heaved, the tide rip laughing woke — 
 Beyond the sun-limned shallows of the bay 
 Ocean, a palpitating opal, lay — 
 
 Misty, mysterious. Throbbing fairy fire 
 
 Coursed through its veins and all the madcap throng 
 
 Which cradles in the tide rip. Ocean's choir 
 
 In stoles of roughened silver, deep-voiced, strong, 
 Danced as it sang the young tide's meeting song — 
 
 Working the sea to madness. Sudden waves 
 Roared by the clififs, fretted the canopies 
 
 Written with runes, and echoed in the caves. 
 There was no wind to swing the slender trees, 
 And yet, through fields of calm, ran racing seas. 
 
 Strange eddies came and went — the black-toothed rocks 
 Were whelmed in waters piled upon an heap — 
 
 Louder and wilder grew the thunder shocks 
 Of the tempestuous rip. Beyond — the Deep 
 Lay calm and smiling, mother-like asleep. 
 
 92 
 
Then fell a miracle. The waters knew 
 
 Some deep sea call, and their swift tides became 
 
 Incarnate, and sudden incarnate grew 
 
 Their shifting lights — argent and azure flame 
 Drave through the deep. The salmon pilgrims came. 
 
 A pilgrimage foredoomed, from depths profound 
 To grey Alaskan waters, turgid, pent 
 
 Mid mildewed pines, where never sun nor sound 
 Of ocean's song can reach — the last event, 
 To rot on glacial mud, frayed, leprous, spent. 
 
 Note. — The salmon pass East Point on Saturna Island in the 
 early autumn season of forest fires, on their way to grim Alaskan 
 waters, where most (all?) of them die. 
 
 93 
 
CANADA'S EMBLEM 
 
 When the white frost lies on the topmost rail 
 Which fences the fold where the sheep are fed, 
 
 When the stems of the purple fire-weed fail, 
 And the bracken losing its russet red 
 Takes the livid hue of the clouds o'er head. 
 
 When the fear of the Ghost from the White North 
 grows 
 In sullen pines where the wolves are bred, — 
 
 In Gold and in Crimson the maple glows ! 
 
 When under the stars on an unseen trail. 
 The hosts of the clamorous fowl have sped ; 
 
 When the old folk die and the young folk ail, 
 And the homing cattle by instinct led 
 Come wandering down to the rancher's stead; 
 
 When the old year draws to a dreary close, 
 
 And the hearts of men are oppressed by dread, — 
 
 In Gold and in Crimson the maple glows! 
 
 When the rain storms thresh with pitiless flail 
 The last faint flowers in the garden bed. 
 
 And the sloops drive home under shortened sail; 
 When the songs are over and song birds fled. 
 And the last farewell of the Autumn said ; 
 
 When the bleak world shudders because it knows 
 That the feet of its dying are round its dead — 
 
 In Gold and in Crimson the maple glows! 
 
 94 
 
UEnvoi. 
 
 Even so should a brave man's sunset shed 
 
 From the heights of pain, through the mist of woes, 
 
 A flame on the path which we all must tread. 
 In Gold and in Crimson the maple glows! 
 
 95 
 
CHRISTMAS GREETING 
 
 Back! we are back from the frontier lands, 
 
 Where the greatest game of the world is played, 
 Where men take their lives in their reckless hands, 
 
 Play hazard with Death and are undismayed. 
 
 We are back from the mine and the railway grade 
 To our island home mid the orchard trees, 
 
 Each to his merry Canadian maid — 
 Peace and goodwill to you over the seas ! 
 
 We have seen the surf upon Arctic strands, 
 
 Have tickled Earth's ribs with a miner's spade; 
 Washed gold at Nome from the frozen sands 
 
 Where mammoth and aurochs lie undecayed ; 
 
 Back in our overalls tattered and frayed 
 To kneel with our girls on our bended knees, 
 
 Praying the prayer that the angels prayed — 
 Peace and goodwill to you over the seas! 
 
 We have done the work which the Race demands. 
 Have worked for a wage which cannot be paid, 
 
 Contented, if only She understands 
 
 That 'twas not for a dole of fame or trade 
 Alone that we cleared, that the rails were laid, 
 
 But just for Her folk, who such labour frees, 
 Giving room to breathe in the homes we made — 
 
 Peace and goodwill to you over the seas ! 
 
 Uenvoi. 
 
 Sire! if political critics upbraid, 
 
 As if we forsooth had not paid our fees 
 
 To share in the Empire our fathers swayed — 
 Point to the world you rule over the seas. 
 96 
 
BOATMAN'S SONG 
 
 (Gulf o' Georgia, B.C.) 
 
 It is sun-soaked peace that the land folk crave, 
 And the drowsy voice of their sheep 
 
 Give me the roar of the rising wave 
 When the Sou' West harries the Deep. 
 
 When the salt o' the sea gets into your blood, 
 And the throb of its heart to your brain ; 
 
 When the live boat lifts to the living flood. 
 And you flush to the kiss of the rain ; 
 
 When the great tides fill and the sea bowl tips. 
 
 And the waters run on an heap, 
 And out of the womb of the swirling ''rips" 
 
 The lean white sea wolves leap; 
 
 When down the valleys of gloomy grey, 
 
 And over the slant sea walls. 
 The black squalls race, the white caps play, 
 
 And the shrieking sea bird calls — 
 
 Then my spirit stirs, and my pulses beat. 
 And the long gone years come back. 
 
 Thank God, to be free from the man-filled street, 
 And out on the Viking's track ! 
 
 97 
 
 7 Y.M.L. 
 
HEARD AT THE CLUB 
 
 Surgeon — "The mere existence of pain disproves the 
 
 existence of a beneficent Almighty." 
 Athlete — 'Tf you look on your body as your soul's arm- 
 chair, perhaps, but if you look on it as a gym- 
 nasium? What do you say, Hayseed?" 
 Farmer — Under my window I planted a rose, 
 Made it a nest with my own two hands, 
 Where all that is sweet in springtime grows. 
 
 Brought from the dearest of all dear lands 
 Where sunbeams nestle till evening's close, 
 I planted and tended my rose, my rose! 
 
 At the call of spring, through my diamond panes. 
 
 Daffodils, violets, all sweet eyes 
 That laughed with the lad in his English lanes 
 
 Pitying smiled at the old man's sighs. 
 While the secret which only my garden knows 
 Was whispered me thus by my rose, my rose ! 
 
 She climbed, sweet fool, where none may attain — 
 Love led her upwards. Love was her life. 
 
 Till reaching at last to my window pane, 
 
 Her arms were lopped by the Gardener's knife — 
 
 Arms which would fain round my window close 
 
 Were cruelly lopped, yet He knows. He knows! 
 
 Unbeaten still, though her body bled. 
 Not to be crushed in a first emprise. 
 
 Her blind roots sought for a broader bed, 
 Lowlier room for her energies — 
 
 Sought but to find that all ways were barred, 
 
 Narrowed and cramped by the Gardener's shard. 
 
 98 
 
She might not climb, and she could not creep, 
 There seemed no way she might reach her goal, 
 
 Till the strength and sweetness that would not sleep 
 Surged to her centre and formed her soul — 
 
 Now the nightingales sing, as her bud uncloses, 
 
 "It was pain made perfect your rose of roses !" 
 
 99 
 
CANADA'S SPRING 
 
 The fresh-sawn cedar scents the morning breeze, 
 There is a new-born light upon the lea, 
 
 There is a stir of young life in the trees, 
 There is a Voice far out at open sea 
 Which calls to Hope and mocks old Memory. 
 
 Calls, "They were green, the leaves of yester-year," 
 Calls, 'Those who bred us bravest were and best, 
 
 But if their deed be done — those leaves grow sear, 
 The Sap still lives, and for a greater quest 
 Her children boune them. Spring is in the West!" 
 
 Through mountain barriers clang our iron wheels, 
 Wastes infinite drink up our broadcast wheat, 
 
 Through cumbering forests our axe chorus peals, 
 Our trails are all athrob with coming feet. 
 Earth's mightiest ocean rocks our infant fleet. 
 
 It is a time of swarming. From the Hive 
 Where half the honey of the world is stored 
 
 Come the World's Bees, strong with youth's strength, 
 to strive 
 Against a wilderness their kin explored, 
 A wilderness which hides earth's richest hoard. 
 
 Oh, Britain, trust the Builders thou hast bred! 
 Grow in thy mother pride. Draw closer still, 
 
 Adventurers worthy of thy peerless dead. 
 
 Thou wert the Founder; by the Almighty's will 
 And in His name, thy task thy sons fulfil. 
 
 100 
 
JUBILEE HOSPIT/\t 
 
 » » » t 
 
 Beyond the city's fever and the cries 
 
 Of man's dehrium, where the shamed streets run 
 
 To hide them in the grass, when April skies 
 Dapple the purple plough lands we have won 
 And all the Cloth of Gold round Camosun, 
 
 We built an altar — not as conquerors, vain 
 
 Of some achievement of the ensanguin'd sword, 
 
 But having known all heights and depths of pain, 
 And bound men only by the white man's word, 
 We built to Thee, the Pitiful, oh. Lord ! 
 
 Here be no triumphs ; no blood-drunken kings : 
 No glories gathered from another's shame. 
 
 In lieu of censors, see the wall-flower swings 
 Her cups of incense ! Meadow larks acclaim 
 Our quest accomplished, and the wild broom's flame 
 
 Burns round our altar ! Dreams of laden men 
 Staggering far spent along our endless trails 
 
 Find here fulfilment, ere Life's last amen — 
 
 The dreams which come, when all the body fails. 
 Of rest and cottage flowers, lush grass and glancing 
 sails. 
 
 These be our gauds, and for our minister 
 That Sister to the Sunbeam — she who slips 
 
 Bare-armed and smiling, where they moan and stir 
 Until like Dawn with cool sweet finger tips 
 She soothes the fevered brow or slakes the shrivelled 
 lips. 
 
 101 
 
We bring no sacrifice of gold or myrrh, 
 
 No offering bought nor any stained of blood, 
 
 Only, dear God, in memory of Her 
 
 Who was the Pride of Britain's womanhood. 
 One flower that blossomed first on Holy Rood, 
 
 Man*s pity for his brother. Through our gate 
 Comes woman from the home she must leave bare, 
 
 And white-lipped man, hard-handed, desperate, 
 To face at last a fate he does not dare. 
 Maddened by pain God will not let him share — 
 
 These be our masters. We who conquered, serve 
 The weak ones of the Earth. For hearts that ache 
 
 All that man has of knowledge, brain, or nerve. 
 With sweetness wrung from woman's heart, we take 
 To be our sacrifice for Love's dear sake. 
 
 Our trail is trod. Lo, here we dedicate 
 
 To Him on whom we leaned, the all we won. 
 
 His day is dawning. At our western gate 
 
 He knocks, oh Mother, and thy youngest son 
 Waits at His altar here in Camosun. 
 
 102 
 
THE COLONIST'S CRY 
 
 It's cruel of you, Springtime, when folks are growing 
 
 old. 
 To set their hearts a-longing for banks of primrose 
 
 gold. 
 Green willows by the river, gold kingcups by the Colne 
 Where every breath is perfume, a jewel every stone. 
 
 Lambs call about the meadows, the rooks are on the 
 
 plough. 
 The thrush is singing anthems, buds gem the apple 
 
 bough ; 
 The dreamy shadows nestle in streets of sunlit grey. 
 Whilst we're away from England, six thousand miles 
 
 away. 
 
 I see Mount Baker's summit, a cone of rosy snow — 
 Where waves broke, bloom the lilies : the fields of ocean 
 
 glow 
 As God's sign gleams in heaven : the rocks are pink 
 
 with foam 
 Of ribes and of stonecrop — our hearts cry out for 
 
 Home! 
 
 For the narrow lanes of England, where may meets 
 
 overhead ; 
 Where living hamlets cluster round dreamlands of their 
 
 dead; 
 Where Hope has met fulfilment, Ambition reached its 
 
 goal. 
 Each acre had its story, each homestead found its soul. 
 
 103 
 
Where all the earth is mellowed, and Nature's wood 
 
 lyre strung 
 To loves our maidens whispered, the songs our people 
 
 sung; 
 Where some girls' face is smiling in ev'ry op'ning rose, 
 Some heart of England speaking in ev'ry wind that 
 
 blows. 
 
 O England, Songland, Springland! we wander whilst 
 
 we live : 
 To broaden Britain's Empire, the best we have we give : 
 Surely they sleep the soundest in Mother's lap who lie. 
 We have worked, our strength is ended: ah! call us 
 
 home to die. 
 
 104 
 
SUGGESTION 
 
 Were the whole gamut ours, 
 
 Had we perfected powers 
 Were there no beauty still unseen to see, 
 
 Then might we ask for more 
 
 From those who seeking shore 
 Catch but the odour of some fragrant tree; 
 
 From those who, swimming low, 
 
 Fancy faint outlines — know 
 For one brief moment from some billow's crest 
 
 Vague glories — indistinct, 
 Through rainbow spray a hint 
 Of some fair land that lies beyond the west; 
 
 Or, utterly alone, 
 
 At midnight from the throne 
 Snow-draped that waits the coming of the dawn, 
 
 Feel in the dizzy void 
 
 Barriers of flesh destroyed, 
 And shuddering know the Curtain half withdrawn- 
 Shuddering lest mortal ear 
 
 Immortal sounds should hear, 
 Hear voices which the silence hardly veils, 
 
 Yet dreading, swooning, pray 
 
 For strength to know — till day 
 Draws to the curtain and their effort fails. 
 
 105 
 
Can you express in prose 
 
 The essence of the rose? 
 In song the message of the singing deep? 
 
 Or, waking, paint your dream 
 
 Such that its beauties seem 
 The supernatural splendours of your sleep? 
 
 Always articulate 
 
 A poet scarce were great. 
 Only the known has symbols in our speech. 
 
 Yet may man's fait' ring tongue. 
 
 Striving for songs unsung, 
 Suggest the mysteries he cannot reach. 
 
 106 
 
TU QUOQUE 
 
 (7905. ''Morning Post'') 
 
 They are asking in England whether loyalty is inculcated in 
 the schools of Canada. Lord Minto has recently answered 
 for us. 
 
 Brother, you ask too often. We have heard, 
 
 Aye, and have answered, as became our breed — 
 
 Not easily with empty word. 
 But by assurances of costly deed. 
 
 Are we not loyal ? When your first-born went 
 
 Did we lose less than you ? Beggared, were our necks 
 bent? 
 
 We do not pay our share to guard the State? 
 
 You gave us — what ? Free leave to find and found 
 An Empire for you. You were great ; 
 
 Your waste ones made you greater. The world 
 round 
 Flies England's flag, the law of England runs ; 
 The lands are held in trust by England's younger sons, 
 
 Having no voice in Council. Even now 
 
 Tott'ring beneath the load which makes you great, 
 
 You call us to a puppet show. 
 
 Afraid hot Youth should venture, in debate. 
 
 To blurt the truth you fear, the truth we know, 
 
 That you must shrink and die, or, with us, live and 
 grow. 
 
 107 
 
Nay, are you loyal ? Brook the impertinence ; 
 
 'Tis but your coin returned, if we speak free. 
 Is there no tax except in pence ? 
 
 In lives and labour have we paid no fee ? 
 Loyal ? Nay, you forget. You are but part. 
 There is an Empire now. Your isle should be its heart. 
 
 The truest loyalty to Britons known 
 Is to the Mighty Empire which is built 
 
 World-wide though centred round the Throne. 
 Disloyalty to Kin and That is guilt. 
 
 Your sea-schooled sires who ruled in ham and tun 
 
 Taught each to share with all, taught all to bear for 
 one. 
 
 England, awake ! Stir from your moneyed ease ; 
 
 There is no backward way. If you do cower 
 Before a fate too mighty, seas 
 
 May murmur in the future of a Power 
 Which ruled them once, but Britain's day is done. 
 United we rule all, divided we rule none. 
 
 There is a voice now crying in your streets 
 
 Which if you hear will save the nation's soul, 
 
 Ope' the Pacific to your fleets. 
 
 Give you World-Empire, make your hungry whole, 
 
 Raise beyond reach the Flag you would have furled. 
 
 You bid us pay our share — unite and share The 
 World ! 
 
 108 
 
RONDEAU 
 
 {To Miss S. T. on her marriage, ipo8) 
 
 If you should ask this gift of mine 
 For something hid behind the sign — 
 A marriage moral wholly meet 
 When Love makes loveliness complete — 
 Look closer, Lady, and divine 
 The message writ in loop and line: 
 **This is the work," your lips repeat, 
 "Of woman's hands." 
 
 Aye ! Looms may work for common wear, 
 For lives lived mostly in the mart, 
 But that which lies against the heart 
 Which hides the patch, conceals the tear. 
 Life's ''real lace work" is the care 
 Of woman's hands. 
 
 109 
 
CORONATION HYMN 
 
 Oh God, to Whom our Saxon Thing* 
 
 Bowed free born heads and stubborn knees, 
 
 To-day we crown Thy servant king 
 Supreme on all the seven seas. 
 
 Hear us. Thy people, whilst we pray. 
 
 Crown him Thyself, oh God, to-day. 
 
 Let him our English rule preserve. 
 
 Teach him the lesson of his "race. 
 That only they who humbly serve 
 
 Are worthy of the highest place. 
 Teach us true hearts, trained hands, to bring, 
 To serve our God and serve our king. 
 
 Crown him with courage to endure, 
 
 Crown him with wisdom to unite. 
 To keep his court and people pure, 
 
 To crush the evil, crown the right. 
 Speak, through his lips, the Master's will 
 To warring nations, "Peace, be still." 
 
 Give him our Alfred's love of law. 
 Give him our Edward's love of peace. 
 
 Give him that love the great queen saw 
 Close round her person, and increase — 
 
 Until, before his reign be done. 
 
 In faith his scattered lands are one. 
 
 *The "Thing" was the earliest form of Parliament in Eng- 
 land. 
 
 110 
 
IN MEMORIAM 
 {From "The Week," April 2yth, 1^12) 
 
 Nay, toll no bells ! For the dead march in Saul 
 Chant we a paean ! See, Pride conquers Pain ! 
 
 The clouds have broken ! Through our Titan's pall 
 The sun of April lights our world again; 
 Death has been mocked, been mocked, by men of 
 British strain. 
 
 Aye ! Thou hast slain, O Sea, hast slain once more : 
 Wrenched with rude hands thine uttermost of toll 
 
 From those who rule thine highways. Every shore 
 Is white with bones where'er thy breakers roll; 
 Man thou canst slay — thou canst not tame man's 
 soul. 
 
 Write on thy rocks and let they surges croon 
 Yet one more legend of the wand'ring folk 
 
 Whose bit is in thy jaws; who crave no boon 
 Save to serve others; whose enduring yoke 
 Not all thy storms or bergs or furies ever broke. 
 
 Hadst thou to hear our Nelson's voice again ? 
 
 Hadst thou to learn what danger meant to Drake? 
 
 Hadst thou to prove that bribes and threats are vain, 
 When from the bridge our merchant captain spake 
 His word, ''Be British men" ; and for that proud 
 name's sake, 
 
 111 
 
For manhood's pride, foregoing life and love 
 With smiling lips, strong man and millionaire 
 
 Stood by to look their last on skies above, 
 
 Content thy gloomy depths and death to dare 
 
 An unknown woman's life, another's child to spare? 
 
 "Nearer my God toThee." Right well ye played, 
 Heroic bandsmen. Never since her birth 
 
 Have troubadours or pipers less afraid 
 
 Led Britain's heroes, with such selfless mirth, 
 Through the grim gates of Death to Heaven's dear 
 rest from Earth. 
 
 Oh, British brothers ! Gallant son of France ! 
 And ye, our cousins, who in hours of need 
 
 Make great our pride of kinship — Cruel Chance 
 
 Has whelmed our Titan, but confirmed our creed — 
 Man's soul survives supreme: Death only sows the 
 seed. 
 
 112 
 
TO SIR HENRI JOLY DE LOTBINIME 
 
 on retiring from the post of Lieut. -Governor of 
 British Columbia. 
 
 Goodbye! That word rings hollow when we part — 
 The prayer has vanished from the threadbare 
 
 phrase. 
 Clipped by the hurry of discourteous days — 
 
 Born of the lips, unfathered by the heart. 
 
 But ''God be with you" is our people's prayer, 
 A people loath to let a loved one go, 
 A people conscious of a debt they owe, 
 
 A people losing one they cannot spare. 
 
 You taught us all the lesson of your race; 
 
 That strength may dwell in utter gentleness, 
 That courtesy is born of kindliness 
 
 And perfect courage, sheathed in perfect grace. 
 
 Two races warring till the time grew ripe. 
 Alternately the whetstone and the blade, 
 A Nation! in our Canada have made 
 
 Of which, Hope whispers, you are the true type. 
 
 God grant it! And for w^ork in His name done 
 A mellow Autumn, and a people's thanks, 
 'Till, dreaming by your mighty river's banks. 
 
 Long hence, you pass to rest which you have won. 
 
 113 
 
 8 Y.M.L. 
 
TO SIR WILFRID 
 
 (March, igio) 
 
 Sir, we have heard you speak. You told this land 
 That England's war touched not the Daughter 
 State- 
 That if at bay She stand 
 
 Your parliament will patiently debate 
 To fight or not to fight. Is this indeed, 
 Is this Ruth's vow to help her Mother in Her need ? 
 
 You have forgotten. We have many a guest; 
 
 Wide stand our portals and our lands are free ; 
 But to our utmost West 
 
 She is our Queen, the Queen of ev'ry sea — 
 These lands we hold in trust for those who own 
 One flag, one fleet, and one imperial throne. 
 
 British are we. The feet of Britons trod 
 
 The long lone trails that knit the world in one 
 
 Prayer to our country's God — 
 
 Men's, women's graves — the deeds that these have 
 done, 
 
 The long years spent from home, the bitter toil, 
 
 Have made this British land and sanctified its soil. 
 
 It may be well, in what concerns the whole. 
 
 That those who find the men and build the fleet 
 
 Should share in their control 
 
 In time of Peace — when Britain's foemen meet 
 
 We will not question if She's wrong or right. 
 
 At the first flap of that old flag — we fight! 
 
 114 
 
TO HAROLD BEGBIE 
 
 (A reply to his ''Tongue of the English") 
 
 Brother, take back across the trail we broke 
 
 This message from the Younglings of Her nest — 
 
 **The free-necked men who scarcely brook love's yoke 
 Still hold Thee nearest, dearest, noblest, best." 
 
 We who fly out of the north-sea nests, as young- 
 fledged eagles go, 
 
 Over the black ribbed ocean's floor, across God's walls 
 of snow. 
 
 Would you have us baulk at a sky line, would you have 
 us wait for a chart, 
 
 Stay with our wings untested, draw life from a 
 mother's Heart? 
 
 Nay, but we sought a sweetheart, such Mother as thou 
 
 of old. 
 Sea-girt, wild-hearted, deed-loving, beautiful, terrible, 
 
 bold; 
 Not to be won by a weakling, not to be bought in the 
 
 mart — 
 Death in her frown, oh Mother, pure woman's gold at 
 
 her heart. 
 
 Deaf! she was deaf to our pleading; dumb! she was 
 
 dumb to our needs, 
 Till we caught her manlike and clasped her, wooed not 
 
 by words but deeds ; 
 Her ice we thawed with our life blood, we tore her 
 
 mountains apart, 
 From the whisp'ring lips of our dying, she guessed at 
 
 the English heart. 
 115 
 
We have taught her the law of the English; we have 
 
 taught her Shakespeare's speech; 
 And we bring her to Thee, old Mother, for all that is 
 
 left to teach — 
 None other may dare to chide her, none other has 
 
 power to part 
 Thy boy and the bride he brings Thee, to lay on Thy 
 
 mighty Heart. 
 
 Look through her eyes, oh Mother, to the clear young 
 
 soul within — 
 Give her comfort and strength, Thou Greatest, to work 
 
 as she must for her kin, 
 Till the old world's wounds be healed, till tears no 
 
 longer start. 
 Till we play in the Kingdom of Heaven, to the beat of 
 
 the British Heart ! 
 
 116 
 
INDIAN'S MONOLOGUE 
 
 I heard a stick crack where the trail is Wind — 
 A grouse, that, flustered from her early sleep. 
 Cheeped in the growing dark — Unseen they creep 
 
 Up through the foothills, where the North Forks wind 
 
 From the deep snows above the Timber Line — 
 There go the young strong men, whose climbing feet 
 Are tireless as the wolf's — Aye! strong and fleet, 
 
 As are the fleetest of them, long ago were mine, 
 
 Whose trail is ended here. The whispering brush 
 Nods and crowds closer in the firelit ring 
 That makes a Heart of Darkness. In the spring 
 
 To be a place of ashes — weeds more lush 
 
 For that the roots beneath these feet have fed 
 Upon this thinking brain, this seeing eye. 
 Will the snows go again, the wild geese fly, 
 
 And all the clamorous spring-tide call me dead? 
 
 Will all the life which cradles in the South 
 
 Surge through the seas and winnow through the 
 
 air — 
 *Khelowna wake again and leave his lair 
 
 And salmon silver all the river's mouth? 
 
 Will the woods listen breathless where I stole — 
 I, the Woods' Lord — knee-deep in ruby wine 
 Of dying fire-weed? Every life was mine 
 
 Slipping as sun-light slips from bole to bole — 
 
 ♦The grizzly. 
 
 117 
 
Was I not Master? When my rifle spoke 
 The mighty moose fell still ; the ravens cried ; 
 The forest shuddered. On the mountain side 
 
 The gray starved pensioners of my hunting woke. 
 
 Day gone and light! The myraid pine trees close, 
 Watching and dumb, about the Thing that dies; 
 The hungry feet creep near ; an hundred eyes 
 
 Glare from the gloom. Save me, swift death, from 
 those ! 
 
 Note. — When an old Indian was worn out his comrades got 
 him wood and water: made his camp for him: left him food for 
 a few days and left him to die — 
 
 118 
 
1914 
 
 119 
 
TO THE FRENCH CANADIANS 
 
 Whenever a daring deed was done or a chivalrous 
 
 quest achieved, 
 When the odds against were ten to one, and the laurels 
 
 bloodiest leaved; 
 Whenever the fight was fiercest and honour alone not 
 
 lost, 
 Steel to steel in the forefront, your swords and our 
 
 own w^ere crost. 
 
 Whenever the charge w^as swiftest, 'twas a laughing 
 
 Frenchman led ; 
 Whenever the charge was broken, it broke on our line 
 
 of red; 
 The gayest hearts in battle, the stoutest hearts at sea. 
 Followed the Leopards of England, or fought for the 
 
 Fleur de Lis. 
 
 Now this is the Law of England, and Hers is the law 
 
 of the West: 
 The foes who fight us fairly, make the friends we love 
 
 the best; 
 The only peers of our people are such as have dared 
 
 and died. 
 With steady eyes on our bay'net points or cheering lips 
 
 at our side. 
 
 121 
 
We have buried our dead together, Wolfe and your 
 
 own Montcalm; 
 We have sung with you songs of battle, we have taught 
 
 the seas our psalm, 
 "Peace and be still," and always we have used our 
 
 blended might 
 To give to the people freedom and to every man his 
 
 right. 
 
 This is no time to bicker. We who have tried your 
 
 worth 
 Bid you stand shoulder to shoulder, for the peace of 
 
 all God's earth. 
 We have shared this land in common, you have proved 
 
 the Old Land's word. 
 Now let us keep together, the homes we have won by 
 
 the sword. 
 
 Let us build, to protect our people, a Fleet that the 
 
 World may see. 
 The Ways of Peace kept open by the Leopards and 
 
 Fleur de Lis, 
 And the Land we love grown glorious, secure from 
 
 hurt or loss. 
 By Ocean moated, and guarded by the soldiers of 
 
 Holy Cross. 
 
 122 
 
CANADA, COME! 
 
 Canada, come! When Her need is the sorest 
 Shall we alone hear her summons in vain? 
 
 Tell them, oh Sons of the prairie and forest, 
 
 While there's blood in our bodies our Mother shall 
 reign! 
 
 Chorus 
 
 Reign as the fearless one, reign as the peerless one! 
 
 Queen of a fetterless, free-for-all sea; 
 Mother, the lives of us, wealth of us, strength of us, 
 
 Take them and use them to keep the world free! 
 
 Gallant old France, and the dearest of islands. 
 
 The pastures of England, the mountains of Wales, 
 
 Bred Canada's people, and mostly, the Highlands, 
 Where faith never falters and blood never fails. 
 
 Canada, come! Teach the old world a story, 
 The story of brothers no oceans divide ; 
 
 The Sea's but a road for us, Earth not a load for us, 
 If the flags of our Sisterhood float side by side. 
 
 Britain our Mother is, Mistress no other is 
 
 Of seas which are ways between us and our kin; 
 
 If any threaten us. Mother, you bet on us, 
 We will be with you and help you to win ! 
 
 123 
 
TO THE DAUGHTERS OF THE EMPIRE 
 
 It was not yours to throw the Amalekite 
 
 When that world's Enemy laid waste all lands; 
 But when the Mother pleaded from the height 
 
 It was your strength that stayed Her failing hands. 
 'Twas you who led your lovers to Her fight, 
 
 With your heart's blood they quenched the burning 
 brands ; 
 Your dear eyes beckoned through the North sea night, 
 
 You gave the battle to their brave young hands. 
 And, when at last Love's sacrifice be paid, 
 
 A woman's broken heart will there be laid. 
 
 124 
 
MAPLE LEAVES 
 
 (October, 1915) 
 
 There's a wooden church in our furthest west — 
 
 A Httle lone frontier fold — 
 Round it the dead of our New World rest, 
 On it's door are the names of our boys, our best, 
 
 For God and their King enrolled. 
 
 We miss the fall of their swift young feet, 
 
 Our fields and our homes lie dumb, 
 Though we go to the gate, there are none to meet, 
 And sad is the prayer that our folk repeat : 
 
 Will they come, Lord? When will they come? 
 
 The fold is full of its fallen leaves, 
 
 It's trees stand naked and bare, 
 The mother's heart for her dead boy grieves, 
 None come back, though the last one leaves — 
 
 But God HAS answered our prayer ! 
 
 For the leaves which were green in the spring that's 
 dead. 
 
 Blood-red when the year grew old, 
 Now flutter down round the old man's head. 
 Not splashed with scarlet or stained with red, 
 
 But gold of the dawn — pure gold ! 
 
 125 
 
SIR CHARLES TUPPER, k.c.m.g. 
 (In Memoriam, 1821-ipi^) 
 
 Where thou wert born, the Breton rocks unshaken, 
 Breast through the stormy day the Atlantic's roll, 
 
 Keeping the orchards where the young buds waken 
 And hard won acres of thy people whole — 
 
 Like them thy stubborn strength, thy steadfast soul. 
 
 Second in place, since only one can lead, 
 And he who led seemed worthy to be served 
 
 By the most loyal — in the crowning deed. 
 When at the Titan's task men stood unnerved 
 
 It was thy will that won, thy faith deserved. 
 
 The Triumph of the West — that mighty line. 
 The link that bound two oceans. East and West, 
 
 The backbone of your country, his and thine, 
 Shall be thy monument. To honoured rest 
 
 Thy title, midst our strongest, ablest — best. 
 
 126 
 
TO THE PAPERS AND POLITICIANS 
 
 Will ye hear a cry from the Scrap Heap, ye who have 
 
 seen your men, 
 March bright-eyed to the battle, who may not come 
 
 thence again ? 
 Know ye the spirit that sent them, heads high, a swing 
 
 in their stride 
 To fight as they fought at Ypres, to die as McGregor 
 
 died, 
 To stand tight-lipped in the trenches, in a blizzard of 
 
 shot and shell — 
 Or, for Canada, charge light-hearted into the vortex of 
 
 Hell? 
 
 *Twas the spirit of national honour, that must fight 
 
 for right and truth, 
 'Twas the call of the Mighty Mother to her proud 
 
 Canadian youth 
 Who have laid your flag on His altar, who wreathes 
 
 your brows with fame 
 Whilst ye still bicker and backbite to blazon the nation's 
 
 shame. 
 
 A curse on your vile commissions, that suggest and 
 
 advertise theft, 
 While young men fight for your honour as the best of 
 
 the old things left. 
 Will You take the crown the boys won with their 
 
 sacrificial blood 
 And to gain a party triumph, drag your country's 
 
 name through the mud? 
 
 127 
 
Can ye not pull together to lift your Canada's head, 
 Whose pride alone consoles her as she kneels by her 
 
 gallant dead? 
 She is hurt beyond hoping or healing, yet she has not 
 
 flinched nor cried; 
 She is proud of the boys her Mother took, will ye not 
 
 spare her pride ? 
 
 128 
 
" SCRAPPED" 
 
 In the last dull flat of a river, 
 
 That has all but reached the Sea, 
 Where it pauses, half dead, to shiver 
 
 Ere it plunge in Eternity, 
 On the mud it has purged ere it passes 
 
 Lies a warship of England's Fleet, 
 Fouled by the slime and the grasses 
 
 Impotent — obsolete. 
 
 Outside is the sound of the surges 
 
 As they toll at the river's bar. 
 Above them, triumphant, emerges 
 
 The thunder of Britain's war — 
 Her mates are living the story 
 
 For which she was laid and built. 
 They are lighting or sinking in glory — 
 
 She rots alone on the silt. 
 
 Was it a breeze made her shiver, 
 By the envious years entrapped, 
 
 In the fog at the mouth of the river, 
 Unused, obsolete, scrapped ? 
 
 129 
 
 9 Y.M.L. 
 
A RUSSIAN RAKE 
 
 This rough translation appeard some j^ears ago in the Proceedings of the 
 Anglo-Russian Literary Society. — C.P.-VV. 
 
"A RUSSIAN RAKE." 
 
 Being a paraphrase of the first book of Pushkin's 
 ''Eugene Onegin," in something Hke the metre of the 
 original. 
 
 1883. 
 I. 
 
 A perfect life without a flaw, 
 
 Till sickness laid him on his bed, 
 My grandsire lived : himself a law 
 
 By which our lesser lives were led. 
 Respect from all (or high or low). 
 The best he knew, or cared to know! 
 Yet, oh, my God! how slow to spread 
 The pillows for the sick man's head : 
 What prostitution of one's wit 
 To raise a smile on lips half cold, 
 With downcast eyes his medicine hold. 
 All day, all night, beside him sit, 
 And sighing to oneself still muse — 
 ''When will the Devil take his dues?" 
 
 11. 
 
 So thought the Scamp, by Jove's decree, 
 
 To all his kinsmens' acres heir, 
 As through the dust post horses three 
 
 Pursued their journey "ventre-a-terre.' 
 Friends, then, of Russian and Liudmiel, 
 More preface were too much I feel, 
 Behold the hero of my song, 
 Onegin, born where roll along 
 Dark Neva's waters : there, maybe, 
 133 
 
You, reader, passed your early days 
 
 Or, later, set the town ablaze. 
 I lived there once. Alas! for me, 
 Just now I find the Northern air 
 More bitter than I well can bear.* 
 
 III. 
 
 His father, after a career 
 
 Of honour, lived on other folk. 
 Gave just three dances every year; 
 
 And then, as such men will, "went broke." 
 Fate kept my hero out of harm, 
 Whilst Madanie led him by the arm; 
 Until a tutor took her place. 
 Who, seeing that the Scamp had grace, 
 And being himself a needy Frank, 
 
 Fearing to bore him, deemed it best 
 
 To teach him lessons half in jest; 
 To mildly chide each childish prank, 
 Be slow to lecture, swift to pardon. 
 But constant to the Summer Garden. f 
 
 IV. 
 
 At length to wilful manhood grown 
 
 He bade the tutor too, depart, 
 To lover's hopes and lover's moan 
 
 Abandoning his youthful heart. 
 Pray you behold him, free as air. 
 In latest style his close-cropped hair, 
 
 * Pushkin was ordered to leave St. Petersburg for a literary 
 indiscretion. 
 
 t Equivalent of "The Park" in London. 
 
 134 
 
A perfect dandy, forth he goes 
 To see the world in London clothes, 
 His French was good : he'd write a letter 
 Which you could understand, I vow, 
 There was no stiffness in his bow. 
 And few danced a mazurka better. 
 What would you more? His world discerned 
 That he was *'nice" and very learned. 
 
 V. 
 
 For bit by bit, somewhere, somehow. 
 We pick up learning, not at once, 
 But, thank the Lord, its seldom now 
 
 A man grows up an utter dunce. 
 As for Eugene, some well might fear 
 (Critics exacting and severe), 
 That though well read he was pedantic. 
 Faith! he would drive his rivals frantic 
 By the high air with which he'd touch 
 On every subject, saving such 
 As seemed too deep. Then wisely dumb 
 He waited for his chance to come 
 And woke a laugh, exposing sham 
 With unexpected epigram. 
 
 VL 
 
 Latin has ceased to be the mode 
 And — if I needs must tell you true 
 
 Onegin scarce could read an ode 
 An epitaph could just construe — 
 
 Of Juvenal he'd chatter gaily, 
 
 Finish his letters with a "Vale," 
 135 
 
Would quote the ^neid's verse divine 
 
 With but two blunders to the line, 
 
 And though from ancient history's dust 
 
 He cared but little to unearth 
 
 Dull facts, he'd move your tears or mirth 
 With stirring tales of cut and thrust, 
 And stored his memory with lays 
 From Romulus to modern days. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Right little lust had he to learn 
 
 The rhymester's rules : the verse Iambic 
 
 He could not if he would discern 
 From dithyramb or choriambic — 
 
 Theocritus he found a bore, 
 
 While Homer wrote bad verse he swore; 
 
 From Adam Smith he culled the gist 
 
 And posed as an economist. 
 
 He knew an Empire's richest store 
 Was not in gold, but in her soil 
 That native products, native toil 
 
 Were truer wealth than hoarded ore — 
 
 His father failed to understand 
 
 And mortgaged every rood of land. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Just now I've neither will nor leisure 
 
 To tell you all my hero knew 
 But that in which beyond all measure 
 
 His genius shone, his knowledge grew, 
 Fi^om childhood's days — his toil — his plea- 
 sure — 
 
 136 
 
On which he spent his time — his treasure 
 Was Love, that Love whose tender art 
 Love's poet, Ovid, taught in song 
 And died Love's martyr; all the strong 
 And bright life ended far apart 
 On vast Moldavian steppes, where he 
 Pined far from well-loved Italy. 
 
 IX. 
 
 (Missing in the Original.) 
 X. 
 
 An actor born, he'd hide his lust, 
 Display a passion never known, 
 
 Shake maiden's faith or win her trust, 
 And make all moods alike his own. 
 
 As slave of love, or heart whole still, 
 
 Her lord, or minion of her will ; 
 
 Sunk in deep gulfs of sullen ire, 
 
 Or bursting into words of fire, 
 
 Inditing notes in heart's blood writ, 
 In which, forgetting self, he'd crave 
 Naught but her love this side the grave. 
 
 His eyes still seconding his wit 
 
 With fire to warm or flame to sear, 
 
 Or the soft suasion of a tear. 
 
 XL 
 
 Anon he'd ape the innocent 
 
 To catch young girlhood at her play. 
 Cajole with flatteries little meant. 
 
 With feigned despair fond hearts betray. 
 137 
 
By passion and by craft he wrought 
 
 To allay the fears young Conscience taught 
 
 To childish hearts — and waited still 
 
 Coy kisses given against her will 
 
 By conquered beauty: how he strained 
 
 To catch the young heart's wakening beat, 
 Arranged the trembling maid to meet, 
 And then — in Cupid's secrets trained — 
 Gave her long lessons in that art 
 Taught lip to lip and heart to heart. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Aye, even the inveterate coquette 
 
 Was scarcely safe against his wiles, 
 
 And as for men! such snares he set 
 If they were rivals for the smiles 
 
 He courted, that their lives became. 
 
 Touched by his bitter tongue, mere shame. 
 
 The happy wed ne'er failed to gain 
 
 A place of friendship with Eugene. 
 
 He loved the rake who ere he wed 
 In Faublas ethics had been schooled, 
 The sage, too aged to be fooled. 
 
 And he with horns upon his head; 
 
 That most contented man in life. 
 
 Who loves his dinner, trusts his wife! 
 
 XIII. and XIV. 
 
 Missing in original (or suppressed). 
 
 138 
 
XV. 
 
 Whilst still in bed Onegin lay 
 
 His lackey used to bring the mail. 
 
 All invitations! on one day — 
 
 Three hosts implore him ''not to fail." 
 
 Which shall it be? — ball, birthday party 
 
 (To each the invitation's hearty). 
 
 Which first, that is? To choose were vain 
 
 Where all so nobly entertain. 
 
 Meanwhile, in morning coat arrayed. 
 Upon his head a broad sombrero, 
 Along the boulevard our hero 
 
 Lolls through his daily promenade, 
 
 Until *Breguet, thy wakeful chime, 
 
 Suggests it's nearly dinner time, 
 
 XVI. 
 
 And dusk already. . In a sleigh 
 
 He takes his seat. The driver's cries 
 Ring loud and shrill. In silvery spray 
 
 The frost upon his collar lies. 
 "To Talon's quick!" he shouts (for therein 
 He knows his friend awaits, Kovarin). 
 Once there — the good cork skyward goes, 
 In streams the Comet Vintage flows, 
 A juicy steak before them lies. 
 
 With truffles, flowers of kitchen-land 
 (For boys who have the ostrich brand 
 Of stomachs), fresh made Strasbourg pies, 
 And amidst fruit and golden pines 
 A lively Limbourg cheese reclines. 
 * A watchmaker then in fashion. 
 
 139 
 
XVII. 
 
 Another bumper thirst demands 
 
 To wash the smoking cutlet down — 
 
 The clock suggests with silent hands 
 A ballet challenges the town 
 
 To sit in judgment. Eugene's part 
 
 In life, is critic of all art, 
 
 In town his fickle tongue does honour 
 
 To each danseuse and prima donna — 
 
 To green room's bright peculiar star 
 He speeds to judgment, joins the band 
 Of those who "really understand." 
 
 To applaud each brilliant entrechat 
 
 To hiss this one : that one recall : 
 
 And make themselves observed by all. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Enchanted ground where satire's lord. 
 
 Where freedom's friend, Von Vizin reigned, 
 
 Fearless and bright; where apt in word, 
 And quick of wit, Kniajnin feigned, 
 
 Where Ozeroff in other years 
 
 Once shared the pit's reluctant tears, 
 
 And shared the storm of hands with her 
 
 The Peoples' young Semeonova. 
 
 There Didlo won his laurel crown. 
 Katenin raised again for us 
 The genius of Corneille in Russ, 
 
 Shakovsky brought the gallery down. 
 
 There on those boards, behind those scenes 
 
 Passed many an evening of my teens. 
 
 140 
 
XIX. 
 
 My boyhood's queens! divinely fair, 
 
 List to my grieving from afar 
 Whilst others fade, perchance somewhere 
 
 Unchanged, still beautiful you are. 
 Say, shall I hear the singing of your choir 
 Ever again? or ever mark the fire 
 And spirit of your dances? Is it true 
 That sorrowing I must seek the friends I knew 
 And seek in vain? with blood unstirred behold 
 
 The mirth of other? find the spirit fled 
 
 Which charmed my past, then turn away 
 my head 
 And dreaming sadly of those days of old 
 Acknowledge that their glamour has departed, 
 And yawning, close my lorgnette, broken 
 hearted ? 
 
 XX. 
 
 The house is crammed ! The boxes glisten 
 
 With jewelled beauty; pit and stalls 
 Are packed with people ; aye ! and listen 
 
 The gallery for its favourite calls. 
 Rustling, the curtain rises, Lo! she stands 
 Slave of the baton in the master's hands: 
 Half spirit and all beauty, round her press 
 Nymphs the companions of her loveliness. 
 One foot just touches earth, and one 
 
 Swings slowly round: she leaps, she flies. 
 As down is driven along the skies 
 Before the wind's lips, and anon 
 Her form dilates or dwindles, while her feet, 
 True time to the quick music beat. 
 141 
 
XXI. 
 
 The whole house cheers! Onegin enters, 
 Strides through the stalls on others' toes, 
 
 The full force of his lorgnette centres 
 On lady strangers. Round the rows 
 
 On rows, he gazes : in his sight 
 
 Scarce one is dressed or looks aright. 
 
 Next, to the many men his friends, 
 
 A nod, a smile, a word, he sends; 
 
 And last, turns slowly to the stage. 
 Gazes, and then beneath his breath 
 Mutters "Great Scot, I'm sick to death 
 
 Of all this tommy rot; the age 
 
 Of ballets passes! much I've borne, I vow, 
 
 But even Didlo palls upon me now." 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Still cupids, demons, dragons, monkeys 
 Upon the boards, loud revel kept 
 
 Within the porch the weary flunkeys 
 Still curled up in their shoubas slept 
 
 The lights still shone; the lamps still glowed 
 
 Upon the stage and down the road; 
 
 Blowing of noses, hissing, cheering. 
 
 Horses impatient of their gearing. 
 
 Stamping for cold, still proved the revel 
 Unfinished yet. The coachmen stood 
 Around the fire, to thaw their blood, 
 
 Wishing their masters at the devil ; 
 
 When Eugene took the homeward route 
 
 To change again his evening suit. 
 
 142 
 
XXIII. 
 
 Must I depict the inmost shrine 
 
 Where Fashion's votary passed the day, 
 
 Where this aesthetic friend of mine 
 Would hourly dress and re-array? 
 
 Where every toy which London bears 
 
 To peddle for the rougher wares 
 
 Across the Baltic (fat and wood) ; 
 
 Where all that in her vainest mood 
 
 Parisian fashion could devise 
 
 To swell his profits, serve his pleasure, 
 Each useless but artistic treasure. 
 
 And all the latest luxuries 
 
 Adorned the private room, in plenty, 
 
 Of this philosopher-at-twenty. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Well, here's a list of all his assets : 
 
 Pipe stems from Stamboul tipped with 
 amber ; 
 
 In crystal flagons, cut in facettes. 
 
 Perfumes, more fit for lady's chamber 
 
 Than his; bronze statuettes, and china; 
 
 Scissors of all sorts; and, in fine, a 
 
 Rare medley; even for teeth and nails 
 
 A score of brushes scarce avails. 
 
 And that reminds me, a proops 
 
 Of finger nails, how famous Grimm, 
 Because he dared his nails to trim. 
 
 Provoked the wrath of Jacques Rousseau, 
 
 That gifted madman, Freedom's knight. 
 
 Not, in this instance, in the right — 
 143 
 
XXV. 
 
 For surely men who find some beauty 
 
 In well-trimmed nails are not all asses; 
 War with his age is no man's duty; 
 Custom's the tyrant of all classes. 
 Eugene, in all that touched his clothes, 
 
 Fearing the comments of his foes. 
 Was the most careful man extant. 
 And what we Russians call a ''phrant" 
 In dress — a secret this between us — 
 Three hours at least Eugene would pass 
 Posing before his looking-glass 
 Before he issued forth, like Venus, 
 When, dressed in all her husband's clothes. 
 That merry goddess masquing goes. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 Should I so loftily aspire, 
 
 Here might a cultured public get, 
 If curious, details of attire, 
 
 And latest modes in men's toilette. 
 With reason I might be afraid, 
 But then description is my trade. 
 Still, waistcoats, evening suits, and trousers 
 Have no equivalent, I vow, sirs, 
 In Russian, and my luckless rhyme. 
 
 I do confess it on the spot, 
 
 Already is too polyglot. 
 Forgive me! I had shunned this crime 
 Had I at first been much less chary 
 Of reference to the dictionary. 
 
 144 
 
XXVII. 
 
 The subject of this meditation 
 
 Not being clothes, our wisest course is 
 To seek with some precipitation 
 
 The ball. Onegin's hired horses 
 Have long since scared, with jarring feet 
 The slumbers of that silent street, 
 Where, amidst mansions dark and blank, 
 The sleigh lamps blaze in double rank 
 Before the spacious portico 
 
 Of one great house in garden set : 
 A house whose myriad lights beget 
 A vivid iris on the snow; 
 A house whose every window frames 
 A silhouette of squires and dames. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 Arrived upon this scene, Eugene 
 Slips like an arrow past the sentry, 
 
 Darts up the marble steps : again 
 
 Smooths back his hair and makes his entry. 
 
 The room is crowded : music floats, 
 No longer loud, in dreamy notes 
 
 Over the crowds which whispering gaze 
 
 At the Mazourka's merry maze. 
 
 The spurs of guardsmen clash and ring. 
 
 Fair women's feet, more swift than wing 
 
 Of swallow, skim across the floor, 
 While swifter far than swallow 
 The burning eyes of soldiers follow 
 
 The loveliness which they adore — 
 
 Even jealousy's discordant din 
 
 Is mellowed by the violin. 
 145 
 
 10 Y.M.L. 
 
XXIX. 
 
 In glad gone days of Young Desire 
 A ball like this I deemed perfection, 
 
 When midst the dancing, words of fire 
 And love notes passed without detection. 
 
 Ye worthy Benedicts, I tender 
 
 Whatever service I can render, 
 
 And pray that all of you and each 
 
 Will mark the moral of my speech! 
 
 And you, my lady mothers, lend 
 A wakeful eye to your lorgnette, • 
 Or those fair girls will stumble yet, 
 
 And do — and do — No! Heaven forifend! 
 
 I only sound such warning notes 
 
 Because I've long since sown my oats. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 Alas! in every sort of pleasure 
 
 The best years of my life have flown, 
 And yet, if sickness gave me leisure, 
 
 I still would go to balls, I own, 
 For still I love young manhood's madness, 
 The crowd, the glitter and the gladness. 
 Fair woman's studied elegance; 
 I love the feet which lead the dance, 
 Shapely and small: (I doubt you'd meet 
 
 If you should search it through and through 
 In Russia's realm a pair or two). 
 But woe is me, one woman's feet. 
 Her pretty feet! — they haunt me still 
 When dreams my slumbering senses fill. 
 
 146 
 
XXXI. 
 
 Ah where, and in what lonely wild, 
 
 Fool, will you manage to forget? 
 Say, little feet, that so beguiled, 
 
 'Mid what spring flowers ye wander yet? 
 Nursed in the gentle East's repose, 
 Upon our Northland's dreary snows 
 Ye left no track. A little while 
 Your light step touched my carpet's pile — 
 For that I lost my thirst for Fame 
 
 The greed of glory tempts no more 
 
 Little I miss my native shore, 
 Exile or home to me the same. 
 All my ambitions fade and pass 
 As fades yon light track through the grass. 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 Young Flor's cheek, Diana's breast 
 Are fair, but fairer far to me 
 
 Beyond compare with all the rest 
 Thy tiny foot, Terpsichore; 
 
 That foot which to enamoured eyes 
 
 Is full of priceless prophecies — 
 
 Which, by the little it reveals. 
 
 The very heart from manhood steals — 
 
 With the long tablecloth above it — 
 
 In spring pressed on the meadow grass — 
 In winter on the fender's brass 
 
 Or by the sea alike I love it; 
 
 Nor least where polished parquetry 
 
 Mirrors its pretty coquetry. 
 
 147 
 
XXXIII. 
 
 Well I remember, envious throes, 
 
 When once, before a storm awoke 
 Rank upon rank the wavelets rose 
 
 And clamorous round my lady broke; 
 Ah! how I wished that I were such 
 As they, those dainty feet to touch! 
 Not once I vow, when young desire 
 Filled all my boyish veins with fire. 
 Had such wild longings filled my breast 
 To touch the lips of pretty misses, 
 To redden their soft cheeks with kisses. 
 Or taste their bosoms' sweet unrest; 
 No never once did Passion tear 
 At my poor breast as it did there. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 Her stirrup now, as in a dream, 
 
 A sacred dream of long ago, 
 I seem to hold : again I seem 
 
 The touch of that dear foot to know 
 In my hot hand. Once more desire 
 Wakes at her touch. My blood takes fire: 
 Imagination stirs again 
 This withered heart to love and pain. 
 But hold! Enough! Thou shalt not praise 
 
 These haughty belles, my gossip lyre 
 
 They are not worthy to inspire 
 A lover's pain, a poet's lays — 
 Their lips, their feet, their witching eyes 
 Are full of nimble trickeries. 
 
 148 
 
XXXV. 
 
 But where's Onegin? Lo ! he takes 
 
 From ball to bed his sleepy way, 
 While tireless Petersburg awakes, 
 
 And kettledrums reveille play. 
 The tradesman wakes; the pedlar starts, 
 The cabman to his stand departs; 
 The wheels of milk carts to and fro 
 Crunch crisply in the morning snow — 
 The merry morning's wakening hymn 
 
 Begins : shops open ; every flue 
 
 Its smoky column to the blue 
 Of Heaven sends. The baker trim 
 (A German paper capped) throws wide 
 His window to the folk outside. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 Tired with the ball room's noisy riot, 
 Turning his morning into night, 
 
 He sleeps in welcome shadowy quiet, 
 This child of luxury and delight. 
 
 Nor wakes till midday. Then, once more, 
 
 Till morning lives the old life o'er. 
 
 Dazzling but changeless; his to-day 
 
 The counterpart of yesterday. 
 
 And yet, amid such luxuries 
 
 In manhood's flower, was Eugene free. 
 Or happy, tho' he seemed to be 
 
 Hero of social victories? 
 
 Did he escape ill health, blue devils. 
 
 Or pass scot-free through all these revels? 
 
 149 
 
XXXVII. 
 
 No! All too soon his heart grew chill. 
 
 The world's din wearied him. The grace 
 Of woman, which once seemed to fill 
 
 His every thought, now found no place 
 With him. Friends, comrades, rivals, all — 
 Even loves, oft changed, began to pall 
 On him, and when one day he found 
 Digestion's pangs could not be drowned 
 In bumpers of champagne; that splitting 
 
 Headaches would follow drink to bed, 
 
 The words Onegin used were, so it's said, 
 Not parliamentary, but fitting — 
 Nay; though a fiery feather head, 
 He even lost his taste for steel and lead. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 Little by little that disease 
 
 Whose cause he should long since have 
 seen — 
 Call it whatever name you please 
 
 (In Russian ''handra," English ^'spleen") — 
 Mastered Onegin. He ne'er tried. 
 Nor thought, thank Heaven, of suicide. 
 But turned on life a cold regard. 
 And like Childe Harold, gloomy, hard. 
 Frowned on the world. Nor virtue's smile. 
 
 Nor gambler's greed, nor passion's sigh 
 
 That mocks at maiden modesty, 
 Nor even scandal, could beguile 
 His sullen mood. By nothing moved. 
 He nothing noticed, nothing loved. 
 150 
 
XXXIX., XL., XLI. 
 
 (Missing in the original.) 
 
 XLII. 
 
 Fashion's fair dames, beneath your sway, 
 
 He Hngered longest, though we know 
 Life in the highest diques to-day 
 
 Is apt to be a trifle slow ; 
 For though perhaps one woman may 
 Talk of ''Bentham" and "Jean Say,"' 
 The average run of ladies' chatter 
 Is silly, sinless, stupid matter. 
 To such a length their virtues go, 
 
 So prudent are they, so correct. 
 
 So pious, proper circumspect — 
 In every act so comme il fant, 
 To man so distant, I admit — 
 I always get a bilious fit. 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 And you, my pretty ones, who fleet 
 In roving droshkies late at night 
 Over our bridges, down the street 
 
 Of Petersburg, your revels light; 
 And you, Eugene, abandoned. In his den, 
 Yawning, he turned him to his pen 
 And tried to write. Alas ! such work 
 Required some thought and thought proved 
 irksome 
 
 151 
 
To our Onegin. So no song, 
 
 Or other offspring of his quill 
 
 Ever entitled him to fill 
 A place amid the struggling throng 
 Of authors. Stay! I'll make no fun of 'em, 
 Because it happens / am one of 'em. 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 Again to idleness given over, 
 
 He sought (a somwhat nobler goal), 
 Relief from ennui to discover 
 In bolting literature whole. 
 Set books before him, line on line. 
 Read and re-read without design, 
 Found Dullness here, Delirium there. 
 Lies, want of conscience, want of care. 
 And want of thought and all in fetters. 
 The old was satle, the up-to-date, 
 Raved feebly of the earlier great. 
 As to the ladies, to the letters. 
 He bade farewell and spread a pall 
 To cover books and dust and all. 
 
 XLV. 
 
 From Fashion's burdens breaking free 
 We met, and bonds of friendship sealed, 
 
 Tired of the world's frivolity. 
 
 His features to my heart appealed. 
 
 The dreaminess which held him still 
 
 In reveries against his will. 
 
 His individuality, 
 
 His wits, cold bitter quality, 
 152 
 
Each drew me to him. He was sad, 
 And I was angered. Both had learned 
 Love's cruel lesson. Life had burned 
 
 Low in our hearts, for either had, 
 
 From childhood's dawn, by man or fate, 
 
 Been smitten and left desolate. 
 
 XLVL 
 
 He who has lived and thought must feel 
 
 For man some measure of disdain. 
 O'er him who once has felt must steal 
 For days which cannot come again, 
 Some sorrow. When illusions perish 
 Regret survives to wring the heart 
 Until, from sufferings borne, the art 
 Of poet's eloquence it teaches. 
 
 At first Onegin's bitter tongue 
 Jarred on my listening ear; erelong 
 I grew accustomed to his speeches 
 Where jest and bitterness were knit 
 To give more flavour to his wit. 
 
 XLVn. 
 
 Ah me! how oft when Summer's night 
 
 Hung darkly clear o'er Neva's stream, 
 Whose laughing waters in their flight 
 
 Unmirrored left Diana's beam : 
 We two along the bank would rove, 
 In dreams of early boyhood's love: 
 In dreams of manhood's first romance; 
 
 153 
 
Till sinking into tender trance 
 All heart, all faith, we silent drank 
 
 The sweet night's breath, such draughts, so 
 deep, 
 
 That like to prisoners in their sleep 
 Laid dungeon free on greensward bank, 
 We too in happy dreams were borne 
 To gates of manhood's merry morn. 
 
 XLVIII. 
 
 Eugene would stand in pensive mood 
 
 His heart o'erburdened with regret. 
 As once they tell a poet stood. 
 
 Bowed o'er the granite parapet. 
 T'was silent all, save when the cry 
 Of watchman's challenge passed us by, 
 Or sound of hurrying horses' feet. 
 That thundered down the Million street; 
 Or wash of boat, by labouring oar, 
 
 Impelled that dreamy tide along: 
 
 Or distant bugle note or song 
 Heard faintly from the farther shore. 
 Ah, sweeter even than Tasso's rhyme 
 Such nights as those in summer time. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 Oh, Adriatic! Brenta! Nay, 
 I, too, shall see you, and rejoice 
 
 With soul fresh fired, as breaks the day 
 To the full music of thy voice; 
 
 Strong voice, to Albion's poet dear; 
 
 Sweet voice, that to my native ear 
 154 
 
Whispers of home: oh, nights of gold!- 
 ItaHan nights, when, uncontrolled, 
 I'll drain Life's cup of pleasure dry, 
 Some fair Venetian by my side — 
 Sweet chatterbox, or else tongue-tied 
 Because when boats in shadow lie. 
 True lovers' lips should only seek 
 The language Petrarch's verses speak. 
 
 When will my hour of freedom come? 
 
 'Tis time! 'tis time! My beckoning hand 
 Implores each sail, when e'er I roam, 
 
 Waiting fair weather on the strand. 
 When shall I set my homing sail. 
 And though the waves before the gale 
 Their shattered crests about me toss, 
 Unstayed o'er troubled ocean cross. 
 Touch homeland and be free? 
 'Tis time this dreary land to flee, 
 To me ungenial, and my verse, 
 
 'Tis time to rest where south seas swell 
 
 'Neath native Afric's skies, to dwell 
 In peace, and Russia's cloud-land curse, 
 Where, wrecked by grief, to love a slave. 
 My heart has found itself a grave. 
 
 LI. 
 
 Onegin and myself had planned 
 To travel, but before we started 
 
 We were by Fate's resistless hand 
 
 For many and many a long year parted. 
 155 
 
'Twas thus. Onegin's father died, 
 And round my friend on every side 
 Gathered the money-lending crew, 
 All with some private end in view. 
 Eugene loathed business, hated toil, 
 
 Was well contented with his lot, 
 
 Cared for his losses not a jot. 
 And left the pack to share the spoil. 
 Foreseeing, with prophetic eye, 
 His grandsire's end was also nigh. 
 
 LII. 
 
 Even so it happened, one fine day 
 
 This message from his agent brought him 
 "His grandsire, who a-dying lay, 
 
 To come and bid farewell, besought him." 
 Onegin skimmed the gloomy greeting. 
 And started straighway for the meeting. 
 Post haste along the roads he tore. 
 Yawning e'er half the course was o'er, 
 Prepared for money's sake to meet 
 The weariness of sick men's sighs — 
 ('Twas thus Eugene first met our eyes). 
 But, having reached his grandsire's seat, 
 He found him laid out in his room — 
 A tribute ready for the tomb. 
 
 LIII. 
 
 The Court, with servants filled, he found, 
 Friends and detractors gathered all, 
 
 From far and near, the country round — 
 Guests eager for the funeral. 
 156 
 
The dead these duly buried. 
 
 The guests and priests got drunk and fed: 
 
 And then, the serious business done, 
 
 Sedately home went every one. 
 
 And lo! Onegin, in his village, 
 He who till now all order hated, 
 A genuine spendthrift, fresh translated, 
 
 To lordship over woods and tillage. 
 
 O'er mills and waters, and elate 
 
 At all that changed his former state! 
 
 LIV. 
 
 For two whole days the meadows made 
 
 A novel pleasure for his eyes, 
 Their loveliness, the oak grove's shade, 
 
 The quiet brook's soliloquies — 
 All soothed and won him : after that 
 Woods, hills, and the far reaching flat 
 Staled on his fancy; nor could keep 
 Eyes open that were tired of sleep. 
 Even here, he learned, aye, even here. 
 
 Where there were neither cards nor balls, 
 
 Nor poet's verse, nor princely halls, 
 The ill he fled from waited near — 
 Ennui — the shadow of his life. 
 More pertinacious than a wife. 
 
 LV. 
 
 Now I was born for peaceful things, 
 For rustic scenes, for country quiet, 
 
 My lyric muse most blithely sings 
 In deserts wild. On country diet 
 157 
 
My fancy thrives. In sinless leisure 
 
 By lone waste lakes, I take my pleasure, 
 
 *'Sans souci" for my motto taken; 
 
 Where every morning I awaken 
 
 To sweet indulgence, idle ease, 
 I read but little, much I sleep. 
 Nor strive the winds of fame to reap, 
 
 Yet was it not by means like these 
 
 That I came nighest happiness? 
 
 LVL 
 
 Flowers, love, a village holiday. 
 
 The widespread fields are my delight. 
 Things Eugene lothed. I'm bound to say 
 
 I wish you'd keep this point in sight, 
 Lest fancying that you recognized 
 My features, he should be despised. 
 And deeming poets such poor creatures 
 That they can only paint the features 
 Of their own faces, should repeat 
 With ready malice that old stricture 
 Passed upon Bryon, that the picture 
 Which I have daubed in my conceit 
 Was my ow^n portrait, and discredit 
 This tale I've taken such pains to edit. 
 
 LVII. 
 
 I note, in passing, poets seem 
 
 All friends to love's illusive passion; 
 
 I, like the rest, have dreamed my dream 
 Of figures of so fair a fashion 
 
 That they have tenanted my brain 
 158 
 
In secret till they lived again. 
 
 Touched by my muse, the ideal maid 
 
 Haunting the mountains, I've portrayed 
 
 And Salgir's captive set in song. 
 Till now, my friends, I often hear 
 This question whispered in my ear — 
 
 "Which of the pretty jealous throng 
 
 Has had the fortune to inspire 
 
 The tender love songs of your lyre?" 
 
 LVIII. 
 
 Whose sweet eyes wake the storm and stress 
 
 That fill your moody poesy? 
 Who crowns your work w^ith her caress? 
 
 Who is it that you deify? 
 No one, by heaven, my friends, I sw^ar — 
 All unconsoled I've had to bear 
 Love's foolish sorrow. Blessed, I think, 
 Those lovers who to passion link 
 The singer's phrenzy : who can double 
 
 The poet's madness, blessed of God, 
 
 And, treading paths that Petrarch trod. 
 Allay at once their bosom's trouble 
 And snatch a laurel wreath from Cupid. 
 Alas! in love /'m dumb and stupid. 
 
 LIX. 
 
 But love once fled, the muse awoke, 
 My cloudy mind grew clear again. 
 
 Once more myself, I strove to yoke 
 Feeling and thought in my refrain. 
 
 159 
 
I wrote — my heart no longer fainted 
 For love. My pen no longer painted 
 This woman's foot, that maiden's head, 
 Nay, e'er the stanza's course is sped 
 Love's dying ashes will not glow 
 
 Though I still grieve, no tears I shed 
 Love's storm is all but quieted; 
 'Ere long it may be mine to know 
 Heart's ease, and yours a poem penned 
 In lines and verses without end. 
 
 LX. 
 
 I've named my hero, formed a plan to 
 
 Build up my story on; moreover, 
 Whatever happens, the first canto 
 
 Is finished, and that labour over. 
 I've scrutinized my work, and see 
 A lot of things which don't agree; 
 But faith, I'm not inclined to mend 'em. 
 No! Let the critics tear and rend 'em, 
 (Fruits of my labour) I will pay 
 
 Whatever is the censor's due; 
 
 But you, my new born, off with you 
 To where old Neva's waters stray; 
 Go! earn the wages of the muse — 
 Harsh critiques and loud-tongued abuse. 
 
 Warwick Bro's & Rutter, Limited, 
 Printers and Bookbinders, Toronto, Canada. 
 
 160 
 
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