UC-NRLF 
 
 .^ilbSQN lACDQNAbD. 
 
THE SONG OF THE PRAIRIE LAND 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
Song of the Prairie Land 
 
 and Other Poems 
 
 By 
 
 Wilson MacDonald 
 
 With an Introduction by 
 
 Albert E. S. Smythe 
 
 Cover design by the author 
 
 McClelland, & stewart 
 publishers :: toronto 
 
copyright, canada, 191«^ 
 By McClelland & stewart 
 
 TORONTO 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 CJopyright U.S.A. 
 
 PRINTED IN CANADA 
 
 Warwick Bro's & Rutter, Limited, 
 Printers and Bookbinders, Toronto, Canada. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 58 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A Toast to Beauty . . . .17 
 
 Prelude ..... 18 
 
 The Cry of the Song Children . . 20 
 
 A Song to Canada .... 24 
 
 At the Modder River . . • .27 
 
 A Poet Stood Forlorn ... 29 
 
 Song of the Snowshoe Tramp . . .35 
 
 Whom Shall My Heart Condemn? . 40 
 
 First Song Without a Name . . .47 
 
 The Whip-poor-will ... 49 
 Trapper One and Trapper Two (or The Ghost 
 
 of Ungava) . . . . .55 
 
 Reed Songs ..... 65 
 
 A Song of Brotherhood . . .69 
 
 Barbary ..... 72 
 
 The Song of the Skate . . . .74 
 
 The Waking Thought ... 80 
 
 Otus and Rism.vl (A Ballade of the Long Sea 
 
 Lanes) ..... 82 
 
 The Song of the Pil\irie Land . . 93 
 
 5 
 
 794 
 
PAGE 
 
 Pauline Johnson . . . .98 
 
 The Haunt oe a Lost Love ... 99 
 
 At the Ford ..... 100 
 The Rose and the Wildelower . . 103 
 
 British Columbia .... 107 
 
 A Song to the Singers ... 109 
 
 Alone 110 
 
 A Song of Better Understanding . . Ill 
 
 The Mongrel . . . . .116 
 
 Whist-whee .... 121 
 
 Third Song Without a Name . . .123 
 
 The Girl Behind the Man Behind the Gun 124 
 Mary Mahone .... 127 
 
 Saint Elias . . . . .131 
 
 At Brookside Manor . . . 134 
 
 Somewhere, Sometime the Glory . . 136 
 
 France ..... 138 
 
 Gifts 139 
 
 By Howe Sound . . . . 140 
 
 Peace 142 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 I FIRST met Wilson MacDonald in 1911. I had come 
 across a remarkable poem, ''The Shame of Goderich," 
 
 of considerable length, in a country paper. I was im- 
 pressed with its power, its gift of expression, its original- 
 ity, its humanitarianism. It seemed to be the shame of 
 Toronto that it should not be more widely known. Of 
 course there was difficulty in getting it into a Toronto 
 paper. Its length was against it. So was its quality. 
 Newspapers will print doggerel by the yard, but as a 
 rule their columns are closed to good poetry. However, 
 'The Shame of Goderich" duly appeared, signed "Fred- 
 erick Maclean." 
 
 One day subsequently a dark romantic figure appeared 
 at my office door. I thought at once of Kyrle Bellew in 
 the Apothecary scene in "Romeo and Juliet," the only 
 actor I ever saw do it justice. Here was the same slight, 
 lithe, graceful Italian figure, the same dark eyes and olive 
 complexion, the same strange inscrutable smile of the shy 
 but friendly soul. 
 
 "I am Wilson MacDonald," spoke the stranger. That 
 conveyed nothing. "Yes ?" was the non-commital editor- 
 ial response. "I am Frederick Maclean," was the fur- 
 ther venture, and after that the fountains of the great 
 deep were unloosed. 
 
 7 
 
Wilson MacDonald grows on acquaintance. He is like 
 Africa or any other unexplored continent, full of sur- 
 prising and delightful mysteries. That he is a genius I 
 have no doubt whatever. His many-sided nature is out- 
 side the range of our ordinary garden varieties. Any one 
 of his gifts would make a man remarkable. 
 
 The volume of poetry to which this is a prelude is 
 sufficient distinction for one man's accomplishment, but 
 Wilson MacDonald has so many other treasures in his 
 storehouse that one hesitates to say that this is the great- 
 est, supreme as it may be. He brings forth things new 
 and old. 
 
 It was in no modem school he learned his art of design 
 and illumination, and if he issued a volume of these 
 exquisitely beautiful creations the rivalry among his gifts 
 would be obvious. He has written songs, both words and 
 music, and he produces nothing commonplace. He has 
 written operas, not merely the words, not merely the 
 music, but the whole composition, scenery, dances, cos- 
 tumes, all from one fertile brain. He is an inventor and 
 has patented several profitable devices. If it should 
 occur to him to become commercial or mercenary I believe 
 he could juggle finance with the same easy legerdemain by 
 which he confounds the greatest conjurers of the stage. 
 
 Among all his gifts nothing appeals to me like the 
 source of them, the shy, timid, childHke soul, such as 
 are of the Kingdom. Children love him — nay, they adore 
 him. He is of their kin and fellowship. 
 
 Who is Wilson MacDonald? Only the records of 
 palingenesis can reveal that secret, but I fancy that he 
 
 8 
 
has wandered from the lost Etruscan paradise and 
 brought with him many of the arts and mysteries that 
 glorified that ancient people. The Keltic life burns in 
 his blood, and he is Canadian through four generations: 
 Cheapside and Woodstock and Toronto and Vancouver 
 have fostered him. He is an alumnus of McMaster, and 
 for the last seven or eight years he has expanded in the 
 west and helped the west to expand. In the sequestered 
 valleys of British Columbia he is most content, and all 
 cities and city ways are irksome to him. But he loves 
 humanity too well to abandon mankind because men are 
 ill-developed. 
 
 This book concerns his poetry, and of that something 
 should be said. Herein is only a moiety of what he has 
 written, and to my mind some of the greatest things have 
 been omitted. *'The -Victoria Cross of God," for exam- 
 ple, or *'The Puppets." 
 
 All new poets who are not echoes or reflections appeal 
 to new audiences, and sometimes it takes a long time for 
 the audience to find itself. Readers of poetry are as 
 nervous of new poets as amateur mycologists are of mush- 
 rooms; they want to see some one else eat them first. 
 The simile does not carry far, for some readers love to 
 regale themselves on toadstools. In a general way, how- 
 ever, it must be admitted that a taste for poetry and 
 particularly new poetry is acquired, often with effort, 
 and is the result of some culture. So I would not be dis- 
 appointed if Wilson MacDonald's poetry made its way 
 slowly, especially in the United States, where poetry must 
 
have rag and jazz in it to be appreciated, and Walt Whit- 
 man is still outlawed. 
 
 But on the other hand I would not be surprised if 
 Wilson MacDonald found a large, immediate hearing, 
 because he reaches deep into the common heart. He is 
 like Thomas Hood in that respect, and he is as great a 
 lyric artist, as pathetic, and, it may yet prove, as hum- 
 orous. 
 
 Still more he reminds me, not by imitation or rem- 
 iniscence, but by common sympathies, of Keats and 
 Shelley, of Wordsworth and Lanier, and of Sydney 
 Dobell and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. At 38, Wilson Mac- 
 Donald has thought profoundly, observed keenly, and has 
 given Canada what no other poet has done in being utterly 
 and entirely Canadian, and the spirit of his poetry is a 
 prophecy of the extent and the future of Canadianism. 
 We shall read these poems and say, not only is this what 
 in Canada has been, but what in Canada shall be. 
 
 Wilson MacDonald is a master of free verse and of 
 lyric also. He has invented new verse forms which com- 
 pel the ear by their harmony and the novel chime of the 
 rhyme. He has shown that if he writes free verse it is 
 not for lack of facility in metrical art. 
 
 He is patriotic in Tennyson's cosmopolitan sense as 
 becomes a Canadian of the fourth generation. He can 
 afford to think and say what might be suspected in the 
 newly arrived, and he might even prove an over robust 
 laureate for the Daughters of the Empire. But who has 
 written such a ballad for them as "The Girl Behind the 
 Man Behind the Gun," and who has voiced such poetry 
 
 10 
 
and passion and pathos as in his "Peace" ? This latter 
 I take to be one of the great poems of that war after 
 which "Walks the old silence of the long ago." What 
 poet but will envy this line? 
 
 One cannot characterize all his work, but let me refer 
 to five typical poems or groups of poems. And first, 
 those that deal with outdoor Canada. In "The Whip- 
 poor-will" he has written a poem that takes rank with 
 Keats' "Nightingale" and Shelley's "Sky Lark." If any- 
 one demurs, let him compare it with two fine poems of 
 the second rank, James Hogg's "Skylark'' or Eric Mac- 
 kay's tribute to the same "little priest in grey apparel," 
 and note the superiority. In "The Song of the Prairie 
 Land" one has the same living intimacy with conditions 
 that comparatively few have experienced. "The Whip- 
 poor-will" will be criticized by those who have never 
 listened to the bird while the night-damps sank into their 
 souls. 
 
 Ah! easy to hide from truth 
 
 In the cit}''s haunted hole, 
 But you cannot hide on the prairies wide, 
 
 Where the winds uncloak the soul. 
 
 And in "The Song of the Snow Shoe Tramp" we have 
 not only a ballad of Canadian life, but the testimony of 
 the poet's art to his own purity of inclination. 
 
 There will come a time when we shall have great nar- 
 rative poems from Wilson MacDonald. He has indicated 
 his dramatic power in many pieces, notably "Trapper 
 One and Trapper Two." A narrative poem of a different 
 order is "Otus and Rismel," a "ballad of the long sea 
 lanes." It is a poet's poem, but the lay reader can test 
 
 11 
 
his own capacity for poetry by perusing it and seeking its 
 secret, like the pearl hid in the field. 
 
 The years bridge chasms deep and wide ; 
 
 They bridge them span by span, 
 And bolt and thong and tier are strong, 
 
 And true the Builder's plan. 
 And where the long white arches end 
 
 Stands Christ, the Son of Man. 
 
 There are unappreciative readers of poetry, and Wilson 
 MacDonald, with his imperturbable universality, can get 
 down to their level, and under their skin also, as in "The 
 Mongrel," where he speaks the vulgar tongue, to be un- 
 derstanded of the people. It is the same voice that made 
 *'Bill Jones" the sensation of the west. 
 
 For my own choice and preference there are the poems 
 that deal with the great issues of our modem thought, 
 "the scorn of scorn, the hate of hate, the love of love." 
 Wilson MacDonald is nowhere so impassioned as when he 
 Hfts his voice as the prophet of truth to his age. He 
 would "ring in the Christ that is to be," and in that Spirit 
 he has wrought marvels. I have already mentioned "The 
 Puppets." There is a kindred note in "The Song of Bet- 
 ter Understanding," and it leads one on to "The Song of 
 Brotherhood," another of those chants of Barbary which 
 move as with a spell. And there is "Barbary" itself, 
 almost my favourite of all these rhythms. 
 
 O, we ride through the mornmg dews 
 
 To gird on the Master's shoes. 
 And we wait by night, while the stars burn white, 
 
 The soul of His smile to share. 
 
 12 
 
There is one more little poem I wish to mention. I 
 can scarcely think of it without tears. Into "Whist- 
 Whee" Wilson MacDonald has crowded all the loveliness 
 and all the loneliness of childhood, and the poem is filled 
 with the infinite yearning of the seeking to save that 
 which was lost. Is it a child, or an ideal? Is it love? 
 Is it life? 
 
 I have written frankly as an admirer of Wilson Mac- 
 Donald. The critics will have their say. They will tell 
 us that confessional does not rhyme with bell, and they 
 will find fault with his theology and berate his slang and 
 his daring and his independence of their laws. But the 
 Master is a law unto Himself. And if they miss his 
 beauty, his purity, his truth, his religion, the life and 
 strength of his poetry, they should take down the atlas 
 and see if they don't miss Canada ofif the map of North 
 America. 
 
 A1.BERT E. S. Smythe. 
 
 13 
 
THE SONG OF THE PRAIRIE LAND 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
%^ — ^^ 
 
 
 
 
 17 
 
 2P.L. 
 
PRELUDE 
 
 TWO jugs upon a table stood; 
 One ample of girth and sweet of cavern, 
 But a shapeless bit of homely wood 
 That you would scorn in the poorest tavern; 
 The other traced and interlaced 
 By the strange fancy of a Dorian 
 Was sloped and curved to a woman's waist, 
 And worthy the pen of a grim historian. 
 
 Caneo came over a purple shoulder 
 
 Where the vineyards crawl in the lazy sun; 
 
 A bold man, Caneo: no bolder 
 
 Ever a woman won. 
 
 Bold was he as all men grow bold 
 
 Who wash themselves long in the sun. 
 
 And Caneo carried a cask of wine 
 
 Where the grapes had flowed together. 
 
 He saw the vase with the rich design 
 
 And paused whether— 
 
 (Ah, wonderful gate of whether) 
 
 A wisp of juice would it hold, and he 
 
 Had a cask of wine to pour. 
 
 So, he filled the jug of homely w^ood, 
 
 The ample of girth and sweet of cavern. 
 
 And the journe\Tnen found the wine was good 
 
 As they pledged their luck at the nearest tavern. 
 
 18 
 
I am Caneo; 
 
 And my skin is brown from the comrade sun. 
 
 And my heart is a cluster of grapes; each one 
 
 Ripe and ready to flow together 
 
 In the channel sweet of a purple song. 
 
 And I stand at the wonderful gates of "whether," 
 
 Lusty and true and strong. 
 
 Whether the verse that the poets favored, 
 
 Wrought with Dorian taste and skill, 
 
 Or a basin of rock, by the sea flavored, 
 
 Shall be the cup I fill.' 
 
 Here is the basin of rock, lean low, 
 
 Drink of me for the wine hath a tang 
 
 Not only of me but the sea. 
 
 And thy lips shall give it a tang of thee. 
 
 The years grow cold unto Poesy; haste, 
 
 O haste ; 
 
 For the wine is strong as the drinker's taste. 
 
 19 
 
THE CRY OF THE SONG CHILDREN 
 
 SAY not I write to a metre's measure 
 Who gather my words in flood. 
 Say not I write for the lilting's pleasure, 
 For lo! my ink is blood. 
 O, if these lines could show my passion : 
 Look is the blood not rich and red! 
 I will pour it out till my soul is ashen 
 And my grief lies dead. 
 
 I am a fragment of restless wind 
 
 Against the peak of a mountain broken. 
 
 My heart is oft with the snow entwined 
 
 And wears as a sweet token, 
 
 Wherever I move, or ever I run. 
 
 The sting of the frost and the kiss of the sun 
 
 To show that I favor no pilgrim more 
 
 Than the next who knocks at my cheerful door. 
 
 As a woman, athirst for an infant's cry, 
 
 Rocks her thin arms to the cooing air 
 
 And croons a Lydian lullaby 
 
 To soothe the child of her own despair. 
 
 So I go out on the hills at night 
 
 And rock my arms with a sad delight; 
 
 Rock them long 
 
 For the children of song 
 
 Which my barren page is athirst to bear. 
 
 20 
 
The souls of these unborn crowd me round 
 
 And call to be clad 
 
 In the mystical, glad 
 
 Body of sound. 
 
 I am coming, I cry, to release you all. 
 
 The roses are red 
 
 On the sea-brown wall; 
 
 But the roses come and the roses fall; 
 
 And the children call, 
 
 And the children call ; 
 
 But I am asearch for bread. 
 
 A wisp is here and a wisp is there ; 
 
 A long day's march in the blinding dust, 
 
 And I gain the form of a fleeting crust 
 
 To lessen an hour's despair. 
 
 And I cr>' to God : 
 
 Shall my blood be shed 
 
 And my years be trampled away in the sod 
 
 For bread, for bread I 
 
 O, softly I cry, nor chide my fate. 
 
 But the rose hangs red 
 
 Far over the beautiful garden gate, 
 
 And the children wait. 
 
 I am Caneo ; 
 
 And my skin is brown from the comrade sun. 
 
 And my heart is a cluster of grapes; each one 
 
 Ripe and ready to flow together 
 
 In the channel sweet of a purple song. 
 
 And the unborn children around me throng. 
 
 21 
 
I will fill the air 
 
 With their floating hair, 
 
 I said. 
 
 And I rose when the morn was a film of grey 
 
 And moiled in a garden where love lay dead. 
 
 And the children called and I answered ''Yea, 
 
 I come;" but the beckoning wisp of bread 
 
 Called me away, away. 
 
 And the children mourned as I lay in sleep ; 
 
 When the night was deep 
 
 I could hear them weep. 
 
 This is the poet's Hell; to know 
 
 How rich a thing is his song's treasure; 
 
 To stand at night in the wind flow, 
 
 In a pure hour of leisure ; 
 
 To call to his children and find 
 
 His voice is a broken chord 
 
 That is weary from calling all day in the wind 
 
 'This hour's bread, O Lord/' 
 
 Come little flaxen-haired, 
 
 Throat-bared, 
 
 Sun-brown-imp who hath called me long, 
 
 Here is your life in a song. 
 
 Dance here on this page, and never 
 
 To the last forever 
 
 Need you to call again. 
 
 I stole this hour to give you birth; the rain 
 
 Let down your hair. 
 
 22 
 
The sky's 
 
 Deepest dyes 
 
 Tinctured your eyes. 
 
 Dear little flaxen-haired, 
 
 Throat-bared, wild, 
 
 Sun-browned child 
 
 Here is your life in a song undefiled. 
 
 The morn is a film of lovely gray ; 
 
 And the rose is blown from a crimson thread 
 
 But I am over the hills, and away 
 
 For Bread. 
 
 Jo 
 
A SONG TO CANADA 
 
 MY land is a woman who knows 
 Not the child at her breast. 
 All her quest 
 Hath been gold. 
 All her joys, all her woes 
 With the thin, yellow leaf are unrolled. 
 And here is my grief that no longer she cares 
 For the tumult that crowds in a rune 
 When the white curving throat of a cataract bares 
 In a song to the high floating moon. 
 I am Caneo, 
 
 The poet she loves not, grown bold. 
 Bold am I as all men grow bold 
 Who wash themselves long in the sun: 
 I know what she lost when she gathered the gold 
 And she alone knows what she won. 
 
 My land is a woman who loves 
 
 All whose word is a lie ; 
 
 The limitless doves 
 
 That coo in the hour when her peril is nigh ; 
 
 The poets who sing: 
 
 ''Very fair is the bride of the North 
 
 As she now steppeth forth 
 
 To enter that council which girdles the world with its 
 
 ring." 
 But this is my grief that no longer she cares 
 For the old wounding message of truth 
 
 24 
 
That sounds on the lips of a poet, who dares 
 Look under the rouge of her youth. 
 
 My land is a woman whose boast 
 
 Is of iron and of stone. 
 
 She hath thrown 
 
 To the wind 
 
 All that yielded her most. 
 
 And to-night she must walk with the blind. 
 
 And this is my grief that her gold and her gain 
 
 Buys never a fragment of joy, 
 
 A morsel of truth or of honor a grain 
 
 Or a love that is free from alloy. 
 
 Hiss of hate or rain of applause, 
 
 I shall sing my song in a freeman's cause. 
 
 I have bathed in the spray 
 
 On the long, sweet sands of Digby Bay. 
 
 And from Labrador 
 
 To Juan de Fuca, the toreador. 
 
 Who tames the bull at our western door 
 
 I have smoothed each rood of my country's floor. 
 
 Great is all God lay on our sod. 
 
 The cricket's song or the Selkirk's reach; 
 
 And small is all we have given to God ; 
 
 A heart of hate and a braggart's speech. 
 
 A span of steel and a tier of stone; 
 
 What boast to fling against His throne! 
 
 We twist His trees and they plough His main : 
 
 We sow His seed and we reap His grain; 
 
 25 
 
Our kingdom's girth 
 
 Is the poet's toast: 
 
 But is it God or we should boast ? 
 
 My love for my land is as strong 
 
 As the love of the sap for the tree; 
 
 For she is the channel through which I upreached to 
 
 the air. 
 In the lilt of my song 
 
 A garland of sheltering leaves I wove her to wear; 
 And she gave not a hint of her love to the sheen 
 Of their shimmering green, 
 
 But fingered away at her gold; I despair; T despair: 
 And yet comes a day she will listen to me. 
 I am Caneo, 
 
 The poet she loves not, grown bold : 
 Bold am I as all men grow bold 
 Who wash themselves long in the sun. 
 I know what she lost when she gathered the gold, 
 And she alone know^s what she won. 
 
 Vancouver, B.C., December, 1916. 
 
 26 
 
AT THE MODDER RIVER 
 
 BOOMING, booming, slowly booming: funeral 
 dirges mouthed by cannon. 
 Ah, the Modder stream lies sullen ; ne'er a move- 
 ment stirs its bed. 
 O'er the veldt the darkness broodeth ; scarce a shadow 
 knows its image, 
 For the stars have veiled their faces, paying homage 
 to the dead. 
 
 O, the veldt is drear and lonely and the graves have 
 lost their number. 
 Sleep, remotest sons of Empire, joined in Death's 
 imperial rest: 
 Hear a murmur, borne on sea-wave, speaking sorrow 
 that ye slumber 
 Where the billows moan between you and your com- 
 rades of the West. 
 
 Booming, booming, slowly booming; war's grim 
 requiem to the sleeper 
 Flung in tones of wrath majestic, speaking death 
 notes in its rh^-me. 
 There's a grave beneath the grasses but a heart is 
 buried deeper; 
 And our lady bows in sadness with a grief that is 
 sublime. 
 
 27 
 
There's a grave without a garland save a lonesome 
 wreath of sorrow. 
 There's a hand that fain would fling a kindly token 
 at its head. 
 But to-day is wreathed a garland which shall burn 
 throughout the morrow 
 With the silent fires of maple in the memory of her 
 dead. 
 
 McMaster University, February, 1900. 
 
 28 
 
A POET STOOD FORLORN 
 
 A POET stood forlorn at break of day. 
 His comrades had forsaken, one by one; 
 Lured by applause that greets the lesser play — 
 The perfect phrase to even cadence spun. 
 A poet stood forlorn; 
 
 His soul awinged, his foot upon a thorn. 
 
 Upon his left the wine cup's cheering glow; 
 
 Upon his right Delila's lustrous eyes. 
 Fonvard, the flagons of the melted snow 
 
 And holy manna broken in the skies : 
 And one small voice that said : 
 
 "My laurel wreath shall grace thy simple spread." 
 
 They stooped to do the Lesser Thing, and said : 
 "We will come back to-morrow to the Great," 
 
 (My brother poets) "For we must be fed." 
 Does ever man return who thus tempts fate? 
 
 The foolish lamb is shorn : 
 
 But there's no tempered wind where thoughts are 
 born. 
 
 Were I not cold how should I come to know 
 One potent pleasure of the sun's sweet rays? 
 
 Or did I never breast the driving snow 
 What bliss were sweetest kernel of June days? 
 
 This Lesser Thing 
 
 Brings warmth that droops in drowsiness the wing. 
 
 29 
 
Applause might hurt that look of straight intent 
 Until I lost the wonder of the whole. 
 
 There's music on the merchantman ; my ship — 
 An argosy — is silent as my soul. 
 
 For them 'tis food and wine: 
 
 With one lone star my fasting soul shall dine. 
 
 "There's pleasant music in the whirring wheel; 
 
 Listen to it awhile; then to the seas." 
 Thus spake the tempter; but I knew full well 
 
 Such sounds would haunt all future symphonies: 
 And through all time my verse 
 
 Would shroud its beauty in a soulless curse, 
 
 A perfect thing I might create, and then 
 
 Strike faultless notes with an impassioned hand. 
 
 But perfect phrase is not the speech of men 
 
 Whose brows are by the winds of passion fanned. 
 
 And they, who dare to rise, 
 
 Shall stumble most as they approach the skies. 
 
 Applauds the world the work of plane and rule: 
 Cheers the toy moon mounting the toy stage. 
 
 If stars were sown in even rows one school 
 Would praise Diana and her equipage. 
 
 Spirit of Cowper! rise. 
 
 In Pope we find too much perfection lies. 
 
 This is the Greater Thing I deem : a song 
 As sings the skylark in its roundelay; 
 
 30 
 
Notes bursting, leaping, dancing in a throng; 
 
 Crowding like children loosed from school, for play : 
 A race on silver bells 
 
 Toward the mystic haunt where Beauty dwells. 
 
 Perchance the even music of the line 
 
 May stumble on some inharmonious sound — 
 
 Some proper discord that doth but refine — 
 
 For this should we reject the sweet when found? 
 
 The sparrow tvrl Iters true 
 
 In level phrase the skylark never knew. 
 
 The violet on the mountai- side is scarred — 
 A beauty scar, the finger of the storm — 
 
 Ungentle winds have kissed the sea and marred 
 To greater beauty its impassioned form. 
 
 Twas imperfection's gain 
 
 That split this elm and made it grow in twain. 
 
 In one famed park, that sires a perfect craft, 
 With listless steps but yestermorn I strolled. 
 
 Before me rose a sun-dial's mantled shaft 
 
 Whose shadows fell on gardens wrought in gold. 
 
 And here, beneath my feet, 
 
 I found a wild fiow^er and its breath was sweet 
 
 Tom were its petals; broken was its stem : 
 (A child of charity amid those flowers.) 
 
 I touched it as those faithful touched the hem 
 Of Jesu's garment, to enlisr its powers. 
 
 31 
 
And straightway I was healed; 
 
 The burdened sense was gone : wild music pealed. 
 
 Low bent the pine: the sunbeams danced on rocks: 
 Fair clouds drew silken veils across the sun. 
 
 The poplar dressed her elves in silver frocks. 
 
 (The wind transformed them from the sombre nun) 
 
 And laughter, half discord, 
 
 Pealed through the air — a tribute to the Lord. 
 
 Who glean-; no beauty from a cold, gray sky 
 Doth gather none when it is flaming red. 
 
 Who knows no rapture when sad breezes sigh 
 Feels none, aright, when balmy zephyrs tread, 
 
 With whispering feet, on flowers 
 
 Yearning to bud beneath warm April showers. 
 
 There is more loveliness in one lone flower 
 That hungers, on the cliflF, her parent mould 
 
 Than all the pomp. Arrangement, in its power, 
 Ever displayed in rows of shining gold. 
 
 The sweetest song of bird 
 
 Is that whose note is half guessed and half heard. 
 
 Methinks I see a group in Paradise. 
 
 (My brother poets who have gone before.) 
 There's gentle laughter in each spirit's eyes 
 
 That sends a merry message to this shore. 
 And wherefore all this mirth ! 
 
 Their lowly glances ever seek the earth. 
 
 32 
 
And where they look reclines a little band, 
 
 Themselves have dubbed the censors of our verse, 
 
 Who walk with stern iambics, in each hand. 
 And fixed rules with which to praise or curse; 
 
 And who declare as nought 
 
 The rugged phrase where poets trip on thought. 
 
 Cold critic! scornful since our time began 
 
 Of every templar of immortal muse; 
 What choric note conforms unto thy plan 
 
 Shall never light with passion's holy fuse. 
 For, since old Triton's horn 
 
 First woke the seas, the great have felt thy scorn. 
 
 "Browning insane or w^e" all Oxford cries. 
 
 The milk and w-ater poet is our Keats. 
 Sad Poe and robust Whitman seek new skies ; 
 
 And Goldsmith wears away old London's streets. 
 And Byron, fired by youth. 
 
 Strangles old Blackwood's with a grain of truth. 
 
 Shall Scottish pens subdue our English bards ? 
 
 Or Yankee thimbles quench Canadian fires? 
 They prune their shrubs in Boston's timid yards 
 
 And shudder at Ungava's lordly spires. 
 And five small plots have they 
 
 Wherein a **man who fits" may, monthly, play. 
 
 Pray let me introduce this man; he writes 
 A cultured song — whoever may command. 
 
 33 
 
 Sp.l. 
 
He has a book : it says ; lights rhjines with nights ; 
 
 Jig rhymes with pig and sand with contraband. 
 ( Poor Burns had no such book : 
 
 His rh}TTie beside this man's would sorry look.) 
 
 His verse is even as a sparrow's cry — 
 Always a passport on the modern mart. 
 
 God gives us men who dare where eagles fly ; 
 Who soar w^ith bruised wing and bleeding heart 
 
 Above the crags of song 
 
 About whose base the vassal singers throng. 
 
 I'll play to some lone shepherd on the hill 
 The rugged harmonies that free my soul. 
 
 The Lesser Thing may please Ambition's will 
 But surely will it burn with shame my scroll. 
 
 O, brother poet, hear: 
 
 Stray back where steps are rough but skies are clear, 
 
 A poet stood forlorn at break of day : 
 His comrades had forsaken, one by one. 
 
 Yet, in his ear, an angel whispered : "They 
 Shall cease to sup when thy feast is begun. 
 
 Keep thou thine eye ahead : 
 
 They live the most who to the most are dead." 
 
 Dayton, Ohio, March, 1907. 
 
 34 
 
SONG OF THE SNOWSHOE TRAMP 
 
 WHEN you're tired of the dance hall's hurry, 
 When you're cloyed with vaudeville jokes, 
 When you're heartily sick of bloodless girls 
 Looking languid in opera cloaks; 
 Come out with me to the open plain,. 
 
 Through Nature's wnde flung door, 
 And I'll cram more pleasure within your brain 
 
 Than ever was there before. 
 There's a snowshoe tramp, w^ith a moon for lamp, 
 
 And there's music in the pine ; 
 And there's something now, in a balsam bough, 
 That touches the heart like wine. 
 
 I'll give you a girl with foot as light 
 
 As the brown leaf on the snow ; 
 As the leaf that whirls with a mad delight 
 
 Whenever the winds do blow. 
 I'll give you a girl whom men call fair, 
 
 And God calls fairer still. 
 And it's hip and ho for the rolling snow 
 
 And the wood beyond the hill. 
 
 Ah! even now to my window floats 
 
 The soul of the cloistered spruce. 
 So fling in a corner the silk-lined coat 
 
 And the prisoned feet let loose. 
 Put on this cap, and this blanket wrap 
 
 And button about your breast: 
 
 35 
 
And tie this sash where its silken flash 
 May flame to the east and west. 
 
 We carried the shoes to the marge of the town, 
 
 To the edge of a still white moor : 
 And we hummed a tune to the silver moon 
 
 As we made the thongs secure. 
 Then we blazed a trail, over field and rail, 
 
 In a white and fenceless land. 
 And we slid each hill, with a craftman's skill, 
 
 And laughed at the sons of weaker will 
 Who pled for a friendly hand. 
 
 Then a lengthened chain spread over the plain 
 
 As each couple drew apart; 
 For a lad had something to tell a lass 
 
 That long had troubled his heart ; 
 And a field of white, on a silver night. 
 
 Lends words a witching art. 
 
 Over a cold, bleak field we drove 
 
 Our faltering snowshoes fast; 
 Until we came to a singing grove, 
 
 Like a blanket before the blast. 
 And here the fir did lazily stir: 
 
 And the dead leaf, in its woe, 
 Pled from the tree that the wind might free 
 
 Its hand and let it go: — 
 Pled with the wind to let it find 
 
 A brother beneath the snow. 
 And I could not help comparing, then, 
 
 That leaf's one piteous song 
 36 
 
To the cr}- of women, the cry of men, 
 
 Who Hnger in life too long. 
 Oh ! a snowshoe tramp, with a moon for lamp, 
 
 Brings thoughts like these in throng. 
 
 We trailed a path that pierced the wood 
 
 Like a fallen wisp of thread. 
 And under a great pine bough we stood, 
 
 'Till it poured a blessing from overhead. 
 There's the heart of a bird, Tve often heard. 
 
 Imprisoned within the pine; 
 For slowly it lifts long arms and sings — 
 
 Long ebon arms like the raven's wings — 
 But the grasping root too tightly clings ; 
 
 And the earth cries : 'Thou art mine." 
 
 Who lists to the pine's half -whispered lines 
 
 In speech will gentler grow. 
 And he will soon less harshly tread 
 
 Who hears furred feet on snow. 
 And he who looks across long plains. 
 
 While winter winds do blow, 
 A keener broader vision gains 
 
 Than he who looks through window panes, 
 And haunts four walls, I know. 
 
 O thoughts like these ride on the breeze, 
 And pierce at will the mind, 
 
 On a snowshoe tramp, with a moon for lamp, 
 And music in the wind. 
 
 There are stories writ on the cold, white snow 
 Where velvet feet have pressed, 
 
 Z7 
 
More tersely told than the pen's long flow; 
 
 More eloquently expressed. 
 So, when ahead a rabbit sped, 
 
 And a fox's dainty mark 
 Told forage tales on the field's white spread, 
 
 And a feast when skies were dark, 
 We had better fun than the timid one 
 
 Who chose of an indoor ease, 
 And breathed of a modern's sickly tales. 
 
 Instead of the balsam breeze. 
 
 A field of white is a cheerless sight 
 
 With never a touch of red ; 
 So, high on the slope of a wooded height. 
 
 Where the lithe young pines are bred, 
 We lifted the tongue of a tiny flame 
 
 And it whispered to branches dry; 
 And, all in a moment, the answer came 
 
 In a voice that pierced the sky. 
 
 Yea, all in a moment the answer came ; 
 
 And we circled the yellow fire. 
 And we hurled on twigs, with unerring aim, 
 
 While the long red tongue grew higher. 
 Then we sang a rugged Northern tune. 
 
 With action in every note; 
 No southern song with its dreamy rune. 
 
 But an air that swelled the throat: 
 Yea, an air our sires had handed down 
 
 Like an heirloom of the mind. 
 
 38 
 
And we blessed the shoes that had left the town 
 So many leagues behind. 
 
 many a pair who tramped that night 
 Took a longer trip together. 
 
 And many a pair, who braved that cold, 
 
 Walked down with life to her gate of gold, 
 
 Through varied leagues of weather. 
 
 For a snowshoe tramp, with a moon for lamp, 
 
 Doth tie full many a tether. 
 
 1 have walked, since then, the floors of a king; 
 But they were marble to that white floor. 
 
 I have listened to hosts of a chorus sing; 
 
 But those pines held music that I loved more. 
 I have seen the flash of a thousand arcs. 
 
 And the city's cruel white glare; 
 But that anvil moon, with her countless sparks 
 
 Was infinitely more fair: 
 The moon which, on that winter's night, 
 
 Looked down through the guiltless air. 
 
 When you're tired of the dance hall's hurry. 
 
 When you're cloyed with vaudeville jokes; 
 When you're heartily sick of bloodless girls 
 
 Looking languid in opera cloaks; 
 Come out with me, w^here the heart beats free, 
 
 And scorning conventional pride, 
 Try a snowshoe tramp, with a moon for lamp. 
 
 And a sweet girl at your side. 
 
 Montreal, 1908. 
 
 39 
 
WHOM SHALL MY HEART 
 CONDEMN? 
 
 HERE are a few lines in defense declaimed 
 For them, the blind of soul, the spirit maimed ; 
 The human tragedies who thread our strife; 
 The debris cast upon the sea of life. 
 They through all time have tangled His design ; 
 Have marched discordant to the rhythmic line. 
 Not all the stars that, falling, scar the cheek 
 Of night, bound in one avalanche, could speak 
 To them of beauty. Not all music wrung 
 From the white lips of waters shoreward flung, 
 Could rouse their souls with harmonies divine. 
 For them no rose refines her odorous breath ; 
 No king or priest unrolls his shibboleth ; 
 No galaxy of planets nightly shine. 
 O Folly ! place thy mark upon the task 
 That binds the eye and cries, ''See through the mask." 
 Rather than bid the night unfold her flowers 
 Doth Nature lead her to th^ morning hours. 
 Rather than ask the waters underground 
 To sparkle brightly, on a sunless round, 
 Doth she not lead them out through grassy bowers 
 And teach them how to bound. 
 Lord, to such judgment make our verdicts thrall, 
 And Mercy's foot shall tread our Justice hall. 
 
 Whom shall my heart condemn? what law apply 
 That will have flavor of a judgment just? 
 So little has been given to some while I 
 
 40 
 
Have been endowed with so divine a trust. 
 
 And yet my august soul would shrink in dread 
 
 Did I believe an angel judged the dead; 
 
 Or held I not the Master knew full well 
 
 How subtle was the art to which I fell. 
 
 If I then fear such mercy, should not these — 
 
 Poor, piteous forms adrift on Life's rough seas — 
 
 Dread the untempted judge and his decrees! 
 
 Thus saith the Lord: "The judgment seat is mine; 
 
 And yet I fill your cup with mercy's wine. 
 
 So, likewise, turn to him of weaker will 
 
 And his poor measure with thy pity fill." 
 
 O Pity! fairest bloom the soul may wear, 
 
 Thou art the verdure on the face of earth 
 
 Making the rocks to sing and giving birth 
 
 To children of the leaves with laughing hair. 
 
 How shall I judge? To sin, the silver chord 
 That tethers me to beauty, with a sword 
 Must I first cut; must grow forgetful quite 
 Of eyes that held my morning in their light : 
 Must drown remembrance of lips red with love, 
 And eyes, accustomed to the realms above. 
 Train earthward. Ah! but these; they are not bound 
 By one small tether to diviner sound. 
 They sin because 'tis easiest of the arts; 
 The single gift of birth endowed their hearts. 
 Then, Lord, as thy good mercy w^e desire 
 Let us not fan our hatred into fire 
 Against our brothers of the Lesser Will; 
 
 41 
 
But rather let us lead them up, until 
 They hear the higher music that lures on 
 The climbing soul that goes to meet the dawn. 
 
 When thou shalt judge, O monarch of the Bench, 
 
 Thy verdict shall two verdicts ever be; 
 
 For if thy poor, proud logic turned on thee 
 
 'Twould hang thee twice ere sunset, and the trench 
 
 You dig for one would hold you both at night. 
 
 The petulance of thy sarcastic smile. 
 
 Thy thought ungenerous, in Heaven's sight 
 
 Is crime more subtle than the steel's cold guile. 
 
 He murders, steals, profanes and yet hurls less 
 
 At God than thy one act of bitterness. 
 
 Thy crime is all thine own but half the State 
 
 Had part in his, and urged him to his fate. 
 
 Better than halter or electric chair 
 
 Were childhood breathing virtue from clean air. 
 
 Better at murder should the State convene 
 
 And try itself ; learn wherefore hath it been 
 
 So loveless toward one man that he should feel 
 
 The satisfaction of a piece of steel ; 
 
 Than that it tread on him with mailed heel. 
 
 So soft a babe he lay. 
 
 All velvet to the touch, upon the bed. 
 
 A mother's failures and a father's faults 
 
 Filled half his tiny head. 
 
 Then Hate came early and stood by him long, 
 
 And taught him all the discords of life's song. 
 
 42 
 
And, last of all, the grim law passed his way 
 
 And, with coarse fingers, pressed his unshapen head, 
 
 Until, within one chamber, Love lay dead. 
 
 Then, when he killed that which he might have lovei 
 
 Men stood unmoved; 
 
 Or at the wretch their maledictions hurled ; 
 
 Men who were ushered in a welcome world ; 
 
 Whose cheeks were rounded by a mother's hand; 
 
 Who knew the charmed circle's gentle bliss, 
 
 The morning kiss, 
 
 The velvet praise and musical command. 
 
 O, thou just Heaven, how shall these men know ; 
 
 These men made moral by birth's accident; 
 
 Whose lips have never touched the cup of woe; 
 
 Whose garments know of neither stain nor rent? 
 
 righteous judge! O twelve good men and true! 
 So very full of argument are you, 
 
 So robed in ancient garments of the Jew, 
 
 1 fain would now become debative too ; 
 
 And ask some simple questions : pray, take note : 
 Should'st thou upon a street in Heaven meet 
 A man with livid ring about his throat, 
 (Rope teeth prints sanctioned by thy judgment seat) 
 Would that to thee make Paradise more sweet? 
 Dost think the Christ a gibbet chain could see 
 And not feel shame for uses of a tree! 
 And who shall do the bloody deed I ask? 
 And all the Pilates cry; it shall be flung — 
 The trick that pulls the cord and swells the tongue 
 And makes devouring lime a mortal's bed — 
 
 43 
 
Upon our hired assassin ; he is dead 
 To that white vision of a soul's distress. 
 Whirl, busy loom, and weave a coward's dress 
 For him who wears a hangman as a mask. 
 On Satan's ears more pleasant sounds ne'er fell 
 Than that word *'Law" when put to such an end. 
 They dance to music in the depths of Hell 
 When mortals such a bloody course defend. 
 
 Who fells the tree 
 
 Must know the branch goes too: 
 
 And with the branch the leaves that wave to me, 
 
 And twixt whose faces shineth Heaven's blue. 
 
 O Lord, these too, these too. 
 
 These proud-faced mothers, circled by strong arms, 
 
 These sisters, sacrificial of their charms, 
 
 Will hang beside him on the cursed tree. 
 
 Jesus they killed; and Mar>', too, they slew. 
 
 John felt the spear that ran the Master through. 
 
 Where stops the hand of State? Tell me, I pray, 
 
 And I'll correct you on the Judgment Day. 
 
 Can they be Christlike who this thing avow ? 
 The blood of Cain is on that nation's brow 
 Whose justice will such vengeful course allow. 
 The pulpit, holding up to man this creed, 
 Will give its message like a broken reed. 
 The government that burns her dead with lime, 
 Despite the churchman's poor, absolving rhyme, 
 Holds nothing but a licensed seat of crime. 
 
 44 
 
Ye imps of Hell ; let your black laughter live. 
 The pious churchman sends a soul to death, 
 Saying: 'Torgive us Lord as we forgive:" 
 Old Pharisees of rotten heart and breath. 
 Laugh, ye black devils, in your caverns laugh ; 
 And write me out for them an epitaph. 
 For, if the Lord forgives as they forgave, 
 What cup of mercy shall their spirits save! 
 What drop of water shall their thirsting quell 
 In some black cavern of their deeper Hell ! 
 \\'eep, ye white angels, in the heavens weep ; 
 For Love hath been full many a year asleep. 
 
 O ye, who cling unto this Old World wrong, 
 What comfort can ye find in David's song? 
 He murdered and, in God's sight, sang the stains 
 From out his heart. What had a tight rope done 
 But rob the world of those repentant strains ; 
 As sweet as ever rose beneath the sun! 
 Yea, farther I would go and say in truth : 
 This, life for life, this outworn, tooth for tooth, 
 Hath crushed full many a singer in his youth. 
 
 No more : if in the acres of thy heart 
 The seed sublime of Mercy is not sown 
 What rain of words or wind of music blown 
 Will make their fields to blossom with mine art. 
 To stone I do not sing: the granite soul, 
 Should I declaim a thousand years, would still 
 Cleave to the old, outworn Hebraic scroll, 
 
 45 
 
And lift its loveless arm of steel to kill. 
 And yet in vain I have not roused my rhyme, 
 For, in some sweeter, nobler hour of Time, 
 A mother's eyes shall laugh and children play 
 Because a poet sang this song to-day. 
 
 So little has been given to some ; to me 
 Are borne the rarest gifts of land and sea. 
 
 Montreal, November, 1908. 
 
 46 
 
FIRST SONG WITHOUT A NAME 
 
 SHE took the best my heart could bring 
 And feasted for a while: 
 Nor knew I what a loveless thing 
 Lay underneath her smile. 
 And though, to-day, my fond embrace 
 
 She scarcely can recall 
 The faintest smile that lit her face 
 
 Is but a picture gaining grace : 
 My memory holdeth all 
 
 I doubt if she remembers one 
 
 Long wistful look of mine. 
 I sooner could forget the sun 
 
 Than how her hair did twine. 
 Than I no flower gave to the wind 
 
 More freely of its soul. 
 And is it strange, when looks were kind, 
 
 A luckless seaman ne'er divined 
 How shallow was the shoal ? 
 
 And yet her glances did implore ; 
 
 Her answers were complete. 
 If words could carry love they bore 
 
 Her spirit to my feet. 
 Yet now I know the sound I thought 
 
 Love's sweet replying tone 
 Was not the message which I sQught 
 
 But rather mine own echo caught 
 Against her heart of stone. 
 47 
 
I look back o'er the drifted years, 
 
 That lie as cold as snow, 
 And wonder why my soul endears 
 
 The days of long ago. 
 A thousand warm, red lips are here; 
 
 And Beauty's eyes are wet. 
 And, when the autumn leaves are sere, 
 
 I sit beside the fading year 
 And bid my soul forget. 
 
 * Though one so false possess such charms 
 
 I will not pine away; 
 But gladly give to other arms 
 
 This child of faithless clay." 
 These words I spake and thought my heart 
 
 Was healed its wound, and then 
 One, neath my window, touched my heart 
 
 With some old aria of lost art. 
 And oped the wound again. 
 
 Montreal, 1909. 
 
 48 
 
THE WHIP-POOR-WILL 
 
 SAD Minstrel of the Night's neglected hour; 
 Strange, unseen, devotee of Loneliness; 
 In sweet seclusion of some leafy tower 
 Pleading a witching note of haunted stress. 
 While other tribes confess 
 
 Their secrets at the listing ear of day, 
 Till night thou waitest thy confessional. 
 
 But Mercy died with one last golden ray, 
 And song of twilight bell. 
 
 Mercy is dead — yea fled is that warm sun ; 
 
 And when thou dost confess, none shall reply. 
 Thine oft repeated prayer can never run 
 
 Down the lost steps of light, to lure that eye 
 Back to the gloomy sky. 
 
 So shalt' thou call, and call once more, in vain, 
 O foolish Virgin of the feathered throng; 
 
 Too late to trim thy lamp on sunlit plain. 
 Or light a happy song. 
 
 Limned on a leaden sky, the huddled trees 
 
 Stand like the evil dregs in some black drink ; 
 When Erebus invades with chilling breeze. 
 
 And stirs this blackness to the cup's high brink. 
 Where night doth interlink 
 
 The solitary children Chaos bore. 
 And on a hill, in pensive mood, I stand, 
 
 Listing thy song waves plash a velvet shore. 
 Enchanting all the land. 
 
 49 
 
 4P.L. 
 
Thou hast one simple song alone to sing — 
 
 For never was the varied note thy part; 
 Never the trill the mocking bird doth fling 
 
 Like spray of fountain on the weary heart : 
 Yet would I count thine Art, 
 
 Though flowing through a story oft retold, 
 Not less than that which rides pretentious song. 
 
 For Truth doth ever to one message hold; 
 While Error chants a throng. 
 
 The droning singers of the drowsy eve 
 
 O'er their low waves of song hear thy notes swell, 
 As, o'er the murmur of the waters, grieve 
 
 The weary wailings of the mournful bell : 
 Nor they, nor I, can tell 
 
 Which silent copse shall next thy message woo; 
 More than, when gazing on the skies afar, 
 
 Can we tell where, upon the fading blue, 
 Shall gleam the next cold star. 
 
 Oft hath Selene, in the vale of sleep, 
 
 Fondling her fair Endymion, as he lay 
 Pillowed where tearful grasses nightly weep, 
 
 Pled with Tacita through thy bowers to stray, 
 And warn thee lest thy lay 
 
 Should rouse her lover from his dreamful bourne. 
 And angry, often hath she, knowing thou 
 
 Dost Phoebus fear, to trick thee it was mom, 
 Burnished her chariot's prow. 
 
 50 
 
When Eurus drives the first reluctant light, 
 
 With all Apollo's pageantry behind — 
 A dew imbibing cortege — and the Night 
 
 Staggers to some black recess, stricken blind, 
 Full various are the kind 
 
 That tune a medley for the exiled king. 
 And so, doth man not woo his minstrelsy 
 
 At flush of power; doth every bard not sing 
 When Pomp and might pass by? 
 
 Greater, I deem, it that attempt to thrill 
 
 The hour of gloom with deliquescent call. 
 Wondrous is it to me, O Whip-poor-will, 
 
 That thy most wistful note should brave the pall 
 Of this Cerberian Hall. 
 
 Spirit hast thou of that flower oped at night, 
 That coral tinting on Atlanta's bed ; 
 
 Soul of thy soul is Philomel's delight ; 
 Her glory on thy head. 
 
 Like thine our noblest utterance hath been 
 
 Out-bugled through the hours with shadows fraught 
 When the warm, pleasant rays of love were lean 
 
 The quill of Browning marched through leagues of 
 thought. 
 In woof of midnight caught 
 
 Did that blind prophet touch his epic chord. 
 And, by good Severn's lamp. Music's own child 
 
 Melted our language, and its liquid poured 
 For but one heart that smiled. 
 
 51 
 
Fickle is fancy: first to me thy role 
 
 Was not unlike that Virgin when her doom, 
 Heard through the happy door, froze on her soul. 
 
 Next, thou the robe of courage did'st assume, 
 When through increasing gloom 
 
 I heard thy song at dusk — Defeat's own hour. 
 Fancy must play ; did pierce thine ebon sphere 
 
 Some soldier, broken parcel of lost power, 
 I doubt not he would hear 
 
 Thee calling back to line the craven band 
 
 That hushed their songs before the cuirassed dark, 
 Like some more ardent lover of his land 
 
 Who hails back fleeting soldiers to their mark. 
 Like thine his cry : O hark ! 
 
 Like is thy note, so fraught with dull Despair. 
 (Too full already is that gory bed.) 
 
 And thou dost call as vainly through night air 
 As he calls o'er his dead. 
 
 To-night again I lie on that green isle — 
 
 That magic isle amid the singing reed — 
 And watch the hills lift up a rugged pile. 
 
 Scarred oft with birch, whose silver leaf is freed 
 Most early : blown the seed 
 
 Of vagrant goldenrod across my brow, 
 Where falling spindrift tames its restless wing. 
 
 As life hath tamed my spirit, wherefore now 
 To nature's brow I cling. 
 
 52 
 
If we, like thee, dear, gentle bird, could sing 
 
 Away our sorrow in the dark, alone, 
 How soon would every forest hallway ring 
 
 With harmonies that breathed autumnal tone; 
 And broken oft with moan. 
 
 But we must face the multitude and smile; 
 Though Anguish leaneth on the heart's strained 
 chords ; 
 
 And Longing crieth for some lone wood aisle, 
 And all its peace affords. 
 
 Thou were a witness of the sweetest night 
 
 That e'er lit Peri pathways for my feet; 
 Nor was there ever melody that quite 
 
 So nearly made a paradise complete, 
 As thy song, wildly sweet. 
 
 Sing on, to-night, dear whip-poor-will, sing on; 
 That hour returns, and all too swiftly goes 
 
 To pave the path which I shall walk at dawn 
 With dead leaves of the rose. 
 
 Sing on ; thy singing keeps the Vestal fires 
 
 Of song aflame when all the hearths are cold; 
 When Robins leave their blossom-scented lyres 
 
 And mutely wait within the shadow's fold 
 Dawn riding aureoled. 
 
 And each head dipped in feathers sleeps secure, 
 Knowing the flame of song, through all the dark, 
 
 In thy sad throat bums bright and sweetly pure. 
 And from its star hued spark, 
 
 53 
 
When morn comes quickly with her conquest tread. 
 
 Shall each light up the ashes of her tune; 
 Till flame shall leap to flame, and swiftly spread 
 
 O'er the lost Kingdom of a Spectral Moon. 
 Nor shall again thy rune 
 
 Be heard till dies the sun's last level ray. 
 And though I haunt the wood in noonday hours, 
 
 Not in the grove, nor on the sunlight way 
 Shall Music wake thy powers. 
 
 Kingston, July, 1909. 
 
 51 
 
TRAPPER ONE AND TRAPPER TWO 
 
 (Or the Ghost of Ungava) 
 
 Part One 
 
 MOANING branches of the midnight, with your 
 melancholy rune, 
 With the mournful, mystic music of your cries; 
 Wail of late November waters; mocking laughter of 
 
 the loon. 
 That within the arms of desolation dies ; 
 Weave your glamor through my song: 
 Haunt it at your doleful pleasure, 
 Till the woodland's wilding throng 
 Dance upon my page a measure. 
 Life and song are tired of leisure; let my rune be wild 
 
 and strong. 
 He was Trapper One — the dead man; I am Trapper 
 
 Two who write 
 Of the ghost that came to haunt me through the long 
 
 Ungavan night. 
 
 Moaning branches of the midnight! Have ye ever 
 
 heard them moan 
 In those wilds that God reserved to shame the soul ; 
 When you've buried a companion and you're in a 
 
 world, alone, 
 Where no echo from a living land can roll? 
 In the winter's gothic light, 
 When the sun's a dying ember 
 And the only joy of night 
 
 55 
 
Is the pleasure you remember 
 
 From a merry old December when a comrade's eyes 
 were bright^ 
 
 Have ye ever heard the hemlock, underneath the wist- 
 ful sky, 
 
 Chill the marrow bones of winter with the sadness of 
 her cry? 
 
 It is midnight in December as I write these mystic 
 lines : 
 
 And the burning branch is etching spectral walls. 
 
 In the Gordian interlacing of its intricate designs 
 
 Pleads a witchery of motion that enthralls. 
 
 In this cabin's haunt, alone. 
 
 Sole companion of my sorrow. 
 
 While the pines, in monotone, 
 
 Wail to every wind a haro 
 
 I am waiting for the morrow, all my courage over- 
 thrown ; 
 
 Fearful of the endless night and the gliding form in 
 white 
 
 That descends to chill my senses from a wild Ungavan 
 height. 
 
 Softer than an infant's breathing is the music of the 
 
 pines : 
 When they sing I know how Sound doth reverence 
 
 God. 
 O'er this life's abundant discord I can hear their mel* 
 
 low lines 
 As their harpist pave, with broken strings, the sod. 
 
 56 
 
Yet the pine hath lost its power 
 
 To renew my fainting spirit: 
 
 I, who loved its singing tower, 
 
 Draw my cloak and madly fear it. 
 
 I could rest but that I hear it wail her sorrow at this 
 
 hour: 
 Wail her sorrow, and his sorrow, as the pine alone 
 
 can wail 
 In the depths of old Ungava, on the boldest trapper's 
 
 trail. 
 
 Search the s}Tnbols faintly crawling o'er this yellow 
 
 scroll of birch: 
 Ride the dipping, curving tremor of my pen. 
 And the day you find me lifeless, in this cabin, gently 
 
 search 
 For a testament to prove my words to men. 
 Should they challenge truth you'll find 
 Foil to parry in a pocket. 
 When you reach it, pray unwind 
 Someone's hair within a locket. 
 Hold it to mine eye's grim socket : I shall see it, dead 
 
 and blind. 
 Would you grant a dead man bliss press it to my lips 
 
 to kiss : 
 Though I'm dead I swear I'll kiss it with a dead man's 
 
 sacred kiss. 
 
 It was years ago, in Levis — from Quebec a river's 
 
 cry — 
 That two sons of Scotia loved a flower of France. 
 
 57 
 
And they wooed her in the autumn where the forts in 
 ruin He 
 
 And the scarlet ranks of maple make advance. 
 
 But the end of wooing came 
 
 With the curving snow in billow ; 
 
 For a zephyr blew the flame 
 
 From the roses on her pillow. 
 
 And we laid her neath the willow and the gentle spring- 
 time came, 
 
 Bringing back her thousand roses; but the fairest of 
 them all 
 
 At the bugle cry of April never answered to the call. 
 
 But before the color faded from the petal of the rose, 
 
 I, who loved her, knew how subtle was the thorn. 
 
 When her favor chose the other all the joys of life 
 arose 
 
 .\nd re-clad their forms in sable, most forlorn. 
 
 For the maid with fingers fair, 
 
 In a lover's hour of leisure, 
 
 Granted him a breadth of hair 
 
 Which would mate a finger's measure: 
 
 Great enough to clasp his pleasure, big enough for my 
 despair. 
 
 Touch thy glass to mine, O comrade, who know sor- 
 row such as mine: 
 
 Legion of the hopeless lovers! drink with me this 
 bitter wine. 
 
 Northward came we in an autumn ; Trapper One and 
 Trapper Two, 
 
 58 
 
To a hut that tamed the wildness with its light. 
 
 And we sentineled the valleys with as treacherous a 
 crew 
 
 As did ever clasp a velvet foot at night. 
 
 And we thinned the tribes of fur — 
 
 Never touched by brand or tiver — 
 
 In a land where not a stir 
 
 Woke the slumber of the river 
 
 Save the tamarack, ashiver, and the pheasant's startled 
 whirr. 
 
 But the wistful waves of sky saw my comrade droop 
 and die. 
 
 And I closed his lips aquiver with the music of good- 
 bye. 
 
 This is all : I stole his treasure when I crudely tormed 
 
 his bed 
 In a scraping, cruel, frozen bit of ground. 
 And, although I ever loved him as the only link that 
 
 led 
 Back where music of her foot made sacred sound, 
 Yet the love of her was more 
 Than the solemn vow I carried. 
 And though, at his bed, I swore 
 The sweet locket should be buried 
 All my good resolves miscarried : and I almost madly 
 
 tore 
 From his throat the silken compact: Life had given 
 
 him her breath : 
 Was I wrong to press my warm lips on the thing he 
 
 claimed in death? 
 
 59 
 
I was happy with my comfort though I kept a dead 
 
 man's right 
 (Could he care, asleep beneath the forest floor?) 
 I would seek that Ancient City when the springtime's 
 
 balmy light 
 Fell on basking babies through the open door. 
 But a night when clouds, aflush, 
 Paled to pink, and amber after, 
 Laughed a loon, across the hush, 
 With her revenantic laughter 
 Rising wild and growing dafter as it wailed above the 
 
 rush. 
 And a warning in her message made me look across 
 
 the night 
 Where I saw the damning spirit in its gleaming robe 
 
 of white. 
 
 Moving like a light o' lantern o'er the bare cliff's 
 
 rugged face: 
 (Walls of rock so sheer the snow could never cling) 
 With a melancholy motion, that was spectral in its 
 
 grace. 
 Fled the sprite; if ghost you call a nameless thing. 
 I had often hurled the boast, 
 When I made the circle's number, 
 That a spectre or a ghost 
 Was a phantasy of slumber; 
 
 Or a gentle myth to cumber timid children at the most. 
 But my boastful lips grew silent and my heart did 
 
 wildly thrill 
 
 60 
 
When I first beheld the phantom moving slowly up the 
 hill. 
 
 He had said a thing should haunt me if I broke his 
 
 last request : 
 But I always scorned his necromantic brain. 
 Could a wisp of hair and locket, stolen from a lifeless 
 
 breast, 
 Have the power to call a spirit back again. 
 So, in anger, I did cr>^ : 
 ** 'Tis my fancy sees the spirit : 
 To the ghostly ledge I'll flv. 
 And, since folly bids me fear it, 
 
 I will look not up till near 't lest my resolution die." 
 But anear the crag I stumbled and the partridge rose 
 
 in flock : 
 And a silver elk — the vision — I beheld against the 
 
 rock. 
 
 Soon my rifle soiled that silver ^^ith the crimson's 
 
 piteous mark : 
 And the phantom was a legend with its flash. 
 And I washed the ruddy satin as, at eventide, the dark 
 From the silvern cloud doth wash the scarlet splash. 
 And I hung the fur on high ; 
 And grew festive o'er the savor, 
 As the flame, with eager crv, 
 Freed the haunch's garish flavor. 
 Smack of wintergreen for favor: e'en the breezes 
 
 passing by 
 
 61 
 
Carried through the night its fragrance : such a zest as 
 
 might enthuse 
 E'en the jaded Hp of Gotham, lashed beneath the spice' 3 
 
 ruse. 
 
 Fool was I : no sprite pays homage to the lucent leap o* 
 lead. 
 
 'Twas a phantom and my brother had not lied. 
 
 Not an evening since my feasting but the silver elk 
 hath fled 
 
 Through the darkness with the mark upon its side. 
 
 I have prayed a day's respite 
 
 But the breezes laugh in answer; 
 
 While the snow in wraith of white 
 
 Whirls beside me like a dancer. 
 
 And a pale and stately Lancer rides to meet me through 
 the night. 
 
 Brief the season I can brave it for the hours are 
 strange and cold; 
 
 And my spirit feels the burden of a heart that's grow- 
 ing old. 
 
 Part Two 
 
 Moaning branches of the midnight ! . . . He hath 
 
 passed beyond their dirge; 
 Lying strangely on the foot-forgotten floor : 
 For the Genius of Creation bade his infant soul emerge 
 From the womb of Life and creep to Heaven's door. 
 Does it matter if the call 
 Comes amidst the fires of Java; 
 
 62 
 
Or speaks weirdly through the hall 
 
 Of the winter-washed Ungava? 
 
 Lifted from the creeping lava and the thunders that 
 
 appal, 
 Through the portal of Uranus, shades of Pompeii shall 
 
 greet 
 Spirits rising where the snowdrift wraps the pilgrim 
 
 in its sheet. 
 
 God creates and man interprets: 'tis interpretation 
 
 fails 
 When the moan of naked branches does not charm. 
 Poor that lover, often praise ful of the glowing cheek, 
 
 who hails 
 Not the beauty of the curving snow of arm. 
 Uller's wild and wintry shroud, 
 Barren of the wile of tresses, 
 With such beauty is endowed 
 As shall win my soul's caresses 
 Quickly as the wine that presses through the richest 
 
 summer cloud. 
 Call me, then, Ungava's poet; for I love her bleak 
 
 despair 
 More than palms and more than roses which the tropic 
 
 bosoms wear. 
 
 O Ungava, wild Ungava! if thy treasured crypt had 
 
 tongue 
 Half the world, ere this, had tracked the moose's spoor. 
 Shouting wildly their eurekas where a lavish Hand 
 
 had flung, 
 
 63 
 
Underneath the stammel rock, the yellow lure. 
 
 Yet beneath the white star's stare 
 
 Thou art lying like a sleeper 
 
 On her golden coils of hair ; 
 
 Ward of silence and the keeper 
 
 Of a thousand men's despair; 
 
 Who shall deeply delve, and deeper, while the mid- 
 night beacons flare. 
 
 Trappers here shall gain their treasure on the hills 
 that smoke and croon; 
 
 And the dreamer feast forever on the laughter of the 
 loon. 
 
 Moaning branches of the midnight, with your melan- 
 choly rune, 
 
 With the mournful mystic music of your cries, 
 
 Sob of late November waters, mocking laughter of 
 the loon 
 
 Or the bittern's doleful wailing ere it dies, 
 
 Blow your music through the ear 
 
 Of the one who courts these pages. 
 
 Let him conjure up the drear 
 
 From the storied depths of ages. 
 
 And when drowsy o'er the sages bid imagination peer 
 
 For a moment on the madness of a lonely trapper's 
 brain, 
 
 On the night he saw the vision with its guilty, crimson 
 stain. 
 
 Toronto, October, 1910. • 
 
 64 
 
REED SONGS 
 
 1 
 
 IN the land of Proven Fact, 
 High above the hammer's ring, 
 Kept a soaring skylark pact 
 With her spirit's blossoming. 
 
 Sat the queen, unmoved, below : 
 Sat her courtiers, one and all, 
 
 Marking more the hammer's blow 
 Than the lyric prophet's call. 
 
 Varied was her liking's art. 
 
 Martial-toned, at first, it fell 
 Till its rune rehearsed a part 
 
 Softer than an evening bell. 
 
 Had there been a soldier there 
 Quickly had his pulses stirred 
 
 When, upon the vibrant air. 
 Fled the music of this bird. 
 
 Did a poet stray the street, 
 
 Beating breast against its walls. 
 
 He had kept her message sweet 
 E'en in Babylonia's halls. 
 
 But the Land of Proven Fact 
 Boasted neither flag nor bard. 
 
 Strode alone its level tract 
 
 Science, with her hueless shard. 
 
 65 
 
 6 P.L. 
 
Sat a beggar in the sun, 
 
 Frowsed of visage, lean of limb; 
 In the land the only one 
 
 Gaining import of thy hymn. 
 
 Three had spared the breasts of Tyre. 
 
 One shall save this soulless land: 
 Look ; descending shafts of fire 
 
 Upheld by the beggar's hand. 
 
 Moaning sculptors of the air, 
 Carving from a dewy globe 
 
 Crystal forms the pine shall wear 
 On her dark, ancestral robe! 
 
 Where they work, an open door 
 Swirls their treasures to the storm. 
 
 Some shall find the city's floor : 
 Others grace the mountain's form. 
 
 Does the shapeless mass of snow, 
 Tortured by a thousand feet, 
 
 Rob their glory, do ye know. 
 Or their craftsmanship defeat? 
 
 There's a sister to the gem 
 Which I humble as I tread, 
 
 Keeping pure a diadem 
 
 On the mountain's savant head. 
 
 66 
 
Who shall scorn the graver's part, 
 When the melted street shall run, 
 
 Too, must praise alike his art 
 Where a summit hails the sun. 
 
 I, the carver of this line. 
 
 Know not whether it shall fall 
 
 On the robe of mountain pine 
 Or the town's dissolvent wall. 
 
 Comes an ardent sun to woo, 
 On the valley's couch, the snow. 
 
 Though a day his love is true 
 Grief for him shall overflow. 
 
 Dead at night his love shall lie, 
 Crushed within his warm embrace, 
 
 Leaving underneath the sky 
 Of her beauty not a trace. 
 
 Rides a colder sun to greet, 
 On the higher hills, the maid. 
 
 Fondly shall these lovers meet 
 Through the ages, unafraid. 
 
 Passion spends his lustful quest: 
 Love preserves her heart's desire. 
 
 Lean thou lightly on a breast 
 Lest thine ardor quench its fire. 
 
 67 
 
Lover of my rhythm's rune, 
 Best applause of all is thine, 
 
 Sitting, museful, at the noon, 
 Finger on a favored line. 
 
 Others blessed me face to face : 
 Called me poet, seer and sage. 
 
 Yet I search each hidden place, 
 Vainly, for my opened page. 
 
 Waters, o'er forgetful sands, 
 Wash the play of printed feet : 
 
 Yesterday, the rain of hands : 
 
 Now, the dreadful judgment seat. 
 
 Blushful culprit I surprise 
 Sipping nectar of my pen, 
 
 Praise that nestles in thine eyes 
 Shall outlive the toasts of men. 
 
 Toronto, 1910. 
 
 68 
 
A SONG OF BROTHERHOOD 
 
 I, WHO sing this, am of no land: 
 For though my heart is fondest of one land. 
 Yet is this fondness truer becar.se I love all lands. 
 I hate the sin of mine own fiesh and blood; 
 And love the virtues of mine enemy. 
 I am of England only as England is of truth. 
 I am of France only as France is virtuous. 
 I am of Germany only as Germany is clean. 
 I burned my last sad, prejudice but yesterday: 
 Now am I free to speak, being of no land. 
 'Twas no pure fount of pride bade me prefer 
 A bloated Saxon, heavy with his wine. 
 To sad-faced Bedouins; fasting and at prayer. 
 Brother of France, brother of Germany, brother of the 
 
 American States, 
 Brother of Italy, Russia, Iceland and Japan, 
 Comrade of the most unknown isle, 
 If thou art true, then, art thou more to me 
 Than one in mine own kingdom who is false. 
 In war my sword would urge its gleaming thrust, 
 With better play, through traitors at my side 
 Than at true-hearted foes. 
 
 I have seen dark-skinned men with great pathetic eyes, 
 And have cheered coarse, dull, white wretches who slew 
 
 them. 
 And in those days I called myself a patriot. 
 Now am I patriot to the kind deeds of a Brahmin ; 
 To all that assists the ultimate ends of harmony 
 
 69 
 
In the wild songs of savages; to the good in every- 
 thing. 
 
 My flag is sewn by the fast shuttle of feet 
 
 Wherever, and whenever, good Samaritans tread the 
 highway. 
 
 My National Anthem is the Silence of Universal Peace. 
 
 I love the sound of the breaking of bread, in India, 
 
 Better, far better, than the sob of waves 
 
 That kiss iron keels at Cowes. 
 
 I am more of America than I am of Canada : 
 
 I am more of the World than I am of America : 
 
 I am more of the Universe than T am of the World. 
 
 No creed have I nor know I any law that is evil. 
 
 I am one of the hosts of Barbary; 
 
 And even the clouds oppress my expansion of soul. 
 
 If I were given three things to damn 
 
 I would damn creed three times. 
 
 If I were given three more things to dam^n 
 
 I would damn creed three more times. 
 
 For had a creed been damned in India's dawn 
 
 The Ganges ne'er had known its human cry. 
 
 And O, the blue eyed Irish, but for creed, 
 
 Would lead the march of nations. You have asked : 
 
 When will come Brotherhood? When will come the 
 Christ? 
 
 And I reply : not until creeds are one 
 
 With the vain dust of their own temples. 
 
 The greatest teacher is he who comes both to learn and 
 
 to teach. 
 Go Methodist, or Baptist, into Burma; say: 
 
 70 
 
"I come, my brown-skinned brother to learn from thee 
 
 All that thou hast of truth : I come to give 
 
 All that I know of Good." 
 
 Strange, when the garnishments are torn away, 
 
 How like the Gods of other nations are 
 
 Unto my God. 
 
 I would build high a fire, 
 
 Whose tongue would sear the silver on the stars; 
 
 And for my fuel would gather scripts of creeds, 
 
 Worm eaten altars, and the robes of priests, 
 
 And treaty parchments brown, and pitiless swords. 
 
 And all that militates against the Brotherhood. 
 
 And to the warmth would I call Esquimaux, 
 
 And Hottentots, and Englanders, and Arabs : 
 
 And there, while eyes grew eloquent and tongues mute, 
 
 I would assemble all the hosts of Barbary. 
 
 Listen to me, O warring tribes of Earth : 
 
 I am no longer of any land or of any creed. 
 
 I am a patriot to the kind deeds of a Brahmin, 
 
 To the good impulse of the lowest-scaled Pagan. 
 
 So would' St thou join me, comrade, test thy heart; 
 
 And if those chambers harbor no malice; 
 
 And if thou hast swept them clean of prejudice; 
 
 And if thou art ready to slay a creed at God's com- 
 mand — 
 
 Even a creed which thou lovest as Abraham loved 
 Isaac — 
 
 Then, the hosts of Barbary await thy company. 
 Toronto, December, 1911. 
 
 71 
 
w 
 
 BARBARY 
 
 «"\'y J HAT is your creed?" cried the census man; 
 And I answered : I have none : 
 I am one of the hosts of Barbary 
 Who worship beneath the sun. 
 We have temples aflame wnth flowers ; 
 
 And wearing the clouds their towxrs. 
 And the seven days are the hymns of praise 
 We sing to the Holy One. 
 
 The creed hath need of a belfry bell 
 
 To summon the knee to prayer. 
 But we, of the Hosts of Barbary, 
 
 Are called by the love we bear. 
 O, w^e ride through the morning dews 
 
 To gird on the Master's shoes. 
 And we wait by night, while the stars burn white, 
 
 The soul of His smile to share. 
 
 Ten falsehoods nailed to a truth have ye; 
 
 And a long cathedral aisle. 
 And wx, of the Hosts of Barbary, 
 
 Stand out on the hills and smile. 
 But we garner your truthful word 
 
 And add it to one w^e heard, 
 From a pagan band, somewhere in a land 
 
 By the Ganges or the Nile. 
 
 Ye feed your souls on a worn-out scroll, 
 And chain them to chapel walls; 
 
 n 
 
Until they have never a thought of God 
 
 Away from their pews and stalls. 
 But we, whom your numbers despise, 
 
 Are pastured on cloudless skies; 
 For our souls have found that Holy Ground 
 
 Is ever where Beauty calls. 
 
 And ye are bound to a rule and law 
 
 Upheld by a chant and charm. 
 But we are fed from the veins of flowers 
 
 That redden an upland's arm. 
 O, in Barbary fair we grow 
 
 A lily as white as snow; 
 And a damask rose to welcome those 
 
 Why fly from a creed's alarm. 
 
 So go to him who would know thy creed 
 
 And say to him : ''None have I : 
 I have joined the Hosts of Barbary 
 
 Who worship beneath the sky." 
 For a day, when the last creed's power 
 
 Goes down with her temple's tower, 
 From a granite peak, shall the great God speak; 
 
 And Barbary's hosts pass by. 
 
 Toronto, October, 1911. 
 
 73 
 
THE SONG OF THE SKATE 
 
 CAN that slim violin which hangs so mutely on 
 my wall 
 Forget those mystic melodies that once played 
 round its heart? 
 Or can this organ, clad in dust, declare beyond recall 
 The passion of those symphonies that woke its choric 
 
 art 
 Or can this wistful pair of skates, that lie upon my 
 
 floor. 
 Lose recollection of the foot that held them once in 
 
 flight? 
 More eloquent than lip of man, they call me and im- 
 plore 
 I bring the foot of Margaret to free them for to-night. 
 
 There's many a witching winter's tale this hallowed 
 
 steel could tell — 
 Of cheeks aflush, and hearts athrob, and gentle words 
 
 that fell 
 As softly on the waiting ear as snowflakes on the snow, 
 As sweet as music in the pine when Auster's cohorts 
 
 blow. 
 And sometimes in the dreaming hour, when Twilight 
 
 melts the lines 
 That Winter etched against the sky, and breaks within 
 
 the pines 
 The bottled wine of darkness — w^hose bubbles are the 
 
 stars : 
 
 74 
 
And nymphs in every leafless tree tune softly their 
 
 guitars ; 
 In fancy I can hear a voice— the spirit of these 
 
 skates — 
 Complaining of my Margaret, and asking why she 
 
 waits. 
 *Tor five long years, and patiently, we've lain upon the 
 
 floor, 
 And listened for her loving voice to enter at the door." 
 
 Five years ago — five lonesome years ; I well recall the 
 
 night : 
 Your blades were keen as winter's breath; your sides 
 
 w^ere shining bright. 
 Yea, well do I recall the night; "I'll keep your skates,'' 
 
 I said, 
 *To-morrow night again our feet the river's glass 
 
 shall wed." 
 "All right, again to-morrow night," 'twas bliss to 
 
 hear her speak : 
 I never saw a brighter eye nor such a roseate cheek. 
 And when I laid my skates away my heart was free of 
 
 fears : 
 But there, upon the floor, they lie ; and I can count the 
 
 years. 
 
 Dear little maid! the morrow came and burned its 
 
 golden ray. 
 You strove to rise at early morn, and oft throughout 
 
 the day. 
 
 75 
 
And, when the moon and stars revealed the burnished 
 
 fields of night, 
 Your heart beat like a captured bird : it was a woeful 
 
 sight. 
 And then w^e moved your bed to where it overlooked 
 
 the snow ; 
 But, hour by hour, you dreamed the wdnds were calling 
 
 you to go. 
 Dear little maid ! the morrow^ passed, and many moms 
 
 as well. 
 The bloodroot came in snow-y hood and sang the 
 
 winter's knell. 
 The violets brushed aside old leaves, as maidens, when 
 
 they rise 
 From sleeping, brush away the locks that wander o'er 
 
 their eyes. 
 The lilies trooped in early June, and through the sum- 
 mer hours 
 The buttercup rode herald of a stronger race of 
 
 flowers. 
 The aster came, and lingered, 'till 'twas buried in the 
 
 snow ; 
 And then, again, you heard the fields 
 A-calling you to go. 
 At night the merry laughter pealed; the moonbeams 
 
 fired the snow; 
 And every light 
 That blessed the night 
 Did bid you rise and go : 
 
 76 
 
Did bid you rise and follow fast— ah! years have 
 
 passed since then ; 
 And yet across the hills to-night I heard that call again. 
 
 She lay upon that bed a year: I saw her every day. 
 
 And never did a frown across her patient features 
 stray. 
 
 The river ran before her door: I skated to and fro; 
 
 And from her window she would look to see me come 
 and go. 
 
 .\nd once I came in early March and found her pillow 
 bare : 
 
 I called her name, her mother's; no living soul was 
 there. 
 
 And then, far down the river where runs the current 
 strong, 
 
 I saw, upon the flaming ice, men gathered in a throng. 
 
 And when I reached the fatal spot I helped them draw- 
 above 
 
 The raven river's ebon depths the maiden of my love. 
 
 And then they told me how she strayed across the ice 
 and snow ; 
 
 And how, all night, she dreamed the winds were call- 
 ing her tx) go. 
 
 Ah! there are rows of polished skates within the shin- 
 ing store; 
 
 But none so dear to me as those that lie upon my floor. 
 
 I look beneath their rust and see the gleaming steel of 
 old, 
 
 77 
 
As one through clouds, at eventide, may see the mor- 
 row's gold. 
 And so the years have taught my heart the precious 
 
 things of earth 
 Are those which Babylonian scorn doth hold of little 
 
 worth. 
 The highest tower that ever pierced the moving breast 
 
 of sky 
 Is valued in commercial phrase and fair exchange will 
 
 buy. 
 But there are toys with broken wheels, once held by 
 
 baby hands, 
 More precious than the pearl that sleeps in v/hite 
 
 Ceylonian sands. 
 Hast thou no treasure in thy breast? Look through 
 
 her treasure trove — 
 The little garden where thy soul delighteth oft to 
 
 rove — 
 And thou shalt find an hundred things men could not 
 
 tear from thee 
 If, at thy feet, were cast the wealth of India's coral 
 
 sea. 
 So, is it strange, when moonlight melts the stars within 
 
 her wine, 
 When nights are cold, and at my door is heard the 
 
 grieving pine. 
 That I unto my treasure-trove, with heavy heart, 
 
 should stray, 
 And borrow, from the files of Time, a dream of yester- 
 day. 
 
 78 
 
They say, down on at river now, when winter breezes 
 
 blow, 
 Her spirit rides upon the wind which called her long 
 
 ago. 
 And when the biting sleet doth blind 
 And moanings haunt the snow, 
 They say her voice is calling 
 For you and me to go. 
 And when the winds are falling 
 It pleadeth sad and low. 
 As it hath pled for five long years in this same moaning 
 
 hall. 
 And, soon or late, 
 We turn the gate 
 And answer to the call. 
 
 Montreal, 1911. 
 
 ' 79 
 
THE WAKING THOUGHT 
 
 CLEANSE Thou, O God, the roadways of my 
 mind, 
 Each night, when traffic ceases, I do pray ; 
 That when I waken the clean morn may find 
 No debris from my sins of yesterday. 
 Send me one thought of Thine when first mine eyes 
 Open with flowers unto the sweet sunrise ; 
 And this one thought will draw, throughout the day, 
 Innumerable thoughts its way — 
 All children pure, drawn hither by this light; 
 Drawn hither as that star, 
 
 Which Thou dost place against the dusking blue, 
 Draws from afar 
 
 A countless host of its own silver hue, 
 Arrayed in borrowed garments, pure and white. 
 Let me on this thought look, when I awake, 
 As the poor, sick eyes first take 
 A look at roses, leaning o'er the bed — 
 Roses, still wet with dew, 
 Or tears, that almost seem to speak 
 And plead with their lost sisters to mount through 
 The snows that lie upon the withered cheek. 
 By this first flower will all my hours be led : 
 I would not have Thee pave the path I tread. 
 Or lift the stones where gentler feet have bled. 
 Cleanse Thou, O God, is all I ask, and set 
 My first look on the modest violet. 
 
 Should some foul bird 
 
 80 
 
Slay the first robin, and usurp its place, 
 
 I doubt so soon would we behold spring's face. 
 
 The flower had never stirred 
 
 From its moist bed, 
 
 Had never lifted to the sun its uncrowned head, 
 
 If that brave bird had failed to usher forth 
 
 And sing of southern woodlands to the north. 
 
 Then speak, O God, to me, 
 
 When first I wake at morn : and give I pray 
 
 A single thought of Thee 
 
 To shepherd all my fancies of the day. 
 
 And when the evening shadows softly creep 
 Over the earth, this shepherd, ere I sleep, 
 Will bring to Thee, for sacrifice, my sheep. 
 
 Toronto, x\pril, 1911. 
 
 81 
 
 6p.l. 
 
OTUS AND RISMEL 
 
 A ballade of the long sea lanes. 
 
 I'LL sing of Love an hundred songs; 
 For there's an endless store, 
 ril sing of Love till the listening stars 
 Shall crowd the ocean floor. 
 And then Til sing again of Love 
 And then of Love once more. 
 
 Here is the riddle; here the key: 
 
 Uncoil the silken mesh. 
 For Otus is a human soul 
 
 And Rismel is the flesh. 
 And tho my theme is the age's dream 
 
 Its heart is young and fresh. 
 
 Otus quaffed white flame of sun 
 
 That gilded Gramard's noon. 
 But Rismel breathed where the cold weed wreathed 
 
 Round Triton's heavy shoon. 
 Rismel dwelt on the lone sea veldt 
 
 And wept for the round, red moon. 
 
 It is a name that pours like wine: 
 
 "Rismel, Rismel, Rismel." 
 Whenever the word three times was heard, 
 
 An answer — low and dismal — 
 Moaned under the walls of sobbing halls, 
 
 In sea arcades abysmal. 
 
 82 
 
Rismel, now, by the light of moon, 
 
 Doth Gramard's glory wear. 
 And Otus knows where the whitest rose 
 
 Distils its fragrance rare. 
 And Otus goes with the whitest rose 
 
 And binds it in her hair. 
 
 The sea-gull rests on Gramard's shore 
 
 And mends her broken wing. 
 And waters, dumb, from caverns come 
 
 To -Gramard's cliffs, and sing. 
 So ride with me to Gramard's sea, 
 
 And all your dead loves bring. 
 
 Yea, bring your dead loves in your arms, 
 
 And I will kiss their brows. 
 And they shall walk with thee at morn. 
 
 And mend their broken vows. 
 And the merry breeze shall bid the seas 
 
 Laugh over sunken prows. 
 
 More graves than one each man shall dig; 
 
 (A sexton's trade we ply.) 
 For every twilight spreads a grave 
 
 Where some dead love doth lie — 
 Some poor and pitiful dead love 
 
 That, buried, does not die. 
 
 Moving like shuttles over the deep — 
 Through broken masts and spars — 
 
 83 
 
The dolphins sew the rents of woe 
 Where storm-gods smote the bars. 
 
 And the low, brown tide that floods my song 
 Unrolls a script of stars. 
 
 Otus quaffs white flame of sun 
 
 From flask of Gramard's noon. 
 But Rismel sits w^here the sunbeam knits 
 
 Gold robes for Gramard's dune. 
 Nor shall she ever slip back to sea 
 
 And weep for the round, red moon. 
 
 This is a tale of hidden things 
 
 Which Love, alone, may find — 
 A tale that sinks in the sad sea-wave. 
 
 And mounts in the soft night wind : 
 A tale that rides on the star-flecked tides 
 
 That under the cliffs grow blind. 
 
 n 
 
 The graceful green, in grenadine, 
 
 Danced well to Otus' flute. 
 And where his reed flung winged seed 
 
 Her furrows bore quick fruit: 
 For countless fish thrust through the sea. 
 
 Like silver grass in shoot. 
 
 And one strange fish among the hosts 
 
 Had large and human eyes. 
 And every night it came and basked 
 
 Beneath the velvet skies. 
 84 
 
And every night it stayed its flight 
 Till Arcturus would rise. 
 
 Love binds with silk; and then wnth hemp; 
 
 And then with iron thong. 
 And Otus grew to love those eyes 
 
 And they to love his song. 
 And every eve his flute would grieve 
 
 Above the silver throng. 
 
 The perfumed night called from the height 
 
 That pierced her silver sails — 
 "An hundred maids, with amorous braids, 
 
 Dance now through Gramard's dales : 
 Why w^aste thy song on a motley throng 
 
 In slimy fins and scales? 
 
 "I'll stem thy wounded flow of heart 
 
 With wealth of woman's hair, 
 I'll light thy soul wnth woman's eyes; 
 
 And rid thee of despair." 
 But Otus cried, "My only joys 
 
 Are those the fish may share. 
 
 "And there's a hand in Gramard's land 
 
 For every lonesome maid. 
 And there are flowers in Gramard's bowers 
 
 For every soul dismayed. 
 But never a flute, save mine, can lure 
 
 The tribes of the deep sea shade." 
 
 85 
 
Love Linds with silk; and then with hemp; 
 
 And then with iron band. 
 And then comes Fate and, soon or late, 
 
 Unwinds each precious strand: 
 And then the hours that promised flowers 
 
 Bring only wastes of sand. 
 
 One evening Otus missed the eyes 
 
 That gazed with human fears : 
 Nor did they come the next, nor yet 
 
 Throughout the weary years. 
 And so he wandered, desolate, 
 
 Mid Gramard's dunes and meres. 
 
 And then at last a troubled voice 
 
 Assailed him in a dream — 
 **And did'st thou love the fins and scales, 
 
 Or what did human seem?" 
 And Otus answered, '*I did love 
 
 A living soul, I deem." 
 
 So touched to pity by the look 
 
 The tender minstrel bore. 
 The spirit cried, "The fish shall bide 
 
 To-morrow at thy door; 
 If thou but call from Gramard's wall, 
 
 Rismel, three times, no more." 
 
 From Gramard's cliff did Otus cry 
 
 ''Rismel, Rismel, Rismel." 
 And after the word three times was heard, 
 
 An answer, low and dismal, 
 86 
 
Moaned under the walls of sobbing hall; 
 In sea arcades abysmal. 
 
 And soon the mystic sea unrolled 
 
 Her heaving portals wide: 
 And near the shore, where oft of yore 
 
 The fish was wont to bide, 
 A mermaid, swaying a thousand stars, 
 
 Lay pillowed on the tide. 
 
 And then, as Otus roused his flute 
 
 With lilt of ancient tunes, 
 Her wistful eyes looked with surprise 
 
 On Gramard's furrowed dunes — 
 To her their glow did seem to flow 
 
 From old, familiar moons. 
 
 **Art thou the fish?" and Rismel said 
 
 *'A mermaid was I born : 
 And yet I knew the sky was blue, 
 
 Ere Neptune's robe was torn: 
 And yet I knew the sky was blue, 
 
 And Gramard's dunes forlorn. 
 
 ''When in the songless caves I lay 
 My soul yearned for a thing. 
 
 And what it yearned I only learned 
 An hour your flute did sing — 
 
 An hour your flute obeyed the mute, 
 White fingers of her king." 
 
 27 
 
Then Otus played with madder art 
 
 Than ever man did play ; 
 And drew from caverns of his heart 
 
 An old and doleful lay; 
 And lit the dole of its grieving soul 
 
 On Dian's tapered way. 
 
 And Rismel rose from out the sea, 
 
 As ships lift in the gale : 
 So far she rose the gleaming sun 
 
 Revealed the fin and scale : 
 Which seen, once more, the sea's torn floor 
 
 She pierced, with hopeless wail. 
 
 Nine days and nights on Gramard's shores 
 
 Did Otus' spirit bleed. 
 Nine days his woe did sadly flow 
 
 Through caverns of his reed. 
 But for nine long days the secret sea 
 
 Bore only the wayward weed. 
 
 And then one night the silver light. 
 
 That flooded to the West, 
 Unbared, upon the tearful wave, 
 
 The mermaid's dead, cold breast: 
 Like drifted snow her flesh did show 
 
 Above the billows crest. 
 
 Her hair did hold a stifling fold 
 
 Of sea-wave in its lair. 
 And wude her eyes were to the skies — 
 
 Her life's last thought lay there — 
 88 
 
(It was a thought that she had caught 
 From grottoes of despair.) 
 
 And Otus drew her to the sands, 
 
 And made her last, cold bed. 
 And the stars crept low in heaven, as though 
 
 They honored, too, the dead. 
 And the sun did surely weep all night; 
 
 For the lids of Dawn were red. 
 
 Ill 
 
 For twenty years the lonesome meres 
 
 Claimed Otus as their child. 
 They heard each lay his flute did play 
 
 When summer skies were mild: 
 And they heard his cry when the leaden sky 
 
 Raged, like a thing defiled. 
 
 Who watcheth long shall hear the song 
 
 The glad home-comers sing. 
 Who liveth well shall come to dwell 
 
 In palace of the king. 
 And what are fears, that thread the years, 
 
 To joys a day may bring. 
 
 And well I know the ancient woe 
 
 Shall come to me again: 
 Yet it shall wear a gentler air, 
 
 And grant me less of pain. 
 But the joys I buried shall return 
 
 In tenfold, like the grain. 
 89 
 
The vernal clover hath three tongues 
 
 To drink the golden light. 
 And rule of three binds land and sea, 
 
 In Morning, Noon, and Night. 
 And through the three of Trinity 
 
 Doth God assert His might. 
 
 And three great days to Otus came; 
 
 As three come to us all — 
 The day the wondrous fish arose 
 
 To hear his flute's strange call; 
 And the hour the mermaid left her bower 
 
 Under the sad sea wall. 
 
 And on the third, and greatest day, 
 
 He walked on Gramard's hill : 
 And while his thoughts were on that love 
 
 The years could never kill, 
 A laugh rode on the rippling air 
 
 Like a spring-awakened rill. 
 
 And Otus stilled his flute, and cried; 
 
 ''Rismel, Rismel, Rismel." 
 And though the word three times was heard. 
 
 No answer, low and dismal. 
 Moaned under the walls of sobbing halls, 
 
 In sea arcades abysmal. 
 
 But at his side a maiden stood; 
 
 And she was tall and fair: 
 And she was crowned with crimson hood 
 
 That partly hid her hair. 
 90 
 
And the deeps of seas were in her eyes; 
 And Rismel's soul lay there. 
 
 Who watcheth long shall hear the song 
 
 The glad home-comers sing. 
 Who liveth well shall come to dwell 
 
 In palace of the king. 
 And what are all the woes of Time 
 
 To joys a day may bring! 
 
 The years bridge chasms deep and wide: 
 They bridge them span by span. 
 
 And bolt, and thong, and tier are strong; 
 And true the Builder's plan. 
 
 And where the long, white arches end 
 Stands Christ, the Son of Man. 
 
 IV 
 
 Rismel is mermaid now no more; 
 
 And the sea forsakes my tale. 
 And so I tell of the chiming bell, 
 
 And the mists of wedding veil : 
 And of children sweet, who bathe their feet 
 
 Where the blossoms drift the dale. 
 
 This is a tale of hidden things, 
 Which Love, alone, can find — 
 
 A tale that sinks in the sad sea wave. 
 And mounts in the soft night wind ; 
 
 A tale that rides on the star-flecked tides, 
 That, under the cliffs, grow blind. 
 
 91 
 
Who reads this tale and still doth mourn 
 For suns gone down the West, 
 
 Is as a woman who doth press 
 A dead babe to her breast. 
 
 While at her gate the living wait 
 And weep to be caressed. 
 
 More graves than one each man shall dig; 
 
 ("A sexton's trade we ply.") 
 For every twilight spreads a grave 
 
 Where some dead love doth lie — 
 Some poor and pitiful dead love 
 
 That, buried, does not die. 
 
 And only shall these loves awake 
 
 When Thanatos rides by. 
 So bid the mourners all disperse; 
 
 And dry thine own sad eye : 
 For the wisp of clay that rides away 
 
 Is scarcely worth a sigh. 
 
 There was a stir, like gossamer, 
 
 When Rismel slipt to sea. 
 And with a stir, like gossamer, 
 
 The deeps shall welcome me : 
 But at Gramard's gates the Bridegroom waits; 
 
 And His words shall make me free. 
 
 Toronto, January, 1912. 
 92 
 
THE SONG OF THE PRAIRIE LAND 
 
 THEY tell of the level sea 
 And the wind rebukes their word. 
 I sing of the long and level plain 
 \Vhich never a storm hath stirred. 
 I sing of the patient plain ; 
 
 That drank of the sun and rain 
 A thousand years, by the burning spheres, 
 To nourish this wisp of grain. 
 
 I sing of the honest plain 
 
 Where nothing doth lie concealed: 
 Where never a branch doth raise her arm; 
 
 Or never a leaf her shield. 
 Where never a lordly pine 
 
 Breaks in on the endless line: 
 Or the silver flakes of a poplar takes 
 
 The strength from the sun's white wine. 
 
 The child of the dancing leaf, 
 
 Whose laughter sweetens the earth, 
 Doth never lure, on the barren moor, 
 
 The soul, with her winsome mirth. 
 And the wistful sound I hear 
 
 Sweep over the spaces drear 
 Is the human dole of a childless soul 
 
 That mourns in a yearning year. 
 
 Let the guilty man depart : 
 For no cover here shall hide 
 
 93 
 
His conscious brow from the lights that plough 
 Through the midnight's mystic tide. 
 
 For the plain no mantle hath 
 To lessen the strong sun's wrath: 
 
 And the tranquil eye of the searching sky 
 Is ever upon your path. 
 
 ril walk with the winds to-night ; 
 
 And under the burnished moon 
 Shall the white night wake a silver lake 
 
 Where the rolling grasses croon. 
 Shall waken a silken crest 
 
 That swings to the night-bird's breast 
 As the blue waves swing to the sea-gull's wing 
 
 When the gallant wnnd blows west. 
 
 Ah! easy to hide from truth 
 
 In the city's haunted hole. 
 But you cannot hide, on the prairies wide, 
 
 Where the winds uncloak the soul. 
 Where the dawn hath pure delight; 
 
 And the stars are clean and white; 
 And sweet and clean is the floor of green 
 
 That washes the feet of Night. 
 
 Who dwells with me on the Plain 
 
 Shall never see spire or bell. 
 But he too shall miss the traitor's kiss 
 
 And the force that drags to Hell. 
 And what if the coyotes howl 
 
 When the black night draws her cowl! 
 94 
 
They have gentler glands than the human bands 
 That under the arc lamps prowl. 
 
 And ours is a creedless land, 
 
 Far-flung from a script's commands. 
 But we sometimes think at the cold night's brink 
 
 Of the wounded Master's hands. 
 Yea, often at eventide, 
 
 Our souls through the gloom have cried 
 For a Guiding Light through the awful night 
 
 That sleeps at the hermit's side. 
 
 I opened my cabin door; 
 
 And the starry hosts were gene. 
 And I knew that God hath gathered their sparks 
 
 To kindle the flame of dawn: 
 To kindle a new, white sun 
 
 That over the sward should run, 
 And drink new hope, on the greening slope, 
 
 From the dewcups one by one. 
 
 Ah! here is the soul's true sphere: 
 
 And here is the mind's true girth. 
 If I could bring, on the swallow's w^ing, 
 
 The sorrowful hosts of earth, 
 To sit in this vacant room, 
 
 And spin on the wind's fair loom, 
 What golden bands would their spectral hands 
 
 Weave over the wraith of Doom. 
 
 For there is a wTaith of Doom 
 That wanders the crowded street. 
 95 
 
A heart of care is his pleasant lair, 
 
 And a soul his judgment seat. 
 He comes in a robe of gray, 
 
 And stands in the sunbeam's way. 
 And a blaze of rings, from an hundred kings, 
 
 He wears on his hands to-day. 
 
 I loosed me a steed last night, 
 
 And plunged in the doleful dusk. 
 And under the sky I heard no cry 
 
 Save that of the w^idowed husk; 
 Or a wolf -wail, long and low. 
 
 That came with a blare of snow; 
 And I rode all night, with a mad delight, 
 
 'Till I met the dawn, aglow. 
 
 "Strange fool !" cry the men of gold, 
 
 ''For what could thy wild ride win? 
 Why woo the woe of the winds that blow 
 
 When the fire burns brig<ht within?" 
 And I said to the men of gold : 
 
 ''My heart could a tale unfold 
 Of the truths we learn when the wild winds yearn, 
 
 And the kiss of night grows cold." 
 
 So, press on the spurs with me 
 
 And drink of a freeman's joys. 
 In the endless land, where the gophers stand 
 
 With a military poise. 
 And no more will life seem sweet 
 
 96 
 
On the yellow, flaming street — 
 A painted shrew, with a changeless hue. 
 And a heart that loves deceit. 
 
 And this is the Prairie Song 
 
 As it came from out my heart. 
 And the winds that moan are its undertone ; 
 
 And the sullen sky its art. 
 And only the craven man, 
 
 With his rhyming finger span, 
 Shall sulk and whine at my stinging line 
 
 Or rail at its planless plan. 
 
 But there is a king whose soul 
 
 Hath grown to the Prairie's girth; 
 Whose heart delights in the Northern Lights, 
 
 On the borderlands of earth. 
 And when sunset pours her wine, 
 
 At the weary day's decline, 
 I shall see him stand in the ''Unknown Land" 
 
 And his lips shall wear my line. 
 
 \\'innipeg, February, 1913. 
 
 97 
 
 7p.l. 
 
PAULINE JOHNSON 
 
 SHE sleeps betwixt the mountains and the sea, 
 In that great Abbey of the setting sun: 
 A Princess, Poet, Woman, three in one; 
 And fine in every measure of the three. 
 And when we needed most her tragic plea 
 Against ignoble summits we had won, 
 While yet her muse was warm, her lyric young, 
 She passed to realms of purer poesy. 
 To-night she walks a trail past Lillooet: 
 Past wood and stream ; yea, past the Dawn's white fire. 
 And now the craft on Shadow River fret 
 For one small blade that led their mystic choir. 
 But nevermore will Night's responsive strings 
 Awaken to the "Song her Paddle Sings." 
 
 Regina, March, 1913. 
 
 98 
 
THE HAUNT OF A LOST LOVE 
 
 I DREW a marsh of solemn gray; 
 And over it a heron flew ; 
 It was a sullen autumn day 
 When that sad marsh I drew. 
 But, over all the wistful waste, 
 A spirit seemed to ride above. 
 And someone bade me call the scene : 
 "The Haunt of a Lost Love." 
 
 I turned from solemn meres to gay 
 
 And dancing troops of summer flowers. 
 I etched the mountains and the play 
 
 Of light about their towers. 
 And, though I warmed my brush's flow 
 
 In fern and flov/er and turtle-dove, 
 A stranger passed and wrote below : 
 
 *The Haunt of a Lost Love." 
 
 What matter if I limn a gnome 
 
 Amid the gloom of Druid trees : 
 Or branches breaking into foam 
 
 Of blossom on the breeze: 
 Or debris of the storm that floats 
 
 In black and broken clouds above! 
 Since all who come to view shall say. 
 
 Whether I paint the grave or gay : 
 "His lost love passed along this way." 
 
 Regina, February, 1913. 
 99 
 
AT THE FORD 
 
 WHO now shall fear to journey where the feet 
 Of all our noble dead have ferried forth? 
 The solemn air that fans the tragic ford 
 Is sweet with their remembrance. They have gone 
 To light the temples of a fading star 
 Against our lonely passing. Warm shall be 
 The waves we breast upon our journey's end 
 With touches of their bosoms; and the flowers 
 We laid upon their biers shall float to us 
 In the sad current's drifting. We have learned 
 From them the grandeur of farewells and all 
 The majesty of parting; for they went 
 From warmth to winter with their almond locks 
 Held high and nobly in the breeze. What man 
 Shall fear to follow their undaunted souls? 
 
 Alone, the first who died, entwined no hand 
 To lift him from the current's heavy play. 
 All, all the rest of that unceasing line 
 Have heard the numbers of our last adieus 
 Swoon in the song of welcome that unrolled 
 Its low andante on the farther shore. 
 The weeping Rachael saw her children blow 
 Down to the mystic water's edge and drift 
 Like petals from one flower upon the stream : 
 Nor ever feared the journey from that hour. 
 O frost, that wakes the fire within the blood, 
 O night, that rears the rosebud of the dawn, 
 
 100 ' 
 
Teach me how foolish is the fear of Death : 
 Whose colder frost shall burn a purer fire ; 
 Whose darker night shall hood a clearer day. 
 Teach me until I know that every vale 
 Is but the prelude of some mountain peak 
 That waits my soul's approach : then shall I gain, 
 From all the sorrow that attendeth man, 
 As he departs our day, a feeble gauge 
 To measure up the glory that enfolds 
 His destination's temple. In the fall 
 Of stars, that never may return, we find 
 No grievous passing but a flame that burns 
 The last white fuel of Hope. In all our woe, 
 Our cup of tears, the 'bandage of our pain, 
 (That crushes out the soul) I see that train 
 Of sad, attendant figures which preludes 
 All resurrection. In the sightless ground 
 What sobbings burst the yellow kernel's heart; 
 What anguish frees its spirit! On the morn 
 What echoes of that hour enchant the winds, 
 That blow from Ceres' temple, with the cry 
 Of dancing corn. Great Sower of the World! 
 I lie like a soft kernel in Thine hand; 
 With more intent upon the harvest fields 
 That wave beyond the tomb than on that hour 
 My flesh shall keep her vigil in the dark 
 And cheerless caverns of the grave. 
 
 Pale Death! 
 I go with thee as one who gaily rides 
 Through shadows to the dawn ; as one who dips 
 
 101 
 
For sweet refreshment in the sea, and leaves 
 
 The weary dust of highways on her floor. 
 
 It is not mine to sadly ruminate 
 
 About the chilling waves. Rather would I 
 
 Let my dull eyes grow large and luminous 
 
 To seek the daring pathway where the morn 
 
 Doth tread the cleaner stars; where light doth clothe 
 
 The naked horde, cast up by Lethe's stream, 
 
 In raiment fit to meet the Court and King. 
 
 Claresholm, Alta., Mav, 1913. 
 
 102 
 
THE ROSE AND THE WILDFLOWER 
 
 HA\'E ye ever picked berries, O ye Englander, in 
 a wild and towsy lair, 
 At an hour when the dew hath blushes from 
 the dawn's first rosy stare? 
 Have ye ever heard that ancient cry of "Let there be 
 light, be light" 
 Sound over an unknown kingdom at the crimson 
 end of night! 
 If ye never have let your critic pen touch not the verse 
 I bear: 
 For the crags of Rosseau shall not smoothe to whim 
 your London air. 
 
 I have quaffed health with the berryman as the dav>-n 
 washed up the sun. 
 And the wine I drew was rare I knew ; else why had 
 the cobwebs spun. 
 Red, robust wine in a cluster held — so red that it 
 seemed the dew 
 Had captured the crimson kiss of mom and thrilled 
 with it through and through. 
 Have ye ever torn, O critic man, your soft, white hands 
 on a thorn? 
 Then you'll tear them if you touch these lines that 
 deep in the wilds were born. 
 
 I am of the rock's strong vigor : I am of the leaf's 
 tmrest : 
 
 103 
 
I am the liege of the silent towers and I am the 
 royal guest. 
 I have dreamed my nights in a droning hall where a 
 star leaned on a tree, 
 In a land where a new desire hath taught old 
 Freedom to be free. 
 And if the sting of your critic's tongue shall leap at 
 the song I bring 
 I doubt if the waves of Rosseau shall thereupon 
 cease to sing. 
 
 We never shall culture a wreath of roses to vie with 
 your England's own, 
 Where, high on the cliffs of Devon, a garden of 
 bloom is blowTi. 
 But the flowers we nurse on our northern crags shall 
 lean on the world's white breast 
 With grace as rare as the fairest rose that ever a lip 
 hath pressed. 
 In our shadowy halls the whitethroat calls and, if you 
 dislike his rote. 
 Think you that he'll fly over Surrey and study the 
 skylark's note. 
 
 The reverend word is on our lips and we thrill at the 
 
 song of Keats. 
 There isn't a man in all our land to sit in your 
 
 Mighty's seats. 
 But there isn't a man in all your land can swing on 
 
 the giant limb 
 
 104 
 
Held by the pine to nurse the Hne which the north- 
 ern bards shall hymn. 
 There's an even flow of omnibus that tides down your 
 Regent Street; 
 
 But you cannot tame our daring streams to run 
 with its conquered feet. 
 
 I am a lover of things unloved: for the virgin kiss I 
 yearn. 
 And my lady fair is an unwooed lair that pillows my 
 head with fern. 
 The mosses wait all day for my touch and the crags 
 yearn for my cry 
 To give release to the prisoned sounds that deep in 
 their caverns lie. 
 And the granite cliffs within my song shall answer the 
 mocking hue 
 Of every don of the vassaled verse who sneers at 
 my rugged crew. 
 
 Out of the North came battlemen who harried the 
 
 Southern's rest. 
 And out of the North w^ill come great bards, in their 
 
 savage garments drest. 
 For who stands face to the white-winged storm hath a 
 
 different tale to tell 
 Than he who sits in a tent of thyme and lists to the 
 
 vesper bell. 
 I've brought you a wreath of wildflowers and, if your 
 
 fair London whines, 
 
 105 
 
rU sit on the rocks of Rosseau and chant to a sea of 
 pines. 
 
 Have ye ever troubled the stars, O Englander, that He 
 in a blue lake's sleep, 
 With a blade whose touch is a woman's lip, whose 
 power is a panther's leap? 
 Have ye ever stood at the end of things and the edge 
 of the things to be, 
 In a land where a new^ desire hath taught old 
 freedom to be free? 
 If ye never have, read on, read on; for I to the North 
 belong. 
 And the stars that glow^ in Rosseau' s deeps are 
 shining throughout my song. 
 
 Claresholm, Alta., April, 1913. 
 
 106 
 
BRITISH COLUMBIA 
 
 OVER the Great Divide they come to-day; 
 A mighty human stream of sturdy tone; 
 A stream whose robust flood shall wash away 
 The forest monarch from her ancient throne. 
 Here is a land with measure like the sea; 
 
 An Eden for a giant race of men : 
 Columbia of the Briton, great and free! 
 Where shall we look upon her kind again? 
 
 The long, deep sleep is over ; now her limbs 
 
 Move in the vigor of the sun's incline. 
 Her people shall grow like her, and their hymns 
 
 Shall breathe a solemn beauty from her pine. 
 Their harness now is on the daring stream ; 
 
 Their roads of steel move thund'rous through the 
 lands ; 
 And on the stillness of Creation's dream 
 
 New harmonies awaken from their hands. 
 
 Here Saxon law preserves an ordered state : 
 
 Here lordly ways renew the laggard soul. 
 Who once shall enter through this open gate 
 
 May start a fairer chapter in life's scroll. 
 Here lovers of the dew, and dawn, and flowers, 
 
 Who scale the mountains in their daily prayers, 
 May bind the sheaf of all the coming hours 
 
 And walk with Beauty up her altar stairs. 
 
 Here hosts shall come from every sluggish clime, 
 And quaff the cup that nursed the giant tree. 
 
 107 
 
And here shall palsied limbs reclaim from time 
 
 The old, sweet hours of early ecstasy. 
 And here, where now the eagle slowly wheels 
 
 Above a foaming torrent, shall leap high 
 The temples of a city, at whose heels 
 
 The lean, swift hounds of Progress long shall cry 
 
 Columbia of the Briton, great and fair; 
 
 When shall we look upon thy kind again? 
 Of all our lands thou art the last to bear 
 
 The arch triumphal, for the hosts of men. 
 From where Elias guards thy virgin gold 
 
 To proud Victoria, with her queenly grace, 
 The morrow's sun shall witness thee unfold 
 
 The thousand hidden beauties of thy face. 
 
 Great Artist of this canvas, which the day 
 
 Doth gaze upon the longest; in thy brush, 
 And on thy palette, w^hat creative play 
 
 Fired this cold torrent with the gloaming's blush. 
 The prairie lands are God's plain speech ; but here 
 
 Is writ, in stone, a poem by His hand; 
 Against whose glory Stratford's daring seer 
 
 Might fling his treasures like a grain of sand. 
 
 October, 1913. 
 
 108 
 
A SONG TO THE SINGERS 
 
 SHOULD you descend the stairway of old Time, 
 And search the webbed wine-cellars of the years. 
 The breaking of each vessel of sweet rhyme 
 Will make most merry music for thine ears. 
 No time is dead that gave the world a song: 
 
 The larger hours were wet with music's flagon; 
 And half the garlands of the brave belong 
 
 To runes that calmed the courage of the dragon. 
 
 The clouds that flowed o'er robust Rome have found 
 
 Another prop to lean on than her stone. 
 But in the heart of music still abound 
 
 Sweet traces of her tragic poet's tone. 
 And yonder tower, that crowds the ampler air, 
 
 Shall pass away before this rhyming story. 
 Let those who build arise where eagles dare: 
 
 I'll mount, on this white page, to surer glory. 
 
 What arrow ever pierced a traitor's crown 
 
 That winged not out from some fair singer's heart? 
 What courage on the ramparts of a town 
 
 But fired its vigor with our choric art? 
 To-morrow one shall ride the steel-lipped way, 
 
 Or fold his arms when mast and helm are sinking, 
 Who wandered by the Muse's rill to-day, 
 
 And roused his valor at my fountain drinking. 
 
 Vancouver, B.C., December, 1913. 
 
 109 
 
T 
 
 ALONE 
 
 HE great ship furrows a silent sea, 
 
 And wakens the blue to flame. 
 But at morrowdawn will her track be gone, 
 And the waters flow on the same. 
 
 The great ship looks with a thousand eyes 
 
 In the blue eye of the bay. 
 But never a gleam of their golden dream 
 
 Slips down in the sea to stay. 
 
 The little cart hath a creaking sound ; 
 
 And moves like a thing asleep. 
 But it leaves a trace, on the road's w^hite face. 
 
 That many a year shall keep. 
 
 O tide of leaves, in the moaning eves, 
 Wash down through my broken door; 
 
 For there's a road in the heart of me 
 Where a w^heel shall pass no more. 
 
 There are kings who yearn for a greater throne, 
 And peasants who would be crowned. 
 
 But I'd rather the long, white road, alone, 
 Than ride in the great ship's sound. 
 
 Vancouver, B.C., December, 1913. 
 
 110 
 
A SONG OF BETTER UNDER- 
 STANDING 
 
 I SING this song that you may know me better ; 
 That I may know thee better ; 
 And that we two may burn our false idols 
 At the same altar. 
 
 I come first to you, 
 
 Young, inland mariner on a sea of flowing grapes. 
 
 In purple France: 
 
 Shaking the sweet snow from my hardy shoulders 
 
 I come to you. 
 
 Long has my race, companioned by strong elements. 
 
 Misunderstood the liquid nature of your soul. 
 
 And you, with the same blindness as mine own. 
 
 Have called my silent Northmen cold and passionless. 
 
 Let us approach one another, comrade; 
 
 Look in mine eyes and I will look in thine; 
 
 And that fair light which falls when soul greets soul 
 
 Will be the first spark to arouse the fires 
 
 Which shall consume our idols. 
 
 Your people gave me to drink at the rare founts 
 
 Of Moliere, Hugo and Gounod. 
 
 My people renewed thy soul of art 
 
 With the clear flow of Shakespeare, Wordsworth and 
 
 Keats. 
 A thousand pleasures of the heart and eye 
 We owe each other. 
 
 Upward reaching toward the same white light 
 
 111 
 
Have all our yearnings been. 
 
 Only have our idols blinded us through the long, sad 
 
 years. 
 Now the way is open : 
 Consume fires; flame fiercely; 
 For an idol does not burn readily, 
 And this can never be a Song of Better Understanding 
 Until all our false idols are translated into ashes. 
 
 Yesterday I said : "I will go kill a German : 
 I hate Germans : I hate their diet : I hate their aggres- 
 siveness. 
 So I buckled on my sword and sought out a Teuton. 
 And soon I found one sitting by the roadside, 
 And his head was bent in an attitude of profound 
 
 thought. 
 Then I said, ''Mine enemy I have come to kill thee." 
 And he answered quietly, 'T will let you slay me 
 If you will permit my body to fall on the floor of 
 
 yonder chapel." 
 So we journeyed to the chapel and entered its solitude; 
 But as I prepared my sword he quoted unto me, 
 In the rich accents of his thoughtful tongue, a song of 
 
 Goethe. 
 His Goethe? nay; my Goethe? nay; our Goethe? yea. 
 And when I raised my sword I turned, savagely, and 
 
 slew 
 Not him, but one of mine idols — my false idols. 
 Then from the chapel organ a soft sound crept with 
 panther tread; 
 
 112 
 
And through the windows of song passed, like a great 
 
 wind, 
 All the pent-up passions of the ages. 'The Appasion- 
 
 atta," I cried : 
 His Appasionatta? Nay. My Appasionatta ? Nay. Our 
 
 Appasionatta ? Yea. 
 And I swung my sword more savagely than before, 
 
 and slew, 
 Not him, but all of mine idols — my false idols. 
 And when the last note had folded its head, like a 
 
 tired child, 
 In the arms of silence, leaving our hearts, like sea 
 
 beaches, 
 White and shining after the tempest has passed beyond. 
 Mine enemy and I sang together the greatest song of 
 
 man : 
 The Song of Better Understanding. 
 
 And when we parted I said : 
 
 ''All white men are my brothers : I will slay a white 
 
 man no more. 
 Only are the black men mine enemies, and the yellow 
 
 men. 
 I will go and kill an African or a man of China." 
 
 And soon I found a yellow man sitting by the roadside : 
 And his head was bent in an attitude of profound 
 
 thought. 
 Then I said as before, "Mine enemv I have come to 
 
 kill thee." 
 And he answered quietly, "I will let thee slay me 
 
 113 
 
 8 P.L. 
 
If thou wilt let my body fall on the soft sands of the 
 
 sea-shore." 
 "And why the sea-shore?" I said: and he replied unto 
 
 me: 
 "There is a star which I love better than all stars; 
 And if I fall upon the sands my last look will be upon 
 
 that star." 
 Then from his lips flowed the wisdom of Confucius. 
 And my sword fell helpless and I said : 
 'T loved that star best of all stars in old England; 
 And I loved that truth of thy seer best of all truths : 
 Let us sing together;" and we, lovers of the same star, 
 Locked arms upon the rim of no-man's sea, and sang 
 "The Song of Better Understanding." 
 
 What antangonism to America and her States 
 
 Shall override our granite debt to Emerson, 
 
 To Lowell, to Poe, to musical Lanier ; 
 
 To Whitman who blasphemed the god of Technique; 
 
 To Whittier whose life was a gentle song! 
 
 What prejudice against Italian fury 
 
 Is justified when we unbare the page 
 
 Of Dante; or when eye and soul regale 
 
 In the majestic sweep of Michael Angelo! 
 
 I sing this song that you might know me better ; 
 That I might know thee better. 
 For now is the day at hand when we shall behold 
 The dust of all our broken idols, our false gods, 
 Paving the streets where lusty mortals walk 
 Chanting the hymns of Barbary and her hosts. 
 
 114 
 
O magnificent hosts! I can see them pass and repass, 
 Singing, in diapason of a universal love, 
 'The Song of Better Understanding." 
 
 Vancouver, December, 1913. 
 
 115 
 
THE MONGREL 
 
 ^'np'HE West has no place for a poet," said the 
 I corpulent man with a sneer, 
 
 As we sat by the fire, out at Harrison Lake, in 
 the spring of the year — 
 Out at Harrison Springs where the invalids go, for a 
 
 bibulous spell. 
 To ease up their bellies on water that smells like the 
 
 portals of Hell. 
 'The West has no time for your verses; for what is 
 
 the rhyme of a song 
 To souls in the kingdom of action, to men who are 
 
 rugged and strong." 
 And he threw out his chest as he said it, as much as 
 
 to say: 'Tf you'd see 
 A real worthy son of the Westland, pray, take a good 
 
 look over me." 
 
 I had lived among cowboys and miners; I had lived 
 
 where the loggers pitch camp ; 
 And from Medicine Hat to Vancouver I knew all the 
 
 land like a tramp. 
 I had ridden the plains on a broncho ; I had panned out 
 
 the gold in a sluice ; 
 I had eaten the fare of a Pullman and quaffed of the 
 
 riverman's juice. 
 I had watched them rip mountains at Blairmore ; I had 
 
 felt the Chinook at MacLeod : 
 On a journey from Grand Forks to Nelson I had torn 
 
 off a strip of a cloud. 
 116 
 
I had seen the grim Welshmen of Fernie pour out of 
 
 the earth Hke a stream 
 And walk through the city at midnight, like phantoms 
 
 that walk in a dream. 
 I had stood on a summit of Kaslo and gained new con- 
 ceptions of God, 
 Who, lifting the bulk of the mountains, could bend to 
 
 the flower on the sod. 
 I had chanted my songs to a trapper — a hundred miles 
 
 deep in the wild : 
 When I blew him a wisp of my music he wept with 
 
 the tears of a child. 
 I had read to strong men on the prairies my song of 
 
 Saskatchewan land; 
 And after the show they would tell me, with a fine, 
 
 prairie grip of the hand : 
 ''Say, stranger, you're right and we know it; and we 
 
 need men like you to be told 
 There are far truer measures than silver and far better 
 
 treasures than gold." 
 I had read in the shacks of the hill-lands, where wealth 
 
 was the boast of a lamp ; 
 For from Medicine Hat to \'ancouver I knew all the 
 
 land like a tramp. 
 And never a cowboy or miner, and never a logger 
 
 that year 
 But gave me a Western reception and sent me away 
 
 with a cheer. 
 And I came to the towns of the Coast-line, where they 
 
 wear a brocade and a brogue, 
 117 
 
Where ''peas on your knife," with the Smart Set, and 
 
 ''strangle your soup" are in vogue, 
 And, touching the ploughshare of fancy, I turned a 
 
 sweet rhyme of the earth — 
 A rhyme that had slept in the valleys since ever the 
 
 grasses had birth. 
 Before me were women whose culture was twenty 
 
 months old in the blood; 
 And men who had risen to greatness by pawning an 
 
 acre of mud. 
 And I sang them God's truths in my numbers — the 
 
 truths which their hearts had opposed. 
 And some of them laughed when I started, and all of 
 
 them sneered when I closed. 
 "The West has no place for a poet," said the corpulent 
 
 man with a sneer. 
 As we sat by the fire out at Harrison Lake in the spring 
 
 of the year : 
 "Musicians and poets and artists are all out of place in 
 
 the West : 
 I speak for the men of the mountains :" and he smote 
 
 his fat hand on his breast. 
 
 "I speak for the men of the mountains!" He lied 
 
 when he made that remark; 
 F6r how could the flesh of the sparrow speak out for 
 
 the soul of the lark? 
 Yea, how could a vain little sparrow, that whets on the 
 
 pavement its bill, 
 Know aught of the tang of wild berries that grow on 
 
 the brow of the hill ? 
 118 
 
So I said : "When I hear a man sneering at all that is 
 
 sweetest or best 
 I know he is not of the Eastland, and I know he is not 
 
 of the West. 
 He's a mongrel the East wouldn't stand for, and the 
 
 man of the mountains ignores ; 
 He made a few bucks in the boom days or else he'd be 
 
 sweeping out stores. 
 He's like a soiled cat who sits snarling all night on 
 
 the rim of a fence, 
 And thinks: 'I'm a hell of a cougar; the tiger and I 
 
 are immense!" 
 He speaks for the men of the mountains? Nay, the 
 
 man of the West doesn't sneer. 
 It's the man that the East wouldn't stand for; and 
 
 perhaps he has been here a year 
 When he swells out his chest like the fat man I met 
 
 out at Harrison Springs, 
 And says : "We have no use for poets or any poor sissy 
 
 who sings." 
 
 My friend is the miner at Coleman, the rancher beyond 
 Pincher Creek, 
 
 The logger who rides into \'emon, with the kiss of the 
 wind on his cheek. 
 
 But the ten-dollar clerk of the city, or the chewing- 
 gum girl with the slang, 
 
 Or the half -naked daub from Vancouver, who drawls 
 with the "400" twang. 
 
 Who couldn't tell ragtime from Handel, or Milton 
 from old Mother Goose, 
 119 
 
A two-dollar chromo from Rembrandt; and yet who 
 
 are quick to turn loose 
 Their sneers on the man who would pour them rare 
 
 wines of his art, for a toast; 
 But these are the breed of the mongrel — they're not 
 
 the pure blood of the Coast. 
 
 So, drink with me cowboys and miners; I'll pour you 
 
 a cup of my dreams. 
 My rhyme has grow^n strong in your mountains, and 
 
 pure in your glacier streams, 
 ril limn you new flowers on the prairie ; I'll show you 
 
 grim shapes in the crag; 
 And we'll dance with the maid of the North Wind a 
 
 far better dance than the rag. 
 The East hath her genius and culture; the West hath 
 
 her vigor and brawn ; 
 And one hath the splendor of noonday, and one hath 
 
 the glory of dawn. 
 So, God give Thy smile to the Westland, wherever a 
 
 true heart abides; 
 And God give thy smile to the Eastland, and blot out 
 
 the line that divides. 
 
 Vancouver, B.C., March, 1914. 
 
 120 
 
w 
 
 WHIST— WHEE! 
 
 **XT7'7HIST-WHEE!" 
 
 Little brown Dee 
 
 Peers from her shelter 
 Of bush and of tree. 
 Her time she is biding 
 To leap from her hiding. 
 And she says unto me : 
 
 "Don't look this way, big man, or they'll see 
 You are looking at me: 
 Please, please look out at the sea : 
 Whist-whee!" 
 
 And I walked up the sands, 
 
 And three little rebels took hold of my hands; 
 
 And they said : *'Do you know 
 
 Where a little brown maid. 
 
 In a little brown plaid, 
 
 Did go?" 
 
 And I lied and said: "No." 
 
 And they scampered away 
 
 Like young squirrels at play; 
 
 And looked all over and under the rocks 
 
 For a glimpse of brown frocks. 
 
 And I heard a quick cry 
 
 From the shade of the tree 
 
 Saying to me — 
 
 Yes, saying to me : 
 
 "You're a dear, you're a dear." 
 
 121 
 
And I said "Whist-whee ; 
 
 The rebels are all returning for thee." 
 
 And she hugged to the tree. 
 
 "Whist-whee," just two little words: 
 
 But I heard them to-day in the song of the birds. 
 
 And the waters all sang as I walked by the sea : 
 
 *'Whist-whee, whist-whee.'' 
 
 And I looked behind bush and I looked behind tree 
 
 And the birds still were there and the busy song bee. 
 
 But little brown Dee, 
 
 With her solemn "Whist-whee", 
 
 Spake not unto me. 
 
 And over the hills I went, 
 
 And a gentle mound 
 
 I found; 
 
 Lying like some fairy's lost pillow upon the ground. 
 
 And I knelt on my knee 
 
 And wrote on the sand, 
 
 With a sorrowing hand: 
 
 "Little brown Dee 
 
 Sleeps here by the sea : 
 
 All ye who pass 
 
 Whist-whee!" 
 
 San Francisco, California, September, 1914. 
 
 122 
 
THIRD SONG WITHOUT A NAME 
 
 MY love upon my palette lies, 
 Aiid on my brush my heart. 
 So is it strange a maiden walks 
 Each canvas of mine art? 
 I ne'er shall press this maiden's lips; 
 But, O, why should I thus despair 
 When I could mend my soul with one 
 Gold sunbeam of her hair ? 
 
 Her faintest smile to me was meat 
 
 For banquets of my worshipping; 
 And yet she gave her love to one 
 
 Who held it as a common thing. 
 Strange world ! that grants the blind a rose ; 
 
 And music, where the waters meet, 
 Unto the deaf ; while I must tread 
 
 My soul to dust upon the street. 
 
 Los Angeles, November, 1914. 
 
 123 
 
THE GIRL BEHIND THE MAN 
 BEHIND THE GUN 
 
 YOU have seen the Hne of khaki swinging grandly 
 down the street, 
 You have heard the band blare out Britannic 
 songs ; 
 You have read a ton of papers and you've thrown them 
 
 at your feet, 
 And your brain's a battlefield for fighting throngs. 
 You have cheered for Tommy Atkins, and you've 
 
 yelled for Jack Canuck; 
 You have praised the French and Belgians, every one. 
 But I'm rhyming here a measure to the valor and the 
 
 pluck 
 Of the Girl Behind the Man Behind the Gun. 
 
 There's a harder game than fighting; there's a deeper 
 
 wound by far 
 Than the bayonet or the bullet ever tore. 
 And a patient, little woman wears upon her heart a 
 
 scar 
 Which the lonesome years will keep for evermore. 
 There are bands and bugles crying and the horses 
 
 madly ride. 
 And in passion are the trenches lost or won. 
 But SHE battles in the silence, with no comrade at 
 
 her side. 
 Does the girl behind the man behind the gun. 
 
 124 
 
They are singing songs in Flanders and there's music 
 
 in the wind; 
 They are shouting for their country and their king. 
 But the hallways yearn for music in the homes they 
 
 left behind, 
 For the mother of a soldier does not sing. 
 In the silence of the night time, 'mid a ring of hidden 
 
 foes. 
 And without a bugle cry to cheer her on. 
 She is fighting fiercer battles than a soldier ever knows ; 
 And her triumph — is an open grave at dawn. 
 
 You have cheered the line of khaki swinging grandly 
 
 down the street. 
 But you quite forgot to cheer another line. 
 They are plodding sadly homeward, with no music 
 
 for their feet, 
 To a far more lonely river than the Rhine. 
 Ah! the battlefield is wider than the cannon's sullen 
 
 roar; 
 And the women weep o'er battles lost or won. 
 For the man a cross of honor ; but the crepe upon the 
 
 door 
 For the girl behind the man behind the gun. 
 
 When the heroes are returning and the world with flags 
 
 is red, 
 When you show the tattered trophies of the war. 
 When your cheers are for the living and your tears are 
 
 for the dead 
 
 125 
 
Which the foeman in the battle trampled o'er. 
 When you fling your reddest roses at the horsemen in 
 
 array, 
 With their helmets flaming proudly in the sun, 
 I would bid you wear the favor of an apple-blossom 
 
 spray 
 For the girl behind the man behind the gun. 
 
 Victoria, B.C., January, 1915. 
 
 126 
 
A 
 
 MARY MAHONE 
 
 POET in soul is our Mary Mahone : 
 
 She walks with a sweetheart w^hen walking alone. 
 
 A rose on her heart and a song on her lips, 
 Adown a shy path to the ocean she slips. 
 
 "A poet I'll be;" said our Mary Mahone; 
 
 "And pour out my soul like the wind making moan. 
 
 "Like the wind making moan or the breakers that roll 
 I'll pour out the passionate flood of my soul." 
 
 A basket of roses at Ballymore grown 
 Was never as fair as was Mary Mahone. 
 
 'To-morrow, " she cried, "will I rise with the birds 
 And fashion a lyric from magical words." 
 
 But at peep-o-the-mom came a lad up the hill 
 To tell her the widow O'Connor was ill. 
 
 And waiting no ribbon or bonnet of lace, 
 For fairer the sun on her hair and her face, 
 
 She came to the room where the sick woman lay : 
 And Death, when he saw her, soon hurried away. 
 
 O, woe to the poem of Mary Mahone 
 But joy to the miserable heart of a crone. 
 
 And Mary in April, agowned in a shower, 
 
 Danced up the green meadows and left them in flower. 
 
 127 
 
"Ah, April," she cried, "I have waited thee long: 
 A poet am I and I'll sing thee a song." 
 
 A lilt on her lips and a stranger passed by, 
 A limp in his foot and a tear in his eye. 
 
 "O, sir," says my Mary, "you're weary I see." 
 "Yea, weary," he cried, "for the moaning banshee." 
 
 "O, sir," says my maiden, "come up to the town : 
 The honey is gold and the biscuits are brown " 
 
 He felt her warm arm and he felt her wet hair, 
 And Heaven fell down upon Ireland right there. 
 
 So well was he nursed by our ^lary Mahone 
 
 That his heart grew as fresh as the flowers at her zone. 
 
 And, late in the summer, he v/ent back to sea 
 With never a thought of the eerie banshee. 
 
 O woe to the poem of Mary Mahone; 
 But joy unto one of God's many unknown. 
 
 Thus year after year saw the green turn to gold 
 And still was her song like a story untold. 
 
 "O never," she cried, with a Celtic despair, 
 "Has God looked with favor upon my one prayer." 
 
 And then on a May day, as fair as a bride, 
 Our Mary Mahone had a dream that she died. 
 
 And, straight up to Heaven she went, for they say 
 The Irish go up by no roundabout way. 
 
 128 
 
The air was all music and, over its tone, 
 
 She heard good Saint Peter say : "Mary Mahone 
 
 "Pass up with the poets." But Mary replied : 
 "O, sir, Fm no poet, though often I've tried 
 
 "To write me a poem; but never could I 
 
 While there was a cheek which my fingers might dry." 
 
 But softly Saint Peter said : "High on his throne 
 God waits for the poet called Mary Mahone." 
 
 The Lord rose to meet her and all the white throng 
 Sang: "Hail to the poet who wrote the great song." 
 
 And Mary cried: "Lord, I am Mary Mahone, 
 And so many mortals around me made moan 
 
 "That I toiled by the day and I watched by the moon 
 And never found time to awaken a rune." 
 
 The Lord smiled upon her and all the white throng 
 Cried: "Hail to the poet who wTote the great song." 
 
 And Mary, bewildered, looked up and implored: 
 "Pray tell me what song I have written, O Lord?" 
 
 "Thy Life is the song," said the Lord in her dream; 
 "And Love is the metre and Love is the theme." 
 
 Then Mary awakened and Phoebus rose too 
 And drank to the poet in wine of the dew. 
 
 And this is the story of Mary Mahone. 
 And what if it too be a tale like thine own! 
 
 129 
 
 9 P.L. 
 
And what if the Master hath seen in thine eyes 
 The script of a poem they love in the skies. 
 
 For you, though a song reed you never have blown, 
 May too be a poet like Mary Mahone. 
 
 Vancouver, December, 1916. 
 
 130 
 
SAINT ELIAS 
 
 HERE is no momentary majesty 
 That borrows from the season or the hour. 
 But ever is the queen upon her throne ; 
 The bishop with his hands upraised to Heaven; 
 The soldier midst transfigurating fire. 
 Not girth of thy green girdle nor the thrust 
 That dares the scorn of Areas, but the calm 
 Which mocks the changeful seasons at thy base 
 Inspires me to the music of this song. 
 Red August in the vales enwraps my hours 
 But thou hast white December all the year: 
 A whiter rose than ours that never fades ; 
 So pure that I, a mortal, fain would know 
 Through what long twilight and beneath what suns 
 Hast thou kept fair thine everlasting snows! 
 The warlike Mars hath seen this flag of truce 
 Held patiently unsoiled, and granted peace 
 Unto the Earth ; hath turned the comet's course 
 On spheres that raise no chamade. That pale orb, 
 When vapors veil the unambitious hills, 
 Doth lavish her cold kisses on thy brow. 
 Tis thine to mediate twixt earth and sky; 
 And while thine head doth rise above the storm 
 Nor sun nor moon grows alien to the world. 
 Ah ! who was He, who raised thy prostrate form 
 From long humility of level lands, 
 But One who hurls the mighty from their seats 
 And lifts on high the lowly sons of men! 
 
 131 
 
O silent peak ! the angels see thy thrust, 
 Above a sea of clouds, as men who looked 
 Upon the gleaming sword, Excalibur. 
 To mortals thou art something held aloof 
 When things familiar breed irreverence : 
 And that loud foot of conquest which blasphemes 
 The last, lone temple of the priestless wood 
 Shall never soil those fair, unwritten folds, 
 Where, on thy brow, God keepeth white a page 
 To pen His judgments on a boastful world. 
 Who looks up at thy chancel cannot keep 
 From out his vision noble fields of sky. 
 And deeper worshippers, when fretful creeds 
 Grow narrow as their pews, shall seek thy spires 
 And gain an unconfined theology. 
 Alone, and reverent, at thy base I stand: 
 Pour on my head the blessing. Could I sell 
 My birthright for a mess of pottage now? 
 
 Tis summer and the prone limb of the earth 
 Is white with tender blossoms; madrigals 
 That wake the leaves make strange thy contrast's calm. 
 Ah ! what a varied artist toned the hue 
 And limned the flower's minutest tracery 
 With hand that shaped this daring rise, that wears 
 So regally her tragic crown of snow. 
 Elias, Saint Elias! would that I 
 Might keep my head unsullied of the world; 
 And, like to thee, hold high cold Reason's dome 
 That bids thy clouds descend and slake the ihroats 
 Of fires that flame their passions round thy breast. 
 
 132 
 
O dweller in gay Gotham, could I grant 
 
 Thy soul one breathless moment near this tower 
 
 How soon its soundless song would rouse the stars 
 
 That fell at virgin yieldings of thy youth ! 
 
 How soon would fan the furnace of thy heart. 
 
 Consuming all her gods of yesterday! 
 
 How soon those vistas, washed with unclear, light, 
 
 That lured thine eye from slim Alsarte's moon, 
 
 Would limn, in livid oils, their jaundiced glare! 
 
 Against the summer stars 'tis strange to see. 
 
 noble.^t summit of a lordly line, 
 
 Thy wild, white smoking drifts of w^inter blow. 
 So long my soul upon this fare hath fed 
 
 1 yearn to call my comrades to the feast 
 Through the clear trumpets of this blast of song. 
 Too long their eyes rasorial have been : 
 
 Too long their tongues have harped of gold and plains 
 
 Where night lies down on pillow of their bread. 
 
 Here is a loaf that breaks continually. 
 
 And lo! there's many a vacant chair that calls 
 
 A laggard limb to this pine-scented vale 
 
 Where Saint Elias w^alks to meet the sea ; 
 
 Her cloudy breath about her as she goes. 
 
 Vancouver, B.C., 1916. 
 
 133 
 
AT BROOKSIDE MANOR 
 
 ON Christmas Day I helped to widen a circle 
 At Brookside Manor. 
 I found mine host, the Master of the Manor, 
 To be a damn fool ; 
 And therefore immediately liked him. 
 Who but a damn fool would invite a poet 
 To dine with him on Christmas Day 
 When any one of five score wealthy men 
 Would have accepted with joy the invitation? 
 Who but a damn fool, in this west land, 
 Would waste good money on wall paper 
 With a smoking tint. 
 Or sacrifice a precious hour 
 In study of the harmony of colors in a room? 
 Who but a vagabond of reason 
 Would translate to me 
 The music of a stream 
 That kept the lyric note of life alive 
 Beneath a casement of his dwelling place. 
 
 Women speak their endearments in soft phrases: 
 
 Weak men say affectionate things. 
 
 When I call a man a damn fool 
 
 My praise is noted of the gods. 
 
 Shakespeare was a damn fool ; 
 
 Newton another. 
 
 And I'm tryirg as hard as Hell 
 
 To be one myself. 
 
 134 
 
So, gentle Master of Brookside Manor, 
 
 Crave no praise higher than this, 
 
 Spoken of you by Wilson MacDonald, the poet 
 
 **He was a damn fool ; 
 
 And God loved him for it." 
 
 Kelowna, Mav, 1916. 
 
 135 
 
SOMEWHERE, SOMETIME THE 
 GLORY 
 
 THE fog is heavy to-night and the sad horns are 
 droning. 
 What so sad as a bank of mist that cannot 
 weep into rain? 
 A Httle, old man comes down the road w^here you and 
 I are moaning; 
 A Httle, old man who sings a song and here is the 
 rune's refrain: 
 
 Somewhere, sometime the glory; 
 
 Somewhere the sun. 
 ril read me on to the end of the story : 
 
 God's will be done. 
 
 O little, old man you shame me; for the weak oft 
 shame the strong. 
 The fog is heavy to-night and the sad horns are 
 crying. 
 What so sad as a pair of lips that cannot break into 
 song; 
 And learn so long as we keep a song Hope shall 
 know no dying? 
 
 Somewhere, sometime the glory; let me but keep this 
 shard, 
 Torn from the crumbling mountain peaks of our 
 philosophies. 
 
 136 
 
Bring me hither the music man, the brother of the 
 bard, 
 And he shall mate it with music from the Hps of 
 seven seas. 
 
 Somewhere, sometime the glory; 
 
 Somewhere the sun. 
 ril read me on to the end of the story : 
 
 God's will be done. 
 
 Vancouver, October, 1916. 
 
 137 
 
FRANCE 
 
 MY heart goes out to France, the Queen in war, 
 In carnival and love ; the gay, the brave. 
 To that young blue-eyed Breton who would save 
 A dance for Death or for his Belle Aurore. 
 Who keeps so purely in his heart the lore 
 Of love and honor while the tyrant guns 
 Spume at his wisp of flesh their flaring tons, 
 White hot from maddened ages gone before. 
 The world's barometer is in that lad — 
 That Breton peasant against whom is hurled 
 The wild, down-leaping chariot of Mars. 
 When France is laughing all the Earth is glad. 
 And when she weeps the windows of the world 
 Are darkened to the sun and to the stars. 
 
 Vancouver, B.C., January, 1917. 
 
 138 
 
GIFTS 
 
 SO small a measure are these gifts of mine 
 To lay upon the altar of the King. 
 My genius, when all garnered, shall but bring 
 A scanty measure of the purer wine. 
 A wisp of music and a lilting line, 
 
 A meagre word of beauty from the store 
 Of language and her multitude; what more 
 
 Have I to ofiFer for Thy love divine? 
 How shall the moon repay her borrowed ray ? 
 
 Of one blue flower of England count her gain 
 From that old, upward look at Dorian skies ! 
 
 Or those white, curving throats on Biscay Bay 
 Restore their debt, by some august refrain, 
 To that strange beauty in Selene's eyes! 
 
 Vancouver, February, 1917. 
 
 139 
 
BY HOWE SOUND 
 
 FIGHT on, old world, fight on ! 
 Thou shall awaken soon, 
 And all thy dreams be gone 
 To mate the moon. 
 The pale, haggard moon whose days of strife 
 
 Have long since grown cold; 
 The wan, floating moon, 
 
 Whose cargo once was gold. 
 
 I have lived to see that hour 
 
 When all my soul hath caught. 
 In her white fancy's cup, 
 
 Is dashed away as naught. 
 From this small camp of souls 
 
 To that great camp I go. 
 The large sword swings in each 
 
 When the winds blow. 
 
 I turn from the world of cares 
 
 To this old apple tree, 
 Whose fragile, fragrant wares 
 
 Are spread for the sun to see. 
 It breathes no different breath 
 
 At the cry of the gun: 
 It only knows of Death 
 
 When the day is done. 
 
 Yon sweet-voiced chapel bell 
 Sang once a luring song : 
 140 
 
Sometimes I went to hear old men 
 Rage at the tide of wrong. 
 
 Red now are the chapel halls: 
 The large sword swings in each. 
 
 Soiled are the pure walls 
 By the vanity of speech. 
 
 At the first cry of the gun 
 They altered all their prayers. 
 
 Hate donned the vestry garb, 
 
 And Love walked down the stairs. 
 
 sweeter grows the wind 
 That changeth not her creed. 
 
 So am I come out here 
 To join the cold sea-weed. 
 
 A black, old ship throws oft' 
 The cramping cloak of land; 
 
 And, naked, bids the sea 
 
 All her strong limbs command. 
 
 1 sit here on this shore 
 
 And watch the clouds go by; 
 And wonder why men left for me 
 These pastures of the sky. 
 
 Vancouver, B.C., Mav, 1917. 
 
 141 
 
PEACE 
 
 FLOW, flag, in the soft wind; blow, bugle, blow; 
 The day we dreamed of through the years is here. 
 Lowered is Mars' red spear; 
 And the shot-peopled air, 
 Tired of the wild trumpet's blare, 
 Tired of the upturned, glassy eyes of men, 
 Is quiet again. 
 
 Discord has fled w^ith her gigantic peals, 
 And, at her heels. 
 
 Walks the old silence of the long ago. 
 Flow, flag, in the soft wind; blow, bugles, blow. 
 
 The upturned faces of the world to-day 
 
 Are like the laughing waves of a sea in May. 
 
 Tears are a lost art of a hateful dream ; 
 
 Laughter is King, is King. 
 
 Blow, bugles, blow ; let the wild sirens scream, 
 
 Let the mad music ring, 
 
 Until the very flowers shall nod and sing. 
 
 I hear the lusty cheers of youth whose years 
 
 Were blown to the crag's black edge; 
 
 I see the Hours quaiT up a mother's tears 
 
 As the sun drinks dew upon a Devon hedge. 
 
 No more shall the sad wires transmit the dole 
 
 That gnaws into the soul. 
 
 And that vast company we call the dead 
 
 Shall know the flag of Peace flies overhead 
 
 Because of the new lightness of our tread. 
 
 142 
 
In Flanders now the birds find their first wonder 
 
 Since that loud August thunder 
 
 That shattered the blue skies like broken glass. 
 
 The wonder now is that the thing is dead 
 
 That passed, with crimson tread, 
 
 Over the silken floor of fragrant grass — 
 
 The screaming, blatant woe 
 
 That turned his plowshare in the flowers and sowed, 
 
 By the quiet, dreaming road, 
 
 His crop of gleaming crosses, row on row. 
 
 Flow, flag, in the soft wind; blow, bugles, blow. 
 
 Like as a river dries up in the light 
 
 Our tears have blown to vapor. 
 
 The airplanes drop down in their droning flight 
 
 Like floating paper. 
 
 The gun that camouflaged her brutal throat 
 
 In Bourlon's thicket 
 
 Shall dream to-night in wonder at the note 
 
 Of some lone cricket. 
 
 And, where a maddened cuirassier grew gory 
 
 In that wild, sudden clash of yesterday. 
 
 Some docile, blue-eyed youth will sing a story, 
 
 And laughing, dancing children's feet will play. 
 
 The world is blown with color like a flower 
 In this triumphant hour. 
 
 The great procession grows, their shining feet 
 Sandalled with dewy peace. 
 I watch them passing up the city street; 
 Gaining on life a new and wondrous lease. 
 
 143 
 
Old men who pick up life like a broken rose 
 
 Which they had thrown away; 
 
 Old women who unbind their temple snows 
 
 And comb them up for a new holiday ; 
 
 Young maidens, all their spirits like the flow 
 
 Of the new melted snow ; 
 
 Flow, flag, in the soft wind ; blow, bugles, blow. 
 
 This that we hear is but a shining drop 
 
 In the glad sea of mirth. 
 
 The tide flows round the world and will not stop 
 
 Until it brims the earth. 
 
 The Bedouin Arab now invites his dance 
 
 Where the sandstorms croon; 
 
 And a mad company in lilting France 
 
 Unwind a rigadoon. 
 
 Down a soft English lane 
 
 Wild, happy, blue-eyed children chase the rain. 
 
 They wrap their throats in song from Maine to where 
 
 The Golden Gate unwinds her mist of hair. 
 
 One grief alone we have; blow, bugle, blow; 
 
 The crosses stand in Flanders, row on row. 
 
 They shall not watch with us to-day nor fare 
 
 On our bright bugles blare. 
 
 Flow, flag, in the soft wind: blow, bugles, blow ; 
 And then, at e'en, when all the lights are dim. 
 Let us pour out our thanks in praise to Him 
 Who gave the peace we know. 
 
 Toronto, November 11th, 1918. 
 
 144