Fires of Driftwood Part 4

Lake Louise

I THINK that when the Master Jeweler tells His beads of beauty over, seeking there One gem to name as most supremely fair, To you He turns, O lake of hidden wells!

So very lovely are you, Lake Louise, The stars which crown your lifted peaks at even Mistake you for a little sea in heaven And nightly launch their shining argosies.

From sh.o.r.e to dim-lit sh.o.r.e a ripple slips, The happy sigh of faintly stirring night Where safe she sleeps upon this virgin height Captive of dream and smiling with white lips.

Surely a spell, creation-old, was made For you, O lake of silences, that all Earth's fretting voices here should muted fall, As if a finger on their lips were laid!

The Gatekeeper

THE sunlight falls on old Quebec, A city framed of rose and gold, An ancient gem more beautiful In that its beauty waxes old.

O Pearl of Cities! I would set You higher in our diadem, And higher yet and higher yet, That generations still to be May kindle at your history!

'Twas here that gallant Champlain stood And gazed upon this mighty stream, These towering rock-walls, b.u.t.tressed high-- A gateway to a land of dream; And all his silent men stood near While the great fleur-de-lis fell free, (Too awe-struck they to raise a cheer) And while the shining folds outspread The sunset burned a sudden red.

Here paced the haughty Frontenac, His great heart torn with pride and pain, His clear eye dimming as it swept The land he might not see again, This infant world, this strange New France Dropped down as by some vagrant wind Upon the New World's vast expanse, Threatened yet safe! Through storm and stress Time's challenge to the wilderness.

Here, when to ease her tangled skein Fate cut her threads and formed anew The pattern of the thing she planned And red war slipped the shuttle through, Montcalm met Wolfe! The bitter strife Of flag and flag was ended here-- And every man who gave his life Gave it that now one flag may wave, One nation rise upon his grave!

The twilight falls on old Quebec And in the purple shines a star, And on her citadel lies peace More powerful than armies are.

O fair dream city! Ebb and flow Of race feuds vex no more your walls.

Can they of old see this? and know That, even as they dreamed, you stand Gatekeeper of a peace-filled land!

The Bridge Builder

OF old the Winds came romping down, Oh, wild and free were they!

They bent the prairie gra.s.ses low And made a place to play.

Then, that the G.o.ds might hear their voice On purple days of spring, They sought the tossing, pine-clad slope And made a place to sing.

Tired at last of song and play, They found a canyon deep And in its echoing silences They made a place to weep.

Man came, a small and feeble thing, And looked upon the plain.

"Lo, this is mine," he said, and set A seal of golden grain.

Upon the mountain slopes he gazed, Where the great pine trees grow, Then gashed their mighty sides and laid Their singing branches low.

He clung upon the canyon's ledge And from its topmost ridge, Above its vast and awful deeps, He built himself a bridge.

A bauble in the light of day, New gilded by the sun, It seemed like some great, golden web By giant spider spun!

The homeless winds came rushing down-- Oh they were wild and free!

And angry for their stolen plain And for their felled pine tree--

And angry--angry most of all For that brave bridge of gold!

With deep-mouthed shout they hurtled down To tear it from its hold--

The girders shrieked, the cables strained And shuddered at the roar-- Yet, when the winds had pa.s.sed, the bridge Held firmly as before!

Still fairy-like and frail it shone Against the sunset's glow-- But one, the builder of the bridge, Lay silent, far below!

The Prairie School

THE sweet west wind, the prairie school a break in the yellow wheat, The prairie trail that wanders by to the place where the four winds meet-- A trail with never an end at all to the children's eager feet.

The morning scents, the morning sun, a morning sky so blue The distance melts to meet it till both are lost to view In a little line of glory where the new day beckons through--

And out of the glow, the children: a whoop and a calling gay, A clink of lunch-pails swinging as they clash in mimic fray, A shout and a shouting echo from a world as young as they!

The prairie school! The well-tramped earth, so ugly and so dear, The piney steps where teacher stands, a saucy gopher near, A rough-cut pole where the flag flies up to a shrill voiced children's cheer.

So stands the outpost! Time and change will crowd its widening door, Big with the dreams we visioned and the hopes we battled for-- A legacy to those who come from those who come no more.

Calgary Station

DAZZLED by sun and drugged by s.p.a.ce they wait, These homeless peoples, at our prairie gate; Dumb with the awe of those whom fate has hurled, Breathless, upon the threshold of a world!

From near-horizoned, little lands they come, From barren country-side and deathly slum, From bleakest wastes, from lands of aching drouth, From grape-hung valleys of the smiling South, From chains and prisons, ay, from horrid fear, (Mark you the furtive eye, the listening ear!) And all amazed and silent, scared and shy-- An alien group beneath an alien sky!

See--on that bench beside the busy door-- There sleeps a Roman born: upon the floor His wife, dark-haired and handsome, takes her rest, Their black-eyed baby tugging at her breast.

Her hands lie still. Her brooding glances roam Above the pushing crowd to her far home, And slow she smiles to think how fine 'twill be When they (so rich!) return to Italy.

Yonder, with stolid face and tragic eye, Sits a lone Russian; as we pa.s.s him by He neither stirs nor looks; his inner gaze Sees not the future fair, but, troubled, strays To the dark land he left but can't forget, Whose bonds, though broken, hold him prisoner yet.

Here is a Pole--a worker; though so slim His muscle is of steel--no fear for him; He is the breed which conquers; he is nerved To fight and fight again. Too long he served, Man of a subject race! His fierce, blue eye Roams like a homing eagle o'er the sky, So limitless, so deep! for such as he Life has no higher bliss than to be free.

This little Englishman with jaunty air And tweed cap perched awry on close-trimmed hair-- He, with his faded wife and noisy band, Has come from Home to seek a promised land-- He feels himself aggrieved, for no one said That things would be so big and so--outspread!

He thinks of London with a pang of grief; His wife is sobbing in her handkerchief.

But all his children stare with eager eyes.

This is their land. Already they surmise Their heritage, their chance to live and grow, Won for them by their fathers, long ago!