Lundy's Lane and Other Poems Part 2

AT WILLIAM MACLENNAN'S GRAVE

Here where the cypress tall Shadows the stucco wall, Bronze and deep, Where the chrysanthemums blow, And the roses--blood and snow-- He lies asleep.

Florence dreameth afar; Memories of foray and war, Murmur still; The Certosa crowns with a cold Cloud of snow and gold The olive hill.

What has he now for the streams Born sweet and deep with dreams From the cedar meres?

Only the Arno's flow, Turbid, and weary, and slow With wrath and tears.

What has he now for the song Of the boatmen, joyous and long, Where the rapids shine?

Only the sound of toil, Where the peasants press the soil For the oil and wine.

Spirit-fellow in sooth With bold La Salle and Duluth, And La Verandrye,-- Nothing he has but rest, Deep in his cypress nest With memory.

Hearts of steel and of fire, Why do ye love and aspire, When follows Death--all your pa.s.sionate deeds, Garnered with rust and with weeds In the hollows?

G.o.d that hardened the steel, Bid the flame leap and reel, Gave us unrest; We act in the dusk afar, In a star beyond your star, His behest.

"We leave you dreams and names Still we are iron and flames, Biting and bright; Into some virgin world, Champions, we are hurled, Of venture and fight."

Here where the shadows fall, From the cypress by the wall, Where the roses are-- Here is a dream and a name, There, like a rose of flame, Rises--a star.

THE WOOD-SPRING TO THE POET

Dawn-cool, dew-cool Gleams the surface of my pool Bird haunted, fern enchanted, Where but tempered spirits rule; Stars do not trace their mystic lines In my confines; I take a double night within my breast A night of darkened heavens, a night of leaves, And in the two-fold dark I hear the owl Puff at his velvet horn And the wolves howl.

Even daylight comes with a touch of gold Not overbold, And shows dwarf-cornel and the twin-flowers, Below the balsam bowers, Their tints enamelled in my dew-drop shield.

Too small even for a thirsty fawn To quench upon, I hold my crystal at one level There where you see the liquid bevel Break in silver and go free Singing to its destiny.

Give, Poet, give!

Thus only shalt thou live.

Give! for 'tis thy joyous doom To charm, to comfort, to illume.

Speak to the maiden and the child With accents deep and mild, Tell them of the world so wide In words of wonder and pure pride, Touched with the rapture of surprise That dwells in a child angel's eyes, Awed with the strangeness of new-birth, When the flaming seraph sent To lead him into Paradise, Calls his name with the mother's voice He has just ceased to hear on earth.

Give to the youth his heart's content, But power with prudence blent, Thicken his sinews with love, With courage his heart prove, Till over his spirit shall roll The vast wave of control.

In the cages and dens of strife, Where men draw breath Thick with a curse at the dear thing called life, Give them courage to bear, Strength to aspire and dare; Give them hopes rooted in stone, That the loveliest flowers take on, Bind on their brows with a gesture free The palm green bays of liberty.

Give to the mothers of men The knowledge of joy in pain, Give them the sense of reward That grew in the breast of the Lord On the dawn of the seventh morn; For 'tis they who re-create the world Whenever a child is born.

Give, Poet, give!

Give them songs that charm and fill The soul with an alluring pleasure, Prelusive to a deeper thrill, A richer tone, a fuller measure; Like voices, veiled with hidden treasure, Of angels on a windy morning, That first far off, then all together, Come with a glorious clarion calling; And when they swoon beneath the spell Recapture them to hear the echoes Falling--falling--falling.

To those stoned for the truth Give ruth; Give manna for the mourner's mouth Sovereign as air; For his heart's drouth A prayer.

Give to dead souls that mock at life Aweary of their cankered hearts, Weary of sleep and weary of strife, Weary of markets and of arts,-- Helve them a song of life, Two-edged with joyous life, Tempered trusty with life, Proud pointed with wild life, Plunge it as lightning plunges, Stab them to life!

Give to those who grieve in secret, Those who bear the sorrows of earth, The deep unappeasable longings Which beset them with throngings and throngings, (As, on a windless night, Through the fold of a dark mantle furled, Gleams on our world, world after unknown world) Give them peace, Wide as the veil that hides G.o.d's face, The pure plenitude of s.p.a.ce, In which our universe is but a glittering crease,-- Give them such peace.

Give, Poet, give!

Thus only shalt thou live: Give as we give who are hidden In myriad dimples of rock and fern; Give as we give unbidden To tarn and rillet and burn, Where the lake dreams, Where the fall is hurled, Striving to sweeten The oceans of the world.

Should my song for a moment cease, Silence fall in the woodland peace; Should I wilfully check the flow Bubbling and dancing up from below; Say to my heart be still--be still, Let the murmur die with the rill; Then should the glittering, grey sea-things Sigh as they wallow the under springs; Where the deep brine-pools used to lie Deserts vast would stare at the sky, And even thy rich heart (O Poet, Poet!) Even thy rich heart run dry.

THE NOVEMBER PANSY

This is not June,--by Autumn's stratagem Thou hast been ambushed in the chilly air; Upon thy fragile crest virginal fair The rime has cl.u.s.tered in a diadem; The early frost Has nipped thy roots and tried thy tender stem, Seared thy gold petals, all thy charm is lost.

Thyself the only sunshine: in obeying The law that bids thee blossom in the world Thy little flag of courage is unfurled; Inherent pansy-memories are saying That there is sun, That there is dew and colour and warmth repaying The rain, the starlight when the light is done.

These are the gaunt forms of the hollyhocks That shower the seeds from out their withered purses; Here were the pinks; there the nasturtium nurses The last of colour in her gaudy smocks; The ruins yonder Show but a vestige of the flaming phlox; The poppies on their faded glory ponder.

Here visited the vagrant humming-bird, The nebulous darting green, the ruby-throated; The warm fans of the b.u.t.terfly here floated; Those two nests reared the robins, and the third Was left forlorn m.u.f.fled in lilacs, whence the perfume stirred The tremulous eyelids of the dewy morn.

Thy sisters of the early summer-time Were masquers in this carnival of pleasure; Each in her turn unrolled her golden treasure, And thou hast but the ashes of the prime; 'Tis life's own malice That brings the peasant of a race sublime To feed her flock around her ruined palace.

Yet for withstanding thus the autumn's dart Some deeper pansy-insight will atone; It comes to souls neglected and alone, Something that prodigals in pleasure's mart Lose in the whirl; The peasant child will have a purer heart Than the vain favourite of the vanished earl.

And far above this tragic world of ours There is a world of a diviner fashion, A mystic world, a world of dreams and pa.s.sion That each aspiring thing creates and dowers With its own light; Where even the frail spirits of trees and flowers Pause, and reach out, and pa.s.s from height to height.

Here will we claim for thee another fief, An upland where a glamour haunts the meadows, Snow peaks arise enrobed in rosy shadows, Fairer the under slopes with vine and sheaf And shimmering lea; The paradise of a simple old belief, That flourished in the Islands of the Sea.

A snow-cool cistern in the fairy hills Shall feed thy roots with moisture clear as dew; A ferny shield to temper the warm blue That heaven is; a thrush that thrills To answer his mate, And when above the ferns the shadow fills, Fireflies to render darkness consolate.

Here muse and brood, moulding thy seed and die And re-create thy form a thousand fold, Mellowing thy petals to more lucent gold, Till they expand, tissues of amber sky; Till the full hour, And the full light and the fulfilling eye Shall find amid the ferns the perfect flower.

THE HEIGHT OF LAND

Here is the height of land: The watershed on either hand Goes down to Hudson Bay Or Lake Superior; The stars are up, and far away The wind sounds in the wood, wearier Than the long Ojibway cadence In which Potan the Wise Declares the ills of life And Chees-que-ne-ne makes a mournful sound Of acquiescence. The fires burn low With just sufficient glow To light the flakes of ash that play At being moths, and flutter away To fall in the dark and die as ashes: Here there is peace in the lofty air, And Something comes by flashes Deeper than peace;-- The spruces have retired a little s.p.a.ce And left a field of sky in violet shadow With stars like marigolds in a water-meadow.

Now the Indian guides are dead asleep; There is no sound unless the soul can hear The gathering of the waters in their sources.

We have come up through the spreading lakes From level to level,-- Pitching our tents sometimes over a revel Of roses that nodded all night, Dreaming within our dreams, To wake at dawn and find that they were captured With no dew on their leaves; Sometimes mid sheaves Of braken and dwarf-cornel, and again On a wide blue-berry plain Brushed with the shimmer of a bluebird's wing; A rocky islet followed With one lone poplar and a single nest Of white-throat-sparrows that took no rest But sang in dreams or woke to sing,-- To the last portage and the height of land--: Upon one hand The lonely north enlaced with lakes and streams, And the enormous targe of Hudson Bay, Glimmering all night In the cold arctic light; On the other hand The crowded southern land With all the welter of the lives of men.

But here is peace, and again That Something comes by flashes Deeper than peace,--a spell Golden and inappellable That gives the inarticulate part Of our strange being one moment of release That seems more native than the touch of time, And we must answer in chime; Though yet no man may tell The secret of that spell Golden and inappellable.

Now are there sounds walking in the wood, And all the spruces shiver and tremble, And the stars move a little in their courses.

The ancient disturber of solitude Breathes a pervasive sigh, And the soul seems to hear The gathering of the waters at their sources; Then quiet ensues and pure starlight and dark; The region-spirit murmurs in meditation, The heart replies in exaltation And echoes faintly like an inland sh.e.l.l Ghost tremors of the spell; Thought reawakens and is linked again With all the welter of the lives of men.