Sonnets and Other Verse Part 6

They basked not, they, in balmy tropic shade, 'Neath orange tree and banyan; But braved the bush, the torrent and the steep, By gorge and gulch and canyon.

They would not be held back in cities over desks, Or among the homestead hedges; So their pockets now are filled with the yellow, yellow gold That they mined in the mountain ledges.

They left their homes, their loved ones all behind, Forsook kind friend and neighbor, And went to seek the thing of greatest worth, For gold, rare gold, to labor.

Oh! they bled the old earth--they opened up her veins With their picks and drills and sledges; And their pockets now are filled with the yellow, yellow gold That they mined in the mountain ledges.

WAR-SHIPS IN PORT.

The tread of armed mariners is in our streets to-day, An Empire's pulse is beating in the march of this array.

From western woods, and Celtic hills, and homely Saxon shires, They sailed beneath the "meteor flag," the emblem of our sires; And for the glory that has been, the pride that yet may be, We hail them in the sacred names of home and liberty, And know that not on sea or land more dauntless hearts there are Than the hearts of these bold seamen from the English men-of-war.

Trafalgar's fame-crowned hero stands, encarved in storied stone, And from his place of honor looks in silence and alone: But no, to-day his spirit lives, and walks the crowded way; For us Drake, Hawkins, Frobisher and Howard live to-day; For us from many a page of eld, 'mid war and tempest blast, A thousand thousand valiant forms come trooping from the past, And say, "Forget not us to-day, we have a part with these, The 'sea-dogs' of old England, the 'Mistress of the Seas.'"

No, no, ye gruff old heroes, ye can never be forgot; The memory of your prowess will outlive the storm, the shot Destruction pours impartially on common and sublime, And scorn the volleying years that mount the battery of time; For far above this tide of war your worth is written clear On fame's bright rock of adamant, imperishable here; Your names may be recorded not, your graves be 'neath the keel, But many a million English hearts some love for you shall feel.

Five grim old ocean-buffeters, stern ploughshares of the deep, Have come to visit us of those whose duty 'tis to keep, With the old lion's courage and the young eagle's ken, Their sleepless watch upon the sea that skirts this world of men: And if again in stately pride their lordly forms they bear Upon the ample bosom of our n.o.ble stream, whene'er From ma.s.sive prow impregnable their peaceful anchor falls, We'll hail old England's hearts of steel who man her iron walls.

ON FINDING A COPY OF BURNS'S POEMS IN THE HOUSE OF AN ONTARIO FARMER.

Large Book, with heavy covers worn and old, Bearing clear proof of usage and of years, Thine edges yellow with their faded gold, Thy leaves with fingers stained--perchance with tears;

How oft thy venerable page has felt The hardened hands of honorable toil!

How oft thy simple song had power to melt The hearts of the rude tillers of the soil!

How oft has fancy borne them back to see The Scottish peasant at his work, and thou Hast made them feel the grandeur of the free And independent follower of the plough!

What careth he that his proud name hath peal'd From sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e since his new race began, In humble cot and "histie stibble field"

Who doth "preserve the dignity of man"?

With reverent hands I lay aside the tome, And to my longing heart content returns, And in the stranger's house I am at home, For thou dost make us brothers, Robert Burns.

And thou, old Book, go down from sire to son; Repeat the pathos of the poet's life; Sing the sweet song of him who fought and won The outward struggle and the inward strife.

Go down, grand Book, from h.o.a.ry sire to son; Keep by the Book of books thy wonted place; Tell what a son of man hath felt and done, And make of us and ours a n.o.ble race,--

A race to scorn the sordid greed of gold, To spurn the spurious and contemn the base, Despise the shams that may be bought and sold,-- A race of brothers and of men,--a race

To usher in the long-expected time Good men have sought and prophets have foretold, When this bright world shall be the happy clime Of brotherhood and peace, when men shall mould

Their lives like His who walked in Palestine; The truly human manhood thou dost show, Leading them upward to the pure divine Nature of G.o.d made manifest below.

THE IDEAL PREACHER.

It was back in Renfrew County, near the Opeongo line, Where the land's all hills and hollows and the hills are clothed with pine, And in the wooded valleys little lakes shine here and there Like jewels in the ma.s.ses of a lovely woman's hair; Where the York branch, by a channel ripped through rugged rocks and sand, Sweeps to join the Madawaska, speeding downward to the Grand; Where the landscape glows with beauty, like a halo shed abroad, And the face of nature mirrors back the unseen face of G.o.d.

I was weary with my journey, and with difficulty strove To keep myself awake at first, as, sitting by the stove In old William Rankin's shanty, I attended as I might To the pioneer backwoodsman's tales far on into the night; But William talked until the need of sleep one quite forgot, Not stopping but to stir the fire, which kept the stove red-hot; For the wind was raw and cold without, although the month of May: Up north the winter struggles hard before it yields its sway; And the snow is in the forests, and the ice is in the lakes, And the frost is in the seedland oft when sunny June awakes.

He talked of camps in winter time, of river drives in spring, Of discords in the settlement,--in fact, of everything; He told of one good elder who'd been eaten by a bear, And wondered that a beast of prey should eat a man of pray'r; Of beast, from wolf to porcupine, killed with gun, axe and fork, And, finally, of college men who did not pine for pork.

"But yet among them students," said the bushman, "there wuz one As. .h.i.t me an' the settlement as fair as any gun.

"O' course, he wa'nt no buster, hed no shinin' gifts o' speech; But jis' as reg'lar he could give some pointers how to preach.

He talked straight on like tellin' yarns--more heart, I'd say, 'an head; But somehow people felt he meant 'bout every word he said.

He wa'n't chuck full o' larnin' from the peelin' to the core;-- Leastwise, he wa'n't the kind they call a college batch-o'-lore; He'd no degree, the schoolma'am said,--though soon he let 'em see That o' certain sterlin' qualities he had a great degree,-- Leastwise he hed no letters till the hind end o' his name,-- But, preacher, say, you don't set much importance by them same?-- Y' may hev t.i.tles o' y'r own, an' think I'm speakin' bold; But there's that bob-tailed nag o' mine, the chestnut three-year-old; It's true she can't make such a swish, to scare away the flies, But if y'd see her cover ground, y'd scarce believe y'r eyes.

"O' course, he hed his enemies,--you preachers alluz hez,-- But 'twa'n't no use their tellin' us he wa'n't the stuff, I gez; An' after while they closed right up an' looked like,--it wuz fun,-- When they seed the way he 'sisted out ol' Game-leg Templeton.

O' course, y' knows ol' Templeton,--twuz him as druv y' in; Y' noticed, maybe, how he limped, and sort o' saved his shin.

He's run the mail through fair and foul 'tween this and c.u.mbermere, And faithful served Her Majesty fur nigh on twenty year.

"The preacher stayed with Templeton, the same's you're stay'n' with me, On a new clearance back o' this, which, course, y' didn't see.

An' one day on a visit tour the chap wuz startin' out In the way o' Little Carlow,--twuz good twelve mile round about,-- An' in the bush he'd lose hisself, as everybody knowed: 'I'll take the axe,' says Templeton, 'an' go an' blaze a road.

It's only three mile through the bush.' An' so they started in, Quite happy like,--men never knows when troubles will begin.

'Bout noon,--the folks was in the house a eatin' o' their snack,-- The chap comes home with Templeton a-hangin' on his back.

"The call wuz close fur Templeton, who'd somehow missed his stroke; He alluz swung a heavy blow, an' the bone wuz well-nigh broke; An' wust of all, 'twuz two whole days afore the doctor came; He was up the Long Lake section, seein'--what's that fellow's name?-- Well, never mind.--An' when he did examine of the wound, He said 'twould take all summer fur the man to git around.

"Well, what y' think thet preacher done, but turn right out an' mow The meadow down an' put it in, and th' harvest, too, although The ol' man worried and complained as how he'd orter stop; An' there wa'nt no binders in them days, and work wuz work, sure pop.

"Well, when the people heerd about the way that preacher done, All on 'em growed religious straight, sir, every mother's son; The meetin'-house wuz crowded from the pulpit to the door-- Some on 'em hadn't showed face there fur twenty year or more; An' them as sot out on the fence an' gossiped all the while, Jis' brought the fence planks in and sot down on 'em in the aisle, An' listened,--sir, no orator as ever spoke aloud Worked on his audience the way as that chap on our crowd.

We aint no shakes o' people; we aint up to nothin' new; But we knows a man what's shammin' and we knows a man what's true.

An' when we heerd that preacher talk 'bout Christian sacrifice And bearin' burdens for the weak, we valued his advice; An' we showed it--there wuz nothin' as we thought too good for him; We poured our cup o' grat.i.tude an' filled it to the brim.

"He aint been near so fort'nate 'n the city where he's went; Some folks as didn't like him set them sticklers on his scent; An' the presbytery giv him fits fur trimmin' of his lamp The way it shined the brightest, an' he jined another camp.

But most men,--leastwise such as him,--I take it, fur my part, Aint got much devil in their brains when G.o.d is in their heart; An' I'll allow it yet, although they puts me in the stocks, That religion what is practical's sufficient orthodox.

"Well, thet's the finest preacher as hez struck back here to spout, An' there never wuz another we cared very much about.

I've heerd o' Beecher's meetings an' such men as John B. Gough; But fourteen waggon loads druv down to see that preacher off.

We sent him back to college with a fresh supply o' socks,-- Nigh everything a student needs wuz jammed intill that box; An', preacher, spite of what yourself with all your parts may feel, Fur me an' Game-leg Templeton that man is our ideel."

THE WHEEL OF MISFORTUNE.

O m'sieu, doan you hask me ma story, doan hask me how dis was happenn; Dat's one beeg black hole on ma life, w'ere I doan want to look on some more....

Well, he's coom joos' so well for to tole you, all tak' beet tabac firs' and den A'll tole you what cep' to de pries' a have nevare tole no one before.

Bien, M'sieu; he's come pa.s.s joos like dis way; a go out wit' de boys to make lark; Dare was Armand and Joseph and Louiee, an' we drink on de deefront saloon.

An' we feenish in plac' wit' de music, like one of dose garden or park, W'ere he's play dose curse wheel for de monee--in Hingleesh dat's wheel of fortune.