THE FAR HILLS
And Other Poems
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THE FAR HILLS
and Other Poems
H. T. J. COLEMAN
[illustration: RP 1829]
THE RYERSON PRESS – TORONTO
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COPYRIGHT CANADA, 1958, BY
THE RYERSON PRESS, TORONTO
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form (except by reviewers for the public press) without permission in writing from the publishers.
Published 1958
PRINTED AND BOUND IN CANADA
BY THE RYERSON PRESS, TORONTO
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CONTENTS
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THE FAR HILLS
and Other Poems
THE FAR HILLS
THE near hills, beneath the sun,
Stand clear and green and high,
But the far hills lie faint and blue
Along the western sky.
One well might climb the near hills
Within a single day,
But the summits of the far hills
Are unknown miles away.
Yet thither would my fancy fare
On feet that never tire,
Until at length they gain the peaks
That guard the sunset fire.
The near hills give happiness
Without a hint of dole,
But it is the call of the far hills
That echoes in my soul. [page 1]
TO THE SONNET
“As dead as the sonnet” —quoted from an article in a recent number of a leading literary magazine.
SO you are gone
That in the dawn
Of modern poetry so brightly shone,
The solace and delight of men
Whose worth was by their age confessed,
Who turned to you by instinct when
The cares of life too sorely pressed
Upon their spirits, and were comforted.
Now you are dead,
Slain by a critic’s pen.
Petrarch will mourn
And lay aside his laurel crown;
’Tis faded now; and Shakespeare’s glory
Will seem an old and tedious story
Of undeserved renown;
Milton and Wordsworth sit forlorn
Among the failures of their times.
They should have scorned your rhymes.
Has not a modern critic said
That you are dead? [page 2]
AN AEROPLANE
A silver fish that swims the central blue,
A vessel voyaging uncharted seas
More wonderful than those Columbus knew
In times long past, where to the Atlantic breeze
He loosed his darling sail for unknown shores,
A mighty bird that scorns to be confined
To narrow limits but exultant soars
Upward and leaves this little earth behind.
Familiar fancies these, and now again
I look and see in the bright depths above
The gleaming pinions of an aeroplane
So distant that it scarcely seems to move.
I know it travels still on resolute wing,
Triumph and type of man’s adventuring. [page 3]
THE POET
I am a peddler knocking at your door
Daily with wares of curious artistry.
I do not ask of you that you should buy;
If you should deign to pause and look them o’er
I shall be satisfied. Among my store
Are pretty trifles that may please you eye—
The prattle of a child, a lover’s sigh,
And memories of days that are no more.
Perhaps, encouraged by your sympathy,
I may delve deep within my pack and bring
To light and place within your hand a thing
I would not care for everyone to see.
Mark as you hold it how the colours start
As if it were a sun—it is my heart.
THE VOICE OF SPRING
THIS afternoon I heard the voice of Spring,
Not the full-throated chorus April knows
When daffodils have wakened, and the rose
Waits on the threshold of her blossoming—
Nor yet the call of March when violets bring
Their first shy tokens and the willow shows
Its silver tassels and the sunlight grows
Each day more golden and the robins sing.
’Tis February and the snow still lies
In many a sheltered spot, yet, as I pass
I see an added greenness in the grass,
A softer blue within the southern skies,
And in the silence falls upon my ear
Spring’s reassuring whisper, “I am near.” [page 4]
WEEDS
THEY are indifferent to man’s disdain
As with Spring’s growing warmth they seek a place
In field and garden, often with a grace
Unrecognized. The humble and the plain
Among God’s creatures were not set in vain
Though of His purpose we may find no trace.
With confidence they stand before His face
And seek their portion of His sun and rain.
Though they are outlaw, for the needs of life,
Imperious with us all, have placed a ban
Upon their presence and industrious man
Wages with them a never-ending strife,
The wilderness is glad because of them
And wears them proudly as a diadem.
ILLUMINATION
I looked abroad and saw among mankind,
Or seemed to see, the might of ancient wrong,
Virtue abased and arrogance made strong,
Folly advanced in state and, far behind,
Truth’s flickering torch held forth to light the blind;
And Mammon’s train with revelry and song
Sweeping the highways of the world along
With victory’s banner streaming in the wind.
I looked again and saw a human soul
That held itself erect against the power
Of utmost fate in life’s most evil hour
And in a higher self found self-control;
And then I knew that I had read amiss,
That those were but a shadow matched with this. [page 5]
A FARM-HOUSE KITCHEN
A worn plank walk conducts me to the door,
And, as I open it, the pleasant smell
Of cooking greets me. Here the family dwell
Throughout the day. For fifty years and more
Rough toil-worn shoes have passed across the floor.
If boards could speak what stories might they tell
Of simple joys and sorrows, and the spell
Of home and warmth when the day’s work was o’er.
Before, the farther window, where the light
Of summer sunshine enters in a flood
There stands a rough-hewn table with the food
That marks the midday meal. The room is bright
For me with tender memories that shine
From boyhood days that long ago were mine.
TO A TEACHER
YOU may not ask for fame as if your worth
Could be compressed into a single phrase
To make a headline. You must scorn the praise
Of those who eyes are fixed upon the earth
So that they miss the eternal stars, for dearth
Is all the wages such ambition pays.
Fate on the selfish pride of power lays
Oblivion’s ashes even from its birth.
Other reward the future has in keeping
For you who bear the conscience of the race.
Because you sought not you shall find your place
When kings and princes in the dust are sleeping,
Whose fadeless emblem is a little child. [page 6]
THE MOTHER
SHE has the utmost known of joy and pain
So she might bind within a living chain
The future and the past. Upon her gaze
Has shone resplendent all the brighter days
The race shall see; and ever she has kept
Deep in her heart while still the young life slept
Within her body all the hopes and fears
Mankind has known throughout uncounted years.
And should there come to earth at last a day
When cruelty and hate are put away,
When love and duty breathe one common air
And beauty has dominion everywhere,
Her hands shall open wide the gates of morn
Who dreamed man’s dreams for him eye he was born.
ON A CHILD DANCING
A flower of its beauty unaware,
An autumn leaf that eddies round and round,
A joyous butterfly that late has found
Its shining wings and flutters here and there,
A ray of light, a breath of springtime fair,
A dandelion tuft that with no sound
Rises aloft or sinks toward the ground
A snowflake falling through the wintry air;
I think of these as you are borne along
In graceful movement upon music’s stream,
You are the spirit of a happy dream,
You are the echo of a wordless song;
Like sunshine or the carolling of birds
You bring a gladness far too deep for words. [page 7]
A SPADE
THIS humble instrument of industry,
With which I overturn the garden mould
Now that spring’s warmth has banished winter cold,
More ancient is than human history.
Early it stands in the long ancestry
Of those devices, curious, manifold,
By which intelligence contrives to hold
Nature with all her hidden wealth in fee.
What daring spirit smelted first the ore,
And shaped the yielding metal to his will,
And laboured with the stubborn earth until
It brought forth bounty never guessed before,
I know not, yet I give him foremost place
Among the benefactors of the race.
SYMPHONY
TODAY a castle out of viewless air
Is builded by musicians’ artistry;
Rooms hung with many a gorgeous tapestry
And corridors adorned with pictures rare.
Beneath are rayless dungeons, grim and bare,
The home of tears and hopeless misery,
Sorrows more ancient than humanity
And clanking chains and eyeless ghosts are there.
But soaring far above are turrets fair
From which in widening prospect one may see
The happy sunlit land of faery
The heart rejoices, and all nature sings
In unison with wood, and brass, and strings. [page 8]
AN OLD SKID-ROAD, VANCOUVER, B.C.
DESERTED now it lies that was the scene
Of busy life in days not long ago.
Between the rottings logs the alders grow,
Lifting in summer shafts of living green.
I trace it, stooping under boughs that lean
To check my steps, and wish that I might know
Some of the story that now sleeps below,
Across the silent years that intervene.
I fain would see the toiling oxen press
Along this narrow track, patient and strong,
Between tall trees that stand the way along;
But as I seek in fancy to complete
This picture of a vanished wilderness
I come to houses and a city street.
THROUGH A CABIN WINDOW
I see the noisy sea-gulls as they pass
In wheeling flight beneath a sunlit sky,
Tempered with mists of autumn, and I try
To catch their figures etched upon the glass
For one brief moment. Now a whirling mass
Of flashing wings, they hurry swiftly by.
Again, above the sea, now low, now high,
They soar like clouds above the summer grass.
And as the vessel goes unheeding on,
Leaving their petty tumult far behind,
I turn and ponder on our human kind.
How quickly into silence fades the strife
Of busy thoughts that circle and are gone
Above the mighty thing that we call life. [page 9]
A HUMMING-BIRD’S NEST
HERE is fresh joy for beauty-loving eyes;
Upon a branch where one would scarce expect
To find such treasure, carefully bedecked
With lichens gray and brown, one may espy
A tiny cup of wondrous symmetry,
And, noting all its features, may reflect
Upon the skill with which the architect
All but archives invisibility.
Here is a wisdom that is man’s despair;
Patience that puts his industry to shame.
This creature made to woo the light and air
With restless wings and throat of living flame
Has shaped its nest as if it fain would prove
All fairest building is the work of love.
MOSAIC
SOME bits of marble, glass and coloured clay
Devoid of beauty or significance,
To be regarded with contemptuous glance
By all except the master: Trifles play
So small a part in life, the careless say;
And yet it is through casual circumstance,
Slender at times as motes that idly dance
Within the sunbeam, genius makes its way.
O Master of all faithful souls, I pray
Give me the courage and the skill to use
The things which ease and selfishness refuse;
The tedious moments of my tedious day,
So that from out the pattern there may shine
A loveliness that love has made divine. [page 10]
TWO SONNETS
On viewing the portrait of Michelangelo by himself.
I
INEFFABLE sadness dwells within those eyes
As if their owner since his life began
Had viewed the age-long tragedy of man,
Man’s struggles, man’s defeats, man’s agonies,
And not as with the casual sympathies
Of that beholder who, aloof, may scan
The arena’s dust and toil; he also ran
An eager athlete straining for the prize.
The pangs of too much living he has known,
Of love that might not find content on earth,
Of princely favour languishing into dearth,
A part he grasped who fain would grasp the whole,
And now, perchance, those things to him are shown
Which vindicate the travail of his soul.
II
THESE are the hands which from the marble wrought
Heroic forms that speak to us today
With eloquence which may not pass away
Until man’s proudest works to dust are brought;
And when the daring mind the vision caught
They held the magic brush which bade it stay,
Toiling from morning dawn till evening gray
To give embodiment to noble thought.
All that mankind has dreamed throughout the years
These hands essayed to hold within their scope;
The Christian promise and the pagan hope
The saint’s desires, the prophet’s ecstasies,
And the mysterious terror that appears
In the rapt Delphian Sibyl’s staring eyes. [page 11]
A MEADOWLARK
A few clear notes like silver drops of rain
That follow in the wake of April showers,
Or like the morning dew on opening flowers
Have spoken springtime to the world again.
Ethereal joy dwells in the brief refrain,
Indomitable courage that the hours
Of darkness may not quench, nor all the powers
That mask behind the mystery of pain.
Out of the crystal fount of Nature’s gladness
Whose source eludes the farthest reach of thought,
Flowing forevermore, there has been brought
Unto my soul a drought to banish sadness.
My sorrows now are unregarded things—
A meadowlark beside the roadway sings. [page 12]
ON A QUILL PEN
WITH such a pen as this in days agone
Shakespeare his sonnets wrote, and Spenser paid
His tribute to his Faerie Queene. Its aid
Attended Chaucer in the gracious dawn
Of English verse when he set out upon
His Canterbury journey, and it played
Its needful part when Magna Carta stayed
The tyrant might of the usurper, John.
The regal swan, the humble barnyard goose
Gave freely of their quills. The art of man
Trimmed them with care and shaped them to his use
And writing made secure what thought began.
What once had served to speed the flight of birds
Found nobler mission in the flight of words. [page 13]
THE WILD SPIRAEA
THE wild spiraea grows along the shore
And in the nearby woodlands, and when June
Comes with her long bright days she brings a boon
That I would gladly treasure evermore.
The snowy blossoms open wide a door
To Beauty’s presence as they shine at noon
Or hang all ghostly white beneath the moon,
A wonder that I had not dreamt before.
The heart is filled with longing and can stay
A moment only, yet it cherishes
The memory of that which perishes
When it has added joy to one brief day;
And when, in winter, withered clusters cling
To naked boughs, it dares to dream of Spring. [page 14]
THE UNFORESEEN
A Pharaoh built a pyramid
Beneath the blue Egyptian skies
That he might rest forever hid
From curious strangers’ prying eyes:
And when three thousand years had gone
And strangers idly gazed upon
A royal mummy’s shrunken face:
For Egypt’s pomp and majesty
Had vanished quite beyond recall:
He had his immortality,
He was a mummy, that was all.
King David built a fortress strong
To make his throne forever sure,
And fought and schemed and laboured long
All that his glory might endure.
And all the cities that he took,
And all the triumphs that he wrought
Are set down in an ancient book
That says his glory came to naught.
King David sang a simple song
Nor cared he if it lived or perished,
’Twas by the breezes borne along,
’Twas by each casual listener cherished.
And though the centuries have flown
And of the fortress on the hill
There may be seen no single stone
King David’s song is living still. [page 15]
THE WORKERS
ONE laboured with his brain, and brought
As gift unto the Master’s hand
The product of his ordered thought,
Knowing that he would understand.
Another trod the countryside
And laboured daily in the field,
Trusting there would not be denied
The bounty of the harvest yield.
And others still by strength of arm
Or patient skill of hard brought grace
Unto the home, or added charm
To shop and street and marketplace.
And which had wrought the greater good
Was secret with the Master hid
Who in his wisdom understood
The soul behind the things they did. [page 16]
NEPENTHE
THE mountains are my friends.
With open arms they greet
Me where the roadway ends,
And I set my willing feet
To the well-known trails that sweep
Up from the valley far;
For I have a tryst to keep
With the moon and a midnight star,
Where the winds in the passes call,
And my campfire throws its light,
And the trees’ long shadows fall,
Across the silent night.
For all of man’s despite
The earth shall make amends,
And care be forgotten quite,
For the mountains are my friends. [page 17]
I SAW FIVE PEAKS
I saw five peaks against the rosy sunset,
Austere and far.
The lesser hills were all in deepest shadow,
And one pale star
Gave to the glory of the day’s declining
The magic of its shining.
The rosy light upon the placid waters
Was borne along
On tideless rivers like to those that wander
The fields of sleep among;
Fields far too fair for earthly sun’s caressing
Or waking moments guessing.
And when the sunset colours all had faded,
And the bright moon
Brought night with all her stars in solemn order
Until night’s noon,
Above the shadows I could still descry
Five peaks against the sky. [page 18]
TO A FUTURE GENERATION
YOU that shall stand in our place
When we are gone and forgot,
Who are the hope of the race
As we were once, we thought,—
I ask not if you can span
The earth between the sun and sun,
Or what wonders inventive man
Through the passing years has done;
For though your cities be vast
And their towers reach to the sky
Their greatness may not last
If they are built on a lie;
On the mischievous logic of old—
Child of a monstrous birth—
That the proud and arrogant hold
Prescriptive right to the earth.
Rather, I ask does the light
Of reason rule your world.
Has war long ceased to affright?
Are its flags all faded and furled?
Does brotherhood bring your strength,
As streams to the ocean run?
Have you found the secret at length
That labour and joy are one? [page 19]
THE VOYAGE
LAUNCHED on that ocean vast which men call Time,
Our lives, like ships, freighted with precious hopes,
Seek for their harbour in that unknown clime
We call the future. Pulling at the ropes
Are countless spirits summoned from the past,
The long past of the race that gave us birth,
Us that are latest born, though not the last,
Of all the generations of the earth.
That which hath been shall not return again,
With all our sorrow over vanished hours;
Its loss shall be our loss, its gain, our gain.
Now turn we with the remnant of our powers
To do the work which waits for us to do:
To hold our course despite the tempest’s roar.
The harbour beckons, and beyond the blue
Of far horizons lies that other shore
No man hath seen, save as his faith has caught
Some glimpse of distant harbour-lights he be brought
Who serves his Master in the coming days. [page 20]
LILAC BUDS
ALTHOUGH upon the maple tree
No springtime growth is seen
Along the sunny garden side
The lilac buds are green,
A brighter green if such may be
Than I saw yesterday
As if dull April dared to hint
The splendour of the May.
The South wind touched the naked boughs,
And banished wintry fear,
And in the vanguard of the spring
Each twig became a spear,
Close-folded buds that safely hide
As in a narrow cell,
The wealth of fragrance and of bloom
The garden knows so well.
O South wind blow upon my heart
That it may feel anew.
There is no wonder under heaven
Too lovely to be true. [page 21]
RHYTHM
I am the mistress of the souls of men,
For by my magic all their thoughts are bound.
I bring them to the skies and then again
They sink with me below the plummet’s sound.
Their bodies are but breath by me sent forth;
It rises or it falls as I ordain.
Without me there were neither south or north,
Nor summer sunshine nor the summer rain.
The morning stars which at creation sang
Obeyed by mild behest; and when the sea
With all its billows into being sprang
Its lightest motion was decreed by me.
I am the mistress of the souls of men,
Without me they were clods without a spark,
And words were discord, and the world were vain,
Sunk in the chaos of the primal dark. [page 22]
AUGUST RAIN
I hear the rain on the roof today,
“Summer is passing,” it seems to say.
But a note of joy in the steady refrain
Tells of the grass that is green again,
Of the listless flowers that had not stirred
If the rain’s soft summons had not been heard.
And now I shall see in the blossoming fall
Michaelmas daisies and asters tall.
Autumn roses will surely come
Along with the stately chrysanthemum.
Woodland colours will charm the eye
As the golden hours and days drift by,
And the heavens be filled with a softer blue
Than the skies of summer ever knew. [page 23]
IN MEMORIAM
MARJORIE L. C. PICKTHALL
TWO lands she loved of all the lands of earth,
And which she loved the most ’twere hard to say.
One was the little country of her birth,
The other, far away,
Rock-ribbed and forest-crowned,
Fronted the western ocean. Thus her lay
Had something of the tenderness that rests
On English landscapes, with their drowsy streams,
And peaceful hamlets where the swallow nests
Under the cottage eaves, and the sunlight gleams
On hedgerows all abloom with May,
And the sky-lark sings at break of day.
Another island home
Claimed her in womanhood; from it have come
Songs as wonderful as those by Sappho sung
In those far centuries when Greece was young.
The spell of summer twilight on the hills
Is in them, and the mystery
Of inlets which the rainy autumn fills
With rolling cloud-wrack piled in mountain masses,
Where naught is heard save the sound of the tide as it passes
With the surge of the sea.
And hers were other graces,
Caught from no land earth’s sun has shined upon,
Hint of the glory of the heavenly places
Whither her spirit has gone,
And we who walk stumblingly often in sadness,
Hoping for light ere the journey shall end,
Cling to the faith that she sang in her gladness,
That life is a friend. [page 24]
ICICLES
MY cottage is a lamp whose shade
Is hung about with crystals made
—Gems of beauty every one—
By the frost and by the sun.
While the cold outside is keen
They catch and hold the rainbow-sheen
That in the sunbeam hidden lies;
And when the wintry daylight dies,
And the hours of dark begin,
They take the lamp-light from within
And sow its cheerful radiance wide
Over all my garden side.
I would have my thoughts to be
Like the crystals I see;
Sun of joy and frost of pain
Fashioning life’s snow and rain
Unto beauty that shall shine
Into other hearts—and mine. [page 25]
GARGOYLES
I see above me in a row,
Impassive, and grotesque or quaint,
The carven lineaments which show
The satyr or perchance the saint.
How strange that oft a single stroke,
The fancy of the sculptor’s mind,
Half serious and half a joke,
Should leave such eloquence behind!
Throughout the passing years they speak
Their silent comment on the race:
The strong, the arrogant, the weak,
The good, the noble and the base—
A cryptic wisdom that derides
The foibles we so highly prize,
The beast that still in man resides
And looks at times from out his eyes. [page 26]
CONTENTMENT
I lie upon the grass today
With nothing on my mind,
And in the trees above I hear
The low note of the wind.
The sunlight filters through the leaves,
My dog is sitting by,
And there is not a single cloud
Within the summer sky.
I am a king for one brief hour
A king without a care
Beyond a fly upon my face
Or burrs within my hair—
And though my Kingdom vanish quite,
Somehow, there shall remain
Things, Alexander never owned
And Cæsar sought in vain. [page 27]
A SHIP PASSES
IDLY I stood beside a little bay,
The tiny ripples breaking at my feet.
The mists of night still on the waters lay
And made my solitude the more complete.
And while the sky was flecked with morning gold,
And silence brooded over sea and shore,
Huge rounded billows slowly landward rolled
And smote upon the rocks with wild uproar.
And then I knew a mighty ship had passed
Outward so far I might not hear the beat
Of throbbing engines, and the ocean vast
Had brought the message surely to my feet.
And so, I thought, the mists of life conceal
Great souls who, passing, may not speak a word
Yet while we stand in idleness we feel
An unseen presence and are strangely stirred. [page 28]
BLISS CARMAN
Ob. June 8, 1929
YOU were as gentle soul as ever breathed,
Kindly and patient, so to you there came
The choicest gift that Nature has bequeathed
To human kind, the clear poetic flame.
You were content that dynasties might fall
And the great march of history thunder on
So you might chant at Nature’s festival
The tender glories of the April dawn.
For Nature was to you the burning bush
At sight of which the prophet stood unshod,
The vesper sparrow in the evening hush
The presence and the voice of Nature’s God.
Though long an exile from your native land
You lived, your muse was ever glad to turn
To hillsides where Canadian maples stand
And over which the northern sunsets burn.
And now the veil is lifted from your eyes,
You know the truth of early good and ill,
And sing, perchance, in nobler harmonies
Another and a fairer homeland still. [page 29]
THE DARK ANGEL
INVISIBLE I walk the ways of men
And none may hear my footsteps, for I pass
More softly than cloud shadows on the grass
Or mists that float above the tree-tops when
The springtime showers have passed. The ancient earth
Has known me as a guest since time began,
Ere mountain reared its head or river ran,
I am as old as either death or birth.
Fair are the flowers that bloom beneath my hand
Watered by dews of gracious tenderness
And tears that flow at sight of man’s distress.
Their perfume has been born to every land
Upon my dusky wings, and never morrow
Has risen on the earth in storm or calm
But I have watched its dawning, for I am
Mankind’s dark angel and my name is sorrow. [page 30]
THE STRENGTH OF THE HILLS
THE hills are strong, I know,
And I would have them give
Some of their strength to me
While I among them live.
How old the hills may be,
My wisdom may not say
A million years perhaps
To my life’s little day.
The hills are strong, I know
Yet not so strong as I
Although I change and fade
Like cloud in summer sky.
For when the hills shall pass
And earth’s stout fabric fail,
A million years from now,
Somehow, I shall prevail. [page 31]
THANKSGIVING
I would give thanks before I go
For all the joys my heart has felt,
That have not scorned the threshold low
Of the clay cottage where it dwelt.
For mourning sunshine glancing through
My eastward-looking window pane.
And for those moments when I knew
The benediction of the rain;
For homely scents the evening breeze
Has wafted o’er my window sill.
For the night wind among the trees,
And for the moonlight on the hill;
For cheerful smile, for laughter gay,
For kindly word, for friendship true,
For love that came at close of day
And whispered, “May I stay with you?”;
For spring and summer all too brief,
For autumn’s frost, for winter’s snow
For every unremembered grief,
I would give thanks before I go. [page 32]
BIRD MUSIC
BIRD songs resemble not the songs we sing;
At early morn a single note is heard;
Some feathered troubadour has found a word
Whose eloquence expresses everything
That life can mean; and so to it he must cling
Until the quiet woodland depths are stirred,
And on the heart receptive is conferred
The mystic happiness that song can bring.
And birds have only songs that tell of joy,
The wood-dove and the pensive whippoorwill
Speak not of pains that pierce, of griefs that kill,
Although their art may mournful sounds employ.
Of love and summer must they sing always,
Nor can they guess that summer may not stay. [page 33]
PROMETHEUS
FROM the gods’ high altar
On Olympus he
Stole the sacred fire
Guarded jealously.
To his fellow-mortals
Came he then with speed
Cherishing his treasure
In a hollow reed.
To his fellow-mortals
Brought he warmth and light,
Comforting their sorrow,
Banishing their night.
Though the gods in punishment
Sent him direst woe,
He could sing of triumph
In his overthrow.
So throughout the ages
There has come to men
Joy and warmth and gladness
From the poet’s pen.
He has scaled Olympus
Seen the fire glow
Brought it by his magic
To the vale below.
Therefore through the ages
Must to him remain,
Mingled with his ecstasy
Loneliness and pain. [page 34]
A PRAYER FOR EASTER DAY
O Lord of life who with the changing year
Brings back to earth the miracle of spring,
Who makes the flowers to bloom, the birds to sing,
Cleanse Thou my heart this day from craven fear.
Shine on my wintry spirit with the sun
Bright with the radiance of Easter morn
Till by its quickening rays the hope is born
That what to me seems death is life begun.
Help me to follow through I may not see,
To sing in labour and be glad in pain
Through faith in Him who out of loss brought gain
Out of defeat eternal victory. [page 35]
MAN AND THE INFINITE
I stood upon a height and saw below
A city where a million people dwelt.
I watched the endless streams of traffic flow,
Silent, it seemed, along its streets and felt
How wonderful must be the mind of man
To see such things in vision, and how great
Must be the compass of his powers who can
Within a few short years such things create.
And as I further gazed, the lights flashed out,
Mile upon mile, and busy streets became
The paths of fairyland and round about
The palaces and towers were rings of flame.
And then I turned and saw in the west afar
The tender glow with which the sunset fills
The summer twilight, and the evening star
Low-cradled in a hollow of the hills. [page 36]
IF DAY SHOULD CLOSE . . .
IF day should close for me ere eventide
With sunset colours flaming in the West,
And lengthening shadows, bad me think of rest,
Would I beseech the daylight to abide?
I do not know, but I at least would pray
That I might face the darkness without fear,
Knowing within my heart that Love was near
To turn the terrors of the night away.
If at life’s feast, when jest and song were rife
And friend clasped hand with friend, should come the call
For me to rise and leave the banquet-hall,
Would I lament the brevity of life?
A backward look perhaps, a vague surprise
That now my place were vacant evermore,
But I would know that Love was at the door
With the eternal morning in her eyes. [page 37]
EBB-TIDE
THIS morn how strangely shrunken seems the bay
From that which yester-eve I gazed upon.
Within the night the waters have withdrawn
And now upon the ocean far away
They mount in billows or they toss in spray,
Waiting the westward movement of the dawn.
And so my fancy follows on and on
To reach at length the shores of far Cathay.
My soul at times is like a lonely beach
From which the tide has flown. I hear afar
Under the morning or the evening star
The jubilant billows calling each to each
And yet the nearer prospect nothing brings
Save naked rocks where dripping seaweed clings. [page 38]
FLOOD-TIDE
SLOWLY the waters creep along the sand
With froth and seaweed edged, and here and there
They lap against the rocks which, grim and bare,
Beside the bay in rugged masses stand,
Wave-worn yet strong, the rampart of the land
Against the ocean’s power which may not dare
To mount above these ancient limits where
Its flood was stayed as by some giant hand.
From out the ocean’s fulness day by day
While seasons wax and wane the waters flow
Then back again to the great deep they go.
And as I watch in quietness I pray
That the great deep of which I am a part
May fill the empty reached of my heart. [page 39]
PANSIES
A pansy is a thought, our Shakespeare says.
“Whose thought?” I wonder. Surely not of man,
For who with open eye and heart could scan
The garden borders in these April days
With pansy blossoms starred, and find no trace
Of some great artist soul within whose plan
A varied beauty far beyond the span
Of human intellect has foremost place?
Our halting minds must ever work by measure
That thought devises, save when, unforeseen,
A flash of insight seems to intervene.
It is these golden moments that we treasure.
And so I dare to call this little flower
God’s pleasant fancy in an April hour. [page 40]
TOOLS
I love to look at tools that workmen use,
Set in some shop in orderly array.
Though in my ignorance I may not say
The name of any one, they do not lose
Their charm thereby. How can the mind refuse
Tribute unfeigned to things that day by day,
The ever-growing power of mind display,
And give to feeble man a giant’s thews?
I can find Beauty in their lines austere
That match the hard, unyielding facts of life;
Beauty that lives in fitness for the strife
Of man with Nature, and that does not fear
The stern demand of Fate that she shall be
The glad companion of Utility. [page 41]
A TALL SHIP
YOUTH asks for a tall ship
To sail the wide seas over,
And the charms that wait in distant lands
To greet the carefree rover.
For the youthful foot is the wandering foot
That will not stay at home,
And the youthful heart is the restless heart
That sighs for joys to come.
I, too, have dreamt of a tall ship
And palm-fringed tropic isles.
Exotic smells, and temple bells,
And dusky maidens’ smiles.
But when day’s o’er I think more,
Now that the years are ripe,
Of a cozy chair by the fireplace,
A good yarn, and a pipe. [page 42]
TO A SAXOPHONE
YOU are the soul of longing and of tears,
And memories of the woes of vanished years
Speak in your tones. What curious circumstance
Made you a partner of the giddy dance?
Banjo, piano, violin,
Trombone’s blare and cymbal’s din,
Big drum, little drum, Chinese gong,
Triangles’ tinkle and banal song
Have their place, but ’tis hard to see
What made you one in such company.
You are the snarl of a fiend in hell,
You are the solemn funeral bell,
You are a sob and you are a shriek,
But the voice of joy you seldom speak.
And yet it must be there remains
Your presence where our human kind
Most seek to leave all care behind.
The meaning of the mystery
Is surely not perversity.
But that we feel that, somehow, sadness
Is at the root of all our gladness. [page 43]
TO THE HIGHLAND BAGPIPE
I heard you late upon a city street
While curious people thronged the sidewalk near.
Above the obedient tread of marching feet
Your notes sang high and clear.
And long ago within a cabin rude
Your music made for me the rafters ring,
While round the walls and eager dancers stood
To watch the Highland Fling.
I heard you once sound from a quiet vale
As lone I stood upon a hillside far,
You to the listening eve told the old tale
Of love gone forth to war.
And in those moments when my head was bowed
Before Death’s shadowy presence you have lent
A voice of grief to match the funeral shroud,
The wail of your lament. [page 44]
THE WIND
THE wind that follows the open sea,
And hurries the ships along
Is a bluff wind, and a hearty wind
With a voice that is loud and strong.
The wind that tumbles the waves on shore
And bustles across the land,
Is a brisk wind and a busy wind
With plenty of work to its hand.
The wind that rouses the sleeping flowers
And bends the meadow grasses
Is a glad wind and a kindly wind
That hails me as it passes.
But the wind that comes from the open moor
To my door at the close of day
Is a sad wind and a tired wind
That has somehow lost its way [page 45]
TO A LOOKING GLASS
YOUR polished surface day by day has shown
Faces of many unto me unknown.
No trace remains, and yet had you but kept
The looks of those who smiled or those who wept,
Laughter and tears had both been mine unsought,
And pensive recollection at the thought
Of what these were and what I too have been
In moments when I felt I was not seen
By any save yourself. I too have smiled
And by your quick response have been beguiled
Into the fancy that you smiled at me;
And when I have been sad your sympathy
Brought half-belief that in you lay the gift
Some of the burden from my heart to lift.
And yet the virtue I would wish to set
Above all others is—you can forget. [page 46]
UNTO THE HILLS
WITHIN my daily view a mountain range
Rise from out the sea: it knows no change,
Regarded from afar, save that the snow,
When winter comes, lies low and still more low
Upon its sides until from base to height
It stands respendent, robed in spotless white.
The morning sunshine gleams upon its crest;
It holds the glory of the glowing west;
The moon and solemn stars within the deep
Of heaven above it nightly vigil keep.
Its slopes the purple mists of autumn shroud;
In spring its summits tower crystal clear
Above the greenness of the opening year.
Throughout life’s chance and change it is for me
Symbol and witness of Eternity. [page 47]
OUTWARD BOUND
A big grey freighter that the seven seas have known
Comes sailing down the inlet proudly and alone.
Upon the hills behind her the sunset light abides.
And gives a shining glory that flashes from her sides.
Her decks are piled with lumber to build the homes of man
Perhaps in far Australia, perhaps in old Japan.
With scarce a sense of motion she follows with the tide
Till out beyond the headland she seeks the ocean wide.
And long before this sheltered spot her form again shall greet.
She’ll look on crowded cities where alien races meet.
Her northward course shall take her where the bleak Aleutians lie,
And tropic isles shall wake from sleep to see her passing by.
Across Pacific billows, amidst Atlantic gales
She’ll hold a deep sea fellowship with porpoises and whales.
Her lights shall keep their vigil beneath the Southern Cross.
Athwart her restless prow shall dip the lonely albatross.
Whatever winds shall call to her, whatever be their song,
She takes, a willing passenger, my roving heart along. [page 48]
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