From: Duncan Campbell Scott, Labor and the Angel (Boston: Copeland and Day, 1898)

From: Duncan Campbell Scott, Labor and the Angel (Boston: Copeland and Day, 1898).

The Onondaga Madonna

She stands full-throated and with careless pose, This woman of a weird and waning race, The tragic savage lurking in her face, Where all her pagan passion burns and glows; Her blood is mingled with her ancient foes,	5
And thrills with war and wildness in her veins; Her rebel lips are dabbled with the stains Of feuds and forays and her father’s woes. And closer in the shawl about her breast, The latest promise of her nation’s doom,	10
Paler than she her baby clings and lies, The primal warrior gleaming from his eyes; He sulks, and burdened with his infant gloom, He draws his heavy brows and will not rest.

Watkwenies

Vengeance was once her nation’s lore and law: When the tired sentry stooped above the rill, Her long knife flashed, and hissed, and drank its fill; Dimly below her dripping wrist she saw, One wild hand, pale as death and weak as straw,	5
Clutch at the ripple in the pool; while shrill Sprang through the dreaming hamlet on the hill, The war-cry of the triumphant Iroquois. Now clothed with many an ancient flap and fold, And wrinkled like an apple kept till May,	10
She weighs the interest-money in her palm, And, when the Agent calls her valiant name, Hears, like the war-whoops of her perished day, The lads playing snow-snake in the stinging cold.

The Piper of Arll

There was in Arll a little cove Where the salt wind came cool and free: A foamy beach that one would love, If he were longing for the sea. A brook hung sparkling on the hill,	5
The hill swept far to ring the bay; The bay was faithful, wild or still, To the heart of the ocean far away. There were three pines above the comb That, when the sun flared and went down,	10
Grew like three warriors reaving home The plunder of a burning town. A piper lived within the grove, Tending the pasture of his sheep; His heart was swayed with faithful love,	15
From the springs of God’s ocean clear and deep. And there a ship one evening stood, Where ship had never stood before; A pennon bickered red as blood, An angel glimmered at the prore.	20
About the coming on of dew, The sails burned rosy, and the spars Were gold, and all the tackle grew Alive with ruby-hearted stars. The piper heard an outland tongue,	25
With music in the cadenced fall; And when the fairy lights were hung, The sailors gathered one and all, And leaning on the gunwales dark, Crusted with shells and dashed with foam,	30
With all the dreaming hills to hark, They sang their longing songs of home. When the sweet airs had fled away, The piper, with a gentle breath, Moulded a tranquil melody	35
Of lonely love and longed-for death. When the fair sound began to lull, From out the fireflies and the dew, A silence held the shadowy hull, Until the eerie tune was through.	40
Then from the dark and dreamy deck An alien song began to thrill; It mingled with the drumming beck, And stirred the braird upon the hill. Beneath the stars each sent to each	45
A message tender, till at last The piper slept upon the beach, The sailors slumbered round the mast. Still as a dream till nearly dawn, The ship was bosomed on the tide;	50
The streamlet, murmuring on and on, Bore the sweet water to her side. Then shaking out her lawny sails, Forth on the misty sea she crept; She left the dawning of the dales,	55
Yet in his cloak the piper slept. And when he woke he saw the ship, Limned black against the crimson sun; Then from the disc he saw her slip, A wraith of shadow — she was gone.	60
He threw his mantle on the beach, He went apart like one distraught, His lips were moved — his desperate speech Stormed his inviolable thought. He broke his human-throated reed,	65
And threw it in the idle rill; But when his passion had its mead, He found it in the eddy still. He mended well the patient flue, Again he tried its varied stops;	70
The closures answered right and true, And starting out in piercing drops, A melody began to drip That mingled with a ghostly thrill The vision-spirit of the ship,	75
The secret of his broken will. Beneath the pines he piped and swayed, Master of passion and of power; He was his soul and what he played, Immortal for a happy hour.	80
He, singing into nature’s heart, Guiding his will by the world’s will, With deep, unconscious, childlike art Had sung his soul out and was still. And then at evening came the bark	85
That stirred his dreaming heart’s desire; It burned slow lights along the dark That died in glooms of crimson fire. The sailors launched a sombre boat, And bent with music at the oars;	90
The rhythm throbbing every throat, And lapsing round the liquid shores, Was that true tune the piper sent, Unto the wave-worn mariners, When with the beck and ripple blent	95
He heard that outland song of theirs. Silent they rowed him, dip and drip, The oars beat out an exequy, They laid him down within the ship, They loosed a rocket to the sky.	100
It broke in many a crimson sphere That grew to gold and floated far, And left the sudden shore-line clear, With one slow-changing, drifting star. Then out they shook the magic sails,	105
That charmed the wind in other seas, From where the west line pearls and pales, They waited for a ruffling breeze. But in the world there was no stir, The cordage slacked with never a creak,	110
They heard the flame begin to purr Within the lantern at the peak. They could not cry, they could not move, They felt the lure from the charmed sea; They could not think of home or love	115
Or any pleasant land to be. They felt the vessel dip and trim, And settle down from list to list; They saw the sea-plain heave and swim As gently as a rising mist.	120
And down so slowly, down and down, Rivet by rivet, plank by plank; A little flood of ocean flown Across the deck, she sank and sank. From knee to breast the water wore,	125
It crept and crept; ere they were ware Gone was the angel at the prore, They felt the water float their hair. They saw the salt plain spark and shine, They threw their faces to the sky;	130
Beneath a deepening film of brine They saw the star-flash blur and die. She sank and sank by yard and mast, Sank down the shimmering gradual dark; A little drooping pennon last	135
Showed like the black fin of a shark. And down she sank till, keeled in sand, She rested safely balanced true, With all her upward gazing band, The piper and the dreaming crew.	140
And there, unmarked of any chart, In unrecorded deeps they lie, Empearled within the purple heart Of the great sea for aye and aye. Their eyes are ruby in the green	145
Long shaft of sun that spreads and rays, And upward with a wizard sheen A fan of sea-light leaps and plays. Tendrils of or and azure creep, And globes of amber light are rolled,	150
And in the gloaming of the deep Their eyes are starry pits of gold. And sometimes in the liquid night The hull is changed, a solid gem, That glows with a soft stony light,	155
The lost prince of a diadem. And at the keel a vine is quick, That spreads its bines and works and weaves O’er all the timbers veining thick A plenitude of silver leaves.	160

From: Duncan Campbell Scott, New World Lyrics and Ballads (Toronto: Morang, 1905).

Night Hymns on Lake Nipigon

Here in the midnight, where the dark mainland and island Shadows mingle in shadow deeper, profounder, Sing we the hymns of the churches, while the dead water Whispers before us. Thunder is travelling slow on the path of the lightning;	5
One after one the stars and the beaming planets Look serene in the lake from the edge of the storm-cloud, Then have they vanished. While our canoe, that floats dumb in the bursting thunder, Gathers her voice in the quiet and thrills and whispers,	10
Presses her prow in the star-gleam, and all her ripple Lapses in blackness. Sing we the sacred ancient hymns of the churches, Chanted first in old-world nooks of the desert, While in the wild, pellucid Nepigon reaches	15
Rises the hymn of triumph and courage and comfort, Hunted the savage. Now have the ages met in the Northern midnight, And on the lonely, loon-haunted Nipigon reaches Rises the hymn of triumph and courage and comfort,	20
Adeste Fideles. Tones that were fashioned when the faith brooded in darkness, Joined with sonorous vowels in the noble Latin, Now are married with the long-drawn Ojibeway, Uncouth and mournful.	25
Soft with the silver drip of the regular paddles Falling in rhythm, timed with the liquid, plangent Sounds from the blades where the whirlpools break and are carried Down into darkness; Each long cadence, flying like a dove from her shelter	30
Deep in the shadow, wheels for a throbbing moment, Poises in utterance, returning in circles of silver To nest in the silence. All wild nature stirs with the infinite, tender Plaint of a bygone age whose soul is eternal,	35
Bound in the lonely phrases that thrill and falter Back into quiet. Back they falter as the deep storm overtakes them, Whelms them in splendid hollows of booming thunder, Wraps them in rain, that, sweeping, breaks and onrushes	40
Ringing like cymbals.

The Forsaken

I
Once in the winter, Out on a lake In the heart of the north-land, Far from the Fort And far from the hunters,	5
A Chippewa woman With her sick baby, Crouched in the last hours Of a great storm. Frozen and hungry,	10
She fished through the ice With a line of the twisted Bark of the cedar, And a rabbit-bone hook Polished and barbed;	15
Fished with the bare hook All through the wild day, Fished and caught nothing; While the young chieftain Tugged at her breasts,	20
Or slept in the lacings Of the warm tikanagan. All the lake-surface Streamed with the hissing Of millions of iceflakes,	25
Hurled by the wind; Behind her the round Of a lonely island Roared like a fire With the voice of the storm	30
In the deeps of the cedars. Valiant, unshaken, She took of her own flesh, Baited the fish-hook, Drew in a gray-trout,	35
Drew in his fellow, Heaped them beside her, Dead in the snow. Valiant, unshaken, She faced the long distance,	40
Wolf-haunted and lonely, Sure of her goal And the life of her dear one; Tramped for two days, On the third in the morning,	45
Saw the strong bulk Of the Fort by the river, Saw the wood-smoke Hang soft in the spruces, Heard the keen yelp	50
Of the ravenous huskies Fighting for whitefish: Then she had rest.
II
Years and years after, When she was old and withered,	55
When her son was an old man And his children filled with vigour, They came in their northern tour on the verge of winter, To an island in a lonely lake. There one night they camped, and on the morrow	60
Gathered their kettles and birch-bark Their rabbit-skin robes and their mink-traps, Launched their canoes and slunk away through the islands, Left her alone forever, Without a word of farewell,	65
Because she was old and useless, Like a paddle broken and warped, Or a pole that was splintered. Then, without a sigh, Valiant, unshaken,	70
She smoothed her dark locks under her kerchief, Composed her shawl in state, Then folded her hands ridged with sinews and corded with veins, Folded them across her breasts spent with the nourishing of children, Gazed at the sky past the tops of the cedars,	75
Saw two spangled nights arise out of the twilight, Saw two days go by filled with the tranquil sunshine, Saw, without pain, or dread, or even a moment of longing: Then on the third great night there came thronging and thronging Millions of snowflakes out of a windless cloud;	80
They covered her close with a beautiful crystal shroud, Covered her deep and silent. But in the frost of the dawn, Up from the life below, Rose a column of breath	85
Through a tiny cleft in the snow, Fragile, delicately drawn, Wavering with its own weakness, In the wilderness a sign of the spirit, Persisting still in the sight of the sun	90
Till day was done. Then all light was gathered up by the hand of God and hid in His breast, Then there was born a silence deeper than silence, Then she had rest.

On the Way to the Mission

They dogged him all one afternoon, Through the bright snow, Two whitemen servants of greed; He knew that they were there, But he turned not his head;	5
He was an Indian trapper; He planted his snow-shoes firmly, He dragged the long toboggan Without rest. The three figures drifted	10
Like shadows in the mind of a seer; The snow-shoes were whisperers On the threshold of awe; The toboggan made the sound of wings, A wood-pigeon sloping to her nest.	15
The Indian’s face was calm. He strode with the sorrow of fore-knowledge, But his eyes were jewels of content Set in circles of peace. They would have shot him;	20
But momently in the deep forest, They saw something flit by his side: Their hearts stopped with fear. Then the moon rose. They would have left him to the spirit,	25
But they saw the long toboggan Rounded well with furs, With many a silver fox-skin, With the pelts of mink and of otter. They were the servants of greed;	30
When the moon grew brighter And the spruces were dark with sleep, They shot him. When he fell on a shield of moonlight One of his arms clung to his burden;	35
The snow was not melted: The spirit passed away. Then the servants of greed Tore off the cover to count their gains; They shuddered away into the shadows,	40
Hearing each the loud heart of the other. Silence was born. There in the tender moonlight, As sweet as they were in life, Glimmered the ivory features,	45
Of the Indian’s wife. In the manner of Montagnais women Her hair was rolled with braid; Under her waxen fingers A crucifix was laid.	50
He was drawing her down to the Mission, To bury her there in spring, When the bloodroot comes and the windflower To silver everything. But as a gift of plunder	55
Side by side were they laid, The moon went on to her setting And covered them with shade.

From: Duncan Campbell Scott, Lundy’s Lane and Other Poems (Toronto: McClelland, 1916).

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	5
The wind sounds in the wood, wearier Than the long Ojibway cadence In which Potàn the Wise Declares the ills of life And Chees-que-ne-ne makes a mournful sound	10
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:	15
Here there is peace in the lofty air, And Something comes by flashes Deeper than peace; — The spruces have retired a little space And left a field of sky in violet shadow	20
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	25
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	30
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;	35
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 — :	40
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;	45
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	50
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,	55
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,	60
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	65
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 shell	70
Ghost tremors of the spell; Thought reawakens and is linked again With all the welter of the lives of men. Here on the uplands where the air is clear We think of life as of a stormy scene, —	75
Of tempest, of revolt and desperate shock; And here, where we can think, on the bright uplands Where the air is clear, we deeply brood on life Until the tempest parts, and it appears As simple as to the shepherd seems his flock:	80
A Something to be guided by ideals — That in themselves are simple and serene — Of noble deed to foster noble thought, And noble thought to image noble deed, Till deed and thought shall interpenetrate,	85
Making life lovelier, till we come to doubt Whether the perfect beauty that escapes Is beauty of deed or thought or some high thing Mingled of both, a greater boon than either: Thus we have seen in the retreating tempest	90
The victor-sunlight merge with the ruined rain, And from the rain and sunlight spring the rainbow. The ancient disturber of solitude Stirs his ancestral potion in the gloom, And the dark wood	95
Is stifled with the pungent fume Of charred earth burnt to the bone That takes the place of air. Then sudden I remember when and where, — The last weird lakelet foul with weedy growths	100
And slimy viscid things the spirit loathes, Skin of vile water over viler mud Where the paddle stirred unutterable stenches, And the canoes seemed heavy with fear, Not to be urged toward the fatal shore	105
Where a bush fire, smouldering, with sudden roar Leaped on a cedar and smothered it with light And terror. It had left the portage-height A tangle of slanted spruces burned to the roots, Covered still with patches of bright fire	110
Smoking with incense of the fragrant resin That even then began to thin and lessen Into the gloom and glimmer of ruin. ’Tis overpast. How strange the stars have grown; The presage of extinction glows on their crests	115
And they are beautied with impermanence; They shall be after the race of men And mourn for them who snared their fiery pinions, Entangled in the meshes of bright words. A lemming stirs the fern and in the mosses	120
Eft-minded things feel the air change, and dawn Tolls out from the dark belfries of the spruces. How often in the autumn of the world Shall the crystal shrine of dawning be rebuilt With deeper meaning! Shall the poet then,	125
Wrapped in his mantle on the height of land, Brood on the welter of the lives of men And dream of his ideal hope and promise In the blush sunrise? Shall he base his flight Upon a more compelling law than Love	130
As Life’s atonement; shall the vision Of noble deed and noble thought immingled Seem as uncouth to him as the pictograph Scratched on the cave side by the cave-dweller To us of the Christ-time? Shall he stand	135
With deeper joy, with more complex emotion, In closer commune with divinity, With the deep fathomed, with the firmament charted, With life as simple as a sheep-boy’s song, What lies beyond a romaunt that was read	140
Once on a morn of storm and laid aside Memorious with strange immortal memories? Or shall he see the sunrise as I see it In shoals of misty fire the deluge-light Dashes upon and whelms with purer radiance,	145
And feel the lulled earth, older in pulse and motion, Turn the rich lands and the inundant oceans To the flushed color, and hear as now I hear The thrill of life beat up the planet’s margin And break in the clear susurrus of deep joy	150
That echoes and reëchoes in my being? O Life is intuition the measure of knowledge And do I stand with heart entranced and burning At the zenith of our wisdom when I feel The long light flow, the long wind pause, the deep	155
Influx of spirit, of which no man may tell The Secret, golden and inappellable?

Lines in Memory of Edmund Morris

Dear Morris — here is your letter — Can my answer reach you now? Fate has left me your debtor, You will remember how; For I went away to Nantucket,	5
And you to the Isle of Orleans, And when I was dawdling and dreaming Over the ways and means Of answering, the power was denied me, Fate frowned and took her stand;	10
I have your unanswered letter Here in my hand. This — in your famous scribble, It was ever a cryptic fist, Cuneiform or Chaldaic	15
Meanings held in a mist. Dear Morris, (now I’m inditing And poring over your script) I gather from the writing, The coin that you had flipt,	20
Turned tails; and so you compel me To meet you at Touchwood Hills: Or, mayhap, you are trying to tell me The sum of a painter’s ills: Is that Phimister Proctor	25
Or something about a doctor? Well, nobody knows, but Eddie, Whatever it is I’m ready. For our friendship was always fortunate In its greetings and adieux,	30
Nothing flat or importunate, Nothing of the misuse That comes of the constant grinding Of one mind on another. So memory has nothing to smother,	35
But only a few things captured On the wing, as it were, and enraptured. Yes, Morris, I am inditing — Answering at last it seems, How can you read the writing	40
In the vacancy of dreams? I would have you look over my shoulder Ere the long, dark year is colder, And mark that as memory grows older, The brighter it pulses and gleams.	45
And if I should try to render The tissues of fugitive splendour That fled down the wind of living, Will they read it some day in the future, And be conscious of an awareness	50
In our old lives, and the bareness Of theirs, with the newest passions In the last fad of the fashions? • • • How often have we risen without daylight When the day star was hidden in mist,	55
When the dragon-fly was heavy with dew and sleep, And viewed the miracle pre-eminent, matchless, The prelusive light that quickens the morning. O crystal dawn, how shall we distill your virginal freshness When you steal upon a land that man has not sullied with his intrusion,	60
When the aboriginal shy dwellers in the broad solitudes Are asleep in their innumerable dens and night haunts Amid the dry ferns, in the tender nests Pressed into shape by the breasts of the Mother birds? How shall we simulate the thrill of announcement	65
When lake after lake lingering in the starlight Turn their faces towards you, And are caressed with the salutation of colour? How shall we transmit in tendril-like images, The tenuous tremor in the tissues of ether,	70
Before the round of colour buds like the dome of a shrine, The preconscious moment when love has fluttered in the bosom, Before it begins to ache? How often have we seen the even Melt into the liquidity of twilight,	75
With passages of Titian splendour, Pellucid preludes, exquisitely tender, Where vanish and revive, thro’ veils of the ashes of roses, The crystal forms the breathless sky discloses. The new moon a slender thing,	80
In a snood of virgin light, She seemed all shy on venturing Into the vast night. Her own land and folk were afar, She must have gone astray,	85
But the gods had given a silver star, To be with her on the way. • • • I can feel the wind on the prairie And see the bunch-grass wave, And the sunlights ripple and vary	90
The hill with Crowfoot’s grave, Where he “pitched off” for the last time In sight of the Blackfoot Crossing, Where in the sun for a pastime You marked the sight of his tepee	95
With a circle of stones. Old Napiw Gave you credit for that day. And well I recall the weirdness Of that evening at Qu’Appelle, In the wigwam with old Sakimay,	100
The keen, acrid smell, As the kinnikinick was burning; The planets outside were turning, And the little splints of poplar Flared with a thin, gold flame.	105
He showed us his painted robe Where in primitive pigments He had drawn his feats and his forays, And told us the legend Of the man without a name,	110
The hated Blackfoot, How he lured the warriors, The young men, to the foray And they never returned. Only their ghosts	115
Goaded by the Blackfoot Mounted on stallions: In the night time He drove the stallions Reeking into the camp;	120
The women gasped and whispered, The children cowered and crept, And the old men shuddered Where they slept. When Sakimay looked forth	125
He saw the Blackfoot, And the ghosts of the warriors, And the black stallions Covered by the night wind As by a mantle.	130
• • • I remember well a day, When the sunlight had free play, When you worked in happy stress, While grave Ne-Pah-Pee-Ness Sat for his portrait there,	135
In his beaded coat and his bare Head, with his mottled fan Of hawk’s feathers, A Man! Ah Morris, those were the times When you sang your inconsequent rhymes	140
Sprung from a careless fountain: “He met her on the mountain, He gave her a horn to blow, And the very last words he said to her Were, ‘Go ‘long, Eliza, go.’”	145
Foolish,—but life was all, And under the skilful fingers Contours came at your call— Art grows and time lingers;— But now the song has a change	150
Into something wistful a strange. And one asks with a touch of ruth What became of the youth And where did Eliza go? He met her on the mountain,	155
He gave her a horn to blow, The horn was a silver whorl With a mouthpiece of pure pearl, And the mountain was all one glow, With gulfs of blue and summits of rosy snow.	160
The cadence she blew on the silver horn Was the meaning of life in one phrase caught, And as soon as the magic notes were born, She repeated them once in an afterthought. They heard in the crystal passes,	165
The cadence, calling, calling, And faint in the deep crevasses, The echoes falling, falling. They stood apart and wondered; Her lips with a wound were aquiver,	170
His heart with a sword was sundered, For life was changed forever When he gave her the horn to blow: But a shadow arose from the valley, Desolate, slow and tender,	175
It hid the herdsmen’s chalet, Where it hung in the emerald meadow, (Was death driving the shadow?) It quenched the tranquil splendour Of the colour of life on the glow-peaks,	180
Till at the end of the even, The last shell-tint on the snow-peaks Had passed away from the heaven. And yet, when it passed, victorious, The stars came out on the mountains,	185
And the torrents gusty and glorious, Clamoured in a thousand fountains, And even far down in the valley, A light re-discovered the chalet. The scene that was veiled had a meaning,	190
So deep that none might know; Was it here in the morn on the mountain, That he gave her the horn to blow? • • • Tears are the crushed essence of this world, The wine of life, and he who treads the press	195
Is lofty with imperious disregard Of the burst grapes, the red tears and the murk. But nay! that is a thought of the old poets, Who sullied life with the passional bitterness Of their world-weary hearts. We of the sunrise,	200
Joined in the breast of God, feel deep the power That urges all things onward, not to an end, But in an endless flow, mounting and mounting, Claiming not overmuch for human life, Sharing with our brothers of nerve and leaf	205
The urgence of the one creative breath,— All in the dim twilight — say of morning, Where the florescence of the light and dew Haloes and hallows with a crown adorning The brows of life with love; herein the clue,	210
The love of life — yea, and the peerless love Of things not seen, that leads the least of things To cherish the green sprout, the hardening seed; Here leans all nature with vast Mother-love, Above the cradled future with a smile.	215
Why are there tears for failure, or sighs for weakness, While life’s rhythm beats on? Where is the rule To measure the distance we have circled and clomb? Catch up the sands of the sea and count and count The failures hidden in our sum of conquest.	220
Persistence is the master of this life; The master of these little lives of ours; To the end — effort — even beyond the end. • • • Here, Morris, on the plains that we have loved, Think of the death of Akoose, fleet of foot,	225
Who, in his prime, a herd of antelope From sunrise, without rest, a hundred miles Drove through rank prairie, loping like a wolf, Tired them and slew them, ere the sun went down. Akoose, in his old age, blind from the smoke	230
Of tepees and the sharp snow light, alone With his great grandchildren, withered and spent, Crept in the warm sun along a rope Stretched for his guidance. Once when sharp autumn Made membranes of thin ice upon the sloughs,	235
He caught a pony on a quick return Of prowess and, all his instincts cleared and quickened, He mounted, sensed the north and bore away To the Last Mountain Lake where in his youth He shot the sand-hill-cranes with his flint arrows.	240
And for these hours in all the varied pomp Of pagan fancy and free dreams of foray And crude adventure, he ranged on entranced, Until the sun blazed level with the prairie, Then paused, faltered and slid from off his pony.	245
In a little bluff of poplars, hid in the bracken, He lay down; the populace of leaves In the lithe poplars whispered together and trembled, Fluttered before a sunset of gold smoke, With interspaces, green as sea water,	250
And calm as the deep water of the sea. There Akoose lay, silent amid the bracken, Gathered at last with the Algonquin Chieftains. Then the tenebrous sunset was blown out, And all the smoky gold turned into cloud wrack.	255
Akoose slept forever amid the poplars, Swathed by the wind from the far-off Red Deer Where dinosaurs sleep, clamped in their rocky tombs. Who shall count the time that lies between The sleep of Akoose and the dinosaurs?	260
Innumerable time, that yet is like the breath Of the long wind that creeps upon the prairie And dies away with the shadows at sundown. • • • What we may think, who brood upon the theme, Is, when the old world, tired of spinning, has fallen	265
Asleep, and all the forms, that carried the fire Of life, are cold upon her marble heart — Like ashes on the altar — just as she stops, That something will escape of soul or essence, — The sum of life, to kindle otherwhere:	270
Just as the fruit of a high sunny garden, Grown mellow with autumnal sun and rain, Shrivelled with ripeness, splits to the rich heart, And looses a gold kernel to the mould, So the old world, hanging long in the sun,	275
And deep enriched with effort and with love, Shall, in the motions of maturity, Wither and part, and the kernel of it all Escape, a lovely wraith of spirit, to latitudes Where the appearance, throated like a bird,	280
Winged with fire and bodied all with passion, Shall flame with presage, not of tears, but joy.

From: Duncan Campbell Scott, Poems (Toronto: McClelland, 1926).

Powassan’s Drum

Throb — throb — throb — throb; — Is this throbbing a sound Or an ache in the air? Pervasive as light, Measured and inevitable,	5
It seems to float from no distance, But to live in the listening world — Throb — throb — throb — throb — throbbing The sound of Powassan’s Drum. He crouches in his dwarf wigwam	10
Wizened with fasting, Fierce with thirst, Making great medicine In memory of hated things dead Or in menace of hated things to come,	15
And the universe listens To the throb — throb — throb — throb — Throbbing of Powassan’s Drum. The world seems lost and shallow, Seems sunken and filled with water,	20
With shores lightly moving Of marish grass and slender reeds. Through it all goes The throbbing of Powassan’s Drum. Has it gone on forever,	25
As the pulse of Being? Will it last till the world’s end As the pulse of Being? He crouches under the poles Covered with strips of birchbark	30
And branches of poplar and pine, Piled for shade and dying In dense perfume, With closed eyelids With eyes so fierce,	35
Burning under and through The ancient worn eyelids, He crouches and beats his drum. The morning star formed Like a pearl in the shell of darkness;	40
Light welled like water from the springs of morning; The stars in the earth shadow Caught like whitefish in a net; The sun, the fisherman, Pulling the net to the shore of night,	45
Flashing with the fins of the caught stars; — All to the throbbing of Powassan’s Drum. The live things in the world Hear it and are silent. They hide silent and charmed	50
As if guarding a secret; Charmed and silent hiding a rich secret, Throbbing all to the Throb — throb — throbbing of Powassan’s Drum. Stealthy as death the water	55
Wanders in the long grass, And spangs of sunlight Slide on the slender reeds Like beads of bright oil. The sky is a bubble blown so tense	60
The blue has gone gray Stretched to the throb — throb — throb — throb — Throbbing of Powassan’s Drum. Is it a memory of hated things dead That he beats — famished —	65
Or a menace of hated things to come That he beats — parched with anger And famished with hatred —? The sun waited all day. There was no answer.	70
He hauled his net And the glint of the star-fins Flashed in the water of twilight; There was no answer. But in the northeast	75
A storm cloud reaches like a hand Out of the half darkness. The spectral fingers of cloud Grope in the heavens, And at moments, sharp as pain,	80
A bracelet of bright fire Plays on the wrist of the cloud. Thunder from the hollow of the hand Comes almost soundless, like an air pressure, And the cloud rears up	85
To the throbbing of Powassan’s Drum. An infusion of bitter darkness Stains the sweet water of twilight. Then from the reeds stealing, A shadow noiseless,	90
A canoe moves noiseless as sleep, Noiseless as the trance of deep sleep And an Indian still as a statue Molded out of deep sleep, Headless, still as a headless statue	95
Molded out of deep sleep, Sits modelled in full power, Haughty in manful power, Headless and impotent in power. The canoe stealthy as death	100
Drifts to the throbbing of Powassan’s Drum. The Indian fixed like bronze Trails his severed head Through the dead water Holding it by the hair,	105
By the plaits of hair, Wound with sweet grass and tags of silver. The face looks through the water Up to its throne on the shoulders of power, Unquenched eyes burning in the water,	110
Piercing beyond the shoulders of power Up to the fingers of the storm could. Is this the meaning of the magic — The translation into sight Of the viewless hate?	115
Is this what the world waited for As is listened to the throb — throb — throb — throb — Throbbing of Powassan’s Drum? The sun could not answer. The tense sky burst and went dark	120
And could not answer. But the storm answers. The murdered shadow sinks in the water. Uprises the storm And crushes the dark world;	125
At the core of the rushing fury Bursting hail, tangled lightning Wind in a wild vortex Lives the triumphant throb — throb — throb — throb — Throbbing of Powassan’s Drum.	130

From: Duncan Campbell Scott, The Green Cloister: Later Poems (Toronto: McClelland, 1935).

Chiostro Verde

Here in the old Green Cloister At Santa Maria Novella The grey well in the centre Is dry to the granite curb; No splashing will ever disturb	5
The cool depth of the shaft. In the stone-bordered quadrangle Daisies, in galaxy, spangle The vivid cloud of grass. Four young cypresses fold	10
Themselves in their mantles of shadow Away from the sun’s hot gold; And roses revel in the light, Hundreds of roses; if one could gather The flush that fades over the Arno	15
Under Venus at sundown And dye a snow-rose with the colour, The ghost of the flame on the snow Might give a painter the glow Of these roses.	20
Above the roof of the cloister Rises the rough church wall Worn with the tides of Time. The burnished pigeons climb And slide in the shadowed air,	25
Wing-whispering everywhere, Coo and murmur and call From their nooks in the crannied wall. Then on the rustling space, Falling with delicate grace,	30
Boys’ voices from the far off choir, The full close of a phrase, A cadence of Palestrina Or something of even older days, No words — only the tune.	35
It dies now — too soon. Will music forever die, The soul bereft of its cry, And no young throats Vibrate to clear new notes?	40
While the cadence was hovering in air The pigeons were flying In front of the seasoned stone, Visiting here and there, Cooing from the cool shade	45
Of their nooks in the wall; Who taught the pigeons their call Their murmurous music? Under the roof of the cloister A few frescoes are clinging	50
Made by Paolo Uccello, Once they were clear and mellow Now they have fallen away To a dull green-gray, What has not fallen will fall;	55
Of all colour bereft Will nothing at last be left But a waste wall? Will painting forever perish, Will no one be left to cherish	60
The beauty of life and the world, Will the soul go blind of the vision? Who painted those silver lights in the daisies That sheen in the grass-cloud That hides their stars or discloses,	65
Who stained the bronze-green shroud Wrapping the cypress Who painted the roses?

Compline

We are resting here in the twilight, Watching the progress of a cloudless sunset, The colour moving away from yellow to a deeper gold. High on the hillside Across the sunset the telegraph wires are drawn,	5
Black on the yellow. Upward we look through the strands To the delicate colour infinitely beyond At the world’s end. The swallows flash in the air	10
And light on the wires, They range themselves there Side by side in lines, Forming impromptu designs, Black on the yellow.	15
An odour rises out of the earth From dead grass cooling in the dew, From the fragrance of pine needles That smouldered all day in the heat. Love in our hearts is quiet,	20
Tranquil as light reflected in water That trembles only when the water trembles. As gold ages to ivory, As up from a hidden source there wells The fragile colour of deep-sea shells,	25
Ivory is flushed with rose At the day’s close. And as the present sometimes calls up the past I see the wires as the old music-staff, Four lines and three spaces,	30
The swallows clinging there, The notes of an ancient air, The sunset glow — a vellum page In an old Mass book: — A vellum page yellow as old ivory,	35
The fading gems of a rose-window, The odour of incense — And a voice out of the past Imploring in a vault of shadow — Sancta Maria — Mater Dei	40
Ora pro nobis peccatoribus Nunc et in hora Mortis nostrae. The golden melody of an old faith Lingering ethereal in the shadow,	45
The prayer of the past — Ora pro nobis. Pray for us, you swallows, Now and in the hour of our death; Now when we are fulfilled in the promise of life	50
When love is quiet in the heart; And when we fall like autumn leaves and their shadows; The colour of the leaves, — the garnered beauty of life, — With their shadows on the future, Falling together to the unknown —	55
Ora pro nobis. May we remember then of all life’s loveliest things, This evening and the swallows wings, When infinite love was reflected int he heart And trembled only when the heart trembled.	60
We will pray for you bright swallows, Now and in the hour of your death; Now when you fly aloft in the dry air Rushing together in a storm of wings, Grasping the wires;	65
And when you fall secretly in the wilderness, Where, — none knoweth — Ora pro nobis. May you remember then this northern beauty, The pure lake surface,	70
And after a long light-day, Wing-weary, the rest Of a night by the nestlings and the nest. The sunset failed in ivory and rose, All that is left of light is the early moonlight	75
That trembles in the lake-water Only when the water trembles; And the lustre of life alone is left at the long day’s close, — The radiance of love in the heart That trembles only when the heart trembles.	80

A Scene at Lake Manitou

In front of the fur-traders house at Lake Manitou Indian girls were gathering the hay, Half labour and half play; So small the stony field And light the yield	5
They gathered it up in their aprons, Racing and chasing, And laughing loud with the fun Of building the tiny cocks. The sun was hot on the rocks.	10
The lake was all shimmer and tremble To the bronze-green islands of cedars and pines; In the channel between the water shone Like an inset of polished stone; Beyond them a shadowy trace	15
Of the shore of the lake Was lost in the veil of haze. Above the field on the rocky point Was a cluster of canvas tents, Nearly deserted, for the women had gone	20
Berry-picking at dawn With most of the children. Under the shade of a cedar screen Between the heat of the rock and the heat of the sun, The Widow Frederick	25
Whose Indian name means Stormy Sky, Was watching her son Matanack In the sunlight die, As she had watched his father die in the sunlight. Worn out with watching,	30
She gazed at the far-off islands That seemed in a mirage to float Moored in the sultry air. She had ceased to hear the breath in Matanack’s throat Or the joy of the children gathering the hay.	35
Death, so near, had taken all sound from the day, And she sat like one that grieves Unconscious of grief. With a branch of poplar leaves She kept the flies from his face,	40
And her mind wandered in space With the difficult past When her husband had faded away; How she had struggled to live For Matanack four years old;	45
Triumphant at last! She had taught him how and where To lay the rabbit snare, And how to set Under the ice, the net,	50
The habits of shy wild things Of the forest and marsh; To his inherited store She had added all her lore; He was just sixteen years old	55
A hunter crafty and bold; But there he lay, And his life with its useless cunning Was ebbing out with the day. Fitfully visions rose in her tired brain,	60
Faded away, and came again and again. She remembered the first day He had gone the round of the traps alone, She saw him stand in the frosty light Two silver-foxes over his shoulder.	65
She heard the wolves howl, Or the hoot of a hunting owl, Or saw in a sunlit gap In the woods, a mink in the trap; Mingled with thoughts of Nanabojou	70
And the powerful Manitou That lived in the lake; Mingled with thoughts of Jesus Who raised a man from the dead, So Father Pacifique said.	75
Suddenly something broke in her heart. To save him, to keep him forever! She had prayed to their Jesus, She had called on Mary His mother To save him, to keep him forever!	80
The Holy Water and the Scapular! She had used all the Holy Water Father Pacifique had given her; He had worn his Scapular Always, and for months had worn hers too;	85
There was nothing more to be done That Christians could do. Now she would call on the Powers of the Earth, and the Air, The Powers of the Water; She would give to the Manitou	90
That lived in the lake All her treasured possessions, And He would give her the lad. The children heard her scream, The trader and the loafing Indians	95
Saw her rush into her tent and bring out her blankets And throw them into the lake, Screaming demented screams, Dragging her treasures into the light, Scattering them far on the water.	100
First of them all, her gramophone, She hurled like a stone; And they caught her and held her Just as she swung aloft the next of her treasures Her little hand-sewing-machine.	105
They threw her down on the rock And five men held her until, Not conquered by them, But subdued by her will She lay still.	110
The trader looked at the boy, “He’s done for,” he said. He covered the head And went down to the Post; The Indians, never glancing,	115
Afraid of the ghost, Slouched away to their loafing. After a curious quiet The girls began the play Of gathering the last of the hay.	120
She knew it was all in vain; He was slain by the foe That had slain his father. She put up her hair that had fallen over her eyes, And with movements, weary and listless,	125
Tidied her dress. He had gone to his father To hunt in the Spirit Land And to be with Jesus and Mary. She was alone now and knew	130
What she would do: The Trader would debit her winter goods, She would go into the woods And gather the fur, Live alone with the stir	135
Alone with the silence; Revisit the Post, Return to hunt in September; So had she done as long as she could remember. She sat on the rock beside Matanack	140
Resolute as of old, Her strength and her spirit came back. Someone began to hammer down at the Trader’s house. The late August air was cold With a presage of frost.	145
The islands had lost Their mirage-mooring in air And lay dark on the burnished water Against the sunset flare— Standing ruins of blackened spires	150
Charred by the fury of fires That had passed that way, That were smouldering and dying out in the West At the end of the day.

At Gull Lake: August, 1810

Gull Lake set in the rolling prairie— Still there are reeds on the shore, As of old the poplars shimmer As summer passes; Winter freezes the shallow lake to the core	5
Storm passes, Heat parches the sedges and grasses, Night comes with moon-glimmer, Dawn with the morning-star; All proceeds in the flow of Time	10
As a hundred years ago. Then two camps were pitched on the shore, The clustered teepees Of Tabashaw Chief of the Saulteaux. And on a knoll tufted with poplars	15
Two gray tents of a trader — Nairne of the Orkneys. Before his tents under the shade of the poplars Sat Keejigo, third of the wives Of Tabashaw Chief of the Saulteaux;	20
Clad in the skins of antelopes Broidered with porcupine quills Coloured with vivid dyes, Vermilion here and there In the roots of her hair,	25
A half-moon of powder-blue On her brow, her cheeks Scored with light ochre streaks. Keejigo daughter of Launay The Normandy hunter	30
And Oshawan of the Saulteaux, Troubled by fugitive visions In the smoke of the camp-fires, In the close dark of the teepee, Flutterings of colour	35
Along the flow of the prairies, Spangles of flower tints Caught in the wonder of dawn, Dreams of sounds unheard — The echoes of echo,	40
Star she was named for Keejigo, star of the morning, Voices of storm — Wind-rush and lightning, — The beauty of terror;	45
The twilight moon Coloured like a prairie lily, The round moon of pure snow, The beauty of peace; Premonitions of love and of beauty	50
Vague as shadows cast by a shadow. Now she had found her hero, And offered her body and spirit With abject unreasoning passion, As Earth abandons herself	55
To the sun and the thrust of the lightning. Quiet were all the leaves of the poplars, Breathless the air under their shadow, As Keejigo spoke of these things to her heart In the beautiful speech of the Saulteaux.	60
The flower lives on the prairie, The wind in the sky, I am here my beloved; The wind and the flower. The crane hides in the sand-hills,	65
Where does the wolverine hide? I am here my beloved, Heart’s-blood on the feathers The foot caught in the trap. Take the flower in your hand,	70
The wind in your nostrils; I am here my beloved; Release the captive Heal the wound under the feathers.
A storm-cloud was marching	75
Vast on the prairie, Scored with livid ropes of hail, Quick with nervous vines of lightning — Twice had Nairne turned her away Afraid of the venom of Tabashaw,	80
Twice had the Chief fired at his tents And now when two bullets Whistled above the encampment He yelled “Drive this bitch to her master.” Keejigo went down a path by the lake;	85
Thick at the tangled edges, The reeds and the sedges Were gray as ashes Against the death-black water; The lightning scored with double flashes	90
The dark lake-mirror and loud Came the instant thunder. Her lips still moved to the words of her music, “Release the captive, Heal the wound under the feathers.”	95
At the top of the bank The old wives caught her and cast her down Where Tabashaw crouched by his camp-fire. He snatched a live brand from the embers, Seared her cheeks,	100
Blinded her eyes, Destroyed her beauty with fire, Screaming, “Take that face to your lover.” Keejigo held her face to the fury And make no sound.	105
The old wives dragged her away And threw her over the bank Like a dead dog. Then burst the storm — The Indians’ screams and the howls of the dogs	110
Lost in the crash of hail That smashed the sedges and reeds, Stripped the poplars of leaves, Tore and blazed onwards, Wasting itself with riot and tumult —	115
Supreme in the beauty of terror. The setting sun struck the retreating cloud With a rainbow, not an arc but a column Built with the glory of seven metals; Beyond in the purple deeps of the vortex	120
Fell the quivering vines of the lightning. The wind withdrew the veil from the shrine of the moon. She rose changing her dusky shade for the glow Of the prairie lily, till free of all blemish of colour She came to her zenith without a cloud or a star,	125
A lovely perfection, snow-pure in the heaven of midnight. After the beauty of terror the beauty of peace. But Keejigo came no more to the camps of her people; Only the midnight moon knew where she felt her way, Only the leaves of autumn, the snows of winter	130
Knew where she lay.

Title-page, from Duncan Campbell Scott,
Via Borealis (1906).