The morn arrived; his footstep quickly scared

The gentle sleep that round my senses clung,
And I, awak'ning, from my cottage fared,

And up the mountain side with light heart sprung;
At every step I felt my gaze ensnared

By new-born flow'rs that full of dew-drops hung;
The youthful day awoke with ecstacy,
And all things quicken'd were, to quicken me.

And as I mounted, from the valley rose

A streaky mist, that upward slowly spread,
Then bent, as though my form it would enclose,

Then, as on pinions, soar'd above my head:
My gaze could now on no fair view repose,

in mournful veil conceal'd, the world seem'd dead;
The clouds soon closed around me, as a tomb,
And I was left alone in twilight gloom.

At once the sun his ...

Once more Orion and the sister Seven
Look on thee from the skies that hailed thy birth, -
How shall we welcome thee, whose home was heaven,
From thy celestial wanderings back to earth?

Science has kept her midnight taper burning
To greet thy coming with its vestal flame;
Friendship has murmured, "When art thou returning?"
"Not yet! Not yet!" the answering message came.

Thine was unstinted zeal, unchilled devotion,
While the blue realm had kingdoms to explore, -
Patience, like his who ploughed the unfurrowed ocean,
Till o'er its margin loomed San Salvador.

Through the long nights I see thee ever waking,
Thy footstool earth, thy roof the hemisphere,
While with thy griefs our weaker hearts are aching,
Firm as thine equatorial's rock-based pier.
...

Alas! they have left me all alone
By the receding tide;
But oh! the countless multitudes
Upon the other side!

The loved, the lost, the cherished ones,
Who dwelt with us awhile,
To scatter sunbeams on our path,
And make the desert smile.

The other side! how fair it is!
Its loveliness untold,
Its "every several gate a pearl,"
Its streets are paved with gold.

Its sun shall never more go down,
For there is no night there!
And oh! what heavenly melodies
Are floating through the air!

How sweet to join the ransomed ones
On the other side the flood,
And sing a song of praise to Him
Who washed us in His blood.

Ten thousand times ten thousand
Are hymning the new song!
O Father, join Thy weary child
To that...

PART I

Away up on the River aux Lievres,
    That is foaming and surging always,
And from rock to rock leaping through rapids,
    Which are curtained by showers of spray;

That is eddying, whirling and chasing
    All the white swells that break on the shore;
And then dashing and thundering onward,
    With the sound of a cataract's roar.

And up here is the Buckingham village,
    Which is built on these waters of strife,
It was here that the minister Babin,
    Stood and preached of the Gospel of Life,

Of the message of love and of mercy,
    The glad tidings of freedom and peace,
Of help for the hopeless and helpless,
    For all weary ones rest and relief.

Was his message all noise like the rapids?
    Was it empty an...

A house that lacks, seemingly, mistress and master,
With doors that none but the wind ever closes,
Its floor all littered with glass and with plaster;
It stands in a garden of old-fashioned roses.

I pass by that way in the gloaming with Mary;
'I wonder,' I say, 'who the owner of those is.'
'Oh, no one you know,' she answers me airy,
'But one we must ask if we want any roses.'

So we must join hands in the dew coming coldly
There in the hush of the wood that reposes,
And turn and go up to the open door boldly,
And knock to the echoes as beggars for roses.

'Pray, are you within there, Mistress Who-were-you?'
'Tis Mary that speaks and our errand discloses.
'Pray, are you within there? Bestir you, bestir you!
'Tis summer again; there's two come for ros...

I would have taken Golden Stars from the sky for your necklace,
I would have shaken rose-leaves for your rest from all the rose-trees.

But you had no need; the short sweet grass sufficed for your slumber,
And you took no heed of such trifles as gold or a necklace.

There is an hour, at twilight, too heavy with memory.
There is a flower that I fear, for your hair had its fragrance.

I would have squandered Youth for you, and its hope and its promise,
Before you wandered, careless, away from my useless passion.

But what is the use of my speech, since I know of no words to recall you?
I am praying that Time may teach, you, your Cruelty, me, Forgetfulness.

Burden-bearers are we all,
Great and small.
Burden-sharers be ye all,
Great and small!
Where another shares the load,
Two draw nearer God.
Yet there are burdens we can share with none,
Save God;
And paths remote where we must walk alone,
With God;
For lonely burden and for path apart--
Thank God!
If these but serve to bring the burdened heart
To God.

    I

    Flat as a drum-head stretch the haggard snows;
    The mighty skies are palisades of light;
    The stars are blurred; the silence grows and grows;
    Vaster and vaster vaults the icy night.
    Here in my sleeping-bag I cower and pray:
    "Silence and night, have pity! stoop and slay."

    I have not slept for many, many days.
    I close my eyes with weariness - that's all.
    I still have strength to feed the drift-wood blaze,
    That flickers weirdly on the icy wall.
    I still have strength to pray: "God rest her soul,
    Here in the awful shadow of the Pole."

    There in the cabin's alcove low she lies,
    Still candles gleaming at her head and feet;
    All snow-drop white, ash-cold, with closed eyes,
    Lips smiling...

Whatever comes, let's be content withal:
Among God's blessings there is no one small.

Because the earth is vast and dark
And wet and cold;
Because man's heart wants warmth and light
Lest it grow old;

Therefore the house was built--wall, roof
And brick and beam,
By a lost hand following the lost
Delight of a dream,

And room and stair show how that hand
Groped in eager doubt,
With needless weight of teasing timber
Matching his thought--

Such fond superfluousness of strength
In wall and wood
As his half-wise, half-fearful eye
Deemed only good.

His brain he built into the house,
Laboured his bones;
He burnt his heart into the brick
And red hearth-stones.

It is his blood that makes the house
Still warm, safe, bright,
Honest as aim and eye and hand,
As clean, as light.

Becaus...

Take, O star of all our seas, from not an alien hand,
Homage paid of song bowed down before thy glory's face,
Thou the living light of all our lovely stormy strand,
Thou the brave north-country's very glory of glories, Grace.
Loud and dark about the lighthouse rings and glares the night;
Glares with foam-lit gloom and darkling fire of storm and spray,
Rings with roar of winds in chase and rage of waves in flight,
Howls and hisses as with mouths of snakes and wolves at bay.
Scarce the cliffs of the islets, scarce the walls of Joyous Gard,
Flash to sight between the deadlier lightnings of the sea:
Storm is lord and master of a midnight evil-starred,
Nor may sight or fear discern what evil stars may be.
Dark as death and white as snow the sea-swell scowls and shines,
Heaves and...

("Jamais elle ne raille.")

[Bk. III. xiii.]


Where your brood seven lie,
Float in calm heavenly,
Life passing evenly,
Waterfowl, waterfowl! often I dream
        For a rest
        Like your nest,
    Skirting the stream.

Shine the sun tearfully
Ere the clouds clear fully,
Still you skim cheerfully,
Swallow, oh! swallow swift! often I sigh
        For a home
        Where you roam
    Nearing the sky!

Guileless of pondering;
Swallow-eyes wandering;
Seeking no fonder ring
Than the rose-garland Love gives thee apart!
        Grant me soon -
        Blessed boon!
    Home in thy heart!

    Content Primroses,
    With hearts at rest in your thick leaves' soft care,
    Peeping as from his mother's lap the child
    Who courts shy shelter from his own open air!--
    Hanging Harebell,
    Whose blue heaven to no wanderer ever closes,
    Though thou still lookest earthward from thy domed cell!--
    Fluttering-wild
    Anemone, so well
    Named of the Wind, to whom thou, fettered-free,
    Yieldest thee, helpless--wilfully,
    With Take me or leave me,
    Sweet Wind, I am thine own Anemone!--
    Thirsty Arum, ever dreaming
    Of lakes in wildernesses gleaming!--
    Fire-winged Pimpernel,
    Communing with some hidden well,
    And secrets with the sun-god holding,
    At fixed hour folding and unfolding!--
    How ...

In The Time Of War And Tumults

O Lord Almighty, Thou whose hands
    Despair and victory give;
In whom, though tyrants tread their lands,
    The souls of nations live;

Thou wilt not turn Thy face away
    From those who work Thy will,
But send Thy peace on hearts that pray,
    And guard Thy people still.

Remember not the days of shame,
    The hands with rapine dyed,
The wavering will, the baser aim,
    The brute material pride:

Remember, Lord, the years of faith,
    The spirits humbly brave,
The strength that died defying death,
    The love that loved the slave:

The race that strove to rule Thine earth
    With equal laws unbought: .
Who bore for Truth the pangs of birth,
    And brake the bonds of Though...

So she who doth imparadise my soul,
Had drawn the veil from off our pleasant life,
And bar'd the truth of poor mortality;
When lo! as one who, in a mirror, spies
The shining of a flambeau at his back,
Lit sudden ore he deem of its approach,
And turneth to resolve him, if the glass
Have told him true, and sees the record faithful
As note is to its metre; even thus,
I well remember, did befall to me,
Looking upon the beauteous eyes, whence love
Had made the leash to take me. As I turn'd;
And that, which, in their circles, none who spies,
Can miss of, in itself apparent, struck
On mine; a point I saw, that darted light
So sharp, no lid, unclosing, may bear up
Against its keenness. The least star we view
From hence, had seem'd a moon, set by its side,
As...

No Berserk thirst of blood had they,
No battle-joy was theirs, who set
Against the alien bayonet
Their homespun breasts in that old day.

Their feet had trodden peaceful, ways;
They loved not strife, they dreaded pain;
They saw not, what to us is plain,
That God would make man's wrath his praise.

No seers were they, but simple men;
Its vast results the future hid
The meaning of the work they did
Was strange and dark and doubtful then.

Swift as their summons came they left
The plough mid-furrow standing still,
The half-ground corn grist in the mill,
The spade in earth, the axe in cleft.

They went where duty seemed to call,
They scarcely asked the reason why;
They only knew they could but die,
And death was not the worst of ...

If this great world of joy and pain
Revolve in one sure track;
If freedom, set, will rise again,
And virtue, flown, come back;
Woe to the purblind crew who fill
The heart with each day's care;
Nor gain, from past or future, skill
To bear, and to forbear!

We cannot kindle when we will
The fire which in the heart resides;
The spirit bloweth and is still,
In mystery our soul abides.
But tasks in hours of insight will'd
Can be through hours of gloom fulfill'd.

With aching hands and bleeding feet
We dig and heap, lay stone on stone;
We bear the burden and the heat
Of the long day, and wish 'twere done.
Not till the hours of light return,
All we have built do we discern.

Then, when the clouds are off the soul,
When thou dost bask in Nature's eye,
Ask, how she view'd thy self-control,
Thy struggling, task'd morality
Nature, whose free, light, cheerful air,
Oft made thee, in thy gloom, despair.

And she, whose censure thou dost dread,
Whose eye thou wast afraid to seek,
See, on her...