No, I shall not say why it is that I love you,
Why do you ask me, save for vanity?
Surely you would not have me, like a mirror,
Say ‘yes, your hair curls darkly back from the temples,
Your mouth has a humorous, tremulous, half-shy sweetness,
Your eyes are April grey. . . .with jonquils in them?’
No, if I tell at all, I shall tell in silence . . .
I’ll say, my childhood broke through chords of music
Or were they chords of sun? wherein fell shadows,
Or silences; I rose through seas of sunlight;
Or sometimes found a darkness stooped above me
With wings of death, and a face of cold clear beauty. .
I lay in the warm sweet grass on a blue May morning,
My chin in a dandelion, my hands in clover,
And drowsed there like a bee. . . .blue days behind me
Stretched like a chain...

About one third of a century ago there flourished in Canada three Scottish editors, all of whom were poets, McQueen of the Huron Signal, Goderich, who wrote a grand song on "Our Broad Lake," and McGeorge of the Streetsville Review. The following lines are on George Menzies who was a Woodstock editor.


        One day while passing 'long the road
        On a small book we almost trod,
        Its leaves were scattered o'er the ground,
        We picked them up and when we found

        The author's name, it did inspire
        Us with a very strong desire
        To read the little volume through,
        For most of it to us was new.

        He doth sing of land of heather
        And Canadian scenes together,
        He did adore Niagara's roar
        Wh...

A train of gay and clouded days
Dappled with joy and grief and praise,
Beauty to fire us, saints to save,
Escort us to a little grave.



No fate, save by the victim's fault, is low,
For God hath writ all dooms magnificent,
So guilt not traverses his tender will.



Around the man who seeks a noble end,
Not angels but divinities attend.



From high to higher forces
The scale of power uprears,
The heroes on their horses,
The gods upon their spheres.



This shining moment is an edifice
Which the Omnipotent cannot rebuild.



Roomy Eternity
Casts her schemes rarely,
And an aeon allows
For each quality and part
Of the multitudinous
And many-chambered heart.

...

O you the virgins nine!
That do our souls incline
To noble discipline!
Nod to this vow of mine.
Come, then, and now inspire
My viol and my lyre
With your eternal fire,
And make me one entire
Composer in your choir.
Then I'll your altars strew
With roses sweet and new;
And ever live a true
Acknowledger of you.

I was the midmost of my world
When first I frisked me free,
For though within its circuit gleamed
But a small company,
And I was immature, they seemed
To bend their looks on me.

She was the midmost of my world
When I went further forth,
And hence it was that, whether I turned
To south, east, west, or north,
Beams of an all-day Polestar burned
From that new axe of earth.

Where now is midmost in my world?
I trace it not at all:
No midmost shows it here, or there,
When wistful voices call
"We are fain! We are fain!" from everywhere
On Earth's bewildering ball!

Below the sunset's range of rose,
Below the heaven's deepening blue,
Down woodways where the balsam blows,
And milkweed tufts hang, gray with dew,
A Jersey heifer stops and lows
The cows come home by one, by two.

There is no star yet: but the smell
Of hay and pennyroyal mix
With herb aromas of the dell,
Where the root-hidden cricket clicks:
Among the ironweeds a bell
Clangs near the rail-fenced clover-ricks.

She waits upon the slope beside
The windlassed well the plum trees shade,
The well curb that the goose-plums hide;
Her light hand on the bucket laid,
Unbonneted she waits, glad-eyed,
Her gown as simple as her braid.

She sees fawn-colored backs among
The sumacs now; a tossing horn
Its clashing bell of copper rung:
...

    1.

    I am one of the wind's stories,
    I am a fancy of the rain, -
    A memory of the high noon's glories,
    The hint the sunset had of pain.

    2.

    They dreamed me as they dreamed all other;
    Hawthorn and I, I and the grass,
    With sister shade and phantom brother
    Across their slumber glide and pass.

    3.

    Twilight is in my blood, my being
    Mingles with trees and ferns and stones;
    Thunder and stars my lips are freeing,
    And there is sea-rack in my bones.

    4.

    Those that have dreamed me shall out-wake me,
    But I go hence with flowers and weeds;
    I am no more to those who make me
    Than other drifting fruit and seeds.

    5.

    An...

A straight old fossicker was Lanky Mann,
Who clung to that in spite of friends’ advising:
A grim and grizzled worshipper of ‘pan,’
All other arts and industries despising.

Bare-boned and hard, with thin long hair and beard,
With horny hands that gripped like iron pliers;
A clear, quick eye, a heart that nothing feared,
A soul full simple in its few desires.

No hot, impatient amateur was Jo,
Sweating to turn the slides up every minute,
He knew beforehand how his stuff would go,
Could tell by instinct almost what was in it.

I’ve known him stand for hours, and rock, and rock,
A-swinging now the shovel, now the ladle,
So sphinx-like that at Time he seemed to mock,
Resolved to run creation through his cradle.

No sun-shafts pricked him throug...

There lies a vale in Ida, lovelier
Than all the valleys of Ionian hills.
The swimming vapour slopes athwart the glen,
Puts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to pine,
And loiters, slowly drawn. On either hand
The lawns and meadow-ledges midway down
Hang rich in flowers, and far below them roars
The long brook falling thro’ the clov’n ravine
In cataract after cataract to the sea.
Behind the valley topmost Gargarus
Stands up and takes the morning: but in front
The gorges, opening wide apart, reveal
Troas and Ilion’s column’d citadel,
The crown of Troas.

Hither came at noon

Mournful Œnone, wandering forlorn
Of Paris, once her playmate on the hills.
Her cheek had lost the rose, and round her neck
Floated her hair or seem’d to float in rest.

He primmed his loose red mouth, and leaned his head
Against a sorrowing angel's breast, and said:
"You'd think so much bereavement would have made
Unusual big demands upon my trade.
The War comes cruel hard on some poor folk -
Unless the fighting stops I'll soon be broke."

He eyed the Cemetery across the road -
"There's scores of bodies out abroad, this while,
That should be here by rights; they little know'd
How they'd get buried in such wretched style."

I told him, with a sympathetic grin,
That Germans boil dead soldiers down for fat;
And he was horrified. "What shameful sin!
O sir, that Christian men should come to that!"

If any man drew near
When I was young,
I thought, ‘He holds her dear,’
And shook with hate and fear.
But oh, ’twas bitter wrong
If he could pass her by
With an indifferent eye.

Whereon I wrote and wrought,
And now, being gray,
I dream that I have brought
To such a pitch my thought
That coming time can say,
‘He shadowed in a glass
What thing her body was.’

For she had fiery blood
When I was young,
And trod so sweetly proud
As ’twere upon a cloud,
A woman Homer sung,
That life and letters seem
But an heroic dream.

1.

Parent of golden dreams, Romance!
Auspicious Queen of childish joys,
Who lead'st along, in airy dance,
Thy votive train of girls and boys;
At length, in spells no longer bound,
I break the fetters of my youth;
No more I tread thy mystic round,
But leave thy realms for those of Truth.


2.

And yet 'tis hard to quit the dreams
Which haunt the unsuspicious soul,
Where every nymph a goddess seems,
Whose eyes through rays immortal roll;
While Fancy holds her boundless reign,
And all assume a varied hue;
When Virgins seem no longer vain,
And even Woman's smiles are true.


3.

And must we own thee, but a name,
And from thy hall of clouds descend?
Nor find a Sylph in every dame,
A Pylades [1]<...

Say, Townshend, what can London boast
To pay thee for the pleasures lost,
The health to-day resign'd,
When spring from this her favorite seat
Bade winter hasten his retreat,
And met the western wind.

Oh knew'st thou how the balmy air,
The sun, the azure heavens prepare
To heal thy languid frame,
No more would noisy courts ingage;
In vain would lying faction's rage
Thy sacred leisure claim.
Oft I look'd forth, and oft admir'd;
Till with the studious volume tir'd
I sought the open day;
And, sure, I cry'd, the rural gods
Expect me in their green abodes,
And chide my tardy lay.
But ah in vain my restless feet
Trac'd every silent shady seat
Which knew their forms of old:
Nor Naiad by her fountain laid,
Nor Wood-nymph tripping thr...

A piè de' colli ove la bella vesta.

HE FEIGNS AN ADDRESS FROM SOME BIRDS WHICH HE HAD PRESENTED.


    Beneath the verdant hills--where the fair vest
Of earthly mould first took the Lady dear,
Who him that sends us, feather'd captives, here
Awakens often from his tearful rest--
Lived we in freedom and in quiet, blest
With everything which life below might cheer,
No foe suspecting, harass'd by no fear
That aught our wanderings ever could molest;
But snatch'd from that serener life, and thrown
To the low wretched state we here endure,
One comfort, short of death, survives alone:
Vengeance upon our captor full and sure!
Who, slave himself at others' power, remains
Pent in worse prison, bound by sterner chains.

MACGREGOR.

Farewell to one now silenced quite,
Sent out of hearing, out of sight,--
    My friend of friends, whom I shall miss.
    He is not banished, though, for this,--
Nor he, nor sadness, nor delight.

Though I shall walk with him no more,
A low voice sounds upon the shore.
    He must not watch my resting-place
    But who shall drive a mournful face
From the sad winds about my door?

I shall not hear his voice complain,
But who shall stop the patient rain?
    His tears must not disturb my heart,
    But who shall change the years, and part
The world from every thought of pain?

Although my life is left so dim,
The morning crowns the mountain-rim;
    Joy is not gone from summer skies,
    Nor innocence from children's eyes,
And all ...

I strove with none, for none was worth my strife:
Nature I loved, and, next to Nature, Art:
I warm'd both hands before the fire of Life;
It sinks; and I am ready to depart.

Come list, while I tell of the heart-wounded Stranger
    Who sleeps her last slumber in this haunted ground;
Where often, at midnight, the lonely wood-ranger
    Hears soft fairy music re-echo around.

None e'er knew the name of that heart-stricken lady,
    Her language, tho' sweet, none could e'er understand;
But her features so sunned, and her eyelash so shady,
    Bespoke her a child of some far Eastern land.

'Twas one summer night, when the village lay sleeping,
    A soft strain of melody came o'er our ears;
So sweet, but so mournful, half song and half weeping,
    Like music that Sorrow had steeped in her tears.

We thought 'twas an anthem some angel had sung us;--
    But, soon as the day-beams had gushed from on high,
With wonder we saw this b...

Once again, but how chang'd since my wand'rings began
I have heard the deep voice of the Lagan and Bann,
And the pines of Clanbrasil resound to the roar
That wearies the echoes of fair Tullamore.
Alas! My poor bosom, and why shouldst thou burn!
With the scenes of my youth can its raptures return?
Can I live the dear life of delusion again,
That flow'd when these echoes first mix'd with my strain?

It was then that around me, though poor and unknown,
High spells of mysterious enchantment were thrown;
The streams were of silver, of diamond the dew,
The land was an Eden, for fancy was new.
I had heard of our bards, and my soul was on fire
At the rush of their verse, and the sweep of their lyre:
To me 'twas not legend, nor tale to the ear,
But a vision of noontide...