("Devant la blanche ferme.")

[XV., May, 1837.]


Before the farm where, o'er the porch, festoon
Wild creepers red, and gaffer sits at noon,
Whilst strutting fowl display their varied crests,
And the old watchdog slumberously rests,
They half-attentive to the clarion of their king,
Resplendent in the sunshine op'ning wing -
There stood a cow, with neck-bell jingling light,
Superb, enormous, dappled red and white -
Soft, gentle, patient as a hind unto its young,
Letting the children swarm until they hung
Around her, under - rustics with their teeth
Whiter than marble their ripe lips beneath,
And bushy hair fresh and more brown
Than mossy walls at old gates of a town,
Calling to one another with loud cries
For younger imps to be in at ...

By England's side we stand,
We grasp her royal hand,
And pay her rightful homage through her Son;
Thank God for England's care!
Thank God for Britain's heir!
Our hearts go forth to meet him - we are one.

A loyal Province pours
Her thousands to her shores,
From iron-girt Superior to the sea;
We feel our youthful blood
Surge through us like a flood,
There's not a slave amongst us - we are free.

For none but Freemen know
The truly loyal throe
That gives heroic impulse to the Man -
The passion and the fire,
The chivalrous desire:
Our Fathers all were heroes - in the van.

And we, their ardent sons,
Through whom, triumphant, runs
The old intrepid attribute serene,
Would leave our chosen land,
Our homes, our forests gra...

Urn and sarcophagus erst were with life adorn'd by the heathen

Fauns are dancing around, while with the Bacchanal troop
Chequerd circles they trace; and the goat-footed, puffy-cheekd player

Wildly produceth hoarse tones out of the clamorous horn.
Cymbals and drums resound; we see and we hear, too, the marble.

Fluttering bird! oh how sweet tastes the ripe fruit to thy bill!
Noise there is none to disturb thee, still less to scare away Amor,

Who, in the midst of the throng, learns to delight in his torch.
Thus doth fullness overcome death; and the ashes there cover'd

Seem, in that silent domain, still to be gladdend with life.
Thus may the minstrel's sarcophagus be hereafter surrounded

With such a scroll, which himself richly with life has adorn'd.

"And wept to see the paths of life divide." - Shenstone.

Here the companions of our careless prime,
Whom fortune's various ways have severed long,
Since that fair dawn when Hope her vernal song
Sang blithe, with features marked by stealing time
At these restoring springs are met again!
We, young adventurers on life's opening road,
Set out together; to their last abode
Some have sunk silent, some a while remain,
Some are dispersed; of many, growing old
In life's obscurer bourne, no tale is told.
Here, ere the shades of the long night descend,
And all our wanderings in oblivion end,
The parted meet once more, and pensive trace
(Marked by that hand unseen, whose iron pen
Writes "mortal change" upon the fronts of men)
The creeping furrows in each other's fac...

She sleeps and I see through a shadowy haze,
Where the hopes of the past and the dreams that I cherished
In the sunlight of brighter and happier days,
As the mists of the morning, have faded and perished.
She sleeps and will waken to bless me no more;
Her life has died out like the gleam on the river,
And the bliss that illumined my bosom of yore
Has fled from its dwelling for ever and ever.

I had thought in this life not to travel alone,
I had hoped for a mate in my joys and my sorrow
But the face of my idol is colder than stone,
And my path will be lonely without her to-morrow.
I was hoping to bask in the light of her smile
When Fortune and Fame with their laurels had crown’d me
But the fire in her eyes has been dying the while,
And the thorns of affliction...

Where are they, that song and tale
Tell of? lands our childhood knew?
Sea-locked Faerylands that trail
Morning summits, dim with dew,
Crimson o'er a crimson sail.

Where in dreams we entered on
Wonders eyes have never seen:
Whither often we have gone,
Sailing a dream-brigantine
On from voyaging dawn to dawn.

Leons seeking lands of song;
Fabled fountains pouring spray;
Where our anchors dropped among
Corals of some tropic bay,
With its swarthy native throng.

Shoulder ax and arquebus! -
We may find it! - past yon range
Of sierras, vaporous,
Rich with gold and wild and strange
That lost region dear to us.

Yet, behold, although our zeal
Darien summits may subdue,
Our Balboa eyes reveal
But a vaster sea come...

While I have vision, while the glowing-bodied,
Drunken with light, untroubled clouds, with all this cold sphered sky,
Are flushed above trees where the dew falls secretly,
Where no man goes, where beasts move silently,
As gently as light feathered winds that fall
Chill among hollows filled with sighing grass;
While I have vision, while my mind is borne
A finger's length above reality,
Like that small plaining bird that drifts and drops
Among these soft lapped hollows;
Robed gods, whose passing fills calm nights with sudden wind,
Whose spears still bar our twilight, bend and fill
Wind-shaken, troubled spaces with some peace,
With clear untroubled beauty;
That I may rise not chill and shrilling through perpetual day,
Remote, amazèd, larklike, but may hold
The ho...

Somno mollior unda


I
Dawn is dim on the dark soft water,
Soft and passionate, dark and sweet.
Love's own self was the deep sea's daughter,
Fair and flawless from face to feet,
Hailed of all when the world was golden,
Loved of lovers whose names beholden
Thrill men's eyes as with light of olden
Days more glad than their flight was fleet.
So they sang: but for men that love her,
Souls that hear not her word in vain,
Earth beside her and heaven above her
Seem but shadows that wax and wane.
Softer than sleep's are the sea's caresses,
Kinder than love's that betrays and blesses,
Blither than spring's when her flowerful tresses
Shake forth sunlight and shine with rain.
All the strength of the waves that perish
Swells beneath me and ...

Ah, what hast thou done with that Lover of mine?
The Lover who only cared for thee?
Mine for a handful of nights, and thine
For the Nights that Are and the Days to Be,
The scent of the Champa lost its sweet -
So sweet is was in the Times that Were! -
Since His alone, of the numerous feet
That climb my steps, have returned not there.
Ahi, Yasmini, return not there!

Art thou yet athrill at the touch of His hand,
Art thou still athirst for His waving hair?
Nay, passion thou never couldst understand,
Life's heights and depths thou wouldst never dare.
The Great Things left thee untouched, unmoved,
The Lesser Things had thy constant care.
Ah, what hast thou done with the Lover I loved,
Who found me wanting, and thee so fair?
Ahi, Yasmini, He found her fai...

Wide as the sky Time spreads his hand,
And blindly over us there blows
A swarm of years that fill the land,
Then fade, and are as fallen snows.

Behold, the flakes rush thick and fast;
Or are they years, that come between, -
When, peering back into the past,
I search the legendary scene?

Nay. Marshaled down the open coast,
Fearless of that low rampart's frown,
The winter's white-winged, footless host
Beleaguers ancient Saybrook town.

And when the settlers wake they stare
On woods half-buried, white and green,
A smothered world, an empty air:
Never had such deep drifts been seen!

But "Snow lies light upon my heart!
An thou," said merry Jonathan Rudd,
"Wilt wed me, winter shall depart,
And love like spring for us shall bud."...

Still am I haunting
    Thy door with my prayers;
Still they are panting
    Up thy steep stairs!
Wouldst thou not rather
    Come down to my heart,
And there, O my Father,
    Be what thou art?

Lulled by the sound of pastoral bells,
Rude Nature's Pilgrims did we go,
From the dread summit of the Queen
Of mountains, through a deep ravine,
Where, in her holy chapel, dwells
"Our Lady of the Snow."

The sky was blue, the air was mild;
Free were the streams and green the bowers;
As if, to rough assaults unknown,
The genial spot had 'ever' shown
A countenance that as sweetly smiled
The face of summer-hours.

And we were gay, our hearts at ease;
With pleasure dancing through the frame
We journeyed; all we knew of care
Our path that straggled here and there;
Of trouble, but the fluttering breeze;
Of Winter, but a name.

If foresight could have rent the veil
Of three short days, but hush, no more!
Calm is the grave, and calme...

Lines written by the late A. L. Gordon
On 4th August, 1853,
Being three days before he sailed for Australia.

Across the trackless seas I go,
No matter when or where,
And few my future lot will know,
And fewer still will care.
My hopes are gone, my time is spent,
I little heed their loss,
And if I cannot feel content,
I cannot feel remorse.

My parents bid me cross the flood,
My kindred frowned at me;
They say I have belied my blood,
And stained my pedigree.
But I must turn from those who chide,
And laugh at those who frown;
I cannot quench my stubborn pride,
Nor keep my spirits down.

I once had talents fit to win
Success in life’s career,
And if I chose a part of sin,
My choice has cost me dear.
But th...

We were wearied in the battle,
    Tempted, and pained, and tried
By day the din and the carnage,
    By night the rain's fierce tide;
But we heard a loving message,
    From the Prince's tent it came,
"Each meet in the banqueting house.
    In memory of my name."

We gathered; a motley regiment,
    Some young in the war of life,
Some chiefs in the Royal Army,
    Some old and sick with strife,
Some limped in the sacred pathway,
    Some were foot sore and worn,
Some had their lances all shivered,
    Some had their banners torn.

And we all looked dim and dusty;
    We all were stained with sin;
But we held the Prince's message,
    And the porter said "Come in."
We went to the banqueting house;
    We sat at the Prince's b...

Some say the spot is banned; that the pillar Cross-and-Hand
Attests to a deed of hell;
But of else than of bale is the mystic tale
That ancient Vale-folk tell.

Ere Cernel's Abbey ceased hereabout there dwelt a priest,
(In later life sub-prior
Of the brotherhood there, whose bones are now bare
In the field that was Cernel choir).

One night in his cell at the foot of yon dell
The priest heard a frequent cry:
"Go, father, in haste to the cot on the waste,
And shrive a man waiting to die."

Said the priest in a shout to the caller without,
"The night howls, the tree-trunks bow;
One may barely by day track so rugged a way,
And can I then do so now?"

No further word from the dark was heard,
And the priest moved never a limb;
And he s...

She came—she is gone—we have met—
And meet perhaps never again;
The sun of that moment is set,
And seems to have risen in vain.
Catharina has fled like a dream
(So vanishes pleasure, alas!)—
But has left a regret and esteem
That will not so suddenly pass.


The last evening ramble we made,
Catharina, Maria, and I,
Our progress was often delay’d
By the nightingale warbling nigh.
We paused under many a tree,
And much she was charm’d with a tone,
Less sweet to Maria and me,
Who so lately had witness’d her own.


My numbers that day she had sung,
And gave them a grace so divine,
As only her musical tongue
Could infuse into numbers of mine.
The longer I heard, I esteem’d
The work of my fancy the more,
And e’en to my...

    Poltergeist activity
    - the sun winding like a staircase
    onto the pavement,
    rickety afternoon
    shooting back thru
    shawls of the city.

    Tippy-toe. Curtains
    ajar, a face at the cross-roads looking,
    looking for all the world as
    pavement stones,
    greasy & black, a thin
    oiled compliment to
    Mrs. Blight registered
    at Old Inn Road.

Republicans of differing views
Are pro or con protection;
If that's the issue they would choose,
Why, we have no objection.
The issue we propose concerns
Our hearts and homes more nearly:
A wife to whom the nation turns
And venerates so dearly.
So, confident of what shall be,
Our gallant host advances,
Giving three cheers for Grover C.
And three times three for Frances!

So gentle is that honored dame,
And fair beyond all telling,
The very mention of her name
Sets every breast to swelling.
She wears no mortal crown of gold--
No courtiers fawn around her--
But with their love young hearts and old
In loyalty have crowned her--
And so with Grover and his bride
We're proud to take our chances,
And it's three times three for the t...