Works

From gray, bleak hills 'neath steely skies
Thro' beards of ice the forests roar;
Along the river's humming shore
The skimming skater bird-like flies.

On windy meads where wave white breaks,...

I sent my love two roses, - one
As white as driven snow,
And one a blushing royal red,
A flaming Jacqueminot.

I meant to touch and test my fate;
That night I should divine,...

It was a hundred years ago,
When, by the woodland ways,
The traveller saw the wild deer drink,
Or crop the birchen sprays.

Beneath a hill, whose rocky side
O'erbrowed a grassy mead,...

Dare you see a soul at the white heat?
Then crouch within the door.
Red is the fire's common tint;
But when the vivid ore

Has sated flame's conditions,
Its quivering substance plays...

In this world, the Isle of Dreams,
While we sit by sorrow's streams,
Tears and terrors are our themes,
Reciting:

But when once from hence we fly,
More and more approaching nigh...

"Haddock's Eyes" or "The Aged Aged Man" or
"Ways and Means" or "A-Sitting On A Gate"

I'll tell thee everything I can;
There's little to relate.
I saw an aged, aged man,
A-sitting on a gate....

"Child of the Woods, bred in leafy dell,
See the palace home in which I dwell,
With its lofty walls and casements wide,
And objects of beauty on every side;
Now, tell me, dost thou not think it bliss...

Wherever the white man's feet have trod
(Oh far does the white man stray)
A bold road rifles the virginal sod,
And the forest wakes out of its dream of God,
To yield him the right of way....

Take up the White man's burden
Send forth the best ye breed
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness
On fluttered folk and wild...

The white moon wasteth,
And cold morn hasteth
Athwart the snow,
The red east burneth
And the tide turneth,
And thou must go.

Think not, sad rover,
Their story all over...

If a leaf rustled, she would start:
And yet she died, a year ago.
How had so frail a thing the heart
To journey where she trembled so?
And do they turn and turn in fright,...

(France -- Ancient Regime.)



I.

Go away!

Go away; I will not confess to you!

His black biretta clings like a hangman's cap; under his twitching fingers...

The white rose and the red rose,
So sisters two were named, yes, named.
The white one was so quiet,
The red one laughed and flamed.
But different was their doing, yes,
When came the time of wooing, yes....

Oh! hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us,
And black are the waters that sparkled so green.
The moon, o'er the combers, looks downward to find us
At rest in the hollows that rustle between....

(For Alden March)



With drooping sail and pennant
That never a wind may reach,
They float in sunless waters
Beside a sunless beach.
Their mighty masts and funnels...

& R. Fenton Gower


He's acruisin' in a pearler with a dirty nigger crew,
Abuyin' pearls and copra for a stingy Spanish Jew,
And his face is tann'd like leather 'neath a blazin' tropic Sun,...

AN INDIAN TRADITION; VERSIFIED FROM SCHOOLCRAFT


It was a day of festive-mirth,
And bright the Indian wigwams shone,
For 'twas a chieftain's bridal-day,
And gladness dwelt in every tone;...

Shy bird of the silver arrows of song,
That cleave our Northern air so clear,
Thy notes prolong, prolong,
I listen, I hear:
"I - love - dear - Canada,
Canada, Canada."
...

Last night I dreamed I saw you lying dead,
And by your sheeted form stood all alone:
Frail as a flow'r you lay upon your bed,
And on your still face, through the casement, shone...

Why does she turn in that shy soft way
Whenever she stirs the fire,
And kiss to the chimney-corner wall,
As if entranced to admire
Its whitewashed bareness more than the sight...