Works

(Written on the day of President McKinley's death)



In the midst of sunny waters, lo! the mighty Ship of State
Staggers, bruised and torn and wounded by a derelict of fate,...

'Yes, Sir, she's gone at last - 'twas only five minutes ago
We heard her sigh from her corner, - she sat in the kitchen, you know:
We were all just busy on breakfast, John cleaning the boots, and I...

Within my veins it beats
And burns within my brain;
For when the year is sad and sear
I dream the dream again.

Ah! over young am I
God knows! yet in this sleep...

("Ceux-ci partent.")

[Bk. III. v., February, 1843.]


We pass - these sleep
Beneath the shade where deep-leaved boughs
Bend o'er the furrows the Great Reaper ploughs,...

I

I took the clock down from the shelf;
"At eight," said I, "I shoot myself."
It lacked a MINUTE of the hour,
And as I waited all a-cower,
A skinful of black, boding pain,...

Death is a dialogue between
The spirit and the dust.
"Dissolve," says Death. The Spirit, "Sir,
I have another trust."


Death doubts it, argues from the ground.
The Spirit turns away,...

What is yonder white thing in the forest?
Is it snow, or can it swans perchance be?
Were it snow, ere this it had been melted,
Were it swans, they all away had hastend....

Yet at the last, ere our spearmen had found him,
Yet at the last, ere a sword-thrust could save,
Yet at the last, with his masters around him,
He spoke of the Faith as a master to slave....

When anxious Spain, along her rocky shore,
From cliff to cliff returned the sea-fight's roar;
When flash succeeding flash, tremendous broke
The haze incumbent, and the clouds of smoke,...

He stood up in the house to speak,
With calm unruffled brow,
And never were his burning words
More eloquent than now

Fresh from the greatest victory
That mortal man can win...

Gormlaith, wife of Niall Glendu,
Happy was your dream that night,
Dreamt you woke in sudden fright,
Niall of Ulster stood by you.

Niall of Ulster, dead and gone,
Many a year had come again,...

Turn to Britannia's triumphs on the main:
See Nelson, pale and fainting, 'mid the slain,
Whilst Victory sighs, stern in the garb of war,
And points through clouds the rocks of Trafalgar!...

(Mr Norman Dewar, commission merchant, a native of Glengarry, Canada who had been assisting Captain McCabe as commissary of the Memphis Relief Committee, died of yellow fever after three days illness A brave and gentle nature, ...

In the Capitol is mourning,
Mourning and woe this day,
For a nation's heart is throbbing--
A great man has passed away

It was yester'even only
Rejoicing wild and high,...

What news to all alike brings startling sorrow?
And he is dead, the vigorous chieftain dead?
Nor e'en for him would death still brook to-morrow?
No more shall followers vaunt and foemen dread;...

The long winter wanes. On the wings
of the spring come the geese and the mallards;
On the bare oak the red-robin sings,
and the crocus peeps up on the prairies,
And the bobolink pipes, but he brings...

I love my mother, the wildwood,
I sleep upon her breast;
A day or two of childhood,
And then I sink to rest.

I had once a lovely sister --
She was cradled by my side;...

'Twas a fearful night - the tempest raved
With loud and wrathful pride,
The storm-king harnessed his lightning steeds,
And rode on the raging tide.

The sea-king lay on his bed of death,...

Waileth a woman, "O my God!"
A breaking heart in a broken breath,
A hopeless cry o'er her heart-hope's death!
Can words catch the chords of the winds that wail,
When love's last lily lies dead in the vale!...

Down the broad Ha-Ha W'k-pa[BS]
the band took their way to the Games at Ke'za[8]
While the swift-footed hunters by land
ran the shores for the elk and the bison.
Like mag's[BT] ride the birchen canoes...