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IF THE BOOK IS UNDER COPYRIGHT IN YOUR COUNTRY, DO NOT DOWNLOAD OR REDISTRIBUTE THIS FILE. _Title:_ Beauty and Life _Date of first publication:_ 1921 _Author:_ Duncan Campbell Scott (1862-1947) _Date first posted:_ March 28, 2026 _Date last updated:_ March 28, 2026 Faded Page eBook #20260355 This eBook was produced by: Mardi Desjardins, Cindy Beyer & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at https://www.pgdpcanada.net This file was produced from images generously made available by Internet Archive. [Cover Illustration] Beauty and Life _Other Books by the Same Author_ The Magic House—1893. Methuen, London. Durie & Son, Ottawa. In the Village of Viger—1896. (_Out of Print_) Copeland & Day Boston. Labour and the Angel—1898. (_Out of Print_) Copeland & Day, Boston. New World Lyrics and Ballads—1905. (_Out of print_) Morang & Company, Toronto. Lundy’s Lane—1916. McClelland & Stewart, Toronto. Beauty and Life by Duncan Campbell Scott M^{c}Clelland and Stewart Publishers Toronto COPYRIGHT, CANADA, 1921 By McCLELLAND & STEWART, LIMITED, TORONTO PRINTED IN CANADA TO PELHAM EDGAR IN CONSTANT FRIENDSHIP _Contents._ _Page_ Ode for the Keats Centenary . . . . 9 Variations on a Seventeenth Century Theme . 16 The Fragment of a Letter . . . . . 30 The Flight. . . . . . . . 33 Leaves . . . . . . . . 38 The Tree, the Birds, and the Child . . . 41 Last Year . . . . . . . . 43 On the Death of Claude Debussy. . . . 44 Bells. . . . . . . . . 46 Reverie . . . . . . . . 47 Threnody . . . . . . . . 48 Spirit and Flesh . . . . . . 49 The Lovers. . . . . . . . 54 By the Shore . . . . . . . 55 The Anatomy of Melancholy. . . . . 56 Portrait of Mrs. Clarence Gagnon . . . 58 The Water-Lily . . . . . . . 59 A Road Song . . . . . . . 63 After a Night of Storm . . . . . 64 Idle to Grieve . . . . . . . 65 A Vision . . . . . . . . 66 Senza Fine. . . . . . . . 68 A Masque . . . . . . . . 71 The Eagle Speaks . . . . . . 74 Lilacs and Humming-Birds . . . . . 78 Afterwards. . . . . . . . 79 The Enigma. . . . . . . . 80 In Grenada. . . . . . . . 81 Impromptu . . . . . . . . 82 In Winter . . . . . . . . 82 Song . . . . . . . . . 83 In the Selkirks. . . . . . . 84 Question and Answer . . . . . . 85 Lines on a Monument . . . . . . 87 After Battle . . . . . . . 87 The Fallen. . . . . . . . 88 Somewhere in France . . . . . . 89 To a Canadian Aviator who Died for his Country in France . . . . . . . . 92 To the Canadian Mothers . . . . . 94 Ode for the Keats Centenary February 23, 1921. The Muse is stern unto her favoured sons, Giving to some the keys of all the joy Of the green earth, but holding even that joy Back from their life; Bidding them feed on hope, A plant of bitter growth, Deep-rooted in the past; Truth, ’tis a doubtful art To make Hope sweeten Time as it flows; For no man knows Until the very last, Whether it be a sovereign herb that he has eaten, Or his own heart. O stern, implacable Muse, Giving to Keats so richly dowered, Only the thought that he should be Among the English poets after death; Letting him fade with that expectancy, All powerless to unfold the future! What boots it that our age has snatched him free From thy too harsh embrace, Has given his fame the certainty Of comradeship with Shakespeare’s? He lies alone Beneath the frown of the old Roman stone And the cold Roman violets; And not our wildest incantation Of his most sacred lines, Nor all the praise that sets Towards his pale grave, Like oceans towards the moon, Will move the Shadow with the pensive brow To break his dream, And give unto him now One word!— When the young master reasoned That our puissant England Reared her great poets by neglect, Trampling them down in the by-paths of Life And fostering them with glory after death, Did any flame of triumph from his own fame Fall swift upon his mind; the glow Cast back upon the bleak and aching air Blown round his days—? Happily so! But he, whose soul was mighty as the soul Of Milton, who held the vision of the world As an irradiant orb self-filled with light, Who schooled his heart with passionate control To compass knowledge, to unravel the dense Web of this tangled life, he would weigh slight As thistledown blown from his most fairy fancy That pale self-glory, against the mystery, The wonder of the various world, the power Of “seeing great things in loneliness.” Where bloodroot in the clearing dwells Along the edge of snow; Where, trembling all their trailing bells, The sensitive twin flowers blow; Where, searching through the ferny breaks, The moose-fawns find the springs; Where the loon laughs and diving takes Her young beneath her wings; Where flash the fields of arctic moss With myriad golden light; Where no dream-shadows ever cross The lidless eyes of night; Where, cleaving a mountain storm, the proud Eagles, the clear sky won, Mount the thin air between the loud Slow thunder and the sun; Where, to the high tarn tranced and still No eye has ever seen, Comes the first star its flame to chill In the cool deeps of green;— Spirit of Keats, unfurl thy wings, Far from the toil and press, Teach us by these pure-hearted things, Beauty in loneliness. Where, in the realm of thought, dwell those Who oft in pain and penury Work in the void, Searching the infinite dark between the stars, The infinite little of the atom, Gathering the tears and terrors of this life, Distilling them to a medicine for the soul; (And hated for their thought Die for it calmly; For not their fears, Nor the cold scorn of men, Fright them who hold to truth:) They brood alone in the intense serene Air of their passion, Until on some chill dawn Breaks the immortal form foreshadowed in their dream, And the distracted world and men Are no more what they were. Spirit of Keats, unfurl thy deathless wings, Far from the wayward toil, the vain excess, Teach us by such soul-haunting things Beauty in loneliness. The minds of men grow numb, their vision narrows, The clogs of Empire and the dust of ages, The lust of power that fogs the fairest pages, Of the romance that eager life would write, These war on Beauty with their spears and arrows. But still is Beauty and of constant power; Even in the whirl of Time’s most sordid hour, Banished from the great highways, Affrighted by the tramp of insolent feet, She hangs her garlands in the by-ways; Lissome and sweet Bending her head to hearken and learn Melody shadowed with melody, Softer than shadow of sea-fern, In the green-shadowed sea: Then, nourished by quietude, And if the world’s mood Change, she may return Even lovelier than before.— The white reflection in the mountain lake Falls from the white stream Silent in the high distance; The mirrored mountains guard The profile of the goddess of the height, Floating in water with a curve of crystal light; When the air, envious of the loveliness, Rushes downward to surprise, Confusion plays in the contact, The picture is overdrawn With ardent ripples, But when the breeze, warned of intrusion, Draws breathless upward in flight, The vision reassembles in tranquillity, Reforming with a gesture of delight, Reborn with the rebirth of calm. Spirit of Keats, lend us thy voice, Breaking like surge in some enchanted cave On a dream-sea-coast, To summon Beauty to her desolate world. For Beauty has taken refuge from our life That grew too loud and wounding; Beauty withdraws beyond the bitter strife, Beauty is gone, (Oh where?) To dwell within a precinct of pure air Where moments turn to months of solitude; To live on roots of fern and tips of fern, On tender berries flushed with the earth’s blood. Beauty shall stain her feet with moss And dye her cheek with deep nut-juices, Laving her hands in the pure sluices Where rainbows are dissolved. Beauty shall view herself in pools of amber sheen Dappled with peacock-tints from the green screen That mingles liquid light with liquid shadow. Beauty shall breathe the fairy hush With the chill orchids in their cells of shade, And hear the invocation of the thrush That calls the stars into their heaven, And after even Beauty shall take the night into her soul. When the thrill voice goes crying through the wood, (Oh Beauty, Beauty!) Troubling the solitude With echoes from the lonely world, Beauty will tremble like a cloistered thing That hears temptation in the outlands singing, Will steel her dedicated heart and breathe Into her inner ear to firm her vow:— ‘Let me restore the soul that ye have marred. O mortals, cry no more on Beauty, Leave me alone, lone mortals, Until my shaken soul comes to its own, Lone mortals, leave me alone!’ (Oh Beauty, Beauty, Beauty!) All the dim wood is silent as a dream That dreams of silence. Variations on a Seventeenth Century Theme “It was high spring, and all the way Primrosed, and hung with shade.” _Henry Vaughan,_ 1622-1695. I O younge and fresche was the lovely Eve Who was our moder, and of fayre visage When sche her house in Eden-bower must leave With Adam whom God made in His image, As the good booke saith; in youth and age Study it close and con the gospel well, For it will save your seely soul from Hell. A Poete telleth in an olde romaunt Of our foreparents and their first distress. They were all naked sauf for the kinde plaunt, Where Eve had gathered leaves them for to dress. They were adrad at the broode wilderness, Shivering bothe, altho they knew ne cold, For the high sonne was shining bright and bold. When the wing-schuldered aungel there did stonde, And shake his sword in flame of gold and red, Adam espied that in her little honde Eve covered something that it cherished. What was it Eva from the aungel hid? Sche without ever askin Goddis pardon Had a small primrose taken from His garden. And there sche guarded it all faithfully, Like as a younge priest sholde guard the Host, Then looking on its beauty, sodenly Her timid mind with payne was rudely crost, Sche thought on all the blossoms sche had lost, And the first tear of all the teares sche shed, Fell down upon the litel yalow head. But when our fader Adam saw her payne, His hert was all aswownying with her grief, For he of gentle Eva was full fayne And tender at the hert beyond belief. He went away as he had been a thief, And where he went the Poete did not know, But all that day Eve never saw him mo. II All in the high May-time, The only merry play-time, A pedlar comes clad all in yellow; Down the lane as he passes, The lads and the lasses Crowd after the impudent fellow. He sells ballads and snatches Of glees and of catches, That go with a wonderful jingle; He teaches a dance That is perfect romance, And sets all your blood in a tingle. He has treasures untold Of things made in gold, Of jewels and carvings and laces; But the moment you try A thought for to buy He makes a few frowns and grimaces. If you mention a hope Off he goes in a mope, He is wrath if you ask an ideal; He cries with a sneer “You can’t buy them here! I only engage in the real.” “Dreams are a stuff All well enough For those who love shadows to cherish, They’re nothing but bubbles; I have my own troubles To gather up things that don’t perish.” “Come then, my boon lad, All thinkers are mad, For your strength I will give you good measure; Come, don’t be afraid, My pretty wild maid “To barter your beauty for pleasure.” For this is high May-time, The only merry play-time, When the primrose has lighted her wan-fire, Come, stroll down the lane, You’ll not bargain in vain, At the end of the path is a bonfire!” III I dreamed a dream once in the long ago, A tranquil angel spoke beside my bed, Two figures stood beside him in the glow Cast from his vesture and his glorious head, One held a crystal globe all primrose-rayed, The other held a temple hung with shade. “O man, these symbols are the whole of life, Here is the round of pleasure dashed with light, Here is the shade of sorrow and of strife, Temple and sphere—the sombre and the bright, Make thou thy choice, thy mighty will is free, In this election is thy destiny.” I thought to choose the crystal, ’twas so fair. Eyes of serene enchantment seemed to peer, Shadows of filmy beauty floated there, But as I closed my hand upon the sphere, I saw a flash of something in the gold That made my very heart turn grey and cold. And so I grasped the temple hung with shade, The angel and the figures vanished away, I put aside the shadows undismayed, And felt my heart turn weary and old and grey, The very thing that I had hoped to shun Sat on a throne, it was the All Powerful One. “Make thou thy choice, thy mighty will is free,” The mocking words were ever in my ears, Through all my days I strove with destiny, With teen and sorrow harvested the years. I lie through aeons as all mortals must, A little heap of ashes and of dust. IV The moon glows with a primrose light To-night! A happy vesper sparrow sings, His wings Are moist with dew, a wraith of mist, Grey amethyst, Deepens the purple in the fields, Slow yields Twilight to the vast shade that listlessly Moves landward from the sea. V _A playwright’s room all hung about with masks,_ _Three candles burning and a fire half dying,_ _Points of high-light on shadowed foils and flasks,_ _A tragic form on a grey sofa lying:_ _Enter a youth too out of breath for speech—he_ _Was ancient clad like one of the Medici._ PIERO: Why are you here, Paolo, after a first night Like that? Flaming! Everyone crying “Paolo”! Crowding onto the stage, crowning Giovanna with flowers. Then when they cleared, and we set out the supper On the stage, you know—as we planned—and everyone Came from the dressing-rooms in Florentine Costume, you know—as we planned—then we missed you. I rushed here—never thinking! PAOLO: And you found me. After failure a little realm of quiet. PIERO: Failure! PAOLO: After the end a pause before the end! PIERO: Failure! The most absolute success! PAOLO: I will tell you, Piero, inner secrets— A play within a play—in the second act Giovanna was to give my love an answer— It was not so arranged—too subtle for that, When she handed Antonio the flowers I was to divine it by a certain gesture Imagined long by me,—it was to come Instinctive to her, like a revelation: There she failed, wanting in noble insight! PIERO: Fancy, morbid fancy—tortured, over-wrought! We all know that Giovanna loves you! She knows it now herself, no one could act Like that, unless she loved! PAOLO: And yet, and yet, It is the end! PIERO: I’ll rush back and bring the restless players With torches and music and tear you out of this And set you with your triumph. PAOLO: Give her these flowers! PIERO: Primroses! those flowers in the second act were primroses! PAOLO: They were false—tell her— PIERO: What? PAOLO: Well, nothing, Piero, the flowers will tell her. _The place was still when music danced about,_ _Dark when the torches played upon the gloom,_ _The jest and clamour of a merry rout_ _Was heard by no one in the upper room;_ _Then there was breathless running on the stair,_ _Confusion at the door, and frantic groping there._ PIERO: One moment! Wait! GIOVANNA: Is there no more haste in the world? PIERO: All dark, there’s something terribly wrong here, Go back! GIOVANNA: What the flowers told me! Jesu have pity! But if there be no pity give me strength! VI Youth is a blossom yellow at the edge, All full of honeyed pleasantness, If you leave it, it will wither in the hedge, If you pluck it, it will wither none the less, Then pluck it—that were better after all, But pluck it with a sort of wistfulness, Yea, pluck it if you must, and let it fall Regretfully, with a last touch of tenderness, Before the colour and the honey all Are flown away, And you are holding but a withered tress Of passion and of loveliness. Now let it fall— Yet hold it—hold it—’tis thy youth! Nay, let it fall— fall— fall— Caress it ere it fall, Then let it fall and die. VII A FAIRY FUNERAL. What we bury here is nought, Hardly dreaming, hardly thought. For dead fairies go nowhere, Leaving nothing in the air. Their clear bodies are all through Made of shadow, mixed with dew. When they change their fairy state, They, like dew, evaporate. But we fairies that remain, The dead fairy’s funeral feign. Place within a shepherd’s purse Primrose pollen; for a hearse, Lady-birds we harness up To an empty acorn cup. This we bury, deep in moss;— Then we mourn our grievous loss, Mourn with music, piercing thin, Cricket with his mandolin, Many a hautboy, many a flute, Played by them you fancy mute. Then a solemn epigraph Grave we on the cenotaph:— “Once a fairy of the best, Here lies nothing,—Stranger, rest,— “Ponder,—when you change your state, You may thus evaporate, “Follow where the fairy goes, Into nothing, no one knows.” VIII Bleak Spring in a north city overseas, In the moist window of a florist’s shop, Pots of primroses, Labelled ‘Only a quarter.’ The drizzle begins to freeze, Daylight closes: The passers-by loiter or stop, And one old body Broken with child-bearing and woe And work and toddy Looks once and lo! An English lane below the thorns Was gilded with the glow Of a myriad lemon-coloured horns,— Primroses—primroses! All her girlish days came with a rush Back from her shire home where the wild thrush Sprinkled the primrose buds with music, And the young morning light Soared up to meet the skylark on his height. She fingered in the knotted corner of a rag A coin, the very price! Her faded blue-bell eyes Were moistened with remembrance; She dreamed a little—murmured in her dream. “The same old bloomin’ colour! But I keeps my quarter, Though—perhaps I’d orter; Would it please old Jerry If I was to blow it? But the merry stuff—the merry,— Tcht! is London Dry! P’rhaps I’d orter! But he’ll never know it, And anyhow he wouldn’t give a damn; This darling little quarter, (Feeling it fondly in the filthy rag) Oh my eye! (Giving her head a roguish wag) Will buy a proper dram, Then we’ll be merry, One drink for me and two for dear old Jerry.” IX ECOSSAISE. My Love is like the primrose light That springs up with the morn, My Love is like the early night Before the stars are born. My Love is like the shine and shade That ripple on the wood, (The shadow is her dark green plaid, The light her silver snood). They never meet with eager lips, And mingle in their mirth, They only touch their finger-tips, And circle round the earth. My Love’s so pure, so winsome-sweet, So dancing with delight, That I shall love her till they meet, And all the world is night. X A few chords now for a brimming close, No climax, but a fading away Into something either grave or gay As the line wanders and falters. The rose Must fade and the tone must lessen and die, But the sweetest note of a melody Is the last note, and who can tell That the last note in the long tune Of life on the earth will not be fraught With all the joy of each perished day. The earth will pass in frost, they say, And be all senseless like the moon. Well, as the earth grows stark and cold, Let us imagine it will hold To the very end, the things worth while. The last of all the race, a youth And a maid with a shy triumphant smile, Adam and Eve—beyond all ruth— Above the need of trial or pardon, Happy alone in their frozen garden, And a Primrose hid in the withered foliage Fallen down from the Tree of Knowledge, To glow with clarid light and lend A touch of beauty to the end. They will recall a wild strange myth,— Once the earth was warm to the very pith With noble fire and the sun cast light, And the heart of man was burning bright; They will love in a final fashion, The quintessential human passion, The summation of all vanished love With beauty as the breath thereof, Love their last word, and human bliss Rounded upon a marble kiss. For cold will stop their breathing there, And they will never know nor care How, long ago in the blithe air, The old earth really looked in May, When over every lane and glade IT WAS HIGH SPRING AND ALL THE WAY PRIMROSED, AND HUNG WITH SHADE. The Fragment of a Letter You will recall, of all those magic nights One when we floated on the sunset lights, In all the mirrored crimson from the flare; Not knowing whether we were led by air Or by the secret impulse of the lake. We watched the youthful darkness swiftly take The burning mountain-chain of fretted colour And drench it with his dream of dusk;—duller It grew and duller, to a high coast of ashes. The impalpable sheet lightning fled in flashes, Signalling, in a vivid instant code, The approach of another wonder-episode Of beauty, ever stealing nigh and nigher, And then we were aware of the still fire Of the Great Moon! We neared a shadowy island where we lay And watched the faint illusive moonlight play Along the shore whereon our tents were pitched. The silver-birches like live things bewitched By malice jealous of their beauty, stood Upon the liquid threshold of the wood. Then quick upon the dark, like knocks of fate, There fell three axe-strokes, and then clear, elate Came back the echoes true to tune and time, Three axe-strokes—rhythmed and matched in rhyme; Then a leaf-comment died away in murmurs. The smoke of our camp-fire amid the firs Like a tall ghost rose up below the moon. The enchanted water joined an antiphonal rune In labials and liquids with the rocky shoal Where we were moored by pressure of the breeze, That barely chafed our bark canoe, and stole Like a wing-flutter through the hazel-trees. Hidden above there, half asleep, a thrush Spoke a few silver words upon the hush,— Then paused self-charmed to silence. ’Tis winged impromptu and the occasion strange That gives to beauty its full power and range. The bird was nature; and his casual giving, Us to ourselves— for what we gain from living, When we possess our souls or seem to own, Is not the peak of knowledge, but the tone Of feeling; is not the problem solved, but just The hope of solving opened out and thrust A little further into the spirit air; But whether there be demonstration there We know not; no more than the growing vines When they commission their young eager bines To find amid the void a clinging-spot Know whether it be really there or not. The bird is silent in the groves that grow Around the past; still the reflections are That fluttered from his song, and long ago The tranquil evening ended with a star. Nothing of all remains but pure romance, A magic space wherein the mind can dwell, Above the touch of tedium or of chance Where fragile thoughts are irrefrangible. Still the young Time is guardian of that space, Trembling with unstained beauty through and through, Where shoots of memory radiate and enlace Bright as the sun-point in a globe of dew; Until old Time sables the crystal door, We may re-enter there,—once more, once more. The Flight SHE: Not one step farther:—— What yawns below is Death,—the lightning showed me. HE: I was too careful for the path, our feet Cannot tread air. SHE: My heart lives in the dark Before your face; you are advanced too far,— To feel safe I should have the beating of your heart Next mine; then, if we slip and live a moment Till the air drowns us, we live together The last moment. HE: The precipice curves upward here And outward; press to the wall for shelter. That was a stab! Nimble lightning to avoid The imminent thunder-crash! Did your heart stop? SHE: Death dogs us! Lures us on a perilous mountain Full of traps and then casts storm upon us. HE: Death’s full of fraud, but we have a light For his deception. SHE: A light? HE: Why, Love! SHE: Alas! Death is so envious of Love! Thunder is not more envious of lightning That flies before and is not when he calls. HE: True!— So Death can never overtake Love! SHE: But think of all those piteous lovers Deluded that they were shut in with God, Yet Death struck them;— Tristan and Isolde, Launcelot and Guinevere, and the whirling pair, Paolo and that other, transfixed forever By the bitter-lipped Florentine. Their sobs Fill all the world; then how shall we escape? HE: These models of agony the mad world Cherishes, but the greatest lovers go Unrecorded, the line of the profoundest poet Finds tides under his deepest lead; resources Of passion are hid in simple lives like ours Would swamp his boat to lift them from the deeps. SHE: But Death’s the point, and if he falls On such high peers of pure romance He’ll crush us with the wind of a frown. HE: Death’s full of fraud, he’s but negation, We know of him by breathing. The cunning fellow Has a mask he wears to look like Life. SHE: He’s dropped it now and I fear his glare That lit those older passions; and no pity Showed from his naked countenance then. HE: Careless Death, who has lost his precious mask Found by two mortals fearless made through Love!— Here in the hollow of the ample cheek Above the awful oval of the mouth We’ll hide, and when Death calls us, sharp, once, We will not answer;—and when Death, testy, Calls us twice, we’ll be oblivious, And when Death calls us thrice—for the last time, Mark you,—we’ll be asleep. Then Death will say “I’ve lost those lovers, so they’re lost, they’re lost, They were to die to-day,—but now they’re lost.” So the old dotard fumbling in the mist About his throat—will stumble here and there And cry,—“My Mask, my Mask! how can these mortals Look upon Death unless he looks like Life, My Mask!” And then he’ll find it lying here And raise us clear until your sparkling beauty Catch in his eye and then he’ll startle up With—“Ha! I have them now these tricksy Bemused and vagrant lovers fast asleep In the precinct and appurtenance of Death.” He’ll peer upon us like a wildered pearl-fisher That finds two priceless pearls in a single shell; He’ll say— “She minds me of another face Some dim complainant in the ages gone That cried out on me, and so agonized In simple words that poison memory still. Not of the famous lovers of the world, Arthur’s tall queen, or she that drank Love’s potion On the wild sea, or the bewitched Egyptian, But one of those whose passion is pure tragic,— The unknown lovers ever are the greatest,— They that build the scaffold up for these Brave puppets to pine and pose as Love’s exemplars. Well, for her sake sleep on but for an hour; Your time shall come; pity is but postponement. Some kingliness too hovers about the youth, He shelters her with nobleness; an echo Of something haunts my ear, of deeds with swords For lighting, coupled somehow in covenant With her whose beauty pierced me long ago. Let him hold her close, for their brief fluttering hour Is but a moth-wing in the wind of time. Pity is but—what—pity—!” So, wandering, He’ll drowse and start, and doze and start—and sleep, And then we’ll spring and take him in a net And show him in the markets of the world, Confuting all the sceptics of renown, Here’s the pure proof that Love can conquer Death. SHE: The storm dwindles: the lightning hangs like signals In the rear-guard of retreat, a cool wind Blows backward from the vortex of the cloud; There’s a starved Moon at the tip of the Crag That hunts like a silver hound for starlight; She’ll pass, and next in progress comes the dawn. HE: We’ll wait secure and hear the crushed thunder Recoil, and the water-voices of the gorge Fill in the pauses, and then the faint first light Will point the peaks and we’ll go down to safety. Leaves The great elms hold Aloft their clouds of early autumn gold, Compressed of summer-sunshine and so treasured, Till now like alms doled out and slowly measured To the starved earth. The oak-leaves are tenacious And cling close to the oak-trees, contumacious Of all the laws of winter and his rights. You’ll find them there on moonlit winter nights, Above their sparkling shadows on the snow. Of finer parchment are beech-leaves; they glow In spectral wraiths, and rustle, rustle, rustle In the frost wind, even above the bustle Of the blown snow that streams across the crust Of brighter silver like a silver dust. The sulphur-coloured poplars burn and quiver, Each leaf contributes its ancestral shiver To the illusion of a flaming cone, At the black core the stems show cool as stone, That soon will brave it frigid and unstoled, Each standing in his round of fallen gold. The sumachs vanished early, in a passion, Squandering their colour in a prodigal fashion, They’ve left us cones of faded purple fire, Sharp as mementoes of destroyed desire. The ash trees have a little leaf and so They pass quiescently and make no show In exodus, as mourning for past laches, They lie about in heaps of dust and ashes. Not so the mountain ashes, the leaves perish Unthought of, the tough twigs still hold and cherish The berries in dense clusters of dark coral, Which the pine grosbeaks share without a quarrel In the clear, blustery days of early March. The leaves of bass-woods seem to curl and parch; The trees are rounded like a bee-hive dome, The leaves dry up as pale as honeycomb, As if those robbers, the inveterate bees, Murmured their colour-secret to the trees; So when they die the cunning leaves contrive To simulate the hoard within the hive. But when the maple-leaves are touched with frost, All our similitudes are dwarfed or lost; We do not think of single leaf or tree, No more than of water when we think of the sea; We only know the hills are hung with garlands, And in a happy trance we dream there are lands As calm with beauty as this painted scene, Calm with perpetual beauty; this demesne We wander in awhile and deeply muse On past deeds and on future shadows, and choose Out of the lives we lived only those things That left no thirst, no ardours and no stings, Out of the life to come the dreams that chime Consistent with imaginary time. But, while we muse, there falls a fairy jar That subtly tells us where we really are; There is a stir within the loveliness, A lessening in the colour, a faint stress Of grey, a silver thinning of the air, And ere our painted vision is nowhere, Fearing a coming change we cannot brook, We raise our wistful eyes for one last look. The Tree, The Birds, and The Child TO B. W. S. A birch before the northern window stood Silvery white, Shrouded in greens of liquid tender hue, All laved in light. It seemed a naiad in a fountain caught Had charmed the spray To blow about her naked loveliness, Never away. And all the rustle of the inner shadow Was full of dancing, Now the swift sun and now the lustrous rain Flashing and glancing. Two robins searching for an empty tree Saw it was fair, Liked the seclusion of an ambushed crotch And settled there. And there a child beside the window sat Watching them brood Over their eggs, with all the fluttering care Of parenthood. She clasped her hands below her vivid face, Her lips apart, As if she mothered there a little bird Close to her heart. But then ere long, she turned and vanished Through the closed door, No more to laugh, to love—perhaps ’twere best To say no more. Then the tree died, it could not answer once To Spring’s desire, It was cut down and split and corded up And burned with fire. The birds were certain of their slender tree Early that Spring, But when they strove to perch upon the limbs There was nothing. They flew away and built in other branches Another nest, Disquieted with foreign winds and shadows Banished and dispossessed. But even now the tree, the birds, the child Come back again, And live for moments in the crystal clear Orb of the brain; The birds are quick, the leaves are light and laughing In profusion, The child is radiant with a lovely motion— ’Tis an illusion! But ah! the love that conjures up the vision, Intense and breathless, Own to me as it trembles and disperses, The love is deathless. Last Year By the grey shores of Rideau, The bells are calling clear, Over the dying ripple, The swallows dip and veer, The spring is coming slow, As it came last year! But a slow spring is sure With freshets of cold rain; As it came last year And ever may come again, With flowers frail and pure, Where the pure snow had lain. The bells have ceased their calling But silence calls as clear, Within the earth’s shadow A few stars appear, The chill night is falling As it fell last year. On the Death of Claude Debussy March 26th, 1918 TO T. G. Then Death who was watching Raised him more tenderly Than the forms of other men, And wrapped him in her hair, Her mouth drooped to his mouth, And they became one Forever— Then arose around them A confusion of light and sound, The complaint of the wind In the plane-trees, The far away pulse of a horn, Ripples of fairy colour, Rhythms of Spain, The overtones of cymbals, The sobs of tormented souls, Crys of delight and their echoes, The crystal stroke of goat-bells, The tremor of temple gongs, The robes of Melisande, Trailing vague glories; Fauns’ eyes in the vapour, Flutes of Dionysus, Haunting his ruined fane, Veils of rain, quenching the tulip gardens, Sea-light at the roots of islands, The Spirit of Puck With the ghost of a humming-bird, The chords of boys’ voices, The open organ tones; And under all the pedal-point Of the deep-based ocean, Hidden under the mists, Chanting, infinitely remote, At the foot of enchanted cliffs. Then with a turn of illumination, An enharmonic change of vision, Death and Debussy Become France and her heroes, As if all her sacred heroes Were in that one form, Clasped in the bosom of France, Enfolded with her ideals and inspirations. Then the group loses outline, Firmness dissolves, And surrounded by light and sound, Shadows, they drift away Into the shadow. Bells Slow bells at dawn— What mean ye by your tolling? Bells in the growing light, Knolling afar, Loitering in leisured sequence, Where the ringing seraphim Shake you out of heaven, From the morning star. * * * Echoes are in my soul,— Consonances and broken melodies,— Survivals frayed and remembrances Vanished and irretrievable. * * * What know ye of life, Or of perished hours or years? Ye tones that are born in air, And throb in air and die, Leaving no traces anywhere, Save tremors in the quickened pool of tears Within the windless deeps of memory? Reverie “Le plaisir délicieux et toujours nouveau d’une occupation inutile.” _Henri de Regnier._ Then something moves in the unquiet mind, Something impalpable and hard to bind, The double of the thought or the thought’s essence; The annunciation of its subtle presence Is a slight perfume, or a fragile shading, Hardly perceived ere it is frayed and fading: Is it the core of all the secret longing That keeps the memory populous, a thronging Of ghosts of all the passions, proving deathless The dead passions? Is it the shadows faithless Of joys that were to live but once and die Without a hope of immortality, That now come treading the old jocund measure, Mere apparitions, pulseless of all pleasure? Is it aroma faint from Nature’s chalice, The odour of the aurora borealis That shifts before the stars a silver fume, Or peacock-tints on pools of amber gloom In some fir-forest, all of light denuded, The aroma faint that keeps the mind deluded With the vain thought that here it lived before In many incarnations o’er and o’er, Till all this life seems but a spectral show Of something real that perished long ago? Thus the unquiet mind is charmed and caught When comes to Beauty Beauty’s afterthought, The shadow rainbow, that the rainbow flings On the torn storm-breast underneath his wings. Threnody Now the only debt that can be paid to her Is the thought that life was grievous; No amends can now be ever made to her; Kiss her hands before they leave us. Gently raise her; she was moulded slenderly, Not for days so wild and deep; Leave her where the poplars murmur tenderly, “This night she shall sleep!” Spirit and Flesh I A house stands clear on a mellow rise, With meadows in a ring, An orchard blossoms white with surprise At the urgency of spring. The meadows fall to the winnowed sand Where a cove breaks free, Like the curve of a fragile ivory hand Trembling full of the sea. II (_HE SPEAKS._) Here is your pantry, love, Full of useful dishes, All the glass and napery The heart of woman wishes. Here is your parlour, Hung with rose and mauve, All its lacquer cabinets Filled with treasure trove. Here is your chamber, love, With its smooth bed, With the pretty chintz flowered Canopy overhead. We shall sit beneath the tree, When our work is done, Watch the colour in the orchard From the setting sun. III (_SHE SPEAKS._) O life what do you hold So mysterious, so alluring, That I have no rest? The sea’s breast Tells me the whole round earth Is flaming with haunts of pleasure, Glades where deathless dancers Weave and swerve To music that maddens the nerve, Scents that pierce like sounds, Vision without bounds, Colour that changes as fire Changes, and deeps of desire Whose margins are ferned with dreams. Take me, O Life, Drive me like a shuttle Through the warp of pleasure, The woof shall I give without measure To the last hour, But stint me no longer Of passion and power! IV It was a painted evening at the fall Of leaf and apple and frost-withered grape, A form was flitting through the hall Of changeful colour and shape. It paced the floor, it climbed the narrow stair, It wreathed the chamber door with quick desire, The only bride that entered there Was the swift bride of fire; She lived her sudden life so wild, so feared, Of all the petty wealth she left alone A pit of rubble scarred and seared, A broken threshold stone. Yet over the ruin hovers a ghostly house, The walls, and roof, and chambers all inwove With unquiet memories, tremulous, And phantom treasure trove. V (_HE SPEAKS FROM THE WORLD._) The turn of a throat, A glint of hair, It might be— ! I rush in the tides of men Following a shadow; She might be here or there; Rescue her from splendour, Rescue her faint, tender Feet from disaster; O Master of Life, Lay her gleaming head Radiant or broken Here on my breast! VI But never a thought for the ghost of the house on the hill That he burned with fire, or the crescent of winnowed sand, That holds the sea as the new moon holds the still, Gray wraith of a perished moon in her ivory hand. VII (_SHE SPEAKS FROM THE WORLD._) I have conquered all life with its glory and passion, Its beauty and danger; There is nothing of chance or of folly or fashion To which I am stranger. My insatiable heart is yet bounding and eager For potent new flashes; The body of bye-gone delights is as meagre And arid as ashes. VIII But the ghost house on the hill Hovers not alone, A fond spirit flits at will To the threshold stone; Enters on the vacant air, Counts the pantry store, Climbs the visionary stair To the upper floor; Sets her little room to rights, When the work is done, In the orchard sees the lights From the setting sun; Turns her vision to the sand, Watches wistfully, The cove like the curve of an ivory hand Trembling full of the sea. The Lovers The robins round the lilac tree Were fluttering in the rain,— Before we knew—the cloud had fled, The sky was fair again. Before we knew—the young, sweet moon With rose was drifted o’er, The dusk had drowsed the stream and lit The lights along the shore. The stars were faint—before we knew The night was on the lawn:— Before we knew—a shadow stirred It must have been the dawn. By the Shore Ripples that run so gladly To the sands of the broken shore, I wish that I knew your meaning And I would ask no more. My heart is bitter with sorrow For the years that are long gone, And there is no consolation That I may dwell upon. ’Tis idle to sway and glitter And make a sound of mirth, The human heart is hungry For comfort on the earth. Is all that you can tell me, As you waver and sparkle and glance, That after the scourge of tempest You still can laugh and dance? If this is the depth of your meaning, Rave on, or murmur or cease, My heart is riven with sorrow And cannot be at peace. The Anatomy of Melancholy I read once in an ancient and proud book How beauty fadeth, How stale will Helen or Leucippe grow When custom jadeth, “When the black ox has trodden on her toe,” Beauty will alter, And love that lives on beauty, so it said, Will fade and falter. Then, while your mistress wrinkles and grows sour, O sage sardonic, What charm preserves your virile strength and show, What potent tonic? An elephant has trodden on your toe, Your look grows bleary, Leucippe has quick eyes, her love of you Is dull and weary. I laid his book beside a Chinese rose-jar, (Old Robert Burton), Lifted the dragon-guarded lid and—lo! Faint and uncertain, Frail rose-ghosts of rose-gardens all in blow Haunted the room, The spangled dew, the shell-tints and the moonlight Lived in the fume, And still shall linger in the leaves until The jar shall perish. So the true lovers in their memories stow The things they cherish, And loose them in the tender afterglow Of life’s long day, Till memory dies, and the world with all its passion Passes away. Portrait of Mrs. Clarence Gagnon Beauty is ambushed in the coils of her Gold hair—honey from the silver comb Drips, and the clustered under-tone is warm As beech leaves in November—the light slides there Like minnows in a pool,—slender and slow. A glow is ever in her tangled eyes, Surprise is settling in them, never to be caught; Thought lies there lucent but unsolvable, Her curvèd mouth is tremulous yet still, Her will holds it in check; were it to sleep One moment, that white guardian will of hers, Words would brim over in a wild betrayal, Fall sweet and tell the secret of her charm, Harm would befall the world, Beauty would fly Into the shy recesses of the wood— Be seen no more of mortals, be a myth Remembered by a few who might recall A nerveless gesture, a frail colour, a faint stress, Some vestige of a vanished loveliness. _Ste. Petronille,_ _July 25th, 1919_ The Water-Lily TO H.W. In the granite-margined pool, Hot to its shallow deeps, The water-lily sleeps And wakes in light, While all the garden blossoms shine Rich in the sun, The throbbing circles tangled round the shrine Of the Peerless one. * * * Ripples outrun her As she slides with the air; Like moonstones frail, the waterdrops Invade her red-rimmed pads,— Tremble mercurial there; Ivory rose petals, Fugitive, wind-blown Shallops of kindred beauty Attend the starry-pointed wonder, Lolling so languidly by the lotus leaves. * * * An odour vibrates upward from the flower, An incense faint Gathers and floats Above the chalice of the breathing lily, Firm as the halo of a saint, Immaculate and chilly; Or the distilled and secret odour weaves A silver snood, Binding the temples of the virgin lily Listlessly leaning by the lotus leaves. * * * Light flock-bells, born of the rains flailing, Are based on fragile foam and domed with paling Rainbow flicker; Thicker the water-beetles ply their oars Freighting between the phantom shores The little evil thoughts that trouble beauty; But heedless the haughty lily Buoyed in the lymph-clear shallows Languorously,— * * * The intense heaven of her cold white Is troubled with colour; The shadow cast by light On its own substance lies; The clear etherealities Are tremoured with fire; Conscious and still unconscious of the sun, The petals swoon amorously; The gold-tipped sceptres of desire Shine in the warm cradle-cup Of the luxurious pure lily Trembling in ecstasy by the lotus leaves. * * * Listen, listen, there should be a voice Dulcet as odour and flush; The flying yellow of the gold finch Sparkles with notes Blown on a gold-black flute, There is no reason why a lily should be mute, Moored languorously by the lotus leaves. * * * A shadow dreams upon the rounded mere, A gold dust swims upon the crystal, Maturity broods in water and air; The starry-pointed wonder From the root tangled lair Feels ripeness lure her under; She sinks reluctant from sunlight, From the chaplet of stars Spangling the water delicately, Down the dark pool of silence; The world lost,— All lost but memory And the germ of beauty. O banishment to cloistral water, The pause in the limpid hush, There to recreate The form, the odour, the flush. Then the lyrical impulse, The stem goes rocketing To kiss spring light, The pointed bud parts, The garden lies in ecstasy Conscious of the starry wonder That opens—opens—opens— The odour overflows— Comes the under-flush— The stately lily lolls again, Pale water-lily, Languorously floating by the lotus leaves. _Ste. Petronille,_ _July 27th, 1919._ A Road Song Up heart, away heart, Never heed the weather. Leave the lowland reaches Where the grain’s in seed. Take the powerful wind in face, All in highest feather, Lift your burden with a shout, Fit for every need. Front the mountains, cross the passes, Pioneer the sheer crevasses, Where the glaciers breed, Where the imminent avalanches, Tremble with their air-held motions, Where below the balsam branches Start the rills in the erosions, Follow where they lead; Where the sunlight ebbs in oceans, Cast away your load! Life is not the goal, It is the road. After a Night of Storm After a night of storm, They found her lovely form Cast high upon the beach at Spaniards Bay, The only driftage from the stately barque, That went to pieces in the flashing dark; Even at that day None knew the vessel’s name, Or whence it came, Or whither it was bound, And now no man can know For that was long and long ago. They said she was a wondrous thing to see, All dazzling in her bridal dress, A miracle of foam and ivory. Her satin gown was smoothened by the wave, Her rippled ribbons, all her wandering laces Set in their places. Her hands were loosely clasped without a gem, But clad with mitts of silken net. Diamonds in the buckles of her shoon All fairly set, And one great brooch the colour of the moon Held her lace shawl. A snood had slipped back from her hair, Her face was piteous, so fair, so fair, And gleaming small Upon her breast there seemed to float A wedding ring, Threaded upon a crimson and green string Around her throat. Idle to Grieve Idle to grieve when the stars are clear above me, When the bright waters bubble in the spring, Idle to grieve when there are storms to prove me And birds that seek me out to come and sing. Idle to grieve, the light is on the highway, There are the mountain meadows to achieve, Beyond in the pass the airy heights are my way, Idle to grieve, glad heart, idle to grieve. A Vision The tenebrous sky Was founded on lightning, And there came marching To a funeral, A multitude so millioned That number was unthinkable; There were massed together Kings pierced with their sceptres, Tyrants shod with the points of swords, And priests each with a live coal In the palm of his hand, Learned men With book-yokes on their necks, Merchants with gold eyelids; Each one tortured with his symbol, And an innumerable host Without sign or distinction; Each bore a tuft of grass In his fingers; The grass was in seed, And as they walked, The seed fell where it listed. There was no sound As the host marched To the funeral; But what was buried Was far in the Past, And the host poured up From the Future. Senza Fine That is the rain Sobbing, sobbing Against the window pane. And the wind comes robbing The rain of its voice And leaves me no choice, In the dead room, But to hear the noise Of my heart throbbing, throbbing. But before the storm The evening was warm I remember, and calm, And by the mill dam The martins were flashing, If she had not said—! But then say it she did— I should be rid Of the throbbing, throbbing, At the heart of the shadow That stands by the window Sobbing, sobbing, And breathes the dark And sucks at the noise Like a vampire—hark! Robbing, robbing The storm of its voice. The miller’s children at play, I remember, called to each other, And I tried to smother The sound of her words, But then—what she showed me! ’Tis between her vest, The one I gave on her birthday, Crimson, with silver pomegranates, And her breast: They will find it there, But what can they say? They cannot find What it did to my mind, Or what she said When she threw back her head And smiled, So maddening, so wild. To the left of the trail Through the beaver meadow, An arm of the swale Is bordered with iris, And the ferns grow rank, But nothing is dank, Crisp, pungent, dry: The wind lingers by, And stops. There may have been a few drops. Throbbing, throbbing, And there is the rain Robbing, robbing The wind of its voice, And it beats again On the window pane, Sobbing, sobbing. (_Senza fine_) A Masque A sculptured head beside a stony road Across a moor, low stars and shattered light Played on the face of beauty like a god But pitiless; it seemed to hold the might Of Aeons; even destiny seemed dead In that cold fateful head. Then one by one across the stony moor Came figures clad like masquers for a fete, Symbols of life they seemed, both gay and dour, All quick with life and all importunate, To follow where the flinty pathway led And speak with that cold head. First two fair women, clad in sombre guise, Communed together who should speak their word, Then ventured up the younger with pure eyes But faltered, as if she feared her memory erred, And glanced behind to flee, but turned instead, “There is no hope,” she said. And now came one whose lips were grey as stone, Whose open eyes with agony were packed, His flesh seemed loosened to the very bone, Shaken like vapour from a cataract, He drifted against the absolute stern head, “There is no hope!” he said. In motley garb came one as if a-maying, Playing a melody on a silver flute And dancing; first he ceased his liquid playing, Then his dancing, and stood bedazzled and mute, And when he spoke his face was filled with dread, “There is no hope,” he said. A youth clad in a sable cloak came next, A book he held whereon his eyes were cast, His brow was fearless but his eyes perplexed, He hardly saw the statue, as he passed He glanced up from the book wherein he read, “There is no hope!” he said. Then stood a figure clad in yellow flames, Loaded with brutal spoils of fortunate strife, Shrouded in veils that covered deeper shames, And clothes unwound from the loathsome things of life, She stood within the odour that she shed, “There is no hope,” she said. Then rushed one running far beyond her breath Hasty as flame, a hunted, witless thing, And furtive as a wild hare on the heath, She darted up distrait and whispering, Four hurried words she muttered, ere she fled, “There is no hope!” she said. All hot from life they came with this worn tale, Did they believe its pathos would atone, Or did they hope their spirits would prevail To draw a comment from the sphinx in stone? Not one could charm the inexorable head, Moveless and cold as lead. Last rustled up a winged lad with wells Of bubbling laughter in his irised eyes, His face was quick with mountain-lights and dells Of honeyed dimples rapid with surprise; He threw his rosy arms around the head, “Is there no hope?” he said. Then the grim statue smiled, and all the wild Sky broke and light rushed through in sudden floods Glorious!—and where the head was pedestalled Were osier-wands and fringes of frail woods, With shallow water painted with the cool Reflected flag-flowers, musing by the pool. The Eagle Speaks The Indians of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains capture eagles by concealing themselves, and seizing the birds as they attempt to take the bait set for them; in the combat that follows, the bird has sometimes been the victor. TO E.W.T. Nay, not so near the edge, for far below The cloud are rocks, and there an icy stream Would whirl your little bodies like dead leaves And dash them. Stretch your wings; your wings Are power and the air’s your element; When they are mighty, close under the sun We’ll fly, and you shall look up at him And he shall feel impotent in the heavens When he hears us scream and taunt him. When they are strong you may fall,—sudden As the snow rushes from the pass and roars, And all the stems of trees in the green valley Snap in the windage of his roar,—and fall— Fall so unerring and swift and check so fierce And yet not even disturb a feather on the ledge; As you saw me now hurled like a bolt From the slant sun and fall like a furled shadow. To mount, that is our destiny, to mount—and even In rest to feel that power that calls us up To hang above the earth and all the tribes Of men that creep and scurry upon it, With their tamed horses and their buffaloes; They fight together on horseback—I have seen— Naked and puny and wearing on their heads Our tail feathers to frighten one another: They lie in wait to rob us of our plumes, Hiding in snares about the hollow hills, Baiting their traps with the dainty antelope, And if they find a feather on the plain Dropped in high flight as a cold cloud, careless Might drop a snow-flake,—boasting about their camp-fires How they had braved the dread war eagle And torn his plumage. Stretch thy wings, For they are safety from such pillage, and swiftness In pursuit, and fiery freedom, dealing Cold death, as I have dealt it, to the spoiler. In the slant light toward twilight I had caught In my slow circlings the scent of plunder, And stooped down to where a kid had fallen On the yellow bank of a dry water-course. I had dropped slow with wings up-spread Over it and let down my talons to clutch,— When I was seized,—astonished I rushed up with power And dragged this thing out from his snare, Scattering his little shelter under the kid; He held me strong and struck at me with a knife, Whirling him about as I strove in the air, I tore his scalp and blinded him with his blood, And as he dragged me down, half-fallen, I beat him with the shoulders of my wings On his hard brain-pan, a fury of blows As wild as hail on a stone mountain top. Dizzied so, his knife fell and I tore his scalp Down over his eyes, and with his puny hands He strove to catch my whirling wings and failed,— Then smote him to the earth and I was free; Naked and huddled on his side he lay, Daubed all with yellow paint streaked with vermilion Vowed to this adventure, but all lifeless As the kid and the dead water-course. I swirled low over earth like flame flattened By wind, then with a long loop of swiftness Rose sheer up into the bubble of the air And left him, carrion with his carrion, For the dull coyotes to scent and overhaul With snarls and bickerings lower than the dogs. Rose to the unattempted heights, spurning The used channels of the air, to the thin reach Where vapours are unborn and caught the last Glint of falling light beyond the peak Of the last mountain, and hung alone serene Till night, welling up into the void, darkened me,— Poised with the first cold stars. Wings,—thy wings, Strengthen thy wings, for they are more than swiftness, More than freedom, proud withdrawal are they Into the region where, after vivid action, Thought rises the immortal ghost of action, Above the orb where space assembles silence, Where all the ache and effort of this petty life Are quieted with silence. Lilacs and Humming-Birds Lace-like in the moonlight, The white lilac tree was quiet, A little form of dream delight Within a dreaming scene, Like a little bride of shadow In a dim secluded eyot, With perfume for an element Around the white and green. The secret of this dream delight, The core of this bride-quiet, Hid even from the moonlight By the heart-leaved screen, Was the dew encrusted jewel Of a ruby-throat, and nigh it A nest of sleeping humming-birds Amid the white and green. Afterwards I watched thee with devotion Through all those silent years, Thy least regarded motion, Thy laughter and thy tears. But thou, when fate would sever The visionary tie, Unconscious and for ever Left me without a sigh. Yet though I needs must borrow My comfort from distress, I would not give my sorrow For thy unconsciousness. The Enigma I said, before the dawning came, The day shall be so fair, Wonder shall thrill me and the flame Of spirit touch my hair. Although the day was perfect light, Wonder withheld his lyre; Expectance was a-wing till night, Then died with my desire. But on a casual day of rain, Wonder came chanting by; I threw my heart wide to the strain,— It passed—’twas but a sigh. In Grenada Aloft in far Grenada, Where snow in silver pales The tops of the Sierras, I heard the nightingales In the dark vales. In all the Moorish gardens The olive trees were still, Yet something faintly trembled Below the moonlit hill, A falling rill Made a clear ostinato For the ecstatic sound; The birds were lost in singing And wandered round and round In a deep swound. But, when the full enchantment Had wildly worked its will, They found themselves in silence: The clear, falling rill Vibrated still. Impromptu Bring your cherished beauty, Bring your vaunted might, Bring your tear-stained duty, Bring your heart’s delight. Do not lag or falter, Heap them on the fire: Ashes on the altar, All of life’s desire! In Winter The snow with never a flickering Burns in a dead white, Above like flame a-bickering There plays a flutter light. What is there flashing, blowing, Above the frosted glow? The unseen wind is throwing The Snow-birds in the Snow. Song Lay thy cheek to mine, love, Once before I go; Memories throng and quiver, love, In the afterglow. All the rippling springtimes Full of crocus lights; When the dawns came too soon And tardy were the nights. All the dusky summers By the fruitful hill; Thinking both the one thought When the heart was still. Deep, untroubled autumns, Fallen leaves and rime; Musing on the treasure Of the old time. Where my journey leads, love, There is cold and snow; Lay thy cheek to mine, love, Once before I go. In the Selkirks The old gray shade of the Mountain Stands in the open sky, Counting, as if at his leisure, The days of Eternity. The Stream comes down from its Sources, Afar in the glacial height, Rushing along through the valley In loops of silver light. “What is my duty, O Mountain, Is it to stand like thee? Is it, O flashing torrent, Like thee—to be free?” The Man utters the questions, He breathes—he is gone! The Mountain stands in the heavens, The Stream rushes on. _Glacier, B. C._ _August 27th. 1920._ Question and Answer “O SOUL IF THOU WOULD’ST BE FREE, LOVE THE LOVE THAT SHUTS THEE IN.” _Jalal’ud-Din-Rumi._ Warring Soul, beset with foes, Struggling with the spears of wrath; Where thy easiest journey goes, Fighting lions in the path; Ah the blows and counter blows! Frantic with the noise and din! Warring Soul, would’st thou be free? Love the love that shuts thee in. Sorrowing Soul, dissolved with tears, Whom the tides of anguish toss, Wounded with a thousand fears Sprung from loneliness and loss, Fearing all the coming years Are to grief and pain akin. Sorrowing Soul, would’st thou be free? Love the love that shuts thee in. Laughing Soul, with delicate lutes, Paying all thy dearest debt, Dancing to the purling flutes, Rhythmed by the castinet; Nothing seen but flowers and fruits, Where the sword of frost has been, Laughing Soul, would’st thou be free? Love the love that shuts thee in. Brooding Soul, that looks on fate, On past times, on times to be; Thinking how importunate Is the rule of destiny; Careless to be early or late; Irresolute to lose or win; Brooding Soul, would’st thou be free? Love the love that shuts thee in. Lines on a Monument Honour for them that watched the waves, That stormed the ridge, that dared the air, That claimed of right unsullied graves And slumber with contentment there. Honour for them that bravely fought, O Pride, O Faith, without alloy— No tears, no doubt, no shadow—nought But silence on the heights of Joy. After Battle When the first larks began to soar, They left him wounded there; Pity unlatched the sun-lit door, And smoothed his clotted hair. But when the larks were still, before The mist began to rise, ’Twas Love that latched the star-lit door, And closed his dreamless eyes. The Fallen Those we have loved the dearest, The bravest and the best, Are summoned from the battle To their eternal rest; There they endure the silence, Here we endure the pain— He that bestows the Valour Valour resumes again. O, Master of all Being, Donor of Day and Night, Of Passion and of Beauty, Of Sorrow and Delight. Thou gav’st them the full treasure Of that heroic blend— The Pride, the Faith, the Courage, That holdeth to the end. Thou gavest us the Knowledge Wherein their memories stir— Master of Life, we thank Thee That they were what they were. Somewhere in France The storm was done And fragments of the sun Fell on the great Cathedral front Of saints and heroes, And fell on a woman’s form That vanished through the porch, She pushed the leathern door And saw the great rose-window like a torch Colour the million ghosts of the dead incense. She paused at the bénitier And trembled down the aisle, She thought to make a prayer, She knelt but could not pray; A month on yesterday Her lover had been killed at Verdun. Deep grief dawns slowly And the light was on her soul. She thought on God and called on Christ, And fainted in her woe. And lo! As she leant against the pillar, Pale like a saint—stiller Than death—from out the stone Thrilled a warm tone, As if an Angel spoke: “Thou art not here alone, Thy sorrow woke One who once loved as thou, Long, long ago. Noble he was—and he stooped low, His princely people said, To crown me. Him they banished oversea To kill his love, They could not—this have I for proof, They killed me here instead, They walled me up at night within the stone When this church was abuilding, A narrow niche, and I was all alone. It did not take me long to die, And now my little dust has enough room. But love can never die, And when I felt my heart cry out in thine I rose after three hundred years To kiss your tears, And tell you that our little wells of love Have springs in the great deeps thereof. And this I know in mine own soul, And by the blessed rood, There is a solitude Beyond his death and thine Where time shall have no hours, Where you shall be together, Till then above mischance Thy soul is guarded in the soul of France.” And then the lovely shape within the stone Fell into silence, and a little dust Fell in the silence. But she who was so strangely comforted, Left the dim shrine, And pushed the leathern door, And stood upon the threshold in the shine Struck from a thousand banners in the sky, Where a great tempest-sunset marching by Deployed before the portal As all the flags of France were beating there In the flushed air Triumphant and immortal. To a Canadian Aviator who Died for his Country in France Tossed like a falcon from the hunter’s wrist, A sweeping plunge, a sudden shattering noise, And thou hast dared, with a long spiral twist, The elastic stairway to the rising sun. Peril below thee and above, peril Within thy car; but peril cannot daunt Thy peerless heart: gathering wing and poise, Thy plane transfigured, and thy motor-chant Subdued to a whisper—then a silence,— And thou art but a disembodied venture In the void. But Death, who has learned to fly, Still matchless when his work is to be done, Met thee between the armies and the sun; Thy speck of shadow faltered in the sky; Then thy dead engine and thy broken wings Drooped through the arc and passed in fire, A wreath of smoke—a breathless exhalation. But ere that came a vision sealed thine eyes, Lulling thy senses with oblivion; And from its sliding station in the skies Thy dauntless soul upward in circles soared To the sublime and purest radiance whence it sprang. In all their eyries, eagles shall mourn thy fate, And leaving on the lonely crags and scaurs Their unprotected young, shall congregate High in the tenuous heaven and anger the sun With screams, and with a wild audacity Dare all the battle danger of thy flight; Till weary with combat one shall desert the light, Fall like a bolt of thunder and check his fall On the high ledge, smoky with mist and cloud, Where his neglected eaglets shriek aloud, And drawing the film across his sovereign sight Shall dream of thy swift soul immortal Mounting in circles, faithful beyond death. To the Canadian Mothers 1914-1918 Why mourn thy dead, that are the world’s possession? These, our Immortals—Shall we give them up To the complaint of private loss and dole? Nay—mourn for them, if mourn thou must,— Grief is thy private treasure; Thy soul alone can count its weight or measure. But we who know they saved the world Think of them joined to that unwithering throng, Who in the long dread strife Have thought and fought for Liberty: When she was but a faint pulsation in the mind, The faintest rootlet of a growing thought, They nourished her with tears And gave their dreams to add depth to her foliage; And when the enemy ravaged her bright blossoms, Drenched her with their rich blood To prove she lived and was the ever-living. These are the true Immortals, The deathless ones that saved the world. Nay, weep, if weep thou must And think upon thy lad, onetime in trust To fortune; of his gallant golden head And all the wayward sanctities of childhood; Of how he crowned thy life with confidences; Of the odour of his body, lulled with sleep, Confusing thy dim prayers for some best future With the sheer love that is the deepest: False fortune has destroyed her hostages! Old joys are bitter, bitter as very death! Let break thy heart and so be comforted. Be comforted, for we have claimed the child And taken him to be with light and glory; Not as we knew him in his earthly days The lovely one, the virtuous, the dauntless,— Or one who was a boaster, thick with faults Perchance,—but as the index of the time, The stay and nurture of the world’s best hope, The peerless seed of valour and victory. Here in a realm beyond the fading world, We garner them and hold them in abeyance Ere we deliver them to light and silence— The vestiges of battle fallen away— Fragments of storm parting about the moon,— Here in the dim rock-chambers, garlanded With frail sea-roses perfumed by the sea That murmurs of renown, and murmuring, Scatters the cool light won by the ripple From the stormless moon, cloistered with memory, Whose dim caves front the immortal vistas Plangent with renown, here they await The light, the glory and the ultimate rest. Be comforted,—nay sob, if sob thou must, Cover thy face and dim thy hair with dust, And we who know they live Gather thy dead in triumph— Exalted from the caves of memory, Purified from the least assoil of time,— And lay them with all that is most living, In light transcendent, In the ageless aisles of silence, With the Immortals that have saved the world. Warwick Bro’s & Rutter, Limited, Printers and Bookbinders, Toronto, Canada. TRANSCRIBER NOTES Misspelled words in introductions and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings occur and differ among poems, they have been maintained ‘as is’ including archaic spellings. Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors occur. [The end of _Beauty and Life_, by Duncan Campbell Scott.]