The Snowflake, and Other Poems

I am the month of unrest and of yearning,
Of wild and untamable hatred and love.
I glide through the grove,
Calling on Summer, so slow in returning.
I seek for the fruit, bud, leaf, blossom and all.
When they heed not my call,
The winds I unleash, which, like hounds on the scent,
Give voice round the farmsteads, and course o’er the moors,
With a hundred detours,
Till they leap on the forests, whose branches are rent.
I heap up the snowdrifts, bind firmer the streams,
And defy the sun’s beams.
My heart throbs with hate, and all tenderness spurning,
With winter again I span heaven’s blue arch.
I am passionate March.

APRIL.

I am the month of transition. My breast
Heaves with sweet, delicate hope, that beguiles
Dreamy Earth into smiles.
Through woodlands deserted I go on my quest,
And summon the blood-root and shad-bush to flower
Though they fade in an hour.
I drop gentle rain on the faded, brown grasses,
And loosen the soil for all tender, green shoots,
To push up from their roots.
I summon the birds, and where’er my foot passes,
Sleeping Nature arouses itself at my call.
I am helpful to all.
While no ecstacy’s mine, I am never distressed,
But tranquilly wander, to fate reconciled.
I am April, the mild.

MAY.

I am the month of gay Summer’s beginning,
When earth with its verdure smiles up at the sky,
And the mayflowers shy,
And sun-loving blossoms, their way to light winning
Through strewn leaves of autumn, mute emblems of death,
Perfume with their breath,
The zephyrs released from their fetters of frost.
The streams murmur cheerily under their banks
Their melodious thanks
For sweet freedom regained, as they flow and are lost
In the broad, sunny river, that rushes along
To the sea, with a song.
Chill Winter’s forgot, with its woe and its sinning.
Youth leaps in my veins—I am young, I am gay—
I am love-kindling May.

JUNE.

I am the month of sweet, virginal joy,
When Earth, as the sun its first passion discloses,
Blushes with roses,
When all things are new, and nothing can cloy.
The birds, in a cloudland of leafage concealed,
By their songs are revealed.
All is young, all is love. In the shadowy vales,
In woodland and meadow, all Nature’s awake.
At the wind’s kiss, the lake
Breaks forth into smiles; but as yet passion fails
To weary itself. Soul is searching for soul,
And has not reached its goal.
Life leaping to life doth each moment employ,
And love doth all Nature’s grand chorus attune.
I am virginal June.

JULY.

I am the month of warm, passionate love,
When Earth silent lies, with shy longings opprest,
While soft sighs stir her breast.
All unclasped is her zone, and the Sun’s warm lips prove
Her lips ruby treasures, and make her soul his
With many a kiss.
I wander abroad in the murmurous hours,
While the silvery moonbeams sift down on the scene,
Rustling leafage between.
I whisper of joy to the slumbering flowers,
As, with petals close folded, like child hands in prayer,
They rest on the air,
And I drop cooling dews from the clear sky above
On the moist brow of Earth, as still she doth sigh.
I am July.

AUGUST.

I am the month of sweet langour and dreaming.
In the shadowy depths of the woods I recline,
While afar stand the kine,
Thoughtful, knee-deep, where cool waters are streaming
Over the sands, and at hand, loud and clear,
The cicada I hear.
Afar, by the plunging green waves of the sea,
I wander at times, when the shimmer of heat
Disturbs my retreat;
Or amid rugged crags, where the wind wanders free,
I sit in the shelter of hills, by the brook
That leaps forth from its nook
Adown the swart cliff, with its silver spray gleaming,
And I muse on the past with a rapturous sigh.
Dreamy August am I.

SEPTEMBER.

I am the month that brings peace to the weary,
The flush to the apple, the gold to the leaf,
And the grain to the sheaf.
I am the month that prepares for the dreary,
Long days of midwinter, when Earth lies asleep
Under snow hidden deep.
After the yearning of Spring and the passion
Of hot days of Summer, I cool the warm brow,
And the seeds that the plough
Gave to earth I give back, shaped in daintier fashion.
At the touch of my hand every toiler forgets
All life’s weeds and its frets,
And the heart that was grieving becomes again cheery.
When I rule, men no longer their sorrows remember.
I am September.

OCTOBER.

I am the hush ere the coming of storm.
I am the eventide, lulling to rest,
Upon Earth’s kindly breast,
Her offspring, the flowers, till they nestle up warm,
Folding their leaves and their blossomy eyes
Closing, child-wise.
I warn the still woodland, that doffs its gay dress
And upsprings, like a warrior armed for the fray,
To meet the dread day
When the Tempest’s huge shoulders against it shall press.
I breathe to the streams the fell tidings, until
Every bickering rill,
With a tremor of fear, seaward hurls its lithe form
In mad flight, ere with fetters the Ice King draws nigh.
October am I.

NOVEMBER.

I am the priestess of frost, and I bring
The winds in my train. I am vestured in snow,
And wherever I go
The ice maidens deck me with jewels, and fling
Crystal arches o’er streams that flow sombrely by
Beneath the grey sky.
Earth under my feet a soft carpeting spreads,
And from valley and hill, as I pass on my rounds,
There re-echo no sounds.
The lean, famished forests bow down their high heads
As among them I wander. The stars hold their breath
As, dread omen of death,
Flits the mystic aurora with rustling wing
High above, and some meteor falls like an ember.
I am November.

DECEMBER.

I am the month when worn Earth lies at rest
Under the eiderdown snow, that clings close
To her form in repose,
As her gossamer drape to the virgin, whose breast
Rises and falls as she dreams of her love.
Through the keen air above
The stars glow like watch-fires of summer. Anon
Come the jingle of sleigh-bells, a laugh and a shout,
As gay youth, in mad rout,
Sweeps merrily down the white road, and is gone.
Then silence returns, till the winds howl in glee,
Or some frost-riven tree
Shrieks aloud in its pain. Yet Earth sleeps, undistressed.
All ended her task, she has naught now to fear,
December is here.

(The clock strikes)
January	“One.”	July	“Seven.”
February	“Two.”	August	“Eight.”
March	“Three.”	September	“Nine.”
April	“Four.”	October	“Ten.”
May	“Five.”	November	“Eleven.”
June	“Six.”	December	“Twelve.”
(The New Year Enters.)

THE NEW YEAR.

I am here, I have come from the home of the morning;
I am flushed with hope’s wine; I have treasures for all.
The old year is sped, let it serve as a warning
That the moments I bring shall bear fruit ere they fall.
The past none can alter; its grief and its sinning
Are writ for all time in the volume of life,
But behold me, the New Year, new records beginning;
Let love be their burden, not envy and strife.

CHORUS OF MONTHS.

Welcome, welcome, with chime of merry bell,
Welcome to thy kingdom, O monarch pure and true!
In gladness we will serve thee. Ah! rule this great earth well;
Efface the sorrows of the past, and all past joys renew.
We, the children of the sun,
Who watch the precious moments run,
Will wreathe thy brow with stars of snow and flowers sweet and fair.
But while we sow the fruits of earth,
That man shall garner in with mirth,
To Time alone belongs the power
Of harvesting each ripened hour.
Welcome, welcome, with chime of merry bell!
Another year is given to man to sow and reap his life.
When next the mystic book is sealed, what story will it tell?
Will it speak of love triumphant, will it tell of sin and strife?
O mortal man, remember
Every year has its December,
And when the year has ended naught can change the record there.

THE MUSE AND THE PEN.

The Muse, renowned in ancient story,
But seldom seen these humdrum times,
Came down to earth, in all her glory,
To put new life in modern rhymes.
“Forsooth,” she said, “I’m tired of hearing
Mechanic singers, every one,
With forced conceits and thin veneering,
Serving the lamp, and not the sun.”

The Muse was but a simple maiden,
Who loved the woodlands, meads and streams,
With odorous buds her gown was laden,
Her hair was bright with rippling gleams;
And murmuring an Arcadian ditty,
She wandered, with uncertain feet,
In wonder, through the crowded city,
Bewildered by each clattering street.

She gazed upon the hurrying mortals,
Each busy with his own affairs.
She spumed some lauded poets’ portals,—
“Let monthlies print such stuff as theirs.”
A milkman nodded her a cheery
“Bon jour, ma’mselle,” in ready French,
And as she passed a cabman beery,
He hiccoughed, “there’s a likely wench.”

She met a red-faced, buxom Chloe,
A dapper Strephon, full of airs;
The one in vesture cheap and showy,
The other versed in brutal stares;
And shocked and weary, hot and muddy,
Into the nearest house she turned,
And found herself within the study
Of one whose pen his living earned.

She looked quite curiously about her
(Being of a curious turn of mind),
To learn if he did also flout her
And still in life some pleasure find.
Shortly she marked his desk, half hidden
Beneath a mass of copious notes,
And turned to it and read, unchidden,
Of chartered banks and chartered boats.

She read that crops were thriving better,
But that the country needed rain;
And then another item met her
On “Watered stocks, the country’s bane.”
She read of “interest rates as under,
With money still in poor demand,”
And let the item fall, to wonder
Were poets wealthy in the land.

She read that “none who float on paper
Long raise the wind, for all their craft,”
“Bulls up a tree, a market caper,”
“A house in trouble with a draft.”
She read of butter growing stronger
And cheese more lively every day,
That baker’s flour will rise no longer,
And of “a serious cut in hay.”

As still she turned the litter over,
Reading an item now and then,
She did beneath the pile discover
And pounce upon the writer’s pen;
And by the charm the Muse possesses
She made it speak like flesh and blood,—
Oh! happy Pen, to have her tresses
Fall round thee in that solitude!

“Dear Pen,” she cried, “in what strange service
Is this I find thy skill employed?
Thy master’s style seems bright and nervous,
Yet is of sense a little void.”
The Pen replied: “O gracious lady,
Trade questions are considered here,
And thou wilt find transactions shady
By master’s hand made easily clear.”

The pouting Muse her pretty shoulder
Shrugged as she listened to the Pen.
“Thy master must than ice be colder
If thus content to write for men.
Go, bid him frame a graceful sonnet,
A simple poem from his heart,
And I will gently breathe upon it
And to its body life impart.”

Again the Pen: “O goddess puissant,
My master lacks nor heart nor skill
To turn a stanza, but of recent
Days he hath hungry mouths to fill.
He loves thee, but he may not show it,
And Pegasus must drag the plough,
For men would starve him as a poet
Who earns at least a pittance now.”

The Muse waxed wroth: “Would not my beauty
All else thy master make forget?”
The Pen replied: “The path of duty
My master hath not swerved from yet.
Thy beauty haunts his every vision,
Sweet on his ear thine accents fall;
Yet could he tread the fields Elysian,
Think’st thou, while suffering loved ones call?”

“But I can make his name immortal.”
“Immortal shame!” replied the Pen.
“When he should pass Death’s sombre portal
And stand before his God, what then?
He hath a God-like, awful function,
To shield his own from want and wrong;
Wouldst have him, then, without compunction,
Barter his birthright for a song?

“I am his trusted friend. Unflagging,
I help him win his daily bread.
Though heart may ache, or thought be lagging,
Still must the ink be ever shed.
Yet oft he lays me down, and, sighing,
Looks through the casement at the stars;
And then I know his soul is trying
Vainly to pass beyond its bars.

“A soldier in the war of labor,
He battles on, from day to day,
Swinging the gold-compelling sabre,
Nor finding time to pluck a spray.
Nay, more! he must, through glorious bowers,
Press harshly on, with heavy tread,
Crushing to earth the beauteous flowers
With which he fain had wreathed thy head.”

The Muse grew pensive. Softly sighing,
She said: “Now pity him I can.
Strong, purposeful and self-denying,
Here I have what I seek, a Man.
Would that this noble self-surrender,
These high resolves, this purpose stern,
Might yet the grander verse engender,
And brighter make his genius burn!

“How grief must gnaw his heart asunder
As still Fate balks him, day by day!”
“Nay!” cried the Pen, “thou may’st wonder,
But know, my master’s heart is gay.
Perchance at times, a pang concealing,
His face grows sad; but not for long,
For sweet, loved arms, around him stealing,
Fill all his soul with unvoiced song.”

The Muse above the table bending,
Laid her warm lips upon the Pen,
A thrill throughout its fibres sending:
“This for thy master.” Slowly then,
She passed away; and after, never
The writer labored, but a throng
Of fancies cheered him, singing ever:
“The Muse hath crowned each unvoiced song.”

THE BEAVER MEADOW.

’Tis a meadow green as an emerald’s heart
In the heart of an emerald wood,
And a crystal stream doth loiter and dart
Through the sun-smitten solitude.
The orioles glance like flashes of fire
From foliaged limb to limb,
And the harsh frogs pipe in a ceaseless choir
From the marsh, when day grows dim.

When the grey, cold Dawn in her robes of mist,
O’er meadow and wood and stream,
Looks forth from her tower of amethyst,
She sees the wild duck gleam
In the slender reeds that have waded out,
Far out, in the sinuous brook,
And she hears the loon, like a wary scout,
Shrill keen from his secret nook.

Long years ago when our fathers first,
Fearless and full of hope,
With love of venture and wealth athirst,
O’er river and mountain slope,
To this woodland came, a lakelet lay
As bright as a burnished shield,
Where now the rivulet waters play,
And the loud frogs pipe, concealed.

And a wonderful town with its sunward domes,
And wondrous people stood,
Where the deep mouthed frogs have now their homes,
And the wild ducks lurk and brood.
Grand were the fronts and the pictured walls
Of the Inca’s ancient sway,
But the town that stood where the streamlet calls,
More wondrous was than they.

Not a listless brain nor an idle hand
Was there in all that town,
But strong defences the people planned,
And hewed the great trees down.
The rippling stream, with consummate art,
In barriers huge they pent,
And made their home in the new lake’s heart,
And dwelt therein content.

But woe to the town and its people all!
Earth giveth no deathless joy,
And where man’s merciless glances fall
The simple they fain destroy.
The brutal and covetous Spanish horde
That raided the Aztec land,
Put its people and chieftains to the sword,
Its cities to the brand.

And here in this northern wilderness,
This wonderful beaver town,
That baffled the elemental stress
Before our sires went down.
Its stately domes and its barriers vast,
Its sinuous streets, its lake,
The hunter destroyed and overcast,
For a little riches’ sake.

He slaughtered the noble beaver kings,
And loosened the fettered stream.
And now the reeds, like a thousand strings,
With music as of a dream,
In the night wind mourn the departed lake
And the stately beaver town,
While the rippling waves in the rushes break,
As the stream goes eddying down.

And musing here on the grassy site
Of the beaver colony,
My soul is carried in fancy’s flight
To the site of Ville Marie,
Where the Hochelagans, or beaver race
Of Indians, dwelt of old,
Their name renowned from their mountain’s base
To where the ocean rolled.

Hochelaga the Beaver Meadow meant,
And where the beaver dwelt
Long since, the white man pitched his tent,
And before heaven knelt.
He felled the trees and he stayed the tide
Of tribesmen rushing down,
And, like the beaver, he builded wide
And strong a mighty town.

The curious skill and the council sage,
And the beaver’s love of toil,
Became as well his heritage
As the broad and fruitful soil.
Then honor be to the beaver’s name,
And praise to the beaver’s skill,
And in the labor that makes for fame
May we all prove beavers still.

VOYAGEUR SONG.

Our mother is the good green earth,
Our rest her bosom broad;
And sure, in plenty and in dearth,
Of our six feet of sod,
We welcome Fate with careless mirth
And dangerous paths have trod,
Holding our lives of little worth
And fearing none but God.

Where, ankle deep, bright streamlets slide
Above the fretted sand,
Our frail canoes, like shadows, glide
Swift through the silent land;
Nor should, broad-shouldered, in some tide
Rocks rise on every hand,
Our path will we confess denied,
Nor cowardly seek the strand.

The foam may leap like frightened cloud
That hears the tempest scream,
The waves may fold their whitened shroud
Where ghastly ledges gleam;
With muscles strained and backs well bowed
And poles that breaking seem,
We shoot the sault, whose torrent proud
Itself our lord did deem.

The broad traverse is cold and deep,
And treacherous smiles it hath,
And with its sickle of death doth reap,
With woe for aftermath;
But though the wind-vext waves may leap,
Like cougars, in our path,
Still forward on our way we keep,
Nor heed their futile wrath.

Where glitter trackless wastes of snow
Beneath the northern light,
On netted shoes we noiseless go,
Nor heed though keen winds bite.
The shaggy bears our prowess know,
The white fox fears our might,
And wolves, when warm our camp fires glow,
With angry snarls take flight.

Where forest fastnesses extend,
Ne’er trod by man before,
Where cries of loon and wild duck blend
With some dark torrent’s roar,
And timid deer, unawed, descend
Along the lake’s still shore,
We blaze the trees and onward wend
To ravish nature’s store.

Leve, leve and couche, at morn and eve
These calls the echoes wake.
We rise and forward fare, nor grieve
Though long portage we make,
Until the sky the sun gleams leave
And shadows cowl the lake;
And then we rest and fancies weave
For wife or sweetheart’s sake.

DEDICATORY ODE.

(Read at the unveiling of the Monument erected in the Parliament Grounds at Ottawa to the Memory of the Rt. Hon. Sir John A. Macdonald.)

Here, in the solemn shadow of these walls,
Wherein his voice long held the land in sway;
Here, where the cadence of the distant falls
Seems a lament for grandeur passed away,
We, who have reaped where he had sown, now bring
To him this thanksgiving,
This tribute to the unforgotten great,
That, for all time, men may revere his name,
And children learn the secret of true fame,
True greatness emulate.

We paid long since the tribute of our tears,
When, at his post, the veteran statesman died;
But now that grief has been assuaged by years,
We mourn not, but rejoice, with sober pride,
That one of earth’s immortals, wise and strong,
Dwelt in our midst so long,
Teaching large thoughts and love of liberty,
And, Atlas-like, upon his shoulders bore
Our world of care, until, life’s turmoil o’er,
He passed from us away.

He found the seven sisters of the North,
The Sea-Queen’s daughters, in primeval woods,
By lonely streams, lamenting, and them forth
He led from desert lands and solitudes.
The Pleiades of nations, they have shone
Upon Britannia’s throne;
With every passing year, their golden light
Waxing in lustre, until every land
In wonder looks upon the glorious band
That breaks the Northern night.

He walked through life triumphant. Fortune’s son,
What were to others barriers, were to him
But gates, through which his high success was won.
He held strange spirit commune with the dim
Shapes of the future. His far-reaching mind
Some harmony did find
In elements discordant; and man’s strength
And weakness served with him the noble end
To build a nation and all factions blend
In brotherhood, at length.

And shall we, in whose midst so long he dwelt,
Who had commune so long with his great mind,
Forsake his teachings, and, like Israel, melt
Our gold to rear false gods! Shall we grow blind
To those large thoughts, that tolerance which long
Made this Dominion strong?
Nay, never so! He left an heritage
Worthy himself and us; be ours the pride
To bind this new Dominion, rich and wide
Closer from age to age.

ENTERING PORT.

(In Memoriam The Rt. Hon. Sir John S. D. Thompson.)

Hark to the solemn gun and tolling bell!
What ship is this, that, dark as night or death,
Is entering port upon the sullen swell,
While an expectant nation holds its breath?

From many a threatening port her cannon gape,
Above her deck the flag of Britain flies;
Like some sad dream she comes, her sombre shape
Crushing the waves that in her pathway rise.

One of the Sea Queen’s ocean walls is she,
Grim guardian of her honor, yet that prow
Ne’er upon nobler errand cleft the sea,
Nor guarded Britain’s honor more than now.

Day after day uprose the golden sun,
Night after night it sank beneath the wave,
Pointing the vessel on that carried one
The Empire honored to his western grave.

As Truth led that strong soul where’er it would
Onward through strife to honor without stain,
So is he brought through ocean’s solitude,
With but the billows for his funeral train.

No warrior he the blood of men that shed,
His was the higher task to make them one,
And Canada, awaiting now her dead,
With tears attests the task was nobly done.

Yet, not within this sea-borne funeral car
The patriot lies. He is no longer here,
But onward, upward still, he journeys far
Beyond our ken to some still nobler sphere.

The harbor of his earthly wishes won,
Fresh from new honors from his Sovereign’s hand,
To him the summons came. Earth’s voyage done,
He set his bark towards the eternal strand.

He has gone forth, and leaves us but his name
And this cold clay that waits the silent tomb;
Yet passing years shall never dim his fame,
Nor love forget him in their gathering gloom.

With tolling bell and beat of muffled drum,
With mournful boom of cannon, lay him down
Within the sepulchre, to which shall come
Faintly the murmur of his native town.

In death he knit the Empire closer yet,
Causing unnumbered hearts to throb as one.
Here by his tomb may Canada forget
The bigotry that he had fain undone.

With his Queen’s wreath upon his pulseless breast,
Lulled by the murmur of the restless wave,
Life’s voyage done, he takes his well-earned rest,
In port, at last, with God beyond the grave.

WILD FLOWERS.

In Arcady, the happy swain,
Who wandered through the woods and meadows,
Oft turned his head and oft was fain
To start or smile at shifting shadows.
Sometimes, within a verdant brake,
He saw a wood-nymph’s graceful form
Gleam white, and felt her beauty make
His heart beat fast, his cheek grow warm.

Sometimes while loitering by a brook,
Whose ripples dreamy music made,
He spied in some sequestered nook
A naiad, on the marge who played,
Or when the breeze the leafage stirred
On drowsy summer afternoons,
Sometimes afar he thought he heard
The satyrs pipe their merry tunes.

But Jupiter no longer wooes
Antiope, nor Venus’ lips
Tremble as she Adonis sues,
And he from her embracement slips.
No longer nymph nor naiad now,
Nor faun nor satyr haunts the wood,
Gone is Diana with her bow,—
The woodland is a solitude.

Are nymph and naiad gone indeed,
And is there now no Arcady?
A fairy choir in wood and mead
In gentle accents answer, “Nay.”
And those who leave the world awhile
With nature’s spirit to commune,
May still see nymphs in woodland aisle
And naiads bathe at sunny noon.

Beside the murmurous streams that wind
Beneath the tangled foliage-meshes
Some sleeping naiad we may find,
With charms the inmost soul deems precious.
And deep within the tawny shade
Of pathless forests we may meet
Some true wood-nymph, who, unafraid,
Receives us in her cool retreat.

At every step through sunny wood,
Beneath our feet the wild flowers spring,
Nymphs of that sylvan solitude
That us to love their beauty bring;
And still we follow, as of old
The swain pursued the fleeting shape,
For once their graces we behold
None can their mystic lure escape.

At every step beside the stream,
Some nodding blossom beckons still.
We see its slender figure gleam
Chastely beside the crystal rill.
Perchance it droops its dainty head,
Or looks us fearless in the face,—
Ah, no, the naiads are not fled,
The stream is still their dwelling-place.

Earths turmoil has but dulled our ears,
Its dust has but obscured our sight.
The pipes of Pan whoever hears
Will see as well the woodland sprite.
The revels of the leaves and wind,
The sudden glimpse of blossoming flowers,
These are his prize who leaves behind
The world, and strays through Nature’s bowers.

Oh, had I in Arcadia dwelt
I would have watched for every gleam
Of shoulder, as some naiad svelt
Clove the clear crystal of the stream;
I would have followed in pursuit
Of artful nymph through tangled brakes,
And heard with joy the satyr’s flute,
Whose melody soft echo wakes.

And so, from earliest days of spring,
When the first wild flower lifts its head,
Till autumn, when the breezes fling
Broadcast the dying leaves and dead,
Through sensuous summer’s golden hours
I roam the vast, Canadian woods,
Seeking the wild Canadian flowers,
True nymphs of sylvan solitudes.

DEDICATORY BALLAD.

(Written for the unveiling of the Monument erected by the Citizens of Montreal to Paul Chomedy de Maisonneuve.)