The Snowflake, and Other Poems

The leaf in the forest had budded, of verdure a billowy sea
Over the woodland was flowing, o’erwhelming valley and lea.
The great river, bright in the sunshine, set the isle in a circlet of gold
As it swept to its tryst with the ocean, through realms of riches untold.

The slow-moving oar cleft the water, the balmy May breeze filled the sails,
As the wanderers drew near their haven, afar from the sea and its gales;
From the land of their fathers afar, and anear the keen Iroquois knives.
But the pilgrims, to fear ever strangers, to the Cross had entrusted their lives.

Not sordid were they. Not the treasures of earth they had come to pursue,
Not for honor nor glory. Far nobler the object our sires had in view.
To carry the cross to the savage, braving danger and hardship they came.
They came for the love of the Virgin, a city to found in her name.

Their hearts were o’erflowing with gladness. They sang as they drew near the strand.
Their barks gently touched on the shingle, and Maisonneuve, leaping to land,
Bent his knee, and the others knelt with him, uplifting their voices in prayer
To the Ruler of all, while, prophetic, the priest in his vestments stood there.

The shadows of twilight were falling, the frog loudly piped in the marsh,
The wild duck lurked in the shallows, and anear screamed the kingfisher harsh,
High above swept the night-hawk in circles, in the meadow the fireflies gleamed bright
And were caught, to adorn the rude altar with garlands of pulsating light.

The wanderers calmly sought slumber. The sentinel stood at his ease,
The rivulet gurgled and eddied, and answered the murmuring trees,
The mountain loomed dark in the distance, and the wolf looking down from the height,
In wonder and awe, saw the camp fire that burned on a city’s birth night.

If you ask how that mustard seed flourished, and spread its great branches abroad,
If you ask at what sacrifice nourished or watered with what noble blood?
Lo! the pages of history answer. There ’tis written in letters of gold
How each was a Christian and soldier, who founded Ville Marie of old.

They lived on the confines of chaos. Whenever the savage horde broke
On the ill-fated colony, they were the first whose arm parried the stroke.
They were Dollards in heart, and went even to torture and death with a smile,
While the women, like angels of mercy, stanched their wounds and their woes did beguile.

None braver, and no one more gentle, none wiser in council than he,
Maisonneuve, this, the new world’s defender, who for God held his whole life in fee.
He led them in worship, consoled them when thickly their troubles did fall,
Maisonneuve the undaunted, the founder, Æneas of old Montreal.

And here where he battled lone-handed with savages thirsting for blood,
Where now beats the pulse of a city, the heart of a new nationhood,
Long years may his monument stand that our children may ask and be told
Of the leader who founded Ville Marie, and honor the heroes of old.

TIMOR MORTIS CONTURBAT ME.

(The Fear of Death Affrights Me.)

Shall I too sing, as he sang of old,
The tuneful singer beyond the sea,
When life’s flame sank and his blood waxed cold,
Timor mortis conturbat me.

Earth is so fair to look upon,
And life so sweet, though there sorrows be,
Why welcome the summons to be gone?
Timor mortis conturbat me.

Wife that I love as the sea the moon,
Babes that prattle about my knee;
Has heaven itself a dearer boon?
Timor mortis conturbat me.

Is there heaven at all or only the grave
With the lisp of rain in the willow tree,
Will the after death give all I crave?
Timor mortis conturbat me.

Will there be ideals still to follow,
And truths, like nymphs my pursuit to flee,
Or will the ancient faith prove hollow?
Timor mortis conturbat me.

Are there golden suns in a golden noon,
Are there grey, still dawns on a dewy lea,
Are there twilights there, with a crescent moon?
Timor mortis conturbat me.

Are there aims to spur me and goals to reach,
Are there wondrous lands for the eye to see,
Is melody there and dulcet speech?
Timor mortis conturbat me.

Does friend meet friend and love meet love,
Greet and converse with sober glee,
Or is all new in the courts above?
Timor mortis conturbat me.

Is heaven like earth on a nobler plan,
As in dreams we image it, hopefully,
Or does the Spirit forget the Man?
Timor mortis conturbat me.

Shall I be I when the death-throe’s past,
Soul from the flesh set only free,
Or in new mould shall I be recast?
Timor mortis conturbat me.

If heaven be not akin to earth,
I shall not be I, if I happy be.
If I be not I, what is heaven worth?
Timor mortis conturbat me.

ON NEW YEAR’S EVE.

The wintry moon was streaming
Through the window, silvery-clear,
And I sat in my study, dreaming
Sweet dreams of the coming year.

There was no sound save the laughter
Of flames on the gusty hearth,
As hour followed fleet hour after
To welcome the Year with mirth.

Then, sharp through the solemn quiet,
I heard in the gloomy hall
The scamper of mice run riot,
And I heard them in the wall.

I leaned on my hand and listened
To hear the cravens go,
While paler the moonbeams glistened
And the fire on the hearth burned low.

And was I awake, or sleeping,
That, close by the door, I heard
The voice of a woman weeping
The sigh of a farewell word?

And was it the night wind mocking
That tapped and opened the door,
Or was it a woman knocking
And a light step on the floor?

I saw at my side a maiden
With tears in her gentle eyes,
And her shapely arms were laden
With gems from time’s argosies.

On her brow was a white star shining,
On her breast was a lily fair;
But of rue was a sad wreath twining
Among her golden hair.

From my chair to her dear side springing,
I greeted her with a kiss,
For I thought her the New Year, bringing
New uncut jewels of bliss.

She blushed at my warm embraces
And joy in her sweet face shone,
As sunlight a shadow chases
While a summer cloud floats on.

I said: “I have long been yearning,
New Year, to behold thy face.”
Pale grew the maid, and, turning,
She shrank from my close embrace,

And wept: “Oh! thou fickle hearted
The depth of my love to prove,
Yet ere from my bosom parted
To sigh for an untried love.

“I brought thee the rarest treasures
Time’s treasury could bestow;
I sated thy days with pleasures,
And guarded thy heart from woe.

“Thy wish I refused thee never.
I granted thee love and peace;
Yet thou scornest me now, or ever
My labor for thee doth cease.

“See, here are the gifts I showered
Thy life’s pathway upon,
And now that thou hast been dowered
With all, canst thou wish me gone?

“O thankless heart, wilt thou never
Be satisfied with thy lot,
Or must thou be pining ever
For joys that as yet are not?

“And turn from my fond embraces
An utter unknown to greet,
As a child a butterfly chases
Treading flowers beneath his feet?”

Then, like the great sun springing
Through night to a tropic dawn,
My heart, to the Old Year clinging,
Yearned for the joys nigh gone.

And oh, what a wave of sorrow
Passed over my grieving soul,
As I thought of the new to-morrow
That led to some unknown goal!

“Oh, stay,” I cried, soul-shaken,
“Heed not the flight of time,
Oh stay,”—But I was forsaken,
And heard the New Year chime.

IN THE CLOSING HOURS.

In the closing hours of night,
When the latest guest has gone,
By the hearth fire’s flickering light
Sweet it is to dream alone.

Sweet the social joy, and sweet
Strife that ends in victory;
Sweeter still the peace complete
Following on the eager day.

Then how sweet the lassitude,
Revelling in romantic rest,
Buoyed on dreams, whose mystic flood
Draws the soul on happy quest.

In the closing hours of life,
When the friends of youth are gone,
Ended lust of gain and strife,
Peace approaches with the dawn.

Sweet the rest and solitude
When the hair is turning white,
While the past, with broadening flood,
Murmurs through the closing night.

WHERE HEAVEN IS.

When the babe is swung in its pearly cot, the warm sun shining, the song-birds gay,
Cool shades among, in its lacework grot, the child reclining doth dreamful sway.
Hope’s hand, entwining life’s harp new strung with joyous garlands, its sound doth stay,
And he thinks earth heaven, to him God-given, nor cares though the passing hours delay.

From the threshold of life on the bright pathway that stretches afar to the infinite,
Youth yearns for the strife, as a child for play, and his dreamings are of a well-won height.
As at dawn of day when the Morning Star unbinds the zone of the virgin Light,
We watch, all breathless, for beauty deathless, so heaven’s beyond us, yet seems in sight.

And then, ah, then, as the years go by, and hope grows weary with waiting long,
When trust in men we must fain deny, the miserere replaces song.
Like slaves that ply in the galley’s den the laboring oar, through sin and wrong,
The soul plods on, and heaven is gone; we can but suffer and yet be strong.

When the snows of age fall thick and fast, and passion has faded like flowers that grow,
The memory sage dreams dreams of the past and all that has made it have joys below.
When the friends long laid in the grave, at last, stand beckoning us in the twilight glow,
And wrongs endured prove that which cured, the heaven behind us too late we know.

The heaven of man is never here; it always is where his treasures are.
To-day’s brief span arches little dear; the stream of bliss seems wider afar.
From this to this the path is drear; there’s always something each joy to mar,
Till the past that is real becomes ideal under the gold of life’s twilight star.

NEW YEAR’S EVE.

Air—Belle Mahone.

Hark! the tolling of the bells.
How it sinks and how it swells!
O’er the sleeping town it knells,
“Fare thee well, Old Year.”
Far across the snowy plain
Rolls the many-tongued refrain,
And the echoes cry again,
“Fare thee well, Old Year.”

Thou hast been a kindly year,
Thou hast spared us many a tear,
Thou hast vanquished many a fear,
Fare thee well, Old Year.
Lightly touched by summer showers,
Budding hopes have grown to flowers,
Happy days have flown like hours,
Fare thee well, Old Year.

Many a lesson thou hast taught,
Precious favors thou hast brought,
Pleasant changes thou hast wrought,
Fare thee well, Old Year.

Now thy rule is near an end,
Thy last records have been penned,
We must part at last, true friend.
Fare thee well, Old Year.

Close and seal the book of fate,
With whate’er it may relate,
Sin and goodness, love and hate,
Fare thee well, Old Year.
One more volume is complete,
Take it to the Mercy Seat,
Lay it at the Master’s feet,
Fare thee well, Old Year.

REFRAIN.

Fare thee well, Old Year,
Fare thee well, Old Year,
Thou hast been a faithful friend,
Fare thee well, Old Year.

PEGASUS.

If you find Pegasus a steed
Scornful of your control,
Who canters well enough, indeed,
But will not caracole,
So much the better, poet mine,
’Tis bottom wins the race.
Let poetasters prance, in fine;
Keep you the steady pace.

Let poetasters hunt for sound,
Chase metres, out of breath;
Great thoughts are not thus run to ground,
Nor fame in at the death.
So, let your Pegasus be free
To hunt some thought sublime,
While you sit still, with clinging knee,
And gallop simple rhyme.

Ah, friend, of all the joys of earth,
There’s nothing like the hunt,
The good horse straining at the girth,
The clear-tongued hounds in front.

And if your Pegasus can bear
You well before the rout,
Don’t curb and make him beat the air;
Loose rein, and let him out.

Oft when a poet’s rhymes I read,
With ornate language wrought,
Its cadences, though sweet indeed,
But hide the lack of thought.
Be yours the poem that can stand
From trappings wholly free,
Each thought a Phryne, to be scanned
In fearless nudity.

IT WOULD BE EASY TO BE GOOD.

Who walks the paths of righteousness
Or follows ways of evil,
Who knows the joys that angels bless
Or sin’s insensate revel,
At last, too well has understood
Sin is not worth a feather.—
It would be easy to be good,
If all were good together.

Waiving the conscience we offend,
And weighing but the pleasure,
Though we all sinful joys might blend,
They make a sorry treasure.
The loftiest joys must be subdued,
The soul we fain must tether.—
It would be easy to be good
If all were good together.

Oh, would that man might give free scope
To every gentle feeling!
The soul would realize its hope
Its noblest side revealing.

Would man might trust man’s brotherhood
In calm and stormy weather.—
It would be easy to be good
If all were good together.

If no one schemed to do a wrong,
No need for wrong were given;
If each his neighbor helped along,
This earth would be a heaven;
If men once met in rectitude,
Farewell, the regions nether.—
It would be easy to be good,
If all were good together.

THE LITTLE TROOPER.

Swift troopers twain ride side by side
Throughout life’s long campaign.
They make a jest of all man’s pride,
And oh, the havoc! As they ride,
They cannot count their slain.

The one is young and debonair,
And laughing swings his blade.
The zephyrs toss his golden hair,
His eyes are blue; he is so fair
He seems a masking maid.

The other is a warrior grim,
Dark as a midnight storm.
There is no man can cope with him.
We shrink and tremble in each limb
Before his awful form.

Yet though men fear the sombre foe
More than the gold-tressed youth,
The boy with every careless blow
More than the trooper grim lays low,
And causes earth more ruth.

Keener his mocking sword doth prove
Than flame or winter’s breath.
Men bear his wounds to the realm above,
For the little trooper’s name is Love,
His comrade’s only Death.

CUPID’S DISGUISES.

Dan Cupid wears disguises.
We never see his form,
Till suddenly he surprises
And takes the heart by storm.

He hides at times in the blushes
That tinge a cheek so fair,
Or oft in the moonlit hushes
In a sweet voice on the air.

Sometimes he’s in the dancing
Of mirth in azure eyes,
Sometimes in the curve entrancing
Of lips that part in sighs.

And sometimes in the glimmer
Of arm, rich lace beneath;
Sometimes in the tresses’ shimmer,
Sometimes in the peep of teeth.

Oh, he’s a little bandit,
And bold as bold can be.
He leads us, single-handed,
Into captivity.

For none is a match for Cupid.
He swifter is than thought.
The keenest mind is but stupid
When he begins to plot.

MUSIC.

Life hath such longings, bitter sweet,
And yet so few it satisfies
That man fain dreams life is complete
Only beyond the skies.

And like the mystic cloud of fire
That guided Israel’s way by night,
Every unsatisfied desire
Leads man towards the right.

Around him, mingling with the dust,
Youth’s pure ideals, shattered, lie;
Hope, virtue, charity and trust
Amid life’s deserts die.

Fade aspirations, fades each dream
Of goodness, honor and renown.
Man floats on a polluted stream,
Which fain would drag him down.

But music, like the nightingale
That sweetly sings in woodland brakes,
When hope and trust and virtue fail,
Man’s nobler nature wakes.

Only in music doth man find
An echo of the dreams of youth,
When he saw gods among mankind,
In woman only truth.

BABY’S STOCKING.

Baby’s dainty little stocking
Hangs beside his wicker cot,
Darling mother’s wishes mocking
And the treasures she has brought.

For it is so small that never
Gift can find a place inside.
Was there doting mother ever
So distressed at Christmas tide?

Baby’s eyes are closed and dreaming
Of the gentle mother face;
Baby’s hands are clasped and seeming
Interlocked in fond embrace.

Baby’s lips are softly smiling,
And the Rubicon of youth
He has passed, for lo! beguiling
Mother’s kisses, peeps a tooth.

Naught for gifts is baby caring.
Santa Claus has many a gem,
But, God’s love and mother’s sharing,
Baby has no need of them.

MY DIVINITY.

I am a god; yes, I,—
(Smile, if you will, at the claim)
Mote though I am in the ambient sky,
Housed, I confess, in putrescible frame,
Still, a divinity.

My sceptre I claim, and, perchance,
My altars as well,—who knows?
You would prick my pride with your wit’s keen lance,
You know my radius. Well, suppose
You pipe, I dance.

Am I the Primary Cause?
That’s my affair, not my creatures’.
Did I create nature’s adamant laws,
Or am I but one of her manifold features?
Fellow gods can pick flaws!

But the little corpuscles of blood
I create by millions each hour,
Do you fancy the witless ephemeral brood,
As each lives its life, can my limits and power
Declare understood?

Alone in the grey of my brain
I sit and my universe rule.
What can they know of their god, though they fain
Question, perhaps, each contemptible fool,
What joy is, why pain?

Do they brag of their universe, boast,
Worsting some hostile bacillus,
Fight over their God, sect term other sect lost,
Read my ways or complain, “Why torment us and kill us?”
What fate has each ghost?

Perfecting some large thought that may
Move the earth that I dwell on,
A million my creatures, remorseless, I slay.
Am I annoyed if they call me a felon!
It is I, or they.

My work, for their sake, shall I cease,
My very nature disjoint?
Is there aught but destruction for all in such peace?
Must I miracle work for a microscope point,—
Corpuscles to please?

We are not one, we are twain,
Yet are we one and not two.
They are the universe, I am the brain,
In and about them, knit through and through,—
Chords in one strain.

In common we have, at least, this,
Creator and creature, that we
Must rise to the height of our powers, or miss
Life’s best for ourselves, and each other decree
Frustrate of bliss.
. . . . . . . . . .
Is, now, this godhead of mine,
My limits, this difference vast
Between creature and maker, a symbol? In fine
Is mankind but a host of blood corpuscles, massed
Through the Divine?

THE SLEEPING SOUL.

Will ever thy soul awake,
Awake and come smiling to greet my own?
Will ever the love-light break
From thine eyes upon me, like the sun
On the billows that shoreward run,
Into foam by the winds of the ocean blown?

To me seems thy pure soul sleeping.
Thou hast in thy heart a bird,
But its head is under its wing.
I watch it and think with weeping
How sweet a song it might sing;
Yet by love it is never stirred.

Oft in the hush of a drowsy night
I dream that I hear that low bird voice
Lilting so merrily,
Singing so cheerily,
Bidding my heart to its depths rejoice;
But alas, takes flight
My dream before the dawn’s lance of light.

Alas, it is not for me
To kiss thy soul, as the prince in story
Kissed the Sleeping Beauty’s lips,
And to a life-love waken thee.
Round thee there is a maiden glory
Fairer than circles the sun that dips
Into the sea while chill night comes creeping
Slowly, silently through the sky;
But as well might I
Reach out my hand to the sun and try
To make his glory my very own
As think to touch with my finger tips
Thy glorious beauty that shrinks from me.

THE MOTHER.

Down the bright pathway of life, where joy, like the throstle, was singing,
She passed, like a sungleam at dawn, through mistlands of sorrows and fears,
Seeking the soul of the babe at her bosom now nursing and clinging,
And stood in the valley of death, gloomed with the shadow of tears.

Ghost glided past after ghost, and shook ghastly arms at the mortal
Who dared to the valley of pain go down for the winning of life.
Hour after hour trembled by, as we crouched in our woe at the portal,
Made strangers to her whom we loved by strangers who looked on her strife.

Angels spake hope to her there, as she stood in the vale of the shadow,
Demons snarled at her heels, she was haunted by visions abhorred;
But Love was a lamp to her feet as she passed through the woe-blossomed meadow,
Seeking the soul of her child. She was brave, for her trust was the Lord.

Death turned his sword as she came, and she passed through the gateways of heaven,
Treading the pavements of pearl and haloed with shimmering gleams,
On, till the veil hung between immortal and mortal was riven,
And she brought from the garden of God the blue-eyed flower of her dreams.