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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0dd4ad1 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #63153 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/63153) diff --git a/old/63153-8.txt b/old/63153-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index ab32369..0000000 --- a/old/63153-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1773 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Morning in the West, by Katherine Hale - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Morning in the West - A Book of Verse - -Author: Katherine Hale - -Release Date: September 8, 2020 [EBook #63153] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MORNING IN THE WEST *** - - - - -Produced by Al Haines - - - - - - - - -MORNING IN THE WEST - - - - - OTHER BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR - - Grey Knitting - The White Comrade - The New Joan - Canadian Cities of Romance - - - - -[Illustration: Title page] - - - Morning in the West - - A BOOK OF VERSE - - - _By_ - KATHERINE HALE - (Mrs. John Garvin) - - - - THE RYERSON PRESS - TORONTO - - - - - Copyright, Canada, 1923, by - THE RYERSON PRESS - - - - - TO MY MOTHER - - Katherine Hale Byard - who means song to me - - - - - CONTENTS - - - I. Morning in the West - - Cun-ne-wa-bum - Ballad of Jasper Road - Buffalo Meat - Return of the Trappers - An Old Lady - Spanish Pilots - - - II. Women - - Enchantment - She Who Paddles - Down Near the Glen - The Bolshevik - Pavlowa Dancing - Calvé in Blue - Sign to Trespassers - Silver Slippers - A Fabulous Day - Christmas Eve - To Marjorie Pickthall - I Who Cut Patterns - Poetesses - - - III. Going North - - Going North - Study in Shadows - Northern Graveyards - Stony Lake - Trade - Snake Island - Juniper Ring - White Slumber - Crimson Pool - - - IV. Miracles - - Miracles - - - - - MORNING IN THE WEST - - - - CUN-NE-WA-BUM - - _Portrait in the Royal Ontario Museum_ - - - Cun-ne-wa-bum--"one who looks on stars"-- - (Feel the singing wind from out the western hills) - "The tip-end of a swan's wing is her fan, - With a handle of porcupine quills." - Here is the artist's name, Paul Kane; - Painting in forty-seven, at Edmonton, I see. - That was when prairies were untamed, - And untamed this young Cree. - - What an incantation in her name! - Magic as her dark face underneath the stars; - There is sword-like wind about it wrapped, - And echoes of old wars. - - Cun-ne-wa-bum! - When turtle shells were rattling, - And the drums beat for the dance - In the great hall of the Factor's house till dawn, - You sat without the door, - Where the firelight on the floor - Caught the red of beads upon your moccasins. - - At evening through the grassy plains the wind - Came shouting down the world to meet the dawn, - And with the wind the firelight rose and fell, - Answered with flame his shrill barbaric yell, - And died like whining fiddles at his feet. - And through it all the constant sound of drums-- - Did your feet move to drums? - - The men from near and far, - Crees and Sarcees, - And a Blackfoot brave or two, - Made rhythm of a dance that moves like rhyme - To the rush of wind, and rattles swung in time - To the constant, constant, constant beat of drums. - - No Indian woman dances in the light; - Silent they sit together out of sight. - But to-night I think this artist from the East, - Who had come to paint the natives hereabout, - Found a splendid flare of crimson on the feast - And moved near the open door, - Where the firelight on the floor - Caught the red of beads upon your moccasins. - - So it is, O Cun-ne-wa-bum, - Who were wont to look on stars, - That you sit for ever here, - Like a wild lost note from far, - From the days of ancient war - And of towered stockade and guns - In the Edmonton of seventy years ago. - - In your buckskin and your beads - (Feel the sudden wind from out the western hills) - The tip-end of a swan's wing for your fan - With a handle of porcupine quills. - - - - - BALLAD OF JASPER ROAD - - I know a Blackfoot Chief - Whose name is Dark Plume Bill. - He lived beside the Jasper Road-- - And lives there still. - - He wears a queer checked coat - And a grey bowler hat, - But looks his ninety-seven years - For all of that. - - His gaze is unconcerned - As he sits in the sun, - And counts the flashing motor-cars - That pass, one-by-one, - - And trucks, like dreary monsters - Of a prehistoric day, - That are rushing down the road - In their crazy way. - - "The first Red River cart," - Said Dark Plume Bill to me, - "Came lurching up the prairie - Like a ship at sea." - - (Oh, the long blue road, - And the stealthy pad of feet - And the first patient ox-cart - With its sail-like sheet!) - - "Then the carts came faster, - And at the time of snow - We camped outside the Palisade, - Seventy years ago. - - "Arrows, guns--big Buffalo hunts, - Much long fight, - And fires to warm the tepees - For the feasts at night. - - "But when they laid the steel - And the long trail awoke - My Indian tribe had scattered - Like the wigwam smoke." - - His gaze was unconcerned, - Yet he scanned the way he knew, - As though from out its clamour - He had found a vanished clew. - - And I thought it must be strange - To sit in the sun - And look upon an ancient road - That you had seen begun - - Out of silence and mystery - And crafty, ambushed death, - Come alive with men, and monsters - Of such an alien breath. - - (Oh, the long blue road - And the stealthy pad of feet - And the first patient ox-cart - With its sail-like sheet!) - - - - - BUFFALO MEAT - - _A Daughter-in-law Writes_ - - - It takes a letter sixty days to go-- - An Indian boy runs down the trail to-night. - What shall I write to you? - My mind is full of gossip of a town - That you have never dreamed of. - So--shall I tell you of our shacks, - Huddled behind the tall stockade? - Our guns, with muzzles set against the prairie? - What if I write the truth! - Your son is now a savage; - By that much more I love him! - - If I should say - I can stand all this tropic, summer heat - And menial tasks and crowded alleyways, - And fat squaws lounging in the sun, - And even water out of tainted wells, - And long, rough prairie rides-- - All for the sake of autumn, - And its short, magic days of pure content! - - If you could know my mind! - A little British mind two years ago; - To-day a sort of crowded, pagan scroll, - Recording strange old customs - And legends, various as the Indian tribes, - And prayers and songs and dances. - - Songs that are old as earth itself, - Dances as elemental: - Skin drums and tom-toms, - Rattles of turtle shell, and whirl of winds - Against the amphitheatre of hills. - You will remember they were playing Sheridan - When we left London! - I can count every lilac spray on the old drawing room chintz. - I hope--I hope you have not changed it since! - - Let me begin again. - If I should say - I love this small, rough shack, - For it has made me brave-- - Braver, at least, than when I saw it first, - And saw a sea of prairie - And the dim forms of buffalo herds - Darkening the far horizon! - I am braver now than when the halfbreeds came - Racing towards us on that first wild day, - Mad messengers to frighten us to death-- - Servants of trappers and the Nor'-west men-- - Those halfbreeds! feathers dangling, tomahawks! - That was in summer. - Still the buffalo lingered, - Cropping the blue-grey grasses, - Plunging in the muddy wallows, - Always near us. - I could almost touch a shaggy flank. - - Two years ago to-day, in Piccadilly-- - That tea-shop place the day before we sailed - He said, "It may be wild enough out there, - But I shall keep you safe-- - Oh, I shall keep you safe!" - - We loitered through that first bright autumn - And on the edge of winter had no meat. - Who wants meat, here, must follow it--and kill. - So, like a band of pilgrims, we set out-- - Unguarded women are not left behind-- - Walking beside our husbands all the way. - Far out of sight, the Indians - Search for the roaming herds. - They are on splendid ponies. - We settlers are the country's parasites. - When Mary Scott, the factor's wife, and I, - With two young squaws, were left a day in camp - We learned an incantation. - Another day when we were on the trail - My wedding ring was taken from my hand - Just as a warning, - A little necessary bright horse-play, - To show us who was master. - Five days of march and then the broad plateau-- - White plains, brown beasts, - Red, flying figures of the Indian guides, - Bonfires at night and sleep in soft skin bags, - Warm blood of slaughter-- - - But-- - It takes a letter sixty days to go, - Even at this season, when there is no snow. - Autumn has fallen on London. - I can see you in the sweet old room. - Please do not change a thing until I come! - Fires will be lit, your velvet curtains drawn, - And when you read my letter, dearest one, - Pray that some great day I may have a son - To mingle past with present. - For now each treacherous hour seems all of life; - I am as much a hunter as a wife, - To whom the summer is a breathing space, - Who waits for autumn - And trots beside her husband, through the grass - That shudders in the late November wind, - Or lies like frozen foam beneath our feet, - Looking for buffalo meat! - - - - - RETURN OF THE TRAPPERS - - Against the rolling snowdrifts, - Misted by the frost-fog, - Dwarfish, pigmy figures, - See them come! - Open the gates of the great stockade, - Welcome them home. - There's my Red-Scarf! - I can almost hear him snarling, - "Marche! Marche!" - Down at old Fort Garry, - I have heard them say - That they take the women, - Who dog-trot behind them - All the way. - Not out here! Not out here! - With the glass at minus forty - Half the year! - There's the first big husky-- - Think you hear his bell? - That is Henri leading; - Yes, among a thousand halfbreeds, - I would know his yell! - What you bet the sleds hold? - There's a slide! - Why that drift the other day - Stretched a half mile wide. - What you bet the sleds hold? - Fire the gun! - Here the women come, pell mell. - They've got ears, those Indian women, - Not much need to fire the gun! - Now we're in for days of steeping, - Matching, drying, sorting--rum. - Hear the whips crack! - Hi! Hi! - See, that's Henri! - Three, four, five-- - Not one train lost. - Here they come! - - - - - AN OLD LADY - - Madame de Courament excels at Bridge. - Hers is a clever hand, - Coloured with age and wrinkled; - But beautiful and tapering too, - Quite in accord with this old, stately room, - With crystal chandeliers, - And flowers and the warm tapestry of books. - Silent the cards fall. - Down the long avenue a dog howls at the moon, - A far, frost-sharpened sound. - The wind swirls up a little storm of snow - That blows against the casement. - A skilled opponent, Madame makes few mistakes - Like that a moment since, - When suddenly the dog howled--and we lost a trick. - She has a flashing wit, - Dinners at Rideau Hall are incomplete without her. - As someone said the other day, - "These elderly, elaborate folk - Are like a passing pageantry, - Gorgeous and of another day." - Silent the cards fall. - Again the far-off dog howls at the moon. - - An hour later, "Chateau Laurier" she told the chauffeur. - And, alert and gay, - Wrapped in her sables, - She was motoring me the long white way to town - And gossiping of little this and that. - But just as we were nearing city lights - She said, "I saw you noticed that dog's bark. - It sounded almost like a wolf's; - It took me back to the Red River days. - Oh, it was fifty years ago, my dear; - I was as young as you ... It seems like yesterday. - Hardships! I loved it all! - Even the wolves, baying far out of sight, - Failed to disturb our rest - When we were safe at home. - The Indians were quite friendly-- - And the eternal glamour of the snow! - And yet to-night, just when I heard that sound, - Sharpened by frost, - I felt an old pain strike me, - The knife-like thrust, before a child is born. - I was alone that night. - My husband had been called to Edmonton, - My Indian maid had let her family in - Looking for whiskey. - I dared not call to her. - For hours the Indians danced and sang and yelled. - I watched them from my icy-cold bedroom - Through great cracks in the floor. - Before they slept they sat crouched by the fire, - As I crouched up above in fright and pain. - And all night long I heard the wolves; - They kept a sort of savage company - With my own stifled cries. - To-night, my mind went back a moment strangely-- - I always thought he had the sweetest face - Of any of my seven ... But then he was the first!" - - She raised her glittering hand - And found the speaking tube, to modify her chauffeur's pace. - "And that, my dear, was fifty years ago," she said. - "The prairie was a very different place-- - I never thought, then, I should come to Bridge!" - - - - - SPANISH PILOTS - - _To Agnes C. Laut_ - - - These were the ragged peon crews, - Half-bloods of Aztec women, - Of Spaniards and adventurers - Who were not seeking heaven! - But out on the broad seas driven, - And from the Horn to Sitka, - They searched for deep-sea findings - The whole unknown way, - With "small ringing of bells - And no trumpet blare, - Empty stomachs, and empty guns, - But plenty of prayer." - And if they failed of the findings, - Nothing behind but the branding irons, - Or slavery in the mines. - Yet they sang - As they sailed in their rickety death-traps; - They laughed as they rode, - And they sank as the rip-tide caught them fast - With a cry to the Virgin, - A prayer to the Virgin-- - There was plenty of prayer at the last! - - - - - WOMEN - - - - ENCHANTMENT - - I never see a blue jay - But I think of her; - Never hear that hoarse "dear--dear" - From a tree-top stir, - And the answering call - Far, far away, - And the flash of azure-- - Oh, she would stay - Listening in the forest, - Loitering through the silence, - Hearing calls and singing - All the livelong day! - - - - - SHE WHO PADDLES - - She who paddles swiftly, - Lithe and brown in the sun, - And dances, lithe as an Indian princess - In the barbaric days of splendour - Might have done-- - She can laugh and jest too, - Play and wine and dine; - But none of these things have wooed me, - Bound me close by a mystery, - Made her eternally mine. - For we have found still places - Deep in the wood; - Climbed a ledge of grey rock - Where a pink-legged heron stood; - Heard the distant loon's cry; - Watched a lonely bird fly-- - And she does not stir then, - Does not turn to me then, - But softly walks in the forest - In no great need of men. - - - - - DOWN NEAR THE GLEN - - (In fear of fairies Irish women sometimes disguise - their boys as girls) - - - "I dress him sweet," the woman told me, - "All in white with a frill of lace. - See his hair - An' the curls that's on it! - Do ye know a girl with a safter face? - - "If so I keep him till five or over, - There's not a one will steal him then! - With a saft wee girl - They'd never bother, - The thievin' fairies down in the glen. - - "Never take chances!" the woman warned me, - "For a boy is the thing that sticks to your heart!" - But I was mad! - I had decked mine bravely; - He was moulded a man from the very start. - - - - - THE BOLSHEVIK - - I met a woman of the Ward; - She was in gay attire; - Her blouse was blue, her toes were through, - Her ear-rings flashed like fire. - - A little boy with lustrous eyes - Tugged at her coloured skirt; - His skin was warm as the southern born, - And he was caked in dirt. - - Two women on the sunny street-- - We fell to friendly talk - Of grocers' ways, and how it pays - To purchase as you walk. - - I asked her, as a neighbour might, - If she had news to tell. - She answered me, "Oh, quiet-lee, - I think we soon raise hell! - - "Too much we give to grocer-men; - Too much the rich have place; - More war to-day is the only way - To put rich in hees place! - - "We speak a leetle, you and I, - Some papers scatter round, - Soon rich will be, quite quiet-lee, - All trampled on the ground. - - "My man, he has a job all right, - But he might have much more. - Make leetle war, and there we are: - No rich man at our door." - - The dusky boy with lustrous eyes - Listened to his mamma, - And then said he, quite quiet-lee, - "Most dear, to-day I saw - - "One motor car that I will own - When I am grown a man!" - His beauty spoke, in eyes, in throat, - As just sheer beauty can. - - And she forgot the little war, - The beckoning blood and dirt; - She smoothed his curls, so like a girl's, - And smoothed his gay striped shirt. - - "Grow up, be good, my little boy; - One motor you may run!" - Her eyes burned deep, war fell asleep - As she looked on her son. - - * * * * * - - I met a woman of the Ward; - She was in gay attire; - Her blouse was blue, her toes were through, - Her ear-rings flashed like fire. - - - - - PAVLOWA DANCING - - Footsteps of youth through the springtime playing, - Footfalls of snow in a blue mist straying, - The rose of Russia in a bright wind swaying-- - A rose of fire and snow. - - Voices chanting everywhere, but no word said, - Fairy bells from ancient towers signalling the dead, - Light love tuning viols while the dance runs red-- - A flaming dance of death. - - White barbaric winters and a sky star-strung, - All the hidden pathways, all the songs unsung, - Caught in flying footsteps over wild music hung-- - She dances, and the Czar lies dead. - - Oh, the cries, and martyrdoms, and fatal morns, - Scarlet nights and fiery wine and bitter scorns, - Dancing in a rose of joy from a field of thorns-- - Rapture from a land of thorns! - - - - - CALVÉ IN BLUE - - Here is blue fire - That burns mere youth away - And leaves sheer passion. - Out of the coloured flame - What pageantries arise, - As that caressing tone, - Through shimmering veils of harp and flute, - Seems to peer ghost-like down - Into a million hearts in nights long gone-- - Into a million eyes! - - There is a black mantilla - Of ancient Spanish lace - Over the deep blue gown. - The voice of Carmen sings again, - The mocking voice of Carmen, scarlet still - With love and certain doom. - In it there swings a sword, - And through it blows a laughing word-- - That strange, and quite inevitable word - That time can never kill. - - - - - SIGN TO TRESPASSERS - - Was ever a woman - Quite alone for a day? - Other women will come - Who should stay away. - - Because my casement's open, - As I wait here for you, - Comes the faint Persephone - Trailing through the dew. - - She has lived a thousand years, - Clasped her cosmic rose; - Why she comes to trouble me - Only heaven knows! - - And there's another woman - Keeps whispering in my ear, - Till she has the whole house - Pierced through with fear. - - Some wandering nun it is, - Whose lips can only pray, - Has made my house a cloister - In this dreary way. - - And even now your taxi - Must be racing through the town. - (Will you love me, O my lover, - In this pale yellow gown?) - - I have written out a sign - That I hope they will obey-- - "For all Peering Women - There is no Right of Way." - - - - - SILVER SLIPPERS - - I never wore slippers - On sweet April evenings, - But boots made for roads that we travelled in woe, - For morning and evening - Meant rough wayside places - And feet that were slow. - - But now silver slippers, - Light-mannered, bright slippers, - Great mirror-like floors and a green velvet lawn, - Where we beckon with laughter, - With music, with dancing, - Sad youth--that is gone. - - - - - A FABULOUS DAY - - Oh, the days of the week they are constantly seven! - And as certain to stay as the fixed stars in heaven. - But my heart that denies them will wander away - To find a more likeable, well furnished day - That I know exists somewhere, invisible, real, - And shining with moments the seven days steal. - - The stocking I've wanted to darn since the spring, - The folk-song, forgotten, that calls me to sing, - The little old lady I hurry to see, - The cumbersome caller, long promised to tea, - Or the half-hidden passion pushed by through the week: - These surely may people the day that I seek. - - Sometimes I shall play with a soul never born: - A companion I met on the far side of morn. - I shall nod at the losses I wept for last night, - And find my to-morrows expectant and bright. - But mostly I think the whole twenty-four hours - Will be spent in designing a new bed of flowers; - For everyone's heart, when it wanders away, - Has its own things to do on a fabulous day. - - - - - CHRISTMAS EVE - - My house is arrayed - In its garlands of Christmas delight; - A red rose is this house - In its holly and soft candle light. - - But my heart is as cold - As the heart of a colourless rose, - And I feel the dead weight - Of your holiday blanket of snows. - - - - - TO MARJORIE PICKTHALL - - The day you died, that April yesterday, - I was alone in sunny meadow places, - When, turning a dark clump of wintry leaves, - I caught a glimpse of exquisite fresh faces, - Renewing earth. - - Then, thinking of another April day - When you and I found bloom beneath the snow, - I sent you happy thoughts across the world, - Not dreaming it the day you were to go-- - But yesterday. - - Yet, oh, not lost! how many a year shall turn, - And youth and age, lonely for some bright way, - Shall sudden feel you on the face of earth - And push back death, and pluck you like the may-- - Immortal Song! - - - - - I WHO CUT PATTERNS - - I who cut patterns, - As every soul must do, - Fret myself with longing - For themes that are new. - - All these fashions - Were moulded years gone by, - And, like the mask of politics, - Are coloured with a lie. - - Even the treasured love motif, - This thing of you and me, - It must so carefully be cut - To keep us bound, yet free. - - And death, the sombre casket - Of centuries of song, - And war, and rivalries and creeds, - These we have used too long. - - To-day I found a charming thing - Of silk and golden lace, - And yet, beneath the filigree, - What an old, wrinkled face! - - Still, I believe in legends - Of laughter and delight, - And words all coloured with the sun - And perfumed by the night. - - And I've a mind to leave the shops - And fashions old and new, - And cut my pattern from a wind, - And baste it up with dew. - - I who cut patterns, - As every soul must do, - Fret myself with longing - For themes that are new. - - - - - POETESSES - - You who loved all lovely things - And wrought in jewelled lines; - You have gone your gracious ways - That are patterned in dim stones - Of perfumed, faint-hued words; - You were a thing so feminine - That even of war you sang in tender notes, - But now another one has come, - Who is herself at war. - Her songs are keen and glittering, - For she has felt the magic fire - That you did long ago; - But now the fire has burned clean through - And forged a sword of steel. - Swinging swords are women's songs - That gleam as hard as diamonds do, - And mean to cut tradition. - - And yet those jewelled lines! - Strangely the ancient magic works, - Strangely the same fire lurks - And burns imprisoned there - In your dim, opaled words, - That run like paths in heaven - Paved in mosaic of sweet stones, - And make a scented highway for our feet, - Who wield these swinging swords. - - - - - GOING NORTH - - - - GOING NORTH - - I - - _White Porches_ - - - Just as we left the avenue - I saw a golden butterfly - Flutter against the windshield. - I felt the motor take the breeze, - As gaily as a yacht might do - Upon some tidal river of the seas. - We sailed a broad grey asphalt - Out past the red brick houses, - And fringy, ragged outskirts - To where the fields begin. - And Pickering, Whitby, Oshawa, - Flashed by like friendly postscripts - Of the Town's lengthy scroll, - With dusty little detours, - And cobblestone communities - To break the highway's hundred miles - Of river-like content. - We smiled at sleepy Main Streets, - And joyous village gardens, - And sprawling crimson orchards, - Heavy with ripened fruit. - - Each mile or two a butterfly - Danced near the blazing windshield, - "The same gold butterfly!" we said, - "And the same village street!" - - We passed a hundred porches, - Ancient and modern porches, - And some of them were white ones, - And those we loved the best. - Many a bed of phlox we passed, - Lilac and pink and white, - And they were gardens of delight - Along our asphalt river-front-- - Sheer gardens of delight. - We loved all purple calicoes - On cheerful, ambling ladies, - Their morning work already done, - Sauntering through a mile of sun - Up to the general store. - Sometimes they sat on porches, - Narrow but shining porches, - Serenely shelling peas. - "Just what is life," we wondered, - "For those who sit contented - Throughout the magic summer - On these pale country porches, - Patching--knitting--talking-- - Serenely shelling peas?" - - - - II - - _Grey Willows_ - - Then we turned north. - A railway train rushed by us; - The blue-bloused engineer - Hung from his stifling cab, - Waving a careless hand. - And in a moment we had lost - All thought of shining porches - And sleepy village streets. - This was a thinner world - Of smaller, leaner orchards; - Taller, barer houses; - Drier, keener air. - Here and there grey willows, - With an eerie whisper, - Bent above a narrow stream - That languidly slipped by. - And over us the noon-day sky - Turned brazen. Stark tree trunks - Showed where bush fires had run, - Charred columns of lost forests - Dried by the sun into fantastic shapes, - - This narrow stream, - Unnursed by tree-held snow, - Dwarfed by the fires, fifty years ago - Would have raced by us foaming, - Even in summer, through a world of green-- - A lost green world of butterflies and fern, - And soft anemones in spring; - But now at every jagged, ugly turn - Only a brush heap where the woods had been. - The very soil is scorched-- - Scorched the brown ferns - Descended from the ones that long ago - Were licked into a burning wind of flame. - Poor, narrow little stream, - Bereft of that green dream - That holds the snow! ... - There was a bit of rock a mile ago, - The preface of the North! - - - - III - - _Bush Road_ - - A soft swamp road, - For forty miles through bracken and through fern, - Smooth as a snake, - With turn on twisted turn-- - Turns that meant few surprises; - Yet, as it wrinkled on its way, - The softly yielding earth that overlay its granite - Seemed to say - That once the lumber trails ran here, - And once the voyageur - Sang as he paddled down the foaming stream, - And once the woodmen came, - Great gangs of woodmen - With the axe and spike, - Who set up rude encampments. - Then, to hoarse shouts and orders, - To laughter and to oaths, - To roaring fires at night and whiskey-haunted songs, - The soft green forest fell. - It died robustly as it lived, - And had its will of singing and of strife, - An ardent, powerful, various sort of life; - A more heroic fate - Than this of late-- - A trail up to the playground of the North, - A bracken-haunted, snaky road, - A soft surprise to strangers, a delight. - - - - IV - - _Painted Rock_ - - Then the North took us, - Forced us through rocky walls, - Tore at our tires, - Gave us no inch of earth - Upon our steady climb. - Yet even here, beside the cruel road, - Were scraggy plots of farm, - And wood-piles neatly stacked, - And shacks, and gloomy faces. - Then an acre of more fertile land, - Pine trees and woods, - And suddenly, like a blue cup held high, - The lake Mazinawa ... - All silence, silence, silence-- - Dark colours filling the blue cup. - And, like a purple stain against the sunset, - The great rock of Mazinawa, - Sacred to Indian tribes how long ago! - A thousand years ago? - Why should one care to know! - - It looms up larger than I dreamed; - Roadways of rock - And canyons full of light; - Niched balconies for pines bent all one way; - Small birds in flight, - Dashing against the dark - Of that vast rocky flank, - Whose sides of iron seams, - Laid under golden lichen, - Have been a place of dreams - And of brute sacrifice. - What if it has a power to draw us near - As in the days of fear? - When from the rocklands of the Georgian Bay - Or through the bush roads whence we came to-day, - But then on foot, soft-padding all the way, - Or in the war canoes - They crowded to this small blue lake of theirs - And an old shrine ... - What are we floating towards - In this small, low canoe? - A naked, ceremonial singing past - Seems to reach out and whisper. - - - - - STUDY IN SHADOWS - - _The Rock at Bon Echo_ - - - I - - Once in the twilight aisles of Amiens - I thought I knew what shadows were, - Creeping in golden dust and greying dust, - And trooping down dim flights of measured air, - Liquid in spacing, that those arches span. - - - II - - But just last night, before the moon was up, - Our little boat stole close against these crags - That out-rear arches and reject the dark. - Yet gradually the purple of the rock - Melted before it; and again they came - Creeping in golden dust, and greying dust, - And crowding down those giant flights of stair - That open slowly as eternity, - To hold the feet of shadows, lost in night. - - - III - - Then I remembered Götterdammerüng-- - How before doom falls on the gorgeous host, - Slowly there drifts across the empty stage - A smoke-cloud, lonely as a passing soul. - In very truth the gods return to you-- - Great rock that blazes colour in the sun-- - And, as in the Valhalla of old song, - Parade before our eyes the whole day long - And make a glorious end, - As with you they are folded in a sleep. - No cloud foretells their doom, but wings of birds - A moment sweep your side--then fall away. - - - - - NORTHERN GRAVEYARDS - - Stony fields and lonely roads, - Meagre hamlets, very lean, - And most prosperous graveyards - Lying all between. - - Each few miles a graveyard, - With its crouching column - And its urns and headstones, - Very dark and solemn. - - But with what an accent! - Yellow, purple, red, - Lie the votive offerings - To this public dead. - - Close beside the railway, - Where the smoke drifts high, - These are decked in garlands - For the passerby. - - Even in the winter, - Breaking through the snow - Immortelles beguile us, - When the train runs slow. - - They are strangely cheerful, - All these plots of ground - That have lost the loneliness - Of the living. Here abound - - In a comradeship increasing - Those who in their hour - Reaped a dreary harvest, - Missed a magic flower. - - Over them the smoke-wreaths, - Snow, and whispering grass, - And the voice of neighbours, - Sighing as they pass; - - While the urns of iron - And the barbarous vases - Chant a willing ritual - To forgotten faces. - - So they sleep together, - And their shades may say: - "Wave to us, O restless traveller! - We are glad to stay." - - - - - STONY LAKE - - By southern seas I have seen purple stones - Throw back the shadows of the waves and hills. - On the Ćgean, so the stories run, - Greek youths, with many a saffron-coloured sail, - Rode flame-like to the rhythm of the gale. - - Again, on the bright shores of this small lake, - Purple of hills and pink of northern rocks. - To-day I met a sail-boat in the wind - And at its mast a brown Canadian boy-- - He was as splendid as his mate of Troy. - - - - - TRADE - - It might have been two hundred years ago, - For all the difference in her way or mine, - That her canoe, with paddle dipping slow, - Just as the sunset ran to embers low, - Stopped at my rocky door. - - With fish and basketwork she plied her trade, - And I, to help a little money last, - Answered her barter with a coat I made - Of coloured wool--oh, many seasons past! - We were both satisfied! - - - - - SNAKE ISLAND - - "Ages ago," my Indian says - (As we are fishing in a cove - Of this green island, with its trees and shacks), - "Here was wild grass and many snakes. - After a while they disappear, - For soon the white man comes, and makes - Houses like these to live in!" - - So the old name is suddenly made new. - Snake Island! ... - - Ages ago, perhaps, the trees were elfin - And tall grass towered to the skies, - Until, to all those narrow, screen-like eyes, - This was a dazzling fen, - Perplexed with tangled fern, - Peopled with glittering prey; - Dense borderland to where the black pools lay - Whose captives twist and turn. - - Burrowing, boa-like, harlequin snakes, - Your day was brilliant and flashing enough! - Snakes casting skins in continuous slough, - Grass snakes and ring snakes, on dragon-flies bent. - Was there a charmer, with musical pipe, - Lured you a moment? Some Indian charm - Surely touched you with sorcery, gave you alarm, - Ere the people who meant to build houses like these - Came and killed you-- - And killed the wild grass. - - - - - JUNIPER RING - - Juniper ring on the granite rock, - Deep and green and perfectly planned; - Living with you I understand - Circle-magic of old. - - You had a sister in mystery-- - Was it only an April ago - That a crocus cup on a bed of snow - Promised eternal things? - - It will be longer, Juniper, - Till earth declares you ready to break, - And you fade of the havoc her brown hands make - That are covered with mystic rings. - - - - - WHITE SLUMBER - - Who has come to that farthest island - Beyond White Gull Bay? - There is a little tent among the birches - Since yesterday. - Those birches are the palest things - Even in the morning sun! - Among them the tent has suddenly blossomed, - As the white flower of a night-blooming cereus, - Silently, deep in some forest of sleep, - Might have done. - Who are they? What dreams must be theirs, - Who have found such a magical camp unawares? - - - - - CRIMSON POOL - - Even you, dark pool-- - Even you feel death. - On your soft brown surface - There are deep reflections - Of a fiery breath. - To the waiting forest - Death does not come creeping - As it comes to men; - It comes shouting, waving banners, - Burning out its way with torches, - Hanging garlands now and then. - All the green walls of your silence - Hung with crimson, - Even you, dark pool-- - Even you feel death. - On your soft brown surface - There are deep reflections - Of a fiery breath. - - - - - MIRACLES - - - MIRACLES - - We said: "The Universe shall kneel!" - And so the dreams of long ago - Have bound the winds and stars, - And lashed the waves to giant bars, - Till Light itself is chained. - We fly on wings of steel; - We beckon Mars. - Almost the frightened worlds, I feel, - Must in their journeys swerve and wheel - Far from the Will of Earth. - - Suppose the Universe should speak! - And on some thundering street - Quite suddenly, before our eyes - A fountain, cool and sweet, - A careless, laughing little thing - Should dance upon the air - And all the very wise of us - Be held in wonder there! ... - Suppose one day an angel, - Through some caprice or whim, - Should walk along a city way - That we might talk to him; - And all the men and women, - And all the horses too, - Should bow and fall before him, - As mortals used to do! ... - I wish that some quaint miracle - Might happen, even to-day, - Whereby the Universe should speak - And men kneel down to pray. - - - - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Morning in the West, by Katherine Hale - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MORNING IN THE WEST *** - -***** This file should be named 63153-8.txt or 63153-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/3/1/5/63153/ - -Produced by Al Haines -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Morning in the West - A Book of Verse - -Author: Katherine Hale - -Release Date: September 8, 2020 [EBook #63153] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MORNING IN THE WEST *** - - - - -Produced by Al Haines - - - - - -</pre> - - -<p><br /><br /></p> - -<p class="t3"> -MORNING IN THE WEST -</p> - -<p><br /><br /></p> - -<p class="t3"> - OTHER BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR<br /> -</p> - -<p class="t3"> - Grey Knitting<br /> - The White Comrade<br /> - The New Joan<br /> - Canadian Cities of Romance<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p class="capcenter"> -<a id="img-title"></a> -<img class="imgcenter" src="images/img-title.jpg" alt="Title page" /> -</p> - -<h1> -<br /><br /> - Morning in the West<br /> -</h1> - -<p class="t3b"> - A BOOK OF VERSE<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="t3"> - <i>By</i><br /> - KATHERINE HALE<br /> - (Mrs. John Garvin)<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /></p> - -<p class="t3"> - THE RYERSON PRESS<br /> - TORONTO<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p class="t4"> - Copyright, Canada, 1923, by<br /> - THE RYERSON PRESS<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p class="t3"> - TO MY MOTHER<br /> -<br /> - Katherine Hale Byard<br /> - who means song to me<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p class="t3b"> - CONTENTS<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="t3"> - I. <a href="#morning">Morning in the West</a><br /> -</p> - -<p class="noindent"> - <a href="#cun-ne-wa-bum">Cun-ne-wa-bum</a><br /> - <a href="#jasper">Ballad of Jasper Road</a><br /> - <a href="#buffalo">Buffalo Meat</a><br /> - <a href="#trappers">Return of the Trappers</a><br /> - <a href="#oldlady">An Old Lady</a><br /> - <a href="#spanish">Spanish Pilots</a><br /> -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="t3"> - II. <a href="#women">Women</a><br /> -</p> - -<p class="noindent"> - <a href="#enchantment">Enchantment</a><br /> - <a href="#paddles">She Who Paddles</a><br /> - <a href="#glen">Down Near the Glen</a><br /> - <a href="#bolshevik">The Bolshevik</a><br /> - <a href="#pavlowa">Pavlowa Dancing</a><br /> - <a href="#calve">Calvé in Blue</a><br /> - <a href="#sign">Sign to Trespassers</a><br /> - <a href="#slippers">Silver Slippers</a><br /> - <a href="#day">A Fabulous Day</a><br /> - <a href="#christmas">Christmas Eve</a><br /> - <a href="#pickthall">To Marjorie Pickthall</a><br /> - <a href="#patterns">I Who Cut Patterns</a><br /> - <a href="#poetesses">Poetesses</a><br /> -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="t3"> - III. <a href="#north">Going North</a><br /> -</p> - -<p class="noindent"> - <a href="#north">Going North</a><br /> - <a href="#study">Study in Shadows</a><br /> - <a href="#northern">Northern Graveyards</a><br /> - <a href="#stony">Stony Lake</a><br /> - <a href="#trade">Trade</a><br /> - <a href="#snake">Snake Island</a><br /> - <a href="#juniper">Juniper Ring</a><br /> - <a href="#slumber">White Slumber</a><br /> - <a href="#crimson">Crimson Pool</a><br /> -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="t3"> - IV. <a href="#miracles">Miracles</a><br /> -</p> - -<p class="noindent"> - <a href="#miracles">Miracles</a><br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="morning"></a></p> -<p><a id="cun-ne-wa-bum"></a></p> - -<h2> - MORNING IN THE WEST -</h2> - -<p><br /><br /></p> - -<h3> - CUN-NE-WA-BUM<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="t3"> - <i>Portrait in the Royal Ontario Museum</i><br /> -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="poem"> - Cun-ne-wa-bum—"one who looks on stars"—<br /> - (Feel the singing wind from out the western hills)<br /> - "The tip-end of a swan's wing is her fan,<br /> - With a handle of porcupine quills."<br /> - Here is the artist's name, Paul Kane;<br /> - Painting in forty-seven, at Edmonton, I see.<br /> - That was when prairies were untamed,<br /> - And untamed this young Cree.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - What an incantation in her name!<br /> - Magic as her dark face underneath the stars;<br /> - There is sword-like wind about it wrapped,<br /> - And echoes of old wars.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Cun-ne-wa-bum!<br /> - When turtle shells were rattling,<br /> - And the drums beat for the dance<br /> - In the great hall of the Factor's house till dawn,<br /> - You sat without the door,<br /> - Where the firelight on the floor<br /> - Caught the red of beads upon your moccasins.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - At evening through the grassy plains the wind<br /> - Came shouting down the world to meet the dawn,<br /> - And with the wind the firelight rose and fell,<br /> - Answered with flame his shrill barbaric yell,<br /> - And died like whining fiddles at his feet.<br /> - And through it all the constant sound of drums—<br /> - Did your feet move to drums?<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - The men from near and far,<br /> - Crees and Sarcees,<br /> - And a Blackfoot brave or two,<br /> - Made rhythm of a dance that moves like rhyme<br /> - To the rush of wind, and rattles swung in time<br /> - To the constant, constant, constant beat of drums.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - No Indian woman dances in the light;<br /> - Silent they sit together out of sight.<br /> - But to-night I think this artist from the East,<br /> - Who had come to paint the natives hereabout,<br /> - Found a splendid flare of crimson on the feast<br /> - And moved near the open door,<br /> - Where the firelight on the floor<br /> - Caught the red of beads upon your moccasins.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - So it is, O Cun-ne-wa-bum,<br /> - Who were wont to look on stars,<br /> - That you sit for ever here,<br /> - Like a wild lost note from far,<br /> - From the days of ancient war<br /> - And of towered stockade and guns<br /> - In the Edmonton of seventy years ago.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - In your buckskin and your beads<br /> - (Feel the sudden wind from out the western hills)<br /> - The tip-end of a swan's wing for your fan<br /> - With a handle of porcupine quills.<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h3> -<a id="jasper"></a> - BALLAD OF JASPER ROAD<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="poem"> - I know a Blackfoot Chief<br /> - Whose name is Dark Plume Bill.<br /> - He lived beside the Jasper Road—<br /> - And lives there still.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - He wears a queer checked coat<br /> - And a grey bowler hat,<br /> - But looks his ninety-seven years<br /> - For all of that.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - His gaze is unconcerned<br /> - As he sits in the sun,<br /> - And counts the flashing motor-cars<br /> - That pass, one-by-one,<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - And trucks, like dreary monsters<br /> - Of a prehistoric day,<br /> - That are rushing down the road<br /> - In their crazy way.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - "The first Red River cart,"<br /> - Said Dark Plume Bill to me,<br /> - "Came lurching up the prairie<br /> - Like a ship at sea."<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - (Oh, the long blue road,<br /> - And the stealthy pad of feet<br /> - And the first patient ox-cart<br /> - With its sail-like sheet!)<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - "Then the carts came faster,<br /> - And at the time of snow<br /> - We camped outside the Palisade,<br /> - Seventy years ago.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - "Arrows, guns—big Buffalo hunts,<br /> - Much long fight,<br /> - And fires to warm the tepees<br /> - For the feasts at night.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - "But when they laid the steel<br /> - And the long trail awoke<br /> - My Indian tribe had scattered<br /> - Like the wigwam smoke."<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - His gaze was unconcerned,<br /> - Yet he scanned the way he knew,<br /> - As though from out its clamour<br /> - He had found a vanished clew.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - And I thought it must be strange<br /> - To sit in the sun<br /> - And look upon an ancient road<br /> - That you had seen begun<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Out of silence and mystery<br /> - And crafty, ambushed death,<br /> - Come alive with men, and monsters<br /> - Of such an alien breath.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - (Oh, the long blue road<br /> - And the stealthy pad of feet<br /> - And the first patient ox-cart<br /> - With its sail-like sheet!)<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h3> -<a id="buffalo"></a> - BUFFALO MEAT -</h3> - -<p class="t3"> - <i>A Daughter-in-law Writes</i><br /> -</p> - -<p><br/></p> - -<p class="poem"> - It takes a letter sixty days to go—<br /> - An Indian boy runs down the trail to-night.<br /> - What shall I write to you?<br /> - My mind is full of gossip of a town<br /> - That you have never dreamed of.<br /> - So—shall I tell you of our shacks,<br /> - Huddled behind the tall stockade?<br /> - Our guns, with muzzles set against the prairie?<br /> - What if I write the truth!<br /> - Your son is now a savage;<br /> - By that much more I love him!<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - If I should say<br /> - I can stand all this tropic, summer heat<br /> - And menial tasks and crowded alleyways,<br /> - And fat squaws lounging in the sun,<br /> - And even water out of tainted wells,<br /> - And long, rough prairie rides—<br /> - All for the sake of autumn,<br /> - And its short, magic days of pure content!<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - If you could know my mind!<br /> - A little British mind two years ago;<br /> - To-day a sort of crowded, pagan scroll,<br /> - Recording strange old customs<br /> - And legends, various as the Indian tribes,<br /> - And prayers and songs and dances.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Songs that are old as earth itself,<br /> - Dances as elemental:<br /> - Skin drums and tom-toms,<br /> - Rattles of turtle shell, and whirl of winds<br /> - Against the amphitheatre of hills.<br /> - You will remember they were playing Sheridan<br /> - When we left London!<br /> - I can count every lilac spray on the old drawing room chintz.<br /> - I hope—I hope you have not changed it since!<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Let me begin again.<br /> - If I should say<br /> - I love this small, rough shack,<br /> - For it has made me brave—<br /> - Braver, at least, than when I saw it first,<br /> - And saw a sea of prairie<br /> - And the dim forms of buffalo herds<br /> - Darkening the far horizon!<br /> - I am braver now than when the halfbreeds came<br /> - Racing towards us on that first wild day,<br /> - Mad messengers to frighten us to death—<br /> - Servants of trappers and the Nor'-west men—<br /> - Those halfbreeds! feathers dangling, tomahawks!<br /> - That was in summer.<br /> - Still the buffalo lingered,<br /> - Cropping the blue-grey grasses,<br /> - Plunging in the muddy wallows,<br /> - Always near us.<br /> - I could almost touch a shaggy flank.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Two years ago to-day, in Piccadilly—<br /> - That tea-shop place the day before we sailed<br /> - He said, "It may be wild enough out there,<br /> - But I shall keep you safe—<br /> - Oh, I shall keep you safe!"<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - We loitered through that first bright autumn<br /> - And on the edge of winter had no meat.<br /> - Who wants meat, here, must follow it—and kill.<br /> - So, like a band of pilgrims, we set out—<br /> - Unguarded women are not left behind—<br /> - Walking beside our husbands all the way.<br /> - Far out of sight, the Indians<br /> - Search for the roaming herds.<br /> - They are on splendid ponies.<br /> - We settlers are the country's parasites.<br /> - When Mary Scott, the factor's wife, and I,<br /> - With two young squaws, were left a day in camp<br /> - We learned an incantation.<br /> - Another day when we were on the trail<br /> - My wedding ring was taken from my hand<br /> - Just as a warning,<br /> - A little necessary bright horse-play,<br /> - To show us who was master.<br /> - Five days of march and then the broad plateau—<br /> - White plains, brown beasts,<br /> - Red, flying figures of the Indian guides,<br /> - Bonfires at night and sleep in soft skin bags,<br /> - Warm blood of slaughter—<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - But—<br /> - It takes a letter sixty days to go,<br /> - Even at this season, when there is no snow.<br /> - Autumn has fallen on London.<br /> - I can see you in the sweet old room.<br /> - Please do not change a thing until I come!<br /> - Fires will be lit, your velvet curtains drawn,<br /> - And when you read my letter, dearest one,<br /> - Pray that some great day I may have a son<br /> - To mingle past with present.<br /> - For now each treacherous hour seems all of life;<br /> - I am as much a hunter as a wife,<br /> - To whom the summer is a breathing space,<br /> - Who waits for autumn<br /> - And trots beside her husband, through the grass<br /> - That shudders in the late November wind,<br /> - Or lies like frozen foam beneath our feet,<br /> - Looking for buffalo meat!<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h3> -<a id="trappers"></a> - RETURN OF THE TRAPPERS -</h3> - -<p class="poem"> - Against the rolling snowdrifts,<br /> - Misted by the frost-fog,<br /> - Dwarfish, pigmy figures,<br /> - See them come!<br /> - Open the gates of the great stockade,<br /> - Welcome them home.<br /> - There's my Red-Scarf!<br /> - I can almost hear him snarling,<br /> - "Marche! Marche!"<br /> - Down at old Fort Garry,<br /> - I have heard them say<br /> - That they take the women,<br /> - Who dog-trot behind them<br /> - All the way.<br /> - Not out here! Not out here!<br /> - With the glass at minus forty<br /> - Half the year!<br /> - There's the first big husky—<br /> - Think you hear his bell?<br /> - That is Henri leading;<br /> - Yes, among a thousand halfbreeds,<br /> - I would know his yell!<br /> - What you bet the sleds hold?<br /> - There's a slide!<br /> - Why that drift the other day<br /> - Stretched a half mile wide.<br /> - What you bet the sleds hold?<br /> - Fire the gun!<br /> - Here the women come, pell mell.<br /> - They've got ears, those Indian women,<br /> - Not much need to fire the gun!<br /> - Now we're in for days of steeping,<br /> - Matching, drying, sorting—rum.<br /> - Hear the whips crack!<br /> - Hi! Hi!<br /> - See, that's Henri!<br /> - Three, four, five—<br /> - Not one train lost.<br /> - Here they come!<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h3> -<a id="oldlady"></a> - AN OLD LADY<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="poem"> - Madame de Courament excels at Bridge.<br /> - Hers is a clever hand,<br /> - Coloured with age and wrinkled;<br /> - But beautiful and tapering too,<br /> - Quite in accord with this old, stately room,<br /> - With crystal chandeliers,<br /> - And flowers and the warm tapestry of books.<br /> - Silent the cards fall.<br /> - Down the long avenue a dog howls at the moon,<br /> - A far, frost-sharpened sound.<br /> - The wind swirls up a little storm of snow<br /> - That blows against the casement.<br /> - A skilled opponent, Madame makes few mistakes<br /> - Like that a moment since,<br /> - When suddenly the dog howled—and we lost a trick.<br /> - She has a flashing wit,<br /> - Dinners at Rideau Hall are incomplete without her.<br /> - As someone said the other day,<br /> - "These elderly, elaborate folk<br /> - Are like a passing pageantry,<br /> - Gorgeous and of another day."<br /> - Silent the cards fall.<br /> - Again the far-off dog howls at the moon.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - An hour later, "Chateau Laurier" she told the chauffeur.<br /> - And, alert and gay,<br /> - Wrapped in her sables,<br /> - She was motoring me the long white way to town<br /> - And gossiping of little this and that.<br /> - But just as we were nearing city lights<br /> - She said, "I saw you noticed that dog's bark.<br /> - It sounded almost like a wolf's;<br /> - It took me back to the Red River days.<br /> - Oh, it was fifty years ago, my dear;<br /> - I was as young as you ... It seems like yesterday.<br /> - Hardships! I loved it all!<br /> - Even the wolves, baying far out of sight,<br /> - Failed to disturb our rest<br /> - When we were safe at home.<br /> - The Indians were quite friendly—<br /> - And the eternal glamour of the snow!<br /> - And yet to-night, just when I heard that sound,<br /> - Sharpened by frost,<br /> - I felt an old pain strike me,<br /> - The knife-like thrust, before a child is born.<br /> - I was alone that night.<br /> - My husband had been called to Edmonton,<br /> - My Indian maid had let her family in<br /> - Looking for whiskey.<br /> - I dared not call to her.<br /> - For hours the Indians danced and sang and yelled.<br /> - I watched them from my icy-cold bedroom<br /> - Through great cracks in the floor.<br /> - Before they slept they sat crouched by the fire,<br /> - As I crouched up above in fright and pain.<br /> - And all night long I heard the wolves;<br /> - They kept a sort of savage company<br /> - With my own stifled cries.<br /> - To-night, my mind went back a moment strangely—<br /> - I always thought he had the sweetest face<br /> - Of any of my seven ... But then he was the first!"<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - She raised her glittering hand<br /> - And found the speaking tube, to modify her chauffeur's pace.<br /> - "And that, my dear, was fifty years ago," she said.<br /> - "The prairie was a very different place—<br /> - I never thought, then, I should come to Bridge!"<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h3> -<a id="spanish"></a> - SPANISH PILOTS<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="t3"> - <i>To Agnes C. Laut</i><br /> -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="poem"> - These were the ragged peon crews,<br /> - Half-bloods of Aztec women,<br /> - Of Spaniards and adventurers<br /> - Who were not seeking heaven!<br /> - But out on the broad seas driven,<br /> - And from the Horn to Sitka,<br /> - They searched for deep-sea findings<br /> - The whole unknown way,<br /> - With "small ringing of bells<br /> - And no trumpet blare,<br /> - Empty stomachs, and empty guns,<br /> - But plenty of prayer."<br /> - And if they failed of the findings,<br /> - Nothing behind but the branding irons,<br /> - Or slavery in the mines.<br /> - Yet they sang<br /> - As they sailed in their rickety death-traps;<br /> - They laughed as they rode,<br /> - And they sank as the rip-tide caught them fast<br /> - With a cry to the Virgin,<br /> - A prayer to the Virgin—<br /> - There was plenty of prayer at the last!<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h2> -<a id="women"></a> -<a id="enchantment"></a> - WOMEN -</h2> - -<p><br /><br /></p> - -<h3> - ENCHANTMENT<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="poem"> - I never see a blue jay<br /> - But I think of her;<br /> - Never hear that hoarse "dear—dear"<br /> - From a tree-top stir,<br /> - And the answering call<br /> - Far, far away,<br /> - And the flash of azure—<br /> - Oh, she would stay<br /> - Listening in the forest,<br /> - Loitering through the silence,<br /> - Hearing calls and singing<br /> - All the livelong day!<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h3> -<a id="paddles"></a> - SHE WHO PADDLES<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="poem"> - She who paddles swiftly,<br /> - Lithe and brown in the sun,<br /> - And dances, lithe as an Indian princess<br /> - In the barbaric days of splendour<br /> - Might have done—<br /> - She can laugh and jest too,<br /> - Play and wine and dine;<br /> - But none of these things have wooed me,<br /> - Bound me close by a mystery,<br /> - Made her eternally mine.<br /> - For we have found still places<br /> - Deep in the wood;<br /> - Climbed a ledge of grey rock<br /> - Where a pink-legged heron stood;<br /> - Heard the distant loon's cry;<br /> - Watched a lonely bird fly—<br /> - And she does not stir then,<br /> - Does not turn to me then,<br /> - But softly walks in the forest<br /> - In no great need of men.<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h3> -<a id="glen"></a> - DOWN NEAR THE GLEN<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="t3"> - (In fear of fairies Irish women sometimes disguise<br /> - their boys as girls)<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="poem"> - "I dress him sweet," the woman told me,<br /> - "All in white with a frill of lace.<br /> - See his hair<br /> - An' the curls that's on it!<br /> - Do ye know a girl with a safter face?<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - "If so I keep him till five or over,<br /> - There's not a one will steal him then!<br /> - With a saft wee girl<br /> - They'd never bother,<br /> - The thievin' fairies down in the glen.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - "Never take chances!" the woman warned me,<br /> - "For a boy is the thing that sticks to your heart!"<br /> - But I was mad!<br /> - I had decked mine bravely;<br /> - He was moulded a man from the very start.<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h3> -<a id="bolshevik"></a> - THE BOLSHEVIK<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="poem"> - I met a woman of the Ward;<br /> - She was in gay attire;<br /> - Her blouse was blue, her toes were through,<br /> - Her ear-rings flashed like fire.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - A little boy with lustrous eyes<br /> - Tugged at her coloured skirt;<br /> - His skin was warm as the southern born,<br /> - And he was caked in dirt.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Two women on the sunny street—<br /> - We fell to friendly talk<br /> - Of grocers' ways, and how it pays<br /> - To purchase as you walk.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - I asked her, as a neighbour might,<br /> - If she had news to tell.<br /> - She answered me, "Oh, quiet-lee,<br /> - I think we soon raise hell!<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - "Too much we give to grocer-men;<br /> - Too much the rich have place;<br /> - More war to-day is the only way<br /> - To put rich in hees place!<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - "We speak a leetle, you and I,<br /> - Some papers scatter round,<br /> - Soon rich will be, quite quiet-lee,<br /> - All trampled on the ground.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - "My man, he has a job all right,<br /> - But he might have much more.<br /> - Make leetle war, and there we are:<br /> - No rich man at our door."<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - The dusky boy with lustrous eyes<br /> - Listened to his mamma,<br /> - And then said he, quite quiet-lee,<br /> - "Most dear, to-day I saw<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - "One motor car that I will own<br /> - When I am grown a man!"<br /> - His beauty spoke, in eyes, in throat,<br /> - As just sheer beauty can.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - And she forgot the little war,<br /> - The beckoning blood and dirt;<br /> - She smoothed his curls, so like a girl's,<br /> - And smoothed his gay striped shirt.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - "Grow up, be good, my little boy;<br /> - One motor you may run!"<br /> - Her eyes burned deep, war fell asleep<br /> - As she looked on her son.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - * * * * *<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - I met a woman of the Ward;<br /> - She was in gay attire;<br /> - Her blouse was blue, her toes were through,<br /> - Her ear-rings flashed like fire.<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h3> -<a id="pavlowa"></a> - PAVLOWA DANCING<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="poem"> - Footsteps of youth through the springtime playing,<br /> - Footfalls of snow in a blue mist straying,<br /> - The rose of Russia in a bright wind swaying—<br /> - A rose of fire and snow.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Voices chanting everywhere, but no word said,<br /> - Fairy bells from ancient towers signalling the dead,<br /> - Light love tuning viols while the dance runs red—<br /> - A flaming dance of death.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - White barbaric winters and a sky star-strung,<br /> - All the hidden pathways, all the songs unsung,<br /> - Caught in flying footsteps over wild music hung—<br /> - She dances, and the Czar lies dead.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Oh, the cries, and martyrdoms, and fatal morns,<br /> - Scarlet nights and fiery wine and bitter scorns,<br /> - Dancing in a rose of joy from a field of thorns—<br /> - Rapture from a land of thorns!<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h3> -<a id="calve"></a> - CALVÉ IN BLUE<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="poem"> - Here is blue fire<br /> - That burns mere youth away<br /> - And leaves sheer passion.<br /> - Out of the coloured flame<br /> - What pageantries arise,<br /> - As that caressing tone,<br /> - Through shimmering veils of harp and flute,<br /> - Seems to peer ghost-like down<br /> - Into a million hearts in nights long gone—<br /> - Into a million eyes!<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - There is a black mantilla<br /> - Of ancient Spanish lace<br /> - Over the deep blue gown.<br /> - The voice of Carmen sings again,<br /> - The mocking voice of Carmen, scarlet still<br /> - With love and certain doom.<br /> - In it there swings a sword,<br /> - And through it blows a laughing word—<br /> - That strange, and quite inevitable word<br /> - That time can never kill.<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h3> -<a id="sign"></a> - SIGN TO TRESPASSERS -</h3> - -<p class="poem"> - Was ever a woman<br /> - Quite alone for a day?<br /> - Other women will come<br /> - Who should stay away.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Because my casement's open,<br /> - As I wait here for you,<br /> - Comes the faint Persephone<br /> - Trailing through the dew.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - She has lived a thousand years,<br /> - Clasped her cosmic rose;<br /> - Why she comes to trouble me<br /> - Only heaven knows!<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - And there's another woman<br /> - Keeps whispering in my ear,<br /> - Till she has the whole house<br /> - Pierced through with fear.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Some wandering nun it is,<br /> - Whose lips can only pray,<br /> - Has made my house a cloister<br /> - In this dreary way.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - And even now your taxi<br /> - Must be racing through the town.<br /> - (Will you love me, O my lover,<br /> - In this pale yellow gown?)<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - I have written out a sign<br /> - That I hope they will obey—<br /> - "For all Peering Women<br /> - There is no Right of Way."<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h3> -<a id="slippers"></a> - SILVER SLIPPERS<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="poem"> - I never wore slippers<br /> - On sweet April evenings,<br /> - But boots made for roads that we travelled in woe,<br /> - For morning and evening<br /> - Meant rough wayside places<br /> - And feet that were slow.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - But now silver slippers,<br /> - Light-mannered, bright slippers,<br /> - Great mirror-like floors and a green velvet lawn,<br /> - Where we beckon with laughter,<br /> - With music, with dancing,<br /> - Sad youth—that is gone.<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h3> -<a id="day"></a> - A FABULOUS DAY<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="poem"> - Oh, the days of the week they are constantly seven!<br /> - And as certain to stay as the fixed stars in heaven.<br /> - But my heart that denies them will wander away<br /> - To find a more likeable, well furnished day<br /> - That I know exists somewhere, invisible, real,<br /> - And shining with moments the seven days steal.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - The stocking I've wanted to darn since the spring,<br /> - The folk-song, forgotten, that calls me to sing,<br /> - The little old lady I hurry to see,<br /> - The cumbersome caller, long promised to tea,<br /> - Or the half-hidden passion pushed by through the week:<br /> - These surely may people the day that I seek.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Sometimes I shall play with a soul never born:<br /> - A companion I met on the far side of morn.<br /> - I shall nod at the losses I wept for last night,<br /> - And find my to-morrows expectant and bright.<br /> - But mostly I think the whole twenty-four hours<br /> - Will be spent in designing a new bed of flowers;<br /> - For everyone's heart, when it wanders away,<br /> - Has its own things to do on a fabulous day.<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h3> -<a id="christmas"></a> - CHRISTMAS EVE<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="poem"> - My house is arrayed<br /> - In its garlands of Christmas delight;<br /> - A red rose is this house<br /> - In its holly and soft candle light.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - But my heart is as cold<br /> - As the heart of a colourless rose,<br /> - And I feel the dead weight<br /> - Of your holiday blanket of snows.<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h3> -<a id="pickthall"></a> - TO MARJORIE PICKTHALL<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="poem"> - The day you died, that April yesterday,<br /> - I was alone in sunny meadow places,<br /> - When, turning a dark clump of wintry leaves,<br /> - I caught a glimpse of exquisite fresh faces,<br /> - Renewing earth.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Then, thinking of another April day<br /> - When you and I found bloom beneath the snow,<br /> - I sent you happy thoughts across the world,<br /> - Not dreaming it the day you were to go—<br /> - But yesterday.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Yet, oh, not lost! how many a year shall turn,<br /> - And youth and age, lonely for some bright way,<br /> - Shall sudden feel you on the face of earth<br /> - And push back death, and pluck you like the may—<br /> - Immortal Song!<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h3> -<a id="patterns"></a> - I WHO CUT PATTERNS<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="poem"> - I who cut patterns,<br /> - As every soul must do,<br /> - Fret myself with longing<br /> - For themes that are new.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - All these fashions<br /> - Were moulded years gone by,<br /> - And, like the mask of politics,<br /> - Are coloured with a lie.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Even the treasured love motif,<br /> - This thing of you and me,<br /> - It must so carefully be cut<br /> - To keep us bound, yet free.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - And death, the sombre casket<br /> - Of centuries of song,<br /> - And war, and rivalries and creeds,<br /> - These we have used too long.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - To-day I found a charming thing<br /> - Of silk and golden lace,<br /> - And yet, beneath the filigree,<br /> - What an old, wrinkled face!<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Still, I believe in legends<br /> - Of laughter and delight,<br /> - And words all coloured with the sun<br /> - And perfumed by the night.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - And I've a mind to leave the shops<br /> - And fashions old and new,<br /> - And cut my pattern from a wind,<br /> - And baste it up with dew.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - I who cut patterns,<br /> - As every soul must do,<br /> - Fret myself with longing<br /> - For themes that are new.<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h3> -<a id="poetesses"></a> - POETESSES<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="poem"> - You who loved all lovely things<br /> - And wrought in jewelled lines;<br /> - You have gone your gracious ways<br /> - That are patterned in dim stones<br /> - Of perfumed, faint-hued words;<br /> - You were a thing so feminine<br /> - That even of war you sang in tender notes,<br /> - But now another one has come,<br /> - Who is herself at war.<br /> - Her songs are keen and glittering,<br /> - For she has felt the magic fire<br /> - That you did long ago;<br /> - But now the fire has burned clean through<br /> - And forged a sword of steel.<br /> - Swinging swords are women's songs<br /> - That gleam as hard as diamonds do,<br /> - And mean to cut tradition.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - And yet those jewelled lines!<br /> - Strangely the ancient magic works,<br /> - Strangely the same fire lurks<br /> - And burns imprisoned there<br /> - In your dim, opaled words,<br /> - That run like paths in heaven<br /> - Paved in mosaic of sweet stones,<br /> - And make a scented highway for our feet,<br /> - Who wield these swinging swords.<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="north"></a></p> - -<h2> - GOING NORTH -</h2> - -<p><br /><br /></p> - -<h3> - GOING NORTH<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="t3b"> - I<br /> -</p> - -<p class="t3b"> - <i>White Porches</i><br /> -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="poem"> - Just as we left the avenue<br /> - I saw a golden butterfly<br /> - Flutter against the windshield.<br /> - I felt the motor take the breeze,<br /> - As gaily as a yacht might do<br /> - Upon some tidal river of the seas.<br /> - We sailed a broad grey asphalt<br /> - Out past the red brick houses,<br /> - And fringy, ragged outskirts<br /> - To where the fields begin.<br /> - And Pickering, Whitby, Oshawa,<br /> - Flashed by like friendly postscripts<br /> - Of the Town's lengthy scroll,<br /> - With dusty little detours,<br /> - And cobblestone communities<br /> - To break the highway's hundred miles<br /> - Of river-like content.<br /> - We smiled at sleepy Main Streets,<br /> - And joyous village gardens,<br /> - And sprawling crimson orchards,<br /> - Heavy with ripened fruit.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Each mile or two a butterfly<br /> - Danced near the blazing windshield,<br /> - "The same gold butterfly!" we said,<br /> - "And the same village street!"<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - We passed a hundred porches,<br /> - Ancient and modern porches,<br /> - And some of them were white ones,<br /> - And those we loved the best.<br /> - Many a bed of phlox we passed,<br /> - Lilac and pink and white,<br /> - And they were gardens of delight<br /> - Along our asphalt river-front—<br /> - Sheer gardens of delight.<br /> - We loved all purple calicoes<br /> - On cheerful, ambling ladies,<br /> - Their morning work already done,<br /> - Sauntering through a mile of sun<br /> - Up to the general store.<br /> - Sometimes they sat on porches,<br /> - Narrow but shining porches,<br /> - Serenely shelling peas.<br /> - "Just what is life," we wondered,<br /> - "For those who sit contented<br /> - Throughout the magic summer<br /> - On these pale country porches,<br /> - Patching—knitting—talking—<br /> - Serenely shelling peas?"<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /></p> - -<p class="t3b"> - II<br /> -</p> - -<p class="t3b"> - <i>Grey Willows</i><br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Then we turned north.<br /> - A railway train rushed by us;<br /> - The blue-bloused engineer<br /> - Hung from his stifling cab,<br /> - Waving a careless hand.<br /> - And in a moment we had lost<br /> - All thought of shining porches<br /> - And sleepy village streets.<br /> - This was a thinner world<br /> - Of smaller, leaner orchards;<br /> - Taller, barer houses;<br /> - Drier, keener air.<br /> - Here and there grey willows,<br /> - With an eerie whisper,<br /> - Bent above a narrow stream<br /> - That languidly slipped by.<br /> - And over us the noon-day sky<br /> - Turned brazen. Stark tree trunks<br /> - Showed where bush fires had run,<br /> - Charred columns of lost forests<br /> - Dried by the sun into fantastic shapes,<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - This narrow stream,<br /> - Unnursed by tree-held snow,<br /> - Dwarfed by the fires, fifty years ago<br /> - Would have raced by us foaming,<br /> - Even in summer, through a world of green—<br /> - A lost green world of butterflies and fern,<br /> - And soft anemones in spring;<br /> - But now at every jagged, ugly turn<br /> - Only a brush heap where the woods had been.<br /> - The very soil is scorched—<br /> - Scorched the brown ferns<br /> - Descended from the ones that long ago<br /> - Were licked into a burning wind of flame.<br /> - Poor, narrow little stream,<br /> - Bereft of that green dream<br /> - That holds the snow! ...<br /> - There was a bit of rock a mile ago,<br /> - The preface of the North!<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /></p> - -<p class="t3b"> - III<br /> -</p> - -<p class="t3b"> - <i>Bush Road</i><br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - A soft swamp road,<br /> - For forty miles through bracken and through fern,<br /> - Smooth as a snake,<br /> - With turn on twisted turn—<br /> - Turns that meant few surprises;<br /> - Yet, as it wrinkled on its way,<br /> - The softly yielding earth that overlay its granite<br /> - Seemed to say<br /> - That once the lumber trails ran here,<br /> - And once the voyageur<br /> - Sang as he paddled down the foaming stream,<br /> - And once the woodmen came,<br /> - Great gangs of woodmen<br /> - With the axe and spike,<br /> - Who set up rude encampments.<br /> - Then, to hoarse shouts and orders,<br /> - To laughter and to oaths,<br /> - To roaring fires at night and whiskey-haunted songs,<br /> - The soft green forest fell.<br /> - It died robustly as it lived,<br /> - And had its will of singing and of strife,<br /> - An ardent, powerful, various sort of life;<br /> - A more heroic fate<br /> - Than this of late—<br /> - A trail up to the playground of the North,<br /> - A bracken-haunted, snaky road,<br /> - A soft surprise to strangers, a delight.<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /></p> - -<p class="t3b"> - IV<br /> -</p> - -<p class="t3b"> - <i>Painted Rock</i><br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Then the North took us,<br /> - Forced us through rocky walls,<br /> - Tore at our tires,<br /> - Gave us no inch of earth<br /> - Upon our steady climb.<br /> - Yet even here, beside the cruel road,<br /> - Were scraggy plots of farm,<br /> - And wood-piles neatly stacked,<br /> - And shacks, and gloomy faces.<br /> - Then an acre of more fertile land,<br /> - Pine trees and woods,<br /> - And suddenly, like a blue cup held high,<br /> - The lake Mazinawa ...<br /> - All silence, silence, silence—<br /> - Dark colours filling the blue cup.<br /> - And, like a purple stain against the sunset,<br /> - The great rock of Mazinawa,<br /> - Sacred to Indian tribes how long ago!<br /> - A thousand years ago?<br /> - Why should one care to know!<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - It looms up larger than I dreamed;<br /> - Roadways of rock<br /> - And canyons full of light;<br /> - Niched balconies for pines bent all one way;<br /> - Small birds in flight,<br /> - Dashing against the dark<br /> - Of that vast rocky flank,<br /> - Whose sides of iron seams,<br /> - Laid under golden lichen,<br /> - Have been a place of dreams<br /> - And of brute sacrifice.<br /> - What if it has a power to draw us near<br /> - As in the days of fear?<br /> - When from the rocklands of the Georgian Bay<br /> - Or through the bush roads whence we came to-day,<br /> - But then on foot, soft-padding all the way,<br /> - Or in the war canoes<br /> - They crowded to this small blue lake of theirs<br /> - And an old shrine ...<br /> - What are we floating towards<br /> - In this small, low canoe?<br /> - A naked, ceremonial singing past<br /> - Seems to reach out and whisper.<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="study"></a></p> - -<h3> - STUDY IN SHADOWS -</h3> - -<p class="t3"> - <i>The Rock at Bon Echo</i><br /> -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="t3b"> - I<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Once in the twilight aisles of Amiens<br /> - I thought I knew what shadows were,<br /> - Creeping in golden dust and greying dust,<br /> - And trooping down dim flights of measured air,<br /> - Liquid in spacing, that those arches span.<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="t3b"> - II<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - But just last night, before the moon was up,<br /> - Our little boat stole close against these crags<br /> - That out-rear arches and reject the dark.<br /> - Yet gradually the purple of the rock<br /> - Melted before it; and again they came<br /> - Creeping in golden dust, and greying dust,<br /> - And crowding down those giant flights of stair<br /> - That open slowly as eternity,<br /> - To hold the feet of shadows, lost in night.<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p class="t3b"> - III<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Then I remembered Götterdammerüng—<br /> - How before doom falls on the gorgeous host,<br /> - Slowly there drifts across the empty stage<br /> - A smoke-cloud, lonely as a passing soul.<br /> - In very truth the gods return to you—<br /> - Great rock that blazes colour in the sun—<br /> - And, as in the Valhalla of old song,<br /> - Parade before our eyes the whole day long<br /> - And make a glorious end,<br /> - As with you they are folded in a sleep.<br /> - No cloud foretells their doom, but wings of birds<br /> - A moment sweep your side—then fall away.<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h3> -<a id="northern"></a> - NORTHERN GRAVEYARDS<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="poem"> - Stony fields and lonely roads,<br /> - Meagre hamlets, very lean,<br /> - And most prosperous graveyards<br /> - Lying all between.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Each few miles a graveyard,<br /> - With its crouching column<br /> - And its urns and headstones,<br /> - Very dark and solemn.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - But with what an accent!<br /> - Yellow, purple, red,<br /> - Lie the votive offerings<br /> - To this public dead.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Close beside the railway,<br /> - Where the smoke drifts high,<br /> - These are decked in garlands<br /> - For the passerby.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Even in the winter,<br /> - Breaking through the snow<br /> - Immortelles beguile us,<br /> - When the train runs slow.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - They are strangely cheerful,<br /> - All these plots of ground<br /> - That have lost the loneliness<br /> - Of the living. Here abound<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - In a comradeship increasing<br /> - Those who in their hour<br /> - Reaped a dreary harvest,<br /> - Missed a magic flower.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Over them the smoke-wreaths,<br /> - Snow, and whispering grass,<br /> - And the voice of neighbours,<br /> - Sighing as they pass;<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - While the urns of iron<br /> - And the barbarous vases<br /> - Chant a willing ritual<br /> - To forgotten faces.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - So they sleep together,<br /> - And their shades may say:<br /> - "Wave to us, O restless traveller!<br /> - We are glad to stay."<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h3> -<a id="stony"></a> - STONY LAKE<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="poem"> - By southern seas I have seen purple stones<br /> - Throw back the shadows of the waves and hills.<br /> - On the Ćgean, so the stories run,<br /> - Greek youths, with many a saffron-coloured sail,<br /> - Rode flame-like to the rhythm of the gale.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Again, on the bright shores of this small lake,<br /> - Purple of hills and pink of northern rocks.<br /> - To-day I met a sail-boat in the wind<br /> - And at its mast a brown Canadian boy—<br /> - He was as splendid as his mate of Troy.<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h3> -<a id="trade"></a> - TRADE<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="poem"> - It might have been two hundred years ago,<br /> - For all the difference in her way or mine,<br /> - That her canoe, with paddle dipping slow,<br /> - Just as the sunset ran to embers low,<br /> - Stopped at my rocky door.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - With fish and basketwork she plied her trade,<br /> - And I, to help a little money last,<br /> - Answered her barter with a coat I made<br /> - Of coloured wool—oh, many seasons past!<br /> - We were both satisfied!<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h3> -<a id="snake"></a> - SNAKE ISLAND<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="poem"> - "Ages ago," my Indian says<br /> - (As we are fishing in a cove<br /> - Of this green island, with its trees and shacks),<br /> - "Here was wild grass and many snakes.<br /> - After a while they disappear,<br /> - For soon the white man comes, and makes<br /> - Houses like these to live in!"<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - So the old name is suddenly made new.<br /> - Snake Island! ...<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Ages ago, perhaps, the trees were elfin<br /> - And tall grass towered to the skies,<br /> - Until, to all those narrow, screen-like eyes,<br /> - This was a dazzling fen,<br /> - Perplexed with tangled fern,<br /> - Peopled with glittering prey;<br /> - Dense borderland to where the black pools lay<br /> - Whose captives twist and turn.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Burrowing, boa-like, harlequin snakes,<br /> - Your day was brilliant and flashing enough!<br /> - Snakes casting skins in continuous slough,<br /> - Grass snakes and ring snakes, on dragon-flies bent.<br /> - Was there a charmer, with musical pipe,<br /> - Lured you a moment? Some Indian charm<br /> - Surely touched you with sorcery, gave you alarm,<br /> - Ere the people who meant to build houses like these<br /> - Came and killed you—<br /> - And killed the wild grass.<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h3> -<a id="juniper"></a> - JUNIPER RING<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="poem"> - Juniper ring on the granite rock,<br /> - Deep and green and perfectly planned;<br /> - Living with you I understand<br /> - Circle-magic of old.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - You had a sister in mystery—<br /> - Was it only an April ago<br /> - That a crocus cup on a bed of snow<br /> - Promised eternal things?<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - It will be longer, Juniper,<br /> - Till earth declares you ready to break,<br /> - And you fade of the havoc her brown hands make<br /> - That are covered with mystic rings.<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h3> -<a id="slumber"></a> - WHITE SLUMBER<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="poem"> - Who has come to that farthest island<br /> - Beyond White Gull Bay?<br /> - There is a little tent among the birches<br /> - Since yesterday.<br /> - Those birches are the palest things<br /> - Even in the morning sun!<br /> - Among them the tent has suddenly blossomed,<br /> - As the white flower of a night-blooming cereus,<br /> - Silently, deep in some forest of sleep,<br /> - Might have done.<br /> - Who are they? What dreams must be theirs,<br /> - Who have found such a magical camp unawares?<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h3> -<a id="crimson"></a> - CRIMSON POOL<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="poem"> - Even you, dark pool—<br /> - Even you feel death.<br /> - On your soft brown surface<br /> - There are deep reflections<br /> - Of a fiery breath.<br /> - To the waiting forest<br /> - Death does not come creeping<br /> - As it comes to men;<br /> - It comes shouting, waving banners,<br /> - Burning out its way with torches,<br /> - Hanging garlands now and then.<br /> - All the green walls of your silence<br /> - Hung with crimson,<br /> - Even you, dark pool—<br /> - Even you feel death.<br /> - On your soft brown surface<br /> - There are deep reflections<br /> - Of a fiery breath.<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="miracles"></a></p> - -<h2> - MIRACLES -</h2> - -<p><br /></p> - -<h3> - MIRACLES<br /> -</h3> - -<p class="poem"> - We said: "The Universe shall kneel!"<br /> - And so the dreams of long ago<br /> - Have bound the winds and stars,<br /> - And lashed the waves to giant bars,<br /> - Till Light itself is chained.<br /> - We fly on wings of steel;<br /> - We beckon Mars.<br /> - Almost the frightened worlds, I feel,<br /> - Must in their journeys swerve and wheel<br /> - Far from the Will of Earth.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="poem"> - Suppose the Universe should speak!<br /> - And on some thundering street<br /> - Quite suddenly, before our eyes<br /> - A fountain, cool and sweet,<br /> - A careless, laughing little thing<br /> - Should dance upon the air<br /> - And all the very wise of us<br /> - Be held in wonder there! ...<br /> - Suppose one day an angel,<br /> - Through some caprice or whim,<br /> - Should walk along a city way<br /> - That we might talk to him;<br /> - And all the men and women,<br /> - And all the horses too,<br /> - Should bow and fall before him,<br /> - As mortals used to do! ...<br /> - I wish that some quaint miracle<br /> - Might happen, even to-day,<br /> - Whereby the Universe should speak<br /> - And men kneel down to pray.<br /> -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /><br /></p> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Morning in the West, by Katherine Hale - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MORNING IN THE WEST *** - -***** This file should be named 63153-h.htm or 63153-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/3/1/5/63153/ - -Produced by Al Haines -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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