CONTENTS

Through the lake furrow between the gloom and bright’ning

  Firm runs our long canoe with a whistling rush,

While Potan the wise and the cunning Silver Lightning

  Break with their slender blades the long clear hush;

Soon shall I pitch my tent amid the birches,

  Wise Potan shall gather boughs of balsam fir,

While for bark and dry wood Silver Lightning searches;

  Soon the smoke shall hang and lapse in the moist air.

Soon shall I sleep—if I may not remember

  One who lives far away where the storm-cloud went;

May it part and starshine burn in many a quiet ember,

  Over her towered city crowned with large content;

Dear God, let me sleep, here where deep peace is,

  Let me own a dreamless sleep once for all the years,

Let me know a quiet mind and what heart ease is,

  Lost to light and life and hope, to longing and to tears.

Here in the wilderness less her memory presses,

  Yet I see her lingering where the birches shine,

All the dark cedars are sleep-laden like her tresses,

  The gold-moted wood-pools pellucid as her eyen;

Memories and ghost-forms of the days departed

  People all the forest lone in the dead of night;

While Potan and Silver Lightning sleep, the happy-hearted,

  Troop they from their fastnesses upon my sight.

Once when the tide came straining from the Lido,

  In a sea of flame our gondola flickered like a sword,

Venice lay abroad builded like beauty’s credo,

  Smouldering like a gorget on the breast of the Lord:

Did she mourn for fame foredoomed or passion shattered

  That with a sudden impulse she gathered at my side?

But when I spoke the ancient fates were flattered,

  Chill there crept between us the imperceptible tide.

Though she denied at parting the gift that I besought her,

  Just a bit of ribbon or a strand of her hair;

Though she would not keep the token that I brought her,

  Proud she stood and calm and marvellously fair;

Yet I saw her spirit—truth cannot dissemble—

  Saw her pure as gold, staunch and keen and brave,

For she knows my worth and her heart was all atremble,

  Lest her will should weaken and make her heart a slave.

If she could be here where all the world is eager

  For dear love with the primal Eden sway,

Where the blood is fire and no pulse is thin or meagre,

  All the heart of all the world beats one way!

There is the land of fraud and fame and fashion,

  Joy is but a gaud and withers in an hour,

Here is the land of quintessential passion,

  Where in a wild throb Spring wells up with power.

She would hear the partridge drumming in the distance,

  Rolling out his mimic thunder in the sultry noons;

Hear beyond the silver reach in ringing wild persistence

  Reel remote the ululating laughter of the loons;

See the shy moose fawn nestling by its mother,

  In a cool marsh pool where the sedges meet;

Rest by a moss-mound where the twin-flowers smother

  With a drowse of orient perfume drenched in light and heat:

She would see the dawn rise behind the smoky mountain,

  In a jet of colour curving up to break,

While like spray from the iridescent fountain,

  Opal fires weave over all the oval of the lake:

She would see like fireflies the stars alight and spangle

  All the heaven meadows thick with growing dusk,

Feel the gipsy airs that gather up and tangle

  The woodsy odours in a maze of myrrh and musk:

There in the forest all the birds are nesting,

  Tells the hermit thrush the song he cannot tell,

While the white-throat sparrow never resting,

  Even in the deepest night rings his crystal bell:

O, she would love me then with a wild elation,

  Then she must love me and leave her lonely state,

Give me love yet keep her soul’s imperial reservation,

  Large as her deep nature and fathomless as fate:

Then, if she would lie beside me in the even,

  On my deep couch heaped of balsam fir,

Fragrant with sleep as nothing under heaven,

  Let the past and future mingle in one blur;

While all the stars were watchful and thereunder

  Earth breathed not but took their silent light,

All life withdrew and wrapt in a wild wonder

  Peace fell tranquil on the odorous night:

She would let me steal,—not consenting or denying—

  One strong arm beneath her dusky hair,

She would let me bare, not resisting or complying,

  One sweet breast so sweet and firm and fair;

Then with the quick sob of passion’s shy endeavour,

  She would gather close and shudder and swoon away,

She would be mine for ever and for ever,

  Mine for all time and beyond the judgment day.

Venus sinks first lost in ruby splendour,

  Stars like wood-daffodils grow golden in the night,

Far, far above, in a space entranced and tender,

  Floats the growing moon pale with virgin light.

Vaster than the world or life or death my trust is

  Based in the unseen and towering far above;

Hold me, O Law, that deeper lies than Justice,

  Guide me, O Light, that stronger burns than Love.

Her dreams are undiscovered,

  Shadows trouble her breast,

When the time for resting cometh

  Then least is she at rest.

Oft in the morns of winter,

  When she visits the rabbit snares,

An appearance floats in the crystal air

  Beyond the balsam firs.

Oft in the summer mornings

  When she strips the nets of fish,

The smell of the dripping net-twine

  Gives to her heart a wish.

But she cannot learn the meaning

  Of the shadows in her soul,

The lights that break and gather,

  The clouds that part and roll,

The reek of rock-built cities,

  Where her fathers dwelt of yore,

The gleam of loch and shealing,

  The mist on the moor,

Frail traces of kindred kindness,

  Of feud by hill and strand,

The heritage of an age-long life

  In a legendary land.

She wakes in the stifling wigwam,

  Where the air is heavy and wild,

She fears for something or nothing

  With the heart of a frightened child.

She sees the stars turn slowly

  Past the tangle of the poles,

Through the smoke of the dying embers,

  Like the eyes of dead souls.

Her heart is shaken with longing

  For the strange, still years,

For what she knows and knows not,

  For the wells of ancient tears.

A voice calls from the rapids,

  Deep, careless and free,

A voice that is larger than her life

  Or than her death shall be.

She covers her face with her blanket,

  Her fierce soul hates her breath,

As it cries with a sudden passion

  For life or death.

Let the birch-bark torches roar in the gloom,

And the trees crowd up in a quiet startled ring

So lone is the land that in this lonely room

Never before has breathed a human thing.

Cover him well in his canvas shroud, and the moss

Part and heap again on his quiet breast,

What recks he now of gain, or love, or loss

Who for love gained rest?

Haunting the tamarac shade,

Hear them up-thronging

Memories foredoomed

Of strife and of longing:

Haggard or bright

By the tamaracs and birches,

Where the red torch light

Trembles and searches,

The wilderness teems

With inscrutable eyes

Of ghosts that are dreams

Commingled with memories.

Then, as we fare on our way to the shore

Sudden the torches cease to roar:

For cleaving the darkness remote and still

Comes a wind with a rushing, harp-like thrill,

The sound of wings hurled and furled and unfurled,

The wings of the Angel who gathers the souls from the wastes of the world.

To ports of balm through isles of musk

The gentle airs are leading us;

To curtained calm and tents of dusk,

The wood-wild things unheeding us

Will share their hoards of hardihood,

Cool dew and roots of fern for food,

Frail berries full of the sun’s blood.

To planets bland with dales of dream

A tranquil life is leading us,

We shall land from the languid stream,

The musing shades, unheeding us,

Will share their veils of angelhood,

Thoughts that are tranced with mystic food,

Still broodings tinct with a seraph’s blood.

The shore-lark soars to his topmost flight,

  Sings at the height where morning springs,

What though his voice be lost in the light,

  The light comes dropping from his wings.

Mount, my soul, and sing at the height

  Of thy clear flight in the light and the air,

Heard or unheard in the night in the light

  Sing there!    Sing there!