Canadian Streams
O rivers rolling to the sea
From lands that bear the maple-tree,
How swell your voices with the strain
Of loyalty and liberty!
A holy music, heard in vain
By coward heart and sordid brain,
To whom this strenuous being seems
Naught but a greedy race for gain.
O unsung streams--not splendid themes
Ye lack to fire your patriot dreams!
Annals of glory gild your waves,
Hope freights your tides, Canadian streams!
St. Lawrence, whose wide water laves
The shores that ne'er have nourished slaves!
Swift Richelieu of lilied fame!
Niagara of glorious graves!
Thy rapids, Ottawa, proclaim
Where Daulac and his heroes came!
Thy tides, St. John, declare La Tour,
And, later, many a loyal name!
Thou inland stream, whose vales, secure
From storm, Tecumseh's death made poor!
And thou small water, red with war,
'Twixt Beaubassin and Beauséjour!
Dread Saguenay, where eagles soar,
What voice shall from the bastioned shore
The tale of Roberval reveal,
Or his mysterious fate deplore?
Annapolis, do thy floods yet feel
Faint memories of Champlain's keel,
Thy pulses yet the deed repeat
Of Poutrincourt and d'Iberville?
And thou far tide, whose plains now beat
With march of myriad weathering feet,
Saskatchewan, whose virgin sod
So late Canadian blood made sweet?
Your bulwark hills, your valleys broad,
Streams where de Salaberry trod,
Where Wolfe achieved, where Brock was slain,--
Their voices are the voice of God!
O sacred waters! not in vain,
Across Canadian height and plain,
Ye sound us in triumphant tone
The summons of your high refrain.
poem by Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
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Canada
O Child of Nations, giant-limbed,
Who stand'st among the nations now
Unheeded, unadored, unhymned,
With unanointed brow, --
How long the ignoble sloth, how long
The trust in greatness not thine own?
Surely the lion's brood is strong
To front the world alone!
How long the indolence, ere thou dare
Achieve thy destiny, seize thy fame, --
Ere our proud eyes behold thee bear
A nation's franchise, nation's name?
The Saxon force, the Celtic fire,
These are thy manhood's heritage!
Why rest with babes and slaves? Seek higher
The place of race and age.
I see to every wind unfurled
The flag that bears the Maple Wreath;
Thy swift keels furrow round the world
Its blood-red folds beneath;
Thy swift keels cleave the furthest seas;
Thy white sails swell with alien gales;
To stream on each remotest breeze
The black smoke of thy pipes exhales.
O Falterer, let thy past convince
Thy future, -- all the growth, the gain,
The fame since Cartier knew thee, since
Thy shores beheld Champlain!
(Montcalm and Wolfe! Wolfe and Montcalm!
Quebec, thy storied citadel
Attest in burning song and psalm
How here thy heroes fell!
O Thou that bor'st the battle's brunt
At Queenston and at Lundy's Lane, --
On whose scant ranks but iron front
The battle broke in vain! --
Whose was the danger, whose the day,
From whose triumphant throats the cheers,
At Chrysler's Farm, at Chateauguay,
Storming like clarion-bursts our ears?
On soft Pacific slopes, -- beside
Strange floods that northward rave and fall, --
Where chafes Acadia's chainless tide --
Thy sons await thy call.
They wait; but some in exile, some
With strangers housed, in stranger lands, --
And some Canadian lips are dumb
Beneath Egyptian sands.
O mystic Nile! Thy secret yields
Before us; thy most ancient dreams
Are mixed with far Canadian fields
And murmur of Canadian streams.
But thou, my country, dream not thou!
Wake, and behold how night is done, --
How on thy breast, and o'er thy brow,
Bursts the uprising sun!
poem by Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
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Bande Mataram
Mother, I bow to thee!
Rich with thy hurrying streams,
Bright with thy orchard gleams,
Cool with thy winds of delight,
Dark fields waving, Mother of might,
Mother free.
Glory of moonlight dreams
Over thy branches and lordly streams,
Clad in thy blossoming trees,
Mother, giver of ease,
Laughing low and sweet!
Mother, I kiss thy feet,
Speaker sweet and low!
Mother, to thee I bow.
Who hath said thou art weak in thy lands,
When the swords flash out in twice seventy million hands
And seventy millions voices roar
Thy dreadful name from shore to shore?
With many strengths who art mighty and stored,
To thee I call, Mother and Lord!
Thou who savest, arise and save!
To her I cry who ever her foemen drave
Back from plain and sea
And shook herself free.
Thou art wisdom, thou art law,
Thou our heart, our soul, our breath,
Thou the love divine, the awe
In our hearts that conquers death.
Thine the strength that nerves the arm,
Thine the beauty, thine the charm.
Every image made divine
In our temples is but thine.
Thou art Durga, Lady and Queen,
With her hands that strike and her swords of sheen,
Thou art Lakshmi lotus-throned,
Pure and perfect without peer,
Mother, lend thine ear.
Rich with thy hurrying streams,
Bright with thy orchard gleams,
Dark of hue, O candid-fair
In thy soul, with jewelled hair
And thy glorious smile divine,
Loveliest of all earthly lands,
Showering wealth from well-stored hands!
Mother, mother mine!
Mother sweet, I bow to thee,
Mother great and free.
poem by Sri Aurobindo
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Thought Of A Briton On The Subjugation Of Switzerland
TWO Voices are there; one is of the sea,
One of the mountains; each a mighty Voice:
In both from age to age thou didst rejoice,
They were thy chosen music, Liberty!
There came a Tyrant, and with holy glee
Thou fought'st against him; but hast vainly striven:
Thou from thy Alpine holds at length art driven,
Where not a torrent murmurs heard by thee.
Of one deep bliss thine ear hath been bereft:
Then cleave, O cleave to that which still is left;
For, high-souled Maid, what sorrow would it be
That Mountain floods should thunder as before,
And Ocean bellow from his rocky shore,
And neither awful Voice be heard by thee!
poem by William Wordsworth
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The Isle Of Founts
Son of the stranger! wouldst thou take
O'er yon blue hills thy lonely way,
To reach the still and shining lake
Along whose banks the west-winds play?
-Let no vain dreams thy heart beguile,
Oh! seek thou not the Fountain-Isle!
Lull but the mighty serpent king,
'Midst the grey rocks, his old domain;
Ward but the cougar's deadly spring,
-Thy step that lake's green shore may gain;
And the bright Isle, when all is pass'd,
Shall vainly meet thine eye at last!
Yes! there, with all its rainbow streams,
Clear as within thine arrow's flight,
The Isle of Founts, the Isle of dreams,
Floats on the wave in golden light;
And lovely will the shadows be
Of groves whose fruit is not for thee!
And breathings from their sunny flowers,
Which are not of the things that die,
And singing voices from their bowers
Shall greet thee in the purple sky;
Soft voices, e'en like those that dwell
Far in the green reed's hollow cell.
Or hast thou heard the sounds that rise
From the deep chambers of the earth?
The wild and wondrous melodies
To which the ancient rocks gave birth?
-Like that sweet song of hidden caves
Shall swell those wood-notes o'er the waves.
The emerald waves!-they take their hue
And image from that sunbright shore;
But wouldst thou launch thy light canoe,
And wouldst thou ply thy rapid oar,
Before thee, hadst thou morning's speed,
The dreamy land should still recede!
Yet on the breeze thou still wouldst hear
The music of its flowering shades,
And ever should the sound be near
Of founts that ripple through its glades;
The sound, and sight, and flashing ray
Of joyous waters in their play!
But woe for him who sees them burst
With their bright spray-showers to the lake!
Earth has no spring to quench the thirst
That semblance in his soul shall wake,
For ever pouring through his dreams,
The gush of those untasted streams!
Bright, bright in many a rocky urn,
The waters of our deserts lie,
Yet at their source his lip shall burn,
Parch'd with the fever's agony!
From the blue mountains to the main,
Our thousand floods may roll in vain.
E'en thus our hunters came of yore
Back from their long and weary quest;
-Had they not seen th' untrodden shore,
And could they 'midst our wilds find rest?
The lightning of their glance was fled,
They dwelt amongst us as the dead!
They lay beside our glittering rills,
With visions in their darken'd eye,
Their joy was not amidst the hills,
Where elk and deer before us fly;
Their spears upon the cedar hung,
Their javelins to the wind were flung.
They bent no more the forest-bow,
They arm'd not with the warrior-band,
The moons wan'd o'er them dim and slow-
-They left us for the spirit's land!
Beneath our pines yon greensward heap
Shows where the restless found their sleep.
Son of the stranger! if at eve
Silence be 'midst us in thy place,
Yet go not where the mighty leave
The strength of battle and of chase!
Let no vain dreams thy heart beguile,
Oh! seek thou not the Fountain-Isle!
poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
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If Thou'lt Be Mine
If thou'lt be mine, the treasures of air,
Of earth, and sea, shall lie at thy feet;
Whatever in Fancy's eye looks fair,
Or in Hope's sweet music sounds most sweet,
Shall be ours -- if thou wilt be mine, love!
Bright flowers shall bloom wherever we rove,
A voice divine shall talk in each stream;
The stars shall look like world of love,
And this earth be all one beautiful dream
In our eyes -- if thou wilt be mine, love!
And thoughts, whose source is hidden and high,
Like streams that come from heaven-ward hills,
Shall keep our hearts, like meads, that lie
To be bathed by those eternal rills,
Ever green, if thou wilt be mine, love!
All this and more the Spirit of Love
Can breathe o'er them who feel his spells;
That heaven, which forms his home above,
He can make on earth, wherever he dwells,
As thou'lt own, -- if thou wilt be mine, love!
poem by Thomas Moore
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The Rail Road
Thou great proclaimer to the outward eye
Of what the spirit too would seek to tell,
Onward thou go'st, appointed from on high
The other warnings of the Lord to swell;
Thou art the voice of one that through the world
Proclaims in startling tones, 'Prepare the way;'
The lofty mountain from its seat is hurled,
The flinty rocks thine onward march obey;
The valleys lifted from their lowly bed
O'ertop the hills that on them frowned before,
Thou passest where the living seldom tread,
Through forests dark, where tides beneath thee roar,
And bid'st man's dwelling from thy track remove,
And would with warning voice his crooked paths reprove.
poem by Jones Very
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The Greek Girl’s Lament For Her Lover
IMRA! thy form is vanished
From the proud and patriot band;
Imra! thy voice is silent,
'Mongst the voices of the land.
And bravely hast thou fallen;
In joy didst thou depart;
Their chains shall never bind thee,
Young hero of my heart!
But with thee the dream is over
That bound my soul so long;
And the words of fame and glory
Have vanished from my song:
My heart which bounded proudly
Is as sad as sad can be;
I thought it beat for freedom,
But I feel it beat--for thee.
I thought the victory's triumph
Would have made my soul rejoice,
But that was when I listened
To the music of thy voice.
The dreams of fame and conquest,
Of my country being free;
What love were they to Zoë,
But most blessed dreams of thee?
It is past--thy voice may never
Speak of triumph, or of love;
And the bright hope that was burning
Hath flown with thee above.
This earth contains no dwelling,
No land of rest for me;
When Hellas was my country,
I dwelt in it with thee!
poem by Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton
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Prologue
My friends, we sing Canadian themes,
For in them we proudly glory;
Her lakes, her rivers and her streams,
Worthy of renown in story.
And in these leaves we hope is strewn
Some wheat among the chaff
And maple boughs, by rude axe hewn
Where one may find a rustic staff
To help him o'er the rugged lines.
Some see no beauties near to home,
But do admire the distant far -
They always love abroad to roam,
View glory in but far off star;
But, let it never be forgot
That distant hills, when closer seen,
Are after all a barren spot -
Not like your own hills, clad in green.
You'll find they are but idle dreams,
To search for happiness afar:
At home there's lovely lakes and streams,
Remain content now where you are.
At us we hope you will not rage
Because we sing of local charms
In each varied town and village,
As well as round our rural farms.
But our address it must be brief,
So we bid you now all adieu;
But, of our book, pray read each leaf,
Until the whole you have gone through;
Each one doth know it is not wise,
Though our song may not be vocal,
Chants of our home for to despise,
But prize them 'cause they are local.
poem by James McIntyre
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Revisited
The roll of drums and the bugle's wailing
Vex the air of our vales-no more;
The spear is beaten to hooks of pruning,
The share is the sword the soldier wore!
Sing soft, sing low, our lowland river,
Under thy banks of laurel bloom;
Softly and sweet, as the hour beseemeth,
Sing us the songs of peace and home.
Let all the tenderer voices of nature
Temper the triumph and chasten mirth,
Full of the infinite love and pity
For fallen martyr and darkened hearth.
But to Him who gives us beauty for ashes,
And the oil of joy for mourning long,
Let thy hills give thanks, and all thy waters
Break into jubilant waves of song!
Bring us the airs of hills and forests,
The sweet aroma of birch and pine,
Give us a waft of the north-wind laden
With sweethrier odors and breath of kine!
Bring us the purple of mountain sunsets,
Shadows of clouds that rake the hills,
The green repose of thy Plymouth meadows,
The gleam and ripple of Campton rills.
Lead us away in shadow and sunshine,
Slaves of fancy, through all thy miles,
The winding ways of Pemigewasset,
And Winnipesaukee's hundred isles.
Shatter in sunshine over thy ledges,
Laugh in thy plunges from fall to fall;
Play with thy fringes of elms, and darken
Under the shade of the mountain wall.
The cradle-song of thy hillside fountains
Here in thy glory and strength repeat;
Give us a taste of thy upland music,
Show us the dance of thy silver feet.
Into thy dutiful life of uses
Pour the music and weave the flowers;
With the song of birds and bloom of meadows
Lighten and gladden thy heart and ours.
Sing on! bring down, O lowland river,
The joy of the hills to the waiting sea;
The wealth of the vales, the pomp of mountains,
The breath of the woodlands, bear with thee.
Here, in the calm of thy seaward, valley,
Mirth and labor shall hold their truce;
Dance of water and mill of grinding,
Both are beauty and both are use.
Type of the Northland's strength and glory,
Pride and hope of our home and race,--
Freedom lending to rugged labor
Tints of beauty and lines of grace.
Once again, O beautiful river,
Hear our greetings and take our thanks;
Hither we come, as Eastern pilgrims
Throng to the Jordan's sacred banks.
For though by the Master's feet untrodden,
Though never His word has stilled thy waves,
Well for us may thy shores be holy,
With Christian altars and saintly graves.
And well may we own thy hint and token
Of fairer valleys and streams than these,
Where the rivers of God are full of water,
And full of sap are His healing trees!
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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Western Australia
O Beauteous Southland! Land of yellow air
That hangeth o've thee slumbering, and doth hold
The moveless foliage of thy valleys fair,
And wooded hills, like aureole of gold.
Oh thou, discovered ere the fitting time,
Ere Nature in completion turned thee forth!
Ere aught was finished but thy peerless clime,
Thy virgin breath allured the amorous North.
O Land, God made thee wondrous to the eye!
But His sweet singers thou hast never heard;
He left thee, meaning to come bye-and-bye,
And give rich voice to every bright-winged bird.
He painted with fresh hues thy myriad flowers,
But left them scentless; ah! their woeful dole,
Like sad reproach of their creator's powers,
To make so sweet fair bodies, void of soul.
He gave thee trees of odorous precious wood;
But, midst them all, bloomed not one tree of fruit.
He looked, but said not that His work was good,
When leaving thee all perfumeless and mute.
He blessed thy flowers with honey; every bell
Looks earthward, sunward, with a yearning wist,
But no bee-lover ever notes the swell
Of hearts, like lips, a-hungering to be kist.
O Strange Land, thou art virgin! Thou art more
Than fig-tree barren! Would that I could paint
For other's eyes the glory of the shore
Where last I saw thee; but the senses faint.
In soft delicious dreaming when they drain
Thy wine of colour. Virgin fair thou art.
All sweetly fruitful, waiting with soft pain
The spouse that comes to wake thy sleeping heart.
poem by John Boyle O'Reilly
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Song of the Cattle Hunters
While the morning light beams on the fern-matted streams,
And the water-pools flash in its glow,
Down the ridges we fly, with a loud ringing cry --
Down the ridges and gullies we go!
And the cattle we hunt -- they are racing in front,
With a roar like the thunder of waves,
As the beat and the beat of our swift horses' feet
Start the echoes away from their caves!
As the beat and the beat
Of our swift horses' feet
Start the echoes away from their caves!
Like a wintry shore that the waters ride o'er,
All the lowlands are filling with sound;
For swiftly we gain where the herds on the plain,
Like a tempest, are tearing the ground!
And we'll follow them hard to the rails of the yard,
O'er the gulches and mountain-tops grey,
Where the beat and the beat of our swift horses' feet
Will die with the echoes away!
Where the beat and the beat
Of our swift horses' feet
Will die with the echoes away!
poem by Henry Kendall
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Ode X: To The Muse
I.
Queen of my songs, harmonious maid,
Ah why hast thou withdrawn thy aid?
Ah why forsaken thus my breast
With inauspicious damps oppress'd?
Where is the dread prophetic heat,
With which my bosom wont to beat?
Where all the bright mysterious dreams
Of haunted groves and tuneful streams,
That woo'd my genius to divinest themes?
II.
Say, goddess, can the festal board,
Or young Olympia's form ador'd;
Say, can the pomp of promis'd fame
Relume thy faint, thy dying flame?
Or have melodious airs the power
To give one free, poetic hour?
Or, from amid the Elysian train,
The soul of Milton shall i gain,
To win thee back with some celestial strain?
III.
O powerful strain! o sacred soul!
His numbers every sense controul:
And now again my bosom burns;
The Muse, the Muse herself returns.
Such on the banks of Tyne, confess'd,
I hail'd the fair immortal guest,
When first she seal'd me for her own,
Made all her blissful treasures known,
And bade me swear to follow Her alone.
poem by Mark Akenside
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The Mediterranean
[A SCHOOL COMPOSITION.]
Hail! thou eternal flood, whose restless waves
Roll onward in their course, as wild and free,
As if the shores they lashed were not the graves
Of mouldering empires; When I think of thee,
Thou dost remind me of that ebbless sea --
The sea of Time, whose tide sweeps unconfined,
Its channel Earth, its shores Eternity;
Whose billows roll resistless o'er mankind; --
Like that thou rollest on, nor heed'st the wrecks behind.
Thy shores were empires; but the tide of Time
Rolled o'er them, and they fell; and there they lie,
Wrecked in their greatness, mouldering, yet sublime
And beautiful in their mortality.
And god-like men were there, the wise and free;
But what are they who now look o'er thy waves?
They're but as worms that feed on their decay;
They kneel to stranger lords -- a land of slaves,
Of men whose only boast is their ancestral graves.
Upon thy shores the Holy Prophets trod,
And from their hill-tops came the voice of One
Whom thou obeyest, even the Eternal God;
And on thy breast the star of Bethlehem shone:
That star, though quenched in blood, hath risen a sun,
And other climes are radiant with its light;
But thy fair shores, alas! it shines not on,
Save when some land, with its effulgence bright,
Reflects the heavenly rays upon their moral night.
Philosophy hath decked her form divine,
In all her loveliest draperies, and wrought
Her brightest dreams by thee, thy shores her shrine,
Thy sons her oracles, the kings of thought;
But they have passed, and, save their names, are naught,
And their bright dreams are buried like their clay,
Or shattered, like the fanes where they were taught.
But though religions, empires, men decay,
Thou, restless, changeless flood -- thou dost not pass away.
There Poesy hath woven such fair dreams,
That man hath deemed them bright reality;
There she hath peopled hills, and vales, and streams,
And thy blue waters with her phantasy;
And fabled gods left heaven to roam by thee:
There she embodied passions of the heart,
In such fair forms, that frail morality
Failed to conceive, until triumphal Art
Bade from the Parian stone the immortal image start.
The loftiest bards, whose names illume the past,
Have sung upon thy shores; and thy deep tone
Ceased at their Orphean lyres; -- but now the last,
"The pilgrim bard," whose matchless song alone
Had made thy name immortal as his own, --
A stranger of the north, but, "as it were
A child of thee," his spirit too hath flown.
Thus have the greatest passed. Thine azure air
Still echoes to their song, but thou alone art there.
Thine empires, one by one, have fall'n, and now
The last is crumbling in decay: -- yes, she,
The coronet upon thy furrowed brow,
The mistress of the world, the queen of thee,
The paradise of earth, sweet Italy;
Stript of her queenly robes, in dust she lies,
Enchained by slaves, nor struggling to be free.
There hath she fallen, as the dolphin dies,
More brightly beautiful in her last agonies.
But though thy shores are sepulchres, that Time
Hath peopled with dead empires; though they are
But shattered wrecks, and every other clime
Hath sprung from their decay; yet Nature there
Hath made their pall of beauty sadly fair;
And they shall be, while thy blue waves shall foam,
The Mecca of the world, -- the altar, where
Science, Devotion, Genius, Art shall come,
And feel as Moslems feel above their prophet's tomb.
And thou, unchanging flood, that wanderest on,
Through that dark path of ruin and decay,
Still must thou roll untended and alone.
Men shall arise, and shine, and pass away,
Like the bright bubbles of thy glittering spray;
And thrones shall totter, kingdoms be laid waste --
Yea, empires rise and fall along thy way,
Like the dark heavings of thy troubled breast;
But thou shalt still roll on -- for thee there is no rest.
poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
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An Old Memory
How sweet the music sounded
That summer long ago,
When you were by my side, love,
To list its gentle flow.
I saw your eyes a-shining,
I felt your rippling hair,
I kissed your pearly cheek, love,
And had no thought of care.
And gay or sad the music,
With subtle charm replete;
I found in after years, love
'Twas you that made it sweet.
For standing where we heard it,
I hear again the strain;
It wakes my heart, but thrills it
With sad, mysterious pain.
It pulses not so joyous
As when you stood with me,
And hand in hand we listened
To that low melody.
Oh, could the years turn back, love!
Oh, could events be changed
To what they were that time, love,
Before we were estranged;
Wert thou once more a maiden
Whose smile was gold to me;
Were I once more the lover
Whose word was life to thee,--
O God! could all be altered,
The pain, the grief, the strife,
And wert thou--as thou shouldst be--
My true and loyal wife!
But all my tears are idle,
And all my wishes vain.
What once you were to me, love,
You may not be again.
For I, alas! like others,
Have missed my dearest aim.
I asked for love. Oh, mockery!
Fate comes to me with fame!
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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George Chapman:XI
HIGH priest of Homer, not elect in vain,
Deep trumpets blow before thee, shawms behind
Mix music with the rolling wheels that wind
Slow through the labouring triumph of thy train:
Fierce history, molten in thy forging brain,
Takes form and fire and fashion from thy mind,
Tormented and transmuted out of kind:
But howsoe’er thou shift thy strenuous strain,
Like Tailor1 smooth, like Fisher2 swollen, and now
Grim Yarrington3 scarce bloodier marked than thou,
Then bluff as Mayne’s4 or broad-mouthed Barry’s5 glee ,
Proud still with hoar predominance of brow
And beard like foam swept off the broad blown sea,
Where’er thou go, men’s reverence goes with thee.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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To a Poet, Charles Bridges
THOU singest, thou, me seems,
Coming from high Parnassus; where thy head
Beside the silent streams,
Among fast-fading blooms, hath fashioned
A pillow of pale dreams;
While from thee, sleeping, gods, of heart and soul,
Have taken fullest toll.
Thou knowest at what cost
Thy sleep was taken on those awful hills--
What thou hast gained, and lost;
Thou knowest, too, if what thou art fulfils
The pledge of what thou wast;
And if all compensates the poet's wreath
That wounds the brow beneath.
Rememberest thou that night
Incomparable? Thou in dreams wast laid,
Where petals, rose and white,
Above thy head a pale pavilion made;
Where at unscalèd height
The moon lay anchored in the heaving sky,
And clouds went surging by.
Then came the gods unknown!--
The plundering gods--to take thee unawares,
While thou wast sleeping, thrown
Upon the sacred mountain that is theirs.
In vain sad flowers had blown
A gale of petals o'er thee, on they came
In a still sheet of flame!
They knew that those who dare
To sleep one night beside Parnassus' streams
The poet's crown must wear--
Must lip the chalice of immortal dreams,
And breathe the eternal air;
Who, even unto trembling Ossa's hill,
May walk the mount at will!
They killed thy happiness,
And strangled all thy youth, with hands profane,
They brake Love's rosaries,
Tossing thy ravaged soul amid the slain,
While thou wast weaponless;
And left thee gibbeted 'twixt pain and peace,
Forbidding thy release.
Then they augustly laid
Their crippled gifts beside thee, and withdrew
Into high Pelion's shade;
Their tireless feet made fall no bead of dew,
Their passing bent no blade,
Though thunder muttered round each mighty plume,
And crumbled into gloom.
They laid a fatal spell
Of beauty on thine eyes, that made most fair
The rose unpluckable;
They bade thee thirst, yet find no Cup to bear
Water from any well;
They mocked thee with a vision passionate,
And a soul celibate!
O friend, what thou hast known
Thou givest me; what thou hast suffered, thou
Wouldst calmly bear alone;
Forbidding thorns to gather on my brow,--
Accustomed on thine own;
Thou lingerest at my side, to show and spare
The pitfall and the snare.
For thou wouldst give to me
The poet's pillow, who has suffered not
The poet's penalty;
A goodly heritage, a happy lot
Wouldst have my portion be.
With honey from the rod art fain to feed,
Not from the galled reed.
Thou hast some rare reward!
The reed that gods have guided, in thine hand
Becomes a dreadful sword;
Their fingers on thy heartstrings still demand
A loud, triumphant chord:
They pass the ditch-delivered poets by,
With wide contemptuous eye.
Poet: I take thy cup:
But, from my coloured wreath of morning flowers
Where bees wild honey sup,
Upon thy sepulchre of buried hours
Am fain to offer up
Some bud, that spills upon thy brow anew
Its fragile shell of dew.
And if at last I choose
To make my pillow on some slope forlorn,
And, in that slumber, lose
My morning wreath, that must be tossed and torn
To feed the jealous Muse,
Remember the poor gifts that I resign . . .
I shall remember thine!
poem by Muriel Stuart
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Ode to The Country Gentlemen Of England
Thou, heedless Albion, what, alas, the while
Dost thou presume? O inexpert in arms,
Yet vain of freedom, how dost thou beguile,
With dreams of hope, these near and loud alarms?
Thy splendid home, thy plan of laws renown'd,
The praise and envy of the nations round,
What care hast thou to guard from fortune's sway?
Amid the storms of war, how soon may all
The lofty pile from its foundations fall,
Of ages the proud toil, the ruin of a day!
No: thou art rich, thy streams and fertile vales
Add industry's wise gifts to nature's store:
And every port is crowded with thy sails,
And every wave throws treasure on thy shore.
What boots it? If luxurious plenty charm
Thy selfish heart from glory, if thy arm
Shrink at the frowns of danger and of pain,
Those gifts, that treasure is no longer thine.
Oh rather far be poor. Thy gold will shine
Tempting the eye of force, and deck thee to thy bane.
But what hath force or war to do with thee?
Girt by the azure tide and thron'd sublime
Amid thy floating bulwarks, thou canst see,
With scorn, the fury of each hostile clime
Dash'd ere it reach thee. Sacred from the foe
Art thy fair fields: athwart thy guardian prow
No bold invader's foot shall tempt the strand--
Yet say my country, will the waves and wind
Obey thee? Hast thou all thy hopes resign'd
To the sky's fickle faith? the pilot's wavering hand?
Nor yet be aw'd, nor yet your task disown,
Though war's proud votaries look on severe;
Though secrets, taught erewhile to them alone,
They deem profan'd by your intruding ear.
Let them in vain, your martial hope to quell,
Of new refinements, fiercer weapons tell,
And mock the old simplicity, in vain:
To the time's warfare, simple or refin'd,
The time itself adapts the warrior's mind;
And equal prowess still shall equal palms obtain.
poem by Mark Akenside
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Tides
O patient shore, thou canst not go to meet
Thy love, the restless sea, how comfortest
Thou all thy loneliness? Art thou at rest,
When, loosing his strong arms from round thy feet,
He turns away? Know'st thou, however sweet
That other shore may be, that to thy breast
He must return? And when in sterner test
He folds thee to a heart which does not beat,
Wraps thee in ice, and gives no smile, no kiss,
To break long wintry days, still dost thou miss
Naught from thy trust? Still wait, unfaltering,
The higher, warmer waves which leap in spring?
O sweet, wise shore, to be so satisfied!
O heart, learn from the shore! Love has a tide!
poem by Helen Hunt Jackson
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An Invite, to Eternity
Wilt thou go with me, sweet maid,
Say, maiden, wilt thou go with me
Through the valley-depths of shade,
Of night and dark obscurity;
Where the path has lost its way,
Where the sun forgets the day,
Where there's nor life nor light to see,
Sweet maiden, wilt thou go with me!
Where stones will turn to flooding streams,
Where plains will rise like ocean waves,
Where life will fade like visioned dreams
And mountains darken into caves,
Say, maiden, wilt thou go with me
Through this sad non-identity,
Where parents live and are forgot,
And sisters live and know us not!
Say, maiden; wilt thou go with me
In this strange death of life to be,
To live in death and be the same,
Without this life or home or name,
At once to be and not to be -
That was and is not -yet to see
Things pass like shadows, and the sky
Above, below, around us lie?
poem by John Clare
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Departed Statesmen
Lines on our departed Canadian Statesmen, with a glance at our two living leaders.
Joseph Howe, none higher stood than thou,
Thou wert a man with lofty brow ;
D'Arcey McGee, so brillant and free,
From Green Isle you came, 'oer the sea.
George Cartier, to the French ever dear,
So high you stood without a peer ;
John Sandfield, * for long you did build
Power under economy's shield.
George Brown, thou man of renown,
Confederation you did crown ;
You now are all free from the strife,
The wrangle and jangle of political life.
But if a glance at this world you take,
You will there see John A. and Blake ;
But Sir John, the greatest power doth wield,
Our Canadian Beaconsfield.
poem by James McIntyre
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