The Magic House and Other Poems 6

The Magic House and Other Poems 6

OFF THE ISLE AUX COUDRES

 

 

The moon, Capella, and the Pleiades

Silver the river’s grey uncertain floor;

Only a heron haunts the grassy shore;

A fox barks sharply in the cedar trees;

Then comes the lift and lull of plangent seas,

Swaying the light marish grasses more and more

Until they float, and the slow tide brims o’er,

And then a rivulet runs along the breeze.

 

O night! thou art so beautiful, so strange, so sad;

I feel that sense of scope and ancientness,

Of all the mighty empires thou hast had

Dreaming of power beneath thy palace dome,

Of how thou art untouched by their distress,

Supreme above this dreaming land, my home.

 

 

 

 

AT LES EBOULEMENTS

 

TO M. E. S.

 

 

The bay is set with ashy sails,

With purple shades that fade and flee,

And curling by in silver wales,

The tide is straining from the sea.

 

The grassy points are slowly drowned,

The water laps and over-rolls,

The wicker pêche; with shallow sound

A light wave labours on the shoals.

 

The crows are feeding in the foam,

They rise in crowds tumultuously,

‘Come home,’ they cry, ‘come home, come home,

And leave the marshes to the sea.’

 

 

 

 

ABOVE ST. IRÉNÉE

 

 

I rested on the breezy height,

In cooler shade and clearer air,

Beneath a maple tree;

Below, the mighty river took

Its sparkling shade and sheeny light

Down to the sombre sea,

And clustered by the leaping brook,

The roofs of white St. Irénée.

 

The sapphire hills on either hand

Broke down upon the silver tide,

The river ran in streams,

In streams of mingled azure-grey,

With here a broken purple band,

And whorls of drab, and beams

Of shattered silver light astray,

Where far away the south shore gleams.

 

I walked a mile along the height

Between the flowers upon the road,

Asters and golden-rod;

And in the gardens pinks and stocks,

And gaudy poppies shaking light,

And daisies blooming near the sod,

And lowly pansies set in flocks,

With purple monkshood overawed.

 

And there I saw a little child

Between the tossing golden-rod,

Coming along to me;

She was a tender little thing,

So fragile-sweet, so Mary-mild,

I thought her name Marie;

No other name methought could cling

To any one so fair as she.

 

And when we came at last to meet,

I spoke a simple word to her,

‘Where are you going, Marie?’

She answered and she did not smile,

 

But oh! her voice,--her voice so sweet,

‘Down to St. Irénée,’

And so passed on to walk her mile,

And left the lonely road to me.

 

And as the night came on apace,

With stars above the darkened hills,

I heard perpetually,

Chiming along the falling hours,

On the deep dusk that mellow phrase,

‘Down to St. Irénée:’

It seemed as if the stars and flowers

Should all go there with me.

 

 

 

 

WRITTEN IN A COPY OF ARCHIBALD LAMPMAN’S POEMS

 

 

When April moved in maiden guise

Hiding her sweet inviolate eyes,

You saw about the hazel roots,

Beyond the ruddy osier shoots,

The violets rise.

 

At even, in the lower woods,

Amid the cedarn solitudes,

You heard afar amid the hush

The argent utterance of the thrush

In slower interludes.

 

When bees above in arboured rooms

Were busy in the basswood blooms,

You drowsed within the sombre drone,

Dreaming, and deemed yourself alone,

Harboured in glooms.

 

The singing of the sentient bees

Brought wisdom for perplexities;

They taught you all the murmured lore

Of seas around an ancient shore,

Of streams and trees.

 

You saw the web of life unrolled,

Fold and inweave, weave and unfold,

Crimson and azure strand on strand,

From some great gulf in vision-land,

Deep and untold.

 

And as the soft clouds opal-gray

Against the confines of the day

Seem lighter for the depth of skies,

So, lighter for your saddened eyes,

Your fair thoughts stray.

 

I pluck a bunch before the spring,

Of field-flowers reflowering,

Upon a fell that fancy weaves,

A memory lingers in their leaves

Of songs you sing.

 

You must have rested here sometime,

When thought was high and words in chime,

Your seed thoughts left for sun and showers

Have blossomed into pleasant flowers,

Instead of rhyme.

 

And so I bring them back to you,

These pensile buds of tender hue,

Of crimson, pink and purple sheen,

Of yellow deep, and delicate green,

Of white and blue.

 

 

 

 

OFF RIVIÈRE DU LOUP

 

 

O ship incoming from the sea

With all your cloudy tower of sail,

Dashing the water to the lee,

And leaning grandly to the gale;

 

The sunset pageant in the west

Has filled your canvas curves with rose,

And jewelled every toppling crest

That crashes into silver snows!