Chapter 1

Produced by Andrew Sly.

Thank you to Canadian Poetry [http://www.canadianpoetry.ca] for providing the source text.

Revised by Karen Dalrymple, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

AMONG THE MILLET

AND

Other Poems.

BY

ARCHIBALD LAMPMAN

Ottawa: J. DURIE & SON. 1888

Entered according to Act of Parliament of Canada, in the year 1888, by ARCHIBALD LAMPMAN, at the Department of Agriculture.

PRESS OF A. S. WOODBURN, 36 Elgin St., Ottawa, Can.

_TO MY WIFE._

_Though fancy and the might of rhyme, That turneth like the tide, Have borne me many a musing time, Beloved, from thy side,

Ah yet, I pray thee, deem not, Sweet, Those hours were given in vain; Within these covers to thy feet I bring them back again._

CONTENTS:

I.

POEMS.

Among the Millet 1 April 2 An October Sunset 5 The Frogs 6 An Impression 9 Spring on the River 10 Why do ye call the Poet lonely 11 Heat 12 Among the Timothy 14 Freedom 18 Morning on the Lièvres 21 In October 23 Lament of the Winds 24 Ballade of Summer's Sleep 25 Winter 27 Winter Hues Recalled 30 Storm 34 Midnight 37 Song of the Stream-Drops 38 Between the Rapids 40 New Year's Eve 43 Unrest 45 Song 46 One Day 47 Sleep 48 Three Flower Petals 50 Passion 51 A Ballade of Waiting 52 Before Sleep 53 A Song 56 What Do Poets Want With Gold 58 The King's Sabbath 60 The Little Handmaiden 61 Abu Midjan 64 The Weaver 67 The Three Pilgrims 69 The Coming of Winter 73 Easter Eve 74 The Organist 82 The Monk 87 The Child's Music Lesson 103 An Athenian Reverie 105

II.

SONNETS.

Love-Doubt 123 Perfect Love 124 Love-Wonder 125 Comfort 126 Despondency 127 Outlook 128 Gentleness 129 A Prayer 130 Music 131 Knowledge 132 Sight 133 An Old Lesson from the Fields 134 Winter-Thought 135 Deeds 136 Aspiration 137 The Poets 138 The Truth 139 The Martyrs 140 A Night of Storm 141 At the Railway Station 142 A Forecast 143 In November 144 The City 145 Midsummer Night 146 The Loons 147 March 148 Solitude 149 The Maples 150 The Dog 151

I.

POEMS.

POEMS.

AMONG THE MILLET.

The dew is gleaming in the grass, The morning hours are seven, And I am fain to watch you pass, Ye soft white clouds of heaven.

Ye stray and gather, part and fold; The wind alone can tame you; I think of what in time of old The poets loved to name you.

They called you sheep, the sky your sward, A field without a reaper; They called the shining sun your lord, The shepherd wind your keeper.

Your sweetest poets I will deem The men of old for moulding In simple beauty such a dream, And I could lie beholding,

Where daisies in the meadow toss, The wind from morn till even, Forever shepherd you across The shining field of heaven.

APRIL.

Pale season, watcher in unvexed suspense, Still priestess of the patient middle day, Betwixt wild March's humored petulence And the warm wooing of green kirtled May, Maid month of sunny peace and sober grey, Weaver of flowers in sunward glades that ring With murmur of libation to the spring:

As memory of pain, all past, is peace, And joy, dream-tasted, hath the deepest cheer, So art thou sweetest of all months that lease The twelve short spaces of the flying year. The bloomless days are dead, and frozen fear No more for many moons shall vex the earth, Dreaming of summer and fruit laden mirth.

The grey song-sparrows full of spring have sung Their clear thin silvery tunes in leafless trees; The robin hops, and whistles, and among The silver-tasseled poplars the brown bees Murmur faint dreams of summer harvestries; The creamy sun at even scatters down A gold-green mist across the murmuring town.

By the slow streams the frogs all day and night Dream without thought of pain or heed of ill, Watching the long warm silent hours take flight, And ever with soft throats that pulse and thrill, From the pale-weeded shallows trill and trill, Tremulous sweet voices, flute-like, answering One to another glorying in the spring.

All day across the ever-cloven soil, Strong horses labour, steaming in the sun, Down the long furrows with slow straining toil, Turning the brown clean layers; and one by one The crows gloom over them till daylight done Finds them asleep somewhere in duskèd lines Beyond the wheatlands in the northern pines.

The old year's cloaking of brown leaves that bind The forest floor-ways, plated close and true-- The last love's labour of the autumn wind-- Is broken with curled flower buds white and blue In all the matted hollows, and speared through With thousand serpent-spotted blades up-sprung, Yet bloomless, of the slender adder-tongue.

In the warm noon the south wind creeps and cools, Where the red-budded stems of maples throw Still tangled etchings on the amber pools, Quite silent now, forgetful of the slow Drip of the taps, the troughs, and trampled snow, The keen March mornings, and the silvering rime And mirthful labour of the sugar prime.

Ah, I have wandered with unwearied feet, All the long sweetness of an April day, Lulled with cool murmurs and the drowsy beat Of partridge wings in secret thickets grey, The marriage hymns of all the birds at play, The faces of sweet flowers, and easeful dreams Beside slow reaches of frog-haunted streams;

Wandered with happy feet, and quite forgot The shallow toil, the strife against the grain, Near souls, that hear us call, but answer not, The loneliness, perplexity and pain, And high thoughts cankered with an earthly stain And then the long draught emptied to the lees, I turn me homeward in slow pacing ease,

Cleaving the cedar shadows and the thin Mist of grey gnats that cloud the river shore, Sweet even choruses, that dance and spin Soft tangles in the sunset; and once more The city smites me with its dissonant roar. To its hot heart I pass, untroubled yet, Fed with calm hope, without desire or fret.

So to the year's first altar step I bring Gifts of meek song, and make my spirit free With the blind working of unanxious spring, Careless with her, whether the days that flee Pale drouth or golden-fruited plenty see, So that we toil, brothers, without distress, In calm-eyed peace and godlike blamelessness.

AN OCTOBER SUNSET.

One moment the slim cloudflakes seem to lean With their sad sunward faces aureoled, And longing lips set downward brightening To take the last sweet hand kiss of the king, Gone down beyond the closing west acold; Paying no reverence to the slender queen, That like a curvèd olive leaf of gold Hangs low in heaven, rounded toward sun, Or the small stars that one by one unfold Down the gray border of the night begun.

THE FROGS.

I.

Breathers of wisdom won without a quest, Quaint uncouth dreamers, voices high and strange, Flutists of lands where beauty hath no change, And wintery grief is a forgotten guest, Sweet murmurers of everlasting rest, For whom glad days have ever yet to run, And moments are as æons, and the sun But ever sunken half-way toward the west.

Often to me who heard you in your day, With close wrapt ears, it could not choose but seem That earth, our mother, searching in what way, Men's hearts might know her spirit's inmost dream, Ever at rest beneath life's change and stir, Made you her soul, and bade you pipe for her.

II.

In those mute days when spring was in her glee, And hope was strong, we knew not why or how, And earth, the mother, dreamed with brooding brow. Musing on life, and what the hours might be, When love should ripen to maternity, Then like high flutes in silvery interchange Ye piped with voices still and sweet and strange, And ever as ye piped, on every tree

The great buds swelled; among the pensive woods The spirits of first flowers awoke and flung From buried faces the close fitting hoods, And listened to your piping till they fell, The frail spring-beauty with her perfumed bell, The wind-flower, and the spotted adder-tongue.

III.

All the day long, wherever pools might be Among the golden meadows, where the air Stood in a dream, as it were moorèd there Forever in a noon-tide reverie, Or where the birds made riot of their glee In the still woods, and the hot sun shone down, Crossed with warm lucent shadows on the brown Leaf-paven pools, that bubbled dreamily,

Or far away in whispering river meads And watery marshes where the brooding noon, Full with the wonder of its own sweet boon, Nestled and slept among the noiseless reeds, Ye sat and murmured, motionless as they, With eyes that dreamed beyond the night and day.

IV.

And when, day passed and over heaven's height, Thin with the many stars and cool with dew, The fingers of the deep hours slowly drew The wonder of the ever-healing night, No grief or loneliness or wrapt delight Or weight of silence ever brought to you Slumber or rest; only your voices grew More high and solemn; slowly with hushed flight

Ye saw the echoing hours go by, long-drawn, Nor ever stirred, watching with fathomless eyes, And with your countless clear antiphonies Filling the earth and heaven, even till dawn, Last-risen, found you with its first pale gleam, Still with soft throats unaltered in your dream.

V.

And slowly as we heard you, day by day, The stillness of enchanted reveries Bound brain and spirit and half-closèd eyes, In some divine sweet wonder-dream astray; To us no sorrow or upreared dismay Nor any discord came, but evermore The voices of mankind, the outer roar, Grew strange and murmurous, faint and far away.

Morning and noon and midnight exquisitely, Wrapt with your voices, this alone we knew, Cities might change and fall, and men might die, Secure were we, content to dream with you, That change and pain are shadows faint and fleet, And dreams are real, and life is only sweet.

AN IMPRESSION.

I heard the city time-bells call Far off in hollow towers, And one by one with measured fall Count out the old dead hours;

I felt the march, the silent press Of time, and held my breath; I saw the haggard dreadfulness Of dim old age and death.

SPRING ON THE RIVER.

O sun, shine hot on the river; For the ice is turning an ashen hue, And the still bright water is looking through, And the myriad streams are greeting you With a ballad of life to the giver, From forest and field and sunny town, Meeting and running and tripping down, With laughter and song to the river.

Oh! the din on the boats by the river; The barges are ringing while day avails, With sound of hewing and hammering nails, Planing and painting and swinging pails, All day in their shrill endeavour; For the waters brim over their wintry cup, And the grinding ice is breaking up, And we must away down the river.

Oh! the hum and the toil of the river; The ridge of the rapid sprays and skips: Loud and low by the water's lips, Tearing the wet pines into strips, The saw mill is moaning ever. The little grey sparrow skips and calls On the rocks in the rain of the water falls, And the logs are adrift in the river.

Oh! restlessly whirls the river; The rivulets run and the cataract drones: The spiders are flitting over the stones: Summer winds float and the cedar moans; And the eddies gleam and quiver. O sun, shine hot, shine long and abide In the glory and power of thy summer tide On the swift longing face of the river.

WHY DO YE CALL THE POET LONELY.

Why do ye call the poet lonely, Because he dreams in lonely places? He is not desolate, but only Sees, where ye cannot, hidden faces.

HEAT.

From plains that reel to southward, dim, The road runs by me white and bare; Up the steep hill it seems to swim Beyond, and melt into the glare. Upward half way, or it may be Nearer the summit, slowly steals A hay-cart, moving dustily With idly clacking wheels.

By his cart's side the wagoner Is slouching slowly at his ease, Half-hidden in the windless blur Of white dust puffing to his knees. This wagon on the height above, From sky to sky on either hand, Is the sole thing that seems to move In all the heat-held land.

Beyond me in the fields the sun Soaks in the grass and hath his will; I count the marguerites one by one; Even the buttercups are still. On the brook yonder not a breath Disturbs the spider or the midge. The water-bugs draw close beneath The cool gloom of the bridge.

Where the far elm-tree shadows flood Dark patches in the burning grass, The cows, each with her peaceful cud, Lie waiting for the heat to pass. From somewhere on the slope near by Into the pale depth of the noon A wandering thrush slides leisurely His thin revolving tune.

In intervals of dreams I hear The cricket from the droughty ground; The grass-hoppers spin into mine ear A small innumerable sound. I lift mine eyes sometimes to gaze: The burning sky-line blinds my sight: The woods far off are blue with haze; The hills are drenched in light.

And yet to me not this or that Is always sharp or always sweet; In the sloped shadow of my hat I lean at rest, and drain the heat; Nay more, I think some blessèd power Hath brought me wandering idly here: In the full furnace of this hour My thoughts grow keen and clear.

AMONG THE TIMOTHY.

Long hours ago, while yet the morn was blithe, Nor sharp athirst had drunk the beaded dew, A reaper came, and swung his cradled scythe Around this stump, and, shearing slowly, drew Far round among the clover, ripe for hay, A circle clean and grey; And here among the scented swathes that gleam, Mixed with dead daisies, it is sweet to lie And watch the grass and the few-clouded sky, Nor think but only dream.

For when the noon was turning, and the heat Fell down most heavily on field and wood, I too came hither, borne on restless feet, Seeking some comfort for an aching mood. Ah, I was weary of the drifting hours, The echoing city towers, The blind grey streets, the jingle of the throng, Weary of hope that like a shape of stone Sat near at hand without a smile or moan, And weary most of song.

And those high moods of mine that sometime made My heart a heaven, opening like a flower, A sweeter world where I in wonder strayed, Begirt with shapes of beauty and the power Of dreams that moved through that enchanted clime With changing breaths of rhyme, Were all gone lifeless now like those white leaves, That hang all winter, shivering dead and blind Among the sinewy beeches in the wind, That vainly calls and grieves.

Ah! I will set no more mine overtaskèd brain To barren search and toil that beareth nought, Forever following with sorefooted pain The crossing pathways of unbournèd thought; But let it go, as one that hath no skill, To take what shape it will, An ant slow-burrowing in the earthy gloom, A spider bathing in the dew at morn, Or a brown bee in wayward fancy borne From hidden bloom to bloom.

Hither and thither o'er the rocking grass The little breezes, blithe as they are blind, Teasing the slender blossoms pass and pass, Soft-footed children of the gipsy wind, To taste of every purple-fringèd head Before the bloom is dead; And scarcely heed the daisies that, endowed With stems so short they cannot see, up-bear Their innocent sweet eyes distressed, and stare Like children in a crowd.

Not far to fieldward in the central heat, Shadowing the clover, a pale poplar stands With glimmering leaves that, when the wind comes, beat Together like innumerable small hands, And with the calm, as in vague dreams astray, Hang wan and silver-grey; Like sleepy mænads, who in pale surprise, Half-wakened by a prowling beast, have crept Out of the hidden covert, where they slept, At noon with languid eyes.

The crickets creak, and through the noonday glow, That crazy fiddler of the hot mid-year, The dry cicada plies his wiry bow In long-spun cadence, thin and dusty sere: From the green grass the small grasshoppers' din Spreads soft and silvery thin: And ever and anon a murmur steals Into mine ears of toil that moves alway, The crackling rustle of the pitch-forked hay And lazy jerk of wheels.

As so I lie and feel the soft hours wane, To wind and sun and peaceful sound laid bare, That aching dim discomfort of the brain Fades off unseen, and shadowy-footed care Into some hidden corner creeps at last To slumber deep and fast; And gliding on, quite fashioned to forget, From dream to dream I bid my spirit pass Out into the pale green ever-swaying grass To brood, but no more fret.

And hour by hour among all shapes that grow Of purple mints and daisies gemmed with gold In sweet unrest my visions come and go; I feel and hear and with quiet eyes behold; And hour by hour, the ever-journeying sun, In gold and shadow spun, Into mine eyes and blood, and through the dim Green glimmering forest of the grass shines down, Till flower and blade, and every cranny brown, And I are soaked with him.

FREEDOM.

Out of the heart of the city begotten Of the labour of men and their manifold hands, Whose souls, that were sprung from the earth in her morning, No longer regard or remember her warning, Whose hearts in the furnace of care have forgotten Forever the scent and the hue of her lands;

Out of the heat of the usurer's hold, From the horrible crash of the strong man's feet; Out of the shadow where pity is dying; Out of the clamour where beauty is lying, Dead in the depth of the struggle for gold; Out of the din and the glare of the street;

Into the arms of our mother we come, Our broad strong mother, the innocent earth, Mother of all things beautiful, blameless, Mother of hopes that her strength makes tameless, Where the voices of grief and of battle are dumb, And the whole world laughs with the light of her mirth.

Over the fields, where the cool winds sweep, Black with the mould and brown with the loam, Where the thin green spears of the wheat are appearing, And the high-ho shouts from the smoky clearing; Over the widths where the cloud shadows creep; Over the fields and the fallows we come;

Over the swamps with their pensive noises, Where the burnished cup of the marigold gleams; Skirting the reeds, where the quick winds shiver On the swelling breast of the dimpled river, And the blue of the king-fisher hangs and poises, Watching a spot by the edge of the streams;

By the miles of the fences warped and dyed With the white-hot noons and their withering fires, Where the rough bees trample the creamy bosoms Of the hanging tufts of the elder blossoms, And the spiders weave, and the grey snakes hide, In the crannied gloom of the stones and the briers;

Over the meadow lands sprouting with thistle, Where the humming wings of the blackbirds pass, Where the hollows are banked with the violets flowering, And the long-limbed pendulous elms are towering, Where the robins are loud with their voluble whistle, And the ground sparrow scurries away through the grass,

Where the restless bobolink loiters and woos Down in the hollows and over the swells, Dropping in and out of the shadows, Sprinkling his music about the meadows, Whistles and little checks and coos, And the tinkle of glassy bells;

Into the dim woods full of the tombs Of the dead trees soft in their sepulchres, Where the pensive throats of the shy birds hidden, Pipe to us strangely entering unbidden, And tenderly still in the tremulous glooms The trilliums scatter their white-winged stars;

Up to the hills where our tired hearts rest, Loosen, and halt, and regather their dreams; Up to the hills, where the winds restore us, Clearing our eyes to the beauty before us, Earth with the glory of life on her breast, Earth with the gleam of her cities and streams.