Part 3

"On the watery floor Of this sibilant lake, I lived in the twilight dim. 'There's a world of Day,' Some pled, 'a world Of ether and wings athrob Close over our head.' 'It's a dream, it's a whim, A whisper of reeds,' they said,-- And anon the waters would sob, And ever the going Went on to the dead Without the glint of a ray, And the watchers watched In their vanishing wake.

VI.

"The passing Passed for aye, And the waiting Waited in vain! Some power seemed to enfold The tremulous waters around, Yet never in heat Nor in shrivelling cold, Nor darkness deep or grey,-- Came token of sound or touch,-- A clear unquestioned 'Yea!' And the scoffers scoffed, In swelling refrain, 'Let us eat and drink, For to-morrow we die.'

VII.

"But, O, in a trance of bliss, With gauzy wings I awoke! An ecstasy bore me away O'er field and meadow and plain. I thought not of recent pain, But revelled, as splendors broke From sun and cloud and air, In the eye of golden Day.

VIII.

"I'm yearning to break To my fellows below The secret of ages hoar; In the quick-flashing light I dart up and down, Forth and back, everywhere, But the waters are sealed Like a pavement of glass,-- Sealed that I may not pass. O for waters of air! Or the wing of an eagle's might To cleave a pathway below!"

IX.

And the Dragonfly in splendor Cruises ever o'er the lake, Holding in his heart a secret Which in vain he seeks to break.

DEATHLESS.

I.

The coy soul of man, Moving through its time-span, Unheeding of wings, Tastes the death of all things-- Of the flower and weed And the faint-voiced reed.

II.

The fair seasons roll For you and for me. The inhabiting soul Of the flower and tree, With the day of each Born to be and to die,-- No eternity-speech, No eternity-cry That pierces above, Nor infinite thrill At the touch of Love, Or the voice of His will-- From His fingers begot,-- God-breathed it is not!

III.

'Twas a shy fair one, Like a beam of light From the clouded sun, That rose to the sight Of the eye of emotion In the soul of the Greek, And eternized the form; And vision, devotion, Ever fixt on the norm,-- Type of beauty of flower, Of grove and of bower, Deathless, unique!

IV.

Not from pole unto pole Is man's hunger of soul, But eternity's set As a deathless fret In the heart of man As it beats the earth-span,-- Beating not from the sod, But an ongoing of God! And it listens for Him Over Time's flying rim, And it sips, or it stings, A life from all things-- From the flower and the weed And the faint-voiced reed.

A DREAM.

I dreamed the Lord of Life was dead. Tremulous awe fell on the earth, Virtue had gone from out all things, The sun and rain were nothing worth.

Rude power seized the painted woods And hurled their glory down the steep, The landscape wrapt in cerements And left in death's eternal sleep.

Nor bloom nor odor met the sense, Nor wind-chant of the foliaged tree, Nor grove of singing birds, nor psalm Borne from the ever-voiceful sea.

Color had fled the air and sky, A stony stillness held the earth, Virtue had gone from out all things, Man's ebbing life was nothing worth.

And as I wept within my dream And knew my pulse of being slowed, I sudden was aware of change-- A flush on pallid nature showed!

Lo, heralds of the arriving year! The bugled flock beclangs the blue, The hyla pipes by willowed run, The flashing swallow skims the dew.

Up from the rampike's ghastly arms The gold-shaft high-hole's challenge floats, While greening hill and valley laugh And shore breaks out in pæan notes.

And in my dream I leapt for joy-- "'Twas but an awful dream," I said, "The Lord of Life, for evermore He lives--'twas once for all He bled!"

And waked from sleep by beating heart, I heard the first red robin sing, And knew that once again had come Fresh from the life of God the spring.

NATURE.

The large, far intent Of the Kingly One Is only begun In rearing the tent; To nurture a soul Is the shining goal.

Keen science speaketh A word clear and fair "The carbon in air The young oak seeketh In the greening years, Lo, a giant appears!

"Shelter and warmth, see! Here final cause Of nature's wise laws; And the breath of the tree Is life unto man And lengthens his span.'

But the Chemist who moves The atoms in dance, His all-seeing glance By His working proves,-- From far-off to nigher, Feeds life that is higher.

From blade to full ear, From acorn to beam, Unfoldings of dream, Linkëd series of cheer, Evolvings of grace, Shadows bright of His face!

Sweet procession and slow, Every step of the way More precious each day, Till the starlit airs blow, Wake emotion that sleeps, Stir the fount of the deeps.

O heaven's own fact Eternal, that beauty, As the sword on duty, Hangs silent on act Of nature forever,-- Soul and body together!

Nature, series divine Of act and of word From God's mouth seen or heard! As thou bring'st bread and wine I hear thy deep tone, "O not these alone!"

All-divine unity! Writes the heaven-touched mind Responsive, once blind: All-divine harmony! Emotion's attest In the glow of my breast.

"I AM."

I am, and therefore these, Existence is by me,-- Flux of pendulous seas, The stable, free.

I am in blush of the rose, The shimmer of dawn; Am girdle Orion knows, The fount undrawn.

I am earth's potency, The chemic ray's, the rain's, The reciprocity That loads the wains.

I am, or the heavens fall! I dwell in my woven tent, Am immanent in all,-- Suprámanent!

I am the Life in life, Impact and verve of thought, The reason's lens and knife, The ethic "ought."

I am of being the stress, I am the brooding Dove, I am the blessing in "bless," The Love in love.

I am the living thrill And fire of poet and seer, The breath of man's goodwill, The Father near;

Am end of the way men grope, Core of the ceaseless strife, I am man's bread of hope, Water of life.

I am the root of faith, Substance of vision, too, The spirit shadowed in wraith, Urim in dew.

I am the soul's white Sun, Love's slain, enthronëd Lamb, I am the Holy One, I am I AM!

THE GLAD GOLDEN YEAR.

The glad golden year Wheels slow in its coming. Wild labor commotions And murmurings for bread While besotted with beer Is the day's up-summing,-- Insurgent emotions To beauty stone-dead!

What help, do you say, For these sons of men? In God's image they're made-- Cleanse their eyes to His light, Tune their ears to His lay, Give His bread once again Whose price the Christ paid,-- Heaven's bread is their right!

Earth's means of achieving (Herds, field-food, and river, Rain-cisterns in sky, And sunshine elysian) Forever are weaving, And fain would deliver, Web of God's beauty nigh-- Sense-ravishing vision!

Sow bread in the field: Warm rain will transfigure The humble grey furrow With a million pearl suns On the lanceolate shield Of emerald and ligure, And the moon o'er each burrow Of the low-buried ones Turn silver the spear-tips In the dusk, with her lips; And when breezy morn's told, All ripples in gold.

With envious repining Or solace of delight-- As emotion is pure Or turbid with ill-- Man views the outshining From the heavenly height, Feels the sweet picture's lure, Hears the bird-copse athrill, Makes him lord, or does not, Of the park, house, or cot.

Who holds the sure key To this largesse of treasure Is a king among men, Though a workman in blue,-- Of a strain yet to be Who with God taketh pleasure In the young earth again, And feeleth it new. Slow speeds the glad year Told by poet and seer, Yet I catch the far hum-- It will come, it will come!

TETRAPLA.

LOVE.

The blooming flowers, the galaxies of space, Lie pictured in a sheeny drop of even; And globed in one round word, on lips of grace, Shine out the best of earth and all of heaven.

SACRIFICE.

Green-haloed cup of the gods, cool from the deeps, Fountain of life, whence comes thy wave that blesses? "The burdened cloud attempts the mountain steeps, To perish 'mid the rugged wildernesses."

LIBERTY.

Thou rugged Gaian of man's free behests, Belted and helmed 'neath God's red thunder-flails; World climes upon thy many-cloven crests, And ordered kingdoms in thy fertile vales!

BEAUTY.

The grace of strength the shaggy hills attest, And cresting billows in their power serene; Beauty was suckled at no weakling's breast, She sits the manëd lion like a queen.

FAIRY GLEN.

Hid in the virgin wilderness, The fretted Conway's Fairy Glen This summer day reveals its charms For painter's brush or poet's pen.

The air is flecked with night and day, The ground is tiger-dusk and -gold, The rocks and trees, empearled in haze, A soft and far enchantment hold.

The place is peopled with shy winds Whose fitful plumes waft dewy balm From all the wildwood, and let fall An incommunicable calm.

Through cleft rocks green with spray-wet moss, Deep in the sweet wood's golden glooms, The amber waters pulsing go, With foam like creamy lily blooms.

Shuttles of shadow and of light In-gleam and -gloom the watery woof As rolls the endless stream away Beneath the wind-swayed leafy roof.

(So life's swift shuttles dart and play, As ceaseless speeds its flashing loom; Our day is woven of sun and cloud, A figured web of gold and gloom.)

God's arbor, this enchanted Glen! The air is sentient with His name; Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, The trees are bursting into flame!

IN CITY STREETS.

The city's ways were crowded thick,-- I bent my steps athrough its mass Of men and women, stone and brick, Its whirring wheels and piping brass.

And all day long, with hurrying feet, I trod the surging marts of trade; Yet in the rush and roar of street A calm within my breast was made.

For visions came of fair things wrought By beauty's witching hand and grace Upon my spirit when I caught Life's spring-time image of her face:--

Blue violets in mossy bed, Flashing with jewels on their breast; The sky-stained eggs of robin red Laid in her lined adobe nest;

The shy lone brook, crept soft upon Lest I should fright its brattling play; The woods ahark for something gone, Or whispering of elf and fay;

The silver lake with lilies in bloom, Their cups half-full of heaven's gold,-- The circling shore all prankt with plume Of ferns, whose fronds the waters told;

And up the hill the whitethroat's song-- A crystal bell that shakes the dew! While floats in dream the cloud along, And veils the palpitating blue;

The musical and dream-like rain Falling on roof o'er fragrant hay; The blood-red spear, unflushed of pain, Of sunbeam thrust 'tween battens grey;

And in a trice, the sculptured shore Where halcyon tides with wonder-wings Redden their plumes in toil to soar To where Evangeline's memory clings,--

Such sights and sounds swift came and went,-- Glad sunshafts of an April day! And to impetuous traffic lent The restful sweetness of the may.

Imprisoned close in city marts, O childhood, so divinely fair, For thee, deep in my heart of hearts, Sweet pity beats her wings all bare!

BAY OF FUNDY.

I.

Deep Bay, broad-breasted and brave! Oft rocked in thy swaying arms Beneath the hidden sun, As foam-bell tost on thy wave I drift again 'mid thy charms To sphinx-like Blomidon.

Why are thy glories untold? Thy cliffs of purple and red And crystal-veinëd rocks, Thy hasting waters deep-rolled 'Neath skies whose colors are spread With art that all art mocks;

Thy faltering ranks of white mist Flanking vast floods and vast ebbs-- A mimicry of war,-- Oriflammes of dew-sprent list, Banners of gossamer webs, Soft blown as lights of Thor!

II.

The smooth shining flats all bare To the heavens' nakedest ken, Mirror the hills, like lakes. The drowsy lull of the air Will stir anew to life when The tidal note awakes.

From lang'rous south seas that creep, These odors dank issue forth, Odors of sun-steeped brine-- It comes! a breeze from a deep, Full-fed from seas of the North, A waft of Vikings' wine!

Now beats the pulse of the flood, The throbbings deep of a heart Felt all around the world; Now smites its rhythm with a thud,-- With ictus sure of its art That mountains huge has hurled.

The unsouled rivers and creeks Have being, have life to the full, Into their mouths rebreathed, As heaves the broad breast that seeks T' embosom each leaning hull, Bare on red banks tide-seethed.

The iron gride of the flow Powders the rocks in its path, And bears the dust afar To build their urns, where may grow Sweet grasses and "primrose rathe,"-- Fair Grand Pré, Tantramar!

III.

Builder, unbuilder of shores, Thresher of cliffs vapor-stoled, God's masterworkman strong! Yet on thy bosom the oars Of sailor lads ply and fold To sweet refrains of song.

And glad in thy twinkling smiles, Awing, like sea-gulls, the ships Are breasting stout the breeze,-- Ah me, thy treacherous wiles! Witching fog-wraiths draping rips! Currents of iron seas!

IV.

O Fundy, deep-breathing sea, Regal in power and rimmed In hollow of His hand, Captive to beauty, yet free, Sleep now, thy Basin is brimmed In fair Acadian land!

Haloed with pearl-raying rings The moon, at her utmost poised, Looks on her silver shield; And the tide wakens and swings-- Ebbs with a clangor far noised And wheeling wings afield.

AT THE LOOK-OFF.

(PARTRIDGE ISLAND.)

I.

What more can world-worn spirit ask Than here in nature's arms to bask And see the plangent tide at task?

The zest is swift as lusty youth, (Touched with an undertone of ruth,) Invincible as ageless truth,--

The wonder of all wondrous things! How coy the birds! they lift their wings; The wary ship to her anchor swings.

II.

Sun, moon and stars of ancient prime, And of to-day, in confluence chime The universal One sublime;

Pouring these floods of deep surcease,-- In universal pain, release; In universal travail, peace.

The strong right arm is here laid bare In strife, by which He doth declare Another shall not with Him share.

Forces of universal law Which hither these vast waters draw Send through my soul His tides of awe;

While universal radiance charms And beckons to His winsome arms To soothe my timid soul's alarms.

Of joy, of grief He does not rob,-- The light with intermittent throb Falls on the waters glad--a-sob.

III.

Here He and I are conscious each Of each--a Deep, a waiting beach! A shell, a Sea that doth beseech!

How all unswift my eyes to see The universal God in Thee, Who walked the waves of Galilee!

Give, freely give--Thou dost not dole! Pour chrismal balm upon my soul! Anoint me from Thy golden bowl!

IV.

In travail, pain, grief, joy, the wave Slumbers nor sleeps the earth to save-- This word the blissful God He gave,

Ere yesterday in Palestine Love's flagon poured the ruddy wine, Life of the universal Vine.

V.

The tameless tides, unresting, seethe; I rest me, for He works beneath; Peace! peace! the toiling waters breathe.

Peace, healing peace, in murmuring main, In brooding sky fanned by lone crane! The sunbeams bicker in the Lane--

Peace on the lighter's falling sail! Peace on the ships that breast the gale! And peace in human hearts that fail!

THE STORMY PETREL.

Fair hero, brave hero of sea-- The sea in its darkness of wrath! I run down the breaker with thee, I mount the next in its path.

Our hearts beat together, charmed one, Lift their wings as fearless as free, Ride the gloom as if 'twere the sun Gold-bridled for you and for me.

Summer rain, the cold drifting sleet That whistles as spiteful as hail! A roadstead, the billows that fleet Under the black lash of the gale!

We laugh at their seething, their roar, Draw our breath full in their face; We have wings, we know we can soar,-- Your secret and mine in embrace!

(Wings, wings, the soul of our life! Outspread they victory tell,-- Upliftings amid gulfs of strife, Wafts of heaven that keep us from hell!)

Brave hero, winged hero of sea-- The sea with black tempest in breast, Here we mount on the breakers, free, Soon to soar into calm, into rest!

OBLIVION.

I.

The all-devouring sea! I said,-- While looking on the green- and red- Ribbed rocks a-tilt that flank Sharp's Head:

The diary of the rain cloud driven To yield again its spoil by heaven, The west wind serving the replevin--

Notes of the ocean's teeming floor, The carven shell, the seaweed's spore, And ripple-marks of tidal shore--

Vast tablets of the world of eld, A mighty Bodleian unspelled, By ravine into dust compelled!

The hills are fated to their fall. Upon the great, upon the small, Oblivion drops her raven pall.

II.

And then I thought: The form and mass May baffle ken of eye and glass, And yet the record may not pass.

Tittle and jot, where all seems nil, A finer form in form may still Wait touch of that which doth fulfil.

III.

The liquid air, unseen, unheard, Writes in an everlasting word The wing-beats of the hasting bird.

The sweet light leaves, and bears abroad, A picture of the wide realms trod With wingëd feet gold sandal-shod;

Etching in truth and beauty's grace, Beyond compare of antique vase, On fronting hills the other's face.

Nor shoreless deeps of space debar Blazon on earth of records far, In greening orb or burning star.

IV.

I said: Coined for exchange in mart Of purblind men with leaden heart, This word Oblivion on life's chart!

Deft science' balance now prevails-- This simulacrum in the scales, The verdict to the counter nails.

V.

And then, distraught by onward sweep Of meditation long and deep, I sought me out a place to weep--

O soul, may not thy leaves, I mused, Stirred by death's shock through all diffused, Reveal thy story unconfused,

Clear traced by thought's all-subtle beam-- A quickened palimpsest agleam, Re-orient out of dusk and dream!

SEA MUSIC.

(_For dramatic orchestration._)

I.

Fleecy white waters, Shorn by the tempest, Wrathful and doomful Rolling to land!

Naked and lustrous, Fiercest of smiters, Straight for the stern cliffs, Iron to steel!

Shock unto shock calls, Boom answers boom, Roars the huge tide-loom, Thunder and storm!

Torn are the vast webs Woven of tumult, Flung to the cloud-rack, Tatters of sound!

II.

The glistening waters again Are marching loyal and true Under the hollow sky,-- A hundred million of men Throbbing as fiery dew Under the morning's eye!

List to the repetend note, Multiplex tone of the sea, Refrain of grief, of mirth, On violet air afloat Far borne to mountain and lea, To the home of its birth.

List as its music unbraids:-- _Rivulets pour from the hill, Winds wash the lips o' the trees, The brook by the rocky glades Brattles its way to the mill Through fields adream with bees._

_Forests of pine and of fir Plain as their dark plumes are fret By the free-coursing winds; Alder and golden birch stir To notes too sweet to forget, Sung by brook as it winds._

Hark! _The lone laugh of the auk As 'twere a disprisoned soul come From out the shining foams! And the loon's "ha! ha!" and mock 'Mid the torn surf's booming drum, Or hushed tide's star-sprent domes!_

_The ringdove coos in the grove, The cataract's thunders jar, Rapids swirl white and hiss; Peoples in temples of love Echo their anthems afar, Diapasons of bliss._

Great flux of the world, O sea, Blood of earth's wild pulsing veins Beating to orbs afar, Your life and mine cannot be Unlinked with God's joys and pains Here or in throbbing star!

List as its music unbraids, List to the much-sounding sea, List to the repetend note, Multiplex tone of the sea,-- Refrain of grief, of mirth, On violet air afloat Far borne to mountain and lea, To the home of its birth.

SUMMER FOG.

I.

Waft of beaten brine of the Bay, Tonic keen as steel in strife, Blowing wet and cool in my face, Tang of bitter savor of life!

II.

Billows calm of whitest fog, Over ships and homes now roll,-- Breath of seas in quest of heaven, Groping blind as human soul, Blearing, hiding, muffling all,-- Life itself laid under the shroud!

III.

Breath-blown veils of faltering mist, Filmy dreams of luminous cloud, Shifting curtains fret with air, Noiseless sped as northern lights; Opening, shutting gaps of blue, Gleams and glories, glooms and nights!

Torn by winds and riven in spray, Borne afar o'er pine trees tall, Clinging round the mountain crests, Melt in azure roofing all!

IV.

Mystic phantom, mime of life: Witching visions, vanishing play, Belts of shadow, rending veils, Cloudless dome of perfect day!

V.

Come again, white vapor of seas, Blow thy pungent balm in my face, Soft illusions weave o'er earth, Charm me up to heaven's embrace!

THE ARETHUSA.

A pearly boat am I, From Silver Crag I hail, Wrought of the sea and sky, Freighted with moonbeams pale.

I hoist my purple sails To catch the starbeam's gold, And furl them in the gales The sun blows overbold.

Rainbows and flying tints, The sunset's crimson glow, A thousand gleams and glints All day do come and go.

But as the silver moon Rolls up the breathless blue, And all the stars in swoon Are hidden from my view,

I ope my hatches wide And lade with pearl and sheen, To deck my home-bound bride, The Basin's peerless queen.

DIAN AND FUNDY.

(DESIGNS FOR A TIME-PIECE.)

I.

_The Enchantress._

In silver shoon, on sapphire pavement clear, Fair Dian walks the overarching night; Her spell she lays--great Fundy leaps with cheer! She breaks--he flees in elemental might!

II.

_The Lovers._

Dian, pale Dian, sailing the upper sea, Searching for lover lost on earth's lone beach; And Fundy, forward, backward, ceaselessly, By love's impulsions borne to utmost reach.

III.

_Art and Science._

Dian, with silver robe from her shoulders flung, And Fundy, with his tidal arc and gauge, Beating as a great pendulum forth-swung, The seconds of the geologic age.

THE OLD FISHER'S SONG.

From the broad-shouldered Cobequids we saw Prone Blomidon in lotos-eyed repose, The immemorial vigil lapst to dream. The Basin lay as if in calm of swoon. Upon the bosom of the breathing tide The drifting ships, wide-winged in air, in sea, Sailed double on a single keel--a ship In either stilly heaven, above, beneath. The day was warm, and as we lay beside The woodland brook and watched the pinfish play, We saw the sky within a silver pool, Like a great vase of lapis lazuli Veined with the feathery spray of cirrus cloud, While cumuli in spotless beauty bloomed Therein--a garden of the gods! And all The pool seemed fragrant with a myriad sweets.

"There's promise of fair morrow," Harold said, "The witness of the sea and wood is one: The hissing brine, moonstruck, comes vengeful up Its iron gateways with remorseless flood-- This little brook in rage and foam tears through A hundred hills--each sets a mirror at Our feet of beauty's self. And so, I ween, The fury of the age will end as full Of calm as are this sea and pool of heaven."