Part 3

Chapter 34,012 wordsPublic domain

I was a girl of the South, with eyes as tender And dreamy and soft and true as the skies of my people; But I was a slave and an alien captured in battle, And brought to the North by a people ruder and stronger, Who held me as naught but a toy, to be played with and broken, Then thrown aside like a bow that is snapped asunder. Lithe and supple my limbs as the sinuous serpent, And quick as the eye and the tongue of the serpent mine anger That flashed out the fire of my hate on the scorn of my scorners. But hate soon softened to love, as fire into sunlight, When my eyes met the eyes of the chieftain, my lord, and my master.

Sweet as the flowers that bloom on the blossoming prairie, Gladder than voices of fountains that dance in the sunlight, Were the new and tremulous fancies that dwelt in my bosom; For he was my king and my sun, and the power of his glance To me as at springtime the returning sun to the landscape, And his touch and the sound of his voice that set my heart throbbing.

Sweet were the days of the summer I dwelt in his tent, And glad and loving the nights that I lay on his bosom. But woe, woe, woe, to the summer that fades into autumn, And woe upon woe is the love that dwindles and dies, And ere my hot heart was abrim with its summer of loving I knew that its autumn had come, that his love was another's-- A blue-eyed haughty captive they brought from the East, Her hair like moving sunlight that rippled and ran With the golden flow of a brook from her brow to her girdle. He saw her, he looked on her face, and I was forgotten-- Yea, I and the love that fed on my soul in its anguish!

I bowed my head with its woe to him in my anguish; I veiled my face in my hair like the night of my sorrow; And I plead with him there by the love that was true and forgiving: Oh! my lord and my love, by the days that are past of our loving, Oh! slay thy poor Saki, but send her not forth in her anguish! And I fell to the earth with my face, like the moon hid in heaven, In the folds of my hair. But he sate there and uttered no answer; And the white woman sate there, and scorned at the woe of my sorrow.

Then I bit my tongue through that had prayed for the pity ungiven, And I rose with my hate in my eyes, like the lightning in heaven That leaps red to kill with a hiss like the snake that they called me; And I looked on them there, and I cursed them, the man, and the woman-- The man whose lips had kissed my love into being, And the woman whose beauty had withered that love into ashes-- With curses so dread and so deep that he rose up and smote me, And hounded me forth like a dog to die in the desert.

Then wandered I forth an outcast hounded and beaten; Careless whither I went or living or dying, With that load of despair at my heartstrings wearing to madness. Long and loud I laughed at the heaven that mocked me With its beautiful sounds and its sights and the joy of its being, For I longed but to die and to go to that region of darkness Where I might shroud me and curse in my madness for ever. Far, oh far I fled till my feet were wounded And bruised and cut by the ways unkindly and cruel. Then all the world grew red and the sun as a furnace, And I raved till I knew no more for a horrible season. Then I arose, and stood like one in a dream Who, after long years of forgetting, sudden remembers The dread wild cry of a wrong that clamors for righting; Then sending a curse to the heart of the night sky, I turned me And fled like the wind of the winter, the sound of whose footstep is vengeance. Late, when the moon had lowered, I entered his village, And threading the silent streets came to the well-known tent-door, And, dragging aside the skins, with serpentine motion Entered now as a thief where once I had entered as mistress. And there in the gleam of the moon, with the flame of her hair on his bosom, Lay the woman I hated like hell with the man I loved clasped to her heart.

Ha! Ha! it is joy for the hearts that we crush as we thunder! Ho! Ho! for the hate of the winds that laugh to my laughter! Ha! Ha! it is well for the shriekings that pass into silence, As under the night, out into the blackness forever, Rides the wild hate of Saki, the mad snake-woman! If hate could have slain they'd have shrivelled up there in the moonlight; But theirs was a sin too deep for the kiss of a knife-blade. Long did I stand like a poisoned wind in a desert, Gray and sad and despairing, and nursing my hate; When out of the night, like one voice that calls to another, Came the far-off neigh of a horse, and a mad joy leaped to my veins, And a thought curled into my heart as a serpent coils into a flower; And I turned me, and left them there in their foolish love and their slumber That my hot heart hissed was their last. Then hurrying out of the door that flapped in the night-wind I fled, With a pent-up hunger of hate that maddened to burst from its sluices, And came to a place on the plain far up and out from the village, Where tethered in rows of hurdles, champing and restless and neighing, Half a thousand horses were herded under the night.

Ha! Ha! I live it anew, I dream it again in my madness. I see that moving ocean of shimmering flanks in the moonlight: I snatch a brand from a watchfire that smoulders and dwindles: I creep around to the side of the herd remote from the village: I cry, a low call, that is answered by a neigh and a whinny: Then I leap to the back of an ebon stallion that knows me. 'Tis but the cut of a thong, a cry in the night, A fiery waving brand like lightning to thunder, A terrified moaning and neighing, a heaving of necks and of haunches; A bound, a rush, a crack of a thong, then a whirlwind of hoofs! Like a sweep of a wave on a beach we are thundering onwards, Neck and neck in the wake of my hate, that ever before us Clamors from heaven to hell in its terrible vengeance! With neck outstretched and mad eyes agleam in the moonlight, I see on ahead the sleeping huts in the moonlight.

Ha! Ha! they will rest well under the sleep that we bring them! See, see, we are nearing them now; the first wild thundering hoof-beats Have ridden them down, 'mid the shriekings and groanings of anguish, Blotting them out with their loves and their hates into blackness. Ha! Ha! ride, ride, my beauties, my terrible tramplers! Pound, pound into dust the mother, the child, and the husband! Pound, pound to the pulse of my hate that exults in your thunders! Ha! Over the little ones nestled to suckle the bosom, Over the man that I loved, we thunder, we thunder! Over the woman I hate with the flame of her hair on his bosom; Trampling, treading them down out into silence and blackness, Like the swirl of a merciless storm we sweep on to darkness forever! And now, when the moon is in heaven, and under the night Is heard on the winds the thunder of shadowy horses, Then out of the dark I arise, and again am a woman; And leap to the back of an ebon steed that knows me, And hound him on in the wake of hoofs that thunder; While under the mirk and the moon, out into the blackness, Round the world's edge with an eerie, mad, echoing laughter, Leaps the long cry of the hate of the wild snake-woman.

Love

Love came at dawn when all the world was fair, When crimson glories, bloom, and song were rife; Love came at dawn when hope's wings fanned the air, And murmured, "I am life."

Love came at even when the day was done, When heart and brain were tired, and slumber pressed; Love came at eve, shut out the sinking sun, And whispered, "I am rest."

Victoria

JUBILEE ODE, A. D. 1897

With thunder of cannon and far-off roll of drum, And martial music blaring forth her glory, 'Mid miles of thronging millions down each street Where all the earth is bound in one heart-beat The world's great Empire's greatest Queen doth come, Borne on one mighty, rocking earthquake voice Wherein all peoples of wide earth rejoice-- She comes, she comes, to beat of martial drums, And pageants blazoning England's ancient story; The good, gray Queen, whose majesty and worth Have lent their radiance to remotest earth; While the splendor and might and power of her mighty empire bound her; And the serried millions, mad with joy, are near her, All to love her, none to fear her, But nearer far than power, than splendor dearer, The surging love of her loved people round her. She comes, she comes, encircled by her people, While praise to Heaven peals out from tower and steeple, Into the great cathedral, hushed and dim, With thankful heart and humble queenly head Over the sleep of England's mighty dead, To render up her heart's best thoughts to Him The King of Kings--'mid hush of priestly tread, And gloried anthem's solemn pealing hymn.

The mighty millions, awed, now bow the head, Thank Heaven for her simple, noble life, Earth's queenliest empress, mother, daughter, wife! Thank Heaven for all she held her dearest own! Forgiveness for the weakness she hath known! Blessings on her wise old widowed head, For what her life is now, and what her life hath been, Noble mother, wife and Queen!

Let the mighty organs roll, and the mighty throng disperse! She is ours, and we are hers, And both are Britain's. Both to Britain's God Lift up the heart-felt praise for the might of splendid days, For the glory that hath been. Let the cannon thunder out, and the miles of voices shout--Victoria! Let the bells peal out afar, till the rocket tells the star, And the ocean shouts its pæan to the thunder-answering bar; England's glory, Britain's pride, Revered of half a world beside, O good gray Queen, Victoria!

Daughter of monarchs, mother of kings; All her sorrows we have shared, All her triumphs they are ours. Kind Heaven, that virtue still endowers, Be with her, may her path be flowers; Be with her, may her days be spared, Death aloof with shadowing wings, Unto nature's latest hours! Daughter of monarchs, mother of kings, O good gray Queen, Victoria!

Let all feuds of faction die, Let the blaring party bugles cease to blow, Let insincere and base detraction lie, With sore defeat and bitterness, her carping sisters, low, In this one supremest hour, Day of Britain's ancient power, Day of all her golden dower, Of victory-towering centuries, tower on tower. Let all our hatreds be forgot, All bitterness be swept away, Remembering only the glory of our lot In this century-honoring day! Celt and Scot and Saxon, let us only know, A mighty Queen comes to her own at last, Her people's love and reverence--as the glow Of some splendid western heaven, Deepening into richer even, Ere it purples to the vast.

Past the mailèd gates of fears, The hooded menace of the years, Where rang the iron voices rolling on her ears, Of royal dreams the requiem and pall, And awful fates of thrones foredoomed to fall; Our aged Queen, on this glad day she stands Amid the throbbings of her land's great love, Firm in her rule, her faith in God above, Earth's golden keys of happiness in her hands.

O splendid life of Britain's splendid days! O noble soul, above all blame or praise! O fame that will outlast our little fame! O long-enduring honor greater than time or death! O name that will outlive even that immortal name, England's more ancient glory, the great Elizabeth!

And we, thy loyal subjects far away, In these new lands that own thy sceptre's sway, Betwixt thy Royal Isle and far Cathay-- Across the thunder of the western foam, O good gray Queen, our hearts go home, go home, To thine and thee! We are thine own while empires rise and wane, We are thine own for blessing or for bane, And, come the shock of thundering war again, For death or victory!

Not that we hate our brothers to the south, They are our fellows in the speech of mouth, They are our wedded kindred, our own blood, The same world-evils we and they withstood, Our aims are theirs, one common future good-- Not that we hate them, but that there doth lie Within our hearts a golden fealty To Britain, Britain, Britain, till the world doth die.

And him we send thee as our greatest son, The people's choice, to whose firm hand is given The welfare of our country under heaven; No truer son hast thou in all thy coasts, No wiser, kindlier, stronger, Britain boasts; Our knightly leader, Norman in his blood, But truest Briton in heart and speech and mind, Belovèd well of all his fellow-kind, In statesmanship our nation's highest mood, Our silver-tongued and golden-hearted one, In every inch and every thought a man, Our noblest type, ideal Canadian! Receive him 'mid those, greatest, thou dost own, Thy mighty empire-builders, bastioning round thy throne.

O England's latest, greatest Queen, Greatness more great than all her greatness that hath been, Under thy sceptre the outmost continents hang, And trackless oceans thunder out their surges. These are thy realms. Never in earth's old story Hath queen of earthly realm owned such resplendent glory. Not golden Homer such wondrous kingdoms sang. Round earth's wide girdle thy mighty empire verges, Out-splendoring all prophecy of olden days; Thou, latest and greatest on that throne whose base Withstood the shock of centuries, still withstands The lowering hate of Europe's iron bands; In thy true keeping shall that sceptre be A golden wand of happiness to the free Who call thee Queen from outmost sea to sea. That throne to them a mighty lighthouse tower, A truth-compelling majesty of light, Blinding the mists of ignorance and night, Where round its base throughout the centuries' flight, Thunder in vain earth's hosts upon its iron power.

England

England, England, England, Girdled by ocean and skies, And the power of a world and the heart of a race, And a hope that never dies.

England, England, England, Wherever a true heart beats, Wherever the rivers of commerce flow, Wherever the bugles of conquest blow, Wherever the glories of liberty grow, 'Tis the name that the world repeats.

And ye who dwell in the shadow Of the century's sculptured piles, Where sleep our century-honored dead While the great world thunders overhead, And far out miles on miles, Beyond the smoke of the mighty town, The blue Thames dimples and smiles; Not yours alone the glory of old, Of the splendid thousand years, Of Britain's might and Britain's right And the brunt of British spears. Not yours alone, for the great world round Ready to dare and do, Scot and Celt and Norman and Dane, With the Northman's sinew and heart and brain, And the Northman's courage for blessing or bane Are England's heroes too.

North and South and East and West, Wherever their triumphs be, Their glory goes home to the ocean-girt isle Where the heather blooms and the roses smile With the green isle under her lee; And if ever the smoke of an alien gun Should threaten her iron repose, Shoulder to shoulder against the world, Face to face with her foes, Scot and Celt and Saxon are one Where the glory of England goes. And we of the newer and vaster West, Where the great war banners are furled, And commerce hurries her teeming hosts, And the cannon are silent along our coasts, Saxon and Gaul, Canadians claim A part in the glory and pride and aim Of the Empire that girdles the world.

England, England, England, Wherever the daring heart By Arctic floe or torrid strand Thy heroes play their part; For as long as conquest holds the earth, Or commerce sweeps the sea, By Orient jungle or Western plain, Will the Saxon spirit be. And whatever the people that dwell beneath, Or whatever the alien tongue, Over the freedom and peace of the world Is the flag of England flung. Till the last great freedom is found, And the last great truth be taught, Till the last great deed be done And the last great battle is fought; Till the last great fighter is slain in the last great fight And the war-wolf is dead in his den, England, breeder of hope and valor and might, Iron mother of men.

Yea, England, England, England, Till honor and valor are dead, Till the world's great cannons rust, Till the world's great hopes are dust, Till faith and freedom be fled, Till wisdom and justice have passed To sleep with those who sleep in the many-chambered vast, Till glory and knowledge are charnelled dust in dust, To all that is best in the world's unrest, In heart and mind you are wed. While out from the Indian jungle To the far Canadian snows, Over the east and over the west, Over the worst and over the best, The flag of the world to its winds unfurled, The blood-red ensign blows.

Sebastian Cabot

New startled from her sensual dreams, Europa half-expectant lay, Revolving dimly broken gleams Of some far-off unrisen day, As one sees through dim mists of night Some far, majestic, moon-paved mountain way. On grim and barbarous couch reclined, Groped blindly toward her ultimate goal, When she through midnight of the mind Would wake to knowledge of her soul. So with a prescience all divine, She left her bestial gods behind, And turned her toward the western stars, When this old rugged, princely tar-of-tars Beat bravely out, where heaving leagues on leagues Billowed the western brine.

Greater than power or splendor, Or birth, or might of gold, Is the noble life of a noble man Of a heart both brave and bold-- All honor to the spirit That knows not earth's defeat, That meets with courage true and strong What brave souls have to meet-- And honor to the hero, Who centuries ago Sailed out from old Bristowe Into the trackless waters of the west; Who bravely beat and beat Where sky and waters meet, Till he saw his white cliffs vanish Under ocean's heaving breast; Nor cowardly turned him back, But held straight on his track, Though old ocean rose up ravening in gray and angry wrack, And bravely beat and bore up to the west; All honor to his spirit, For the glories we inherit, And peace of mighty slumber Breathe calmly round his rest! Where'er his earthy bed, About his pillowed head Forever beats old Ocean's monotone:-- For even from a child he loved its voices wild, Its splendid throb that made his heart its own.

III

I dream his name, and there doth come to me, A vision of league-long breakers landward hurled; Of olden ships far-beating out to sea; Of splendid shining wastes of heaving green Far-stretching round the world; Of many voices heard from many lands, Torrid and Arctic, Orient, and the Line; Of heaving of vast anchors, vanishing strands; And over all the wonder and thunder and wash Of the loud, world-conquering brine. Of sky-rimmed waste, or fog-enshrouded reef, Where some mad siren ever sings the grief Of all the mighty wrecks in that weird span Since ocean and time began.

Venice and England cradled! Could this seaman be Other than ocean's child, With heart less restless than that vast and wild Great heart of the thrilling sea? Wakened to her long thunders, Cradled in her soft voice, Could other voice of all earth's voices sweet Make his stern heart rejoice? Yea, this was better than all, greater than all to him, Truer than youth's mad whim, The only love of his youth, the only lore of his age, To gaze on her vast tumultuous scroll, To pore on her wrinkled page:-- For he was very soul of her soul, And she meet mother for him.

Over the hazy distance, Beyond the sunset's rim, Forever and forever Those voices called to him. Westward! westward! westward! The sea sang in his head, At morn in the busy harbor, At nightfall on his bed-- Westward! westward! westward! Over the line of breakers, Out of the distance dim; Forever the foam-white fingers Beckoning, beckoning him.

This was no common spirit, This sailor of old Bristowe; Not one of the mart-made helots Such as the world doth know; But a bronzed and rugged veteran, Adrift in the vanguard's flow; A son of the world's great highway Where the mighty storm winds blow.

VII

All honor to this grand old Pilot, Whose flag is struck, whose sails are furled, Whose ship is beached, whose voyage ended; Who sleeps somewhere in sod unknown, Without a slab, without a stone, In that great Island, sea-impearled. Yea, reverence with honor blended, For this old seaman of the past, Who braved the leagues of ocean hurled, Who out of danger knowledge rended, And built the bastions, sure and fast, Of that great bridgeway grand and vast Of golden commerce round the world. All honor! yea, a day shall come, If glory lives in human rhyme, When our poor faltering lips are dumb; A greater and more splendid time, When larger men of mightier aim Shall do meet honor to his name. Yea, honor! only greatness keeps Its sanctuary where this seaman sleeps; This old Venetian, Briton-born, Who held of fear a hero's scorn, Who nailed his colors to the mast, Who sought in reverence for the true, And found it in the rifting blue Of those broad furrows of the vast:-- Who knew no honors, held no state, But in his ruggedness was great. Who like some sea-shell, in him felt The universe of ocean dwelt, Whose whole true being nature cast Like his own ocean-spaces, vast!

VIII