Chapter 1

THOUGHTS, MOODS AND IDEALS

Crimes of Leisure

by

W.D. LIGHTHALL,

ADVOCATE.

Montreal: "WITNESS" PRINTING HOUSE, ST. JAMES STREET 1887

Dedicated to My Friends.

THOUGHTS, MOODS AND IDEALS.

THE CONFUSED DAWN.

YOUNG MAN What are the Vision and the Cry That haunt the new Canadian soul? Dim grandeur spreads we know not why O'er mountain, forest, tree and knoll, And murmurs indistinctly fly.-- Some magic moment sure is nigh. O Seer, the curtain roll!

SEER The Vision, mortal, it is this-- Dead mountain, forest, knoll and tree Awaken all endued with bliss, A native land--O think!--to be-- _Thy_ native land--and ne'er amiss, Its smile shall like a lover's kiss From henceforth seem to thee.

The Cry thou couldst not understand, Which runs through that new realm of light, From Breton's to Vancouver's strand O'er many a lovely landscape bright, It is their waking utterance grand, The great refrain "A NATIVE LAND!"-- Thine be the ear, the sight.

(1882.)

NATIONAL HYMN.

To Thee whose smile is might and fame, A nation lifts united praise And asks but that Thy purpose frame A _useful_ glory for its days.

We pray no sunset lull of rest, No pomp and bannered pride of war; We hold stern labor manliest, The just side real conqueror.

For strength we thank Thee: keep us strong, And grant us pride of skilful toil; For homes we thank Thee: may we long Have each some Eden rood of soil.

O, keep our mothers kind and dear, And make the fathers stern and wise; The maiden soul preserve sincere, And rise before the young man's eyes.

Crush out the jest of idle minds, That know not, jesting, when to hush; Keep on our lips the word that binds, And teach our children when to blush.

Forever constant to the good Still arm our faith, thou Guard Sublime, To scorn, like all who have understood, The atheist dangers of the time.

Thou hearest!--Lo, we feel our love Of loyal thoughts and actions free Toward all divine achievement move, Ennobled, blest, ensured, by Thee.

CANADA NOT LAST.

AT VENICE Lo! Venice, gay with color, lights and song, Calls from St. Mark's with ancient voice and strange: I am the Witch of Cities! glide along My silver streets that never wear by change Of years: forget the years, and pain, and wrong, And every sorrow reigning men among. Know I can soothe thee, please and marry thee To my illusions. Old and siren-strong, I smile immortal, while the mortals flee Who whiten on to death in wooing me.

AT FLORENCE Say, what more fair, by Arno's bridgéd gleam,[A] Than Florence, viewed from San Miniato's slope At eventide, when west along the stream, The last of day reflects a silver hope!-- Lo, all else softened in the twilight beam:-- The city's mass blent in one hazy cream, The brown Dome midst it, and the Lily tower, And stern Old Tower more near, and hills that seem Afar, like clouds to fade, and hills of power, On this side, greenly dark with cypress, vine and bower.

AT ROME End of desire to stray I feel would come Though Italy were all fair skies to me, Though France's fields went mad with flowery foam And Blanc put on a special majesty. Not all could match the growing thought of home Nor tempt to exile. Look I not on ROME-- This ancient, modern, mediæval queen-- Yet still sigh westward over hill and dome, Imperial ruin and villa's princely scene Lovely with pictured saints and marble gods serene.

REFLECTION Rome, Florence, Venice--noble, fair and quaint, They reign in robes of magic round me here; But fading, blotted, dim, a picture faint, With spell more silent, only pleads a tear. Plead not! Thou hast my heart, O picture dim! I see the fields, I see the autumn hand Of God upon the maples! Answer Him With weird, translucent glories, ye that stand Like spirits in scarlet and in amethyst! I see the sun break over you; the mist On hills that lift from iron bases grand Their heads superb!--the dream, it is my native land.

[Footnote A: "Sovra'l bel fiume d'Arno la gran villa."--_Dante._]

O DONNA DI VIRTU!

(DANTE--INFERNO, CANTO I.)

"_O mystic Lady; Thou in whom alone Our human race surpasses all that stand In Paradise the nearest round the throne! So eagerly I wait for thy command That to obey were slow though ready done._"

How oft I read. How agonized the turning, In those my earlier days of loss and pain,-- Of eyes to space and night as though by yearning-- Some wall might yield and I behold again A certain angel, fled beyond discerning; In vain I chafed and sought--alas, in vain, From spurring though my heart's dark world returned To Dante's page, those wearied thoughts of mine; Again I read, again my longing burned.-- A voice melodious spake in every line, But from sad pleasure sorrow fresh I learned: Strange was the music of the Florentine.

LINES ON HEINE.

I saw a crowded circus once: The fool was in the middle. Loud laughed contemptuous Common-sense At every frisk and riddle.

I see another circus now-- (The world a circus call I),-- But in the centre laughs the sane; Round sit the sons of folly.

IMITATED FROM THE JAPANESE.

".......................... I have forgotten to forget."--Japanese Song. Tr. by R.H. Stoddard.

The morning flies, the evening dies; The heat of noon, the chills of night, Are but the dull varieties Of Phoebus' and of Phoebe's flight-- Are but the dull varieties Of ruined night and ruined day; They bring no pleasure to mine eyes, For I have sent my soul away.

I am the man who cannot love, Yet once my heart was bright as thine, The suns that rove, the moons that move, No longer make its chambers shine; No more they light the spirit face That lit my night and made my day; No maiden feet with mine keep pace For I have sent my soul away.

O, lost! I think I see thee stand, By Mary's ivied chapel door, Where once thou stood'st, and with thy hand Wring pious pain, as once before. Impatient, crude philosopher, I scorned thy gentle wisdom's ray. All vain thy moistened eyelids were; I sent my soul and thee away.

A causeless wrath, a mood of pride, Some tears of thine, and all was done; On alien plains I travelled wide And thou wert soon a veiléd nun. Not long a veiléd nun, but soon Unveiled of linen and of clay; But I am March while thou art June, For I have sent my soul away.

And now when I would love thee well, There sits alone within my breast Calm guilt that dare not from its hell Look up and wish the thing thou art. I see a dreadful gulf of fright Beneath my falling life; and gray, Thy light becomes the ghost of light Above it as it falls away.

I have a life, a voice, a form, A skilful hand to lift and turn, I have emotions like a storm, A brain to throb, a heart to burn; But that which Jesus' blood can save, Which looks toward eternal day, Is gone before me to the grave.-- It was my soul I sent away.

The past is past, and o'er its woe It is no comfort to repine; But I would wage my life to know Thy feet in heaven keep pace with mine. I have no hope, I will not weep, The only wish that wish I may Is this, that I may find asleep The soul I thought I sent away.

THE KNIGHT ERRANT.

CLOUD TO WIND O blow, blow high, for I descend; Friend must go to meet his friend, If to earth you tie your feet You and I will never meet.

WIND Nay, I haste. A trifle wait; I exceed my usual gait. Ha! this hill-top is sublime, But it makes me pant to climb.

CLOUD Once again, a little space, Meet we in this Alpine place, Before you leap adown the vale Or I along my pathway sail.

WIND Then let our little bell of time Ring onward with a chatty chime-- How we have fled o'er earth and sky, And what you saw and what saw I.

CLOUD O, I from off my couch serene, Woods, meadows, towns and seas have seen; And in one wood, beside a cave, A hermit kneeling by a grave:-- The which I felt so touched to see I wept a shower of sympathy. And in one mead I saw, methought, A brave, dark-armored knight, who fought A shining-dragon in a mist, That, mixed with flames did roll and twist Out of the beast's red mouth--a breath Of choking, blinding, sulphurous death, On which I shot my thickest rain And made the conflict fair again. And from one town I heard the swell Of a loud, melancholy bell, That past me rose in flames of sound And up to Saint Cecilia wound. And on one sea I saw a ship Bend out its full-fed sails and slip So light, so gladly o'er the tide I could not help but look inside-- Its passengers were groom and bride. I floated o'er them snowily, They felt my beauty in the sky, Their eyes, their souls, their joy were one, I would not cross their happy sun. I love this life of calm and use-- No bonds but windy ribbons loose, No gifts to ask but all to give, Secure Elysium fugitive.

WIND Your life, though, drinks not half the wine Of active gladness that doth mine; I spread my wings and stretch my arms Over a dozen hedgéd farms; I breast steep hills, through pine-groves rush, Rock birds' nests, yet no fledgling crush, Tossing the grain-fields everywhere, The trees, the grass, the school-girl's hair, Whirling away her laugh the while-- (We breezes love the children's smile); And then I lag and wander down Among the roofs and dust of town, Bearing cool draughts from lake and moor To fan the faces of the poor, While sick babes, stifled half to death, Grow rosy at my country breath. I lent a shoulder to your ship; I moaned with that sad hermit's lip; I helped disperse the dragon's mist; And some bell's voice, 'twas yours I wist, I handed up to winds on high Who wing a loftier flight than I. But, hark! a rider leaves the vale.

CLOUD Ah, yes, I catch the gleam of mail.

RANDOLPH O speak again ye voicéd ghosts! I heard afar your cheerful boasts. And, if I doubt not, ye are they That here have met me many a day.

WIND We are they.

CLOUD, (echoing) We are they. But whither now doth Randolph stray, And why the mail, and why the steed?

RANDOLPH This is my father's mail indeed, Bequeathed with message to his son: "Stand straight in it and yield to none."

WIND But whither off and why away?

RANDOLPH Off to the world; I cannot stay-- That world I have so often viewed Here from this upper solitude-- This bulwark barring strife and trade. Love calls me off. I love a maid, Loving her silently and long, Learning for her to hate the wrong, Learning for her to seek the right, To hew at sloth and faint resolve And thoughts that round but self revolve, And pray for grace and virtue--wings That bear men to the highest things, Enwrapt and rising into light. For her, for her, O Cloud and Wind! I trained my limbs and taught my mind, Ran, wrestled, clomb, and learned to bend The cross-bow with each village friend; And by my hermit-guardian spent The earliest dimness morning lent, And the faint torch that evening bore, In science and in saintly lore, Reading the stars and signs of rain, Noting each tree and herb and grain; Each bird that flutters through the leaves, Each beast, each fish that green lake cleaves, The curious deeds Devotion paints In missals and in lives of saints, And every olden subtle trick Of grammar, logic, rhetoric. But most on chivalry I turned A torrent eagerness, and burned To hear of wrong repaired, or read The working of some famous deed, Like those I dreamt that I could do When what I set myself was through: Vexed lest the inward clock of fate That ticked "Too soon!" might tick "Too late!" But now that dial points the hour When I must test my gathered power, And leave my books and leave my dreams Of steeds and towers and knightly themes, Of tourney gay and woodland quest, Of Perceval and Perceforest, Of Richard, Arthur, Charlemain, Amadis and the Cid of Spain-- Must leave them all and seek alone Some grand adventure of my own.

CLOUD Yet if you seek and cannot find Or fail to work what you designed, Be it but as the steadfast sun Who bright or dim his course doth run, And last doth reach as far a spot Whether he seems to shine or not.

RANDOLPH The height, the fynial of my aim Is _to be worthy of her name_.

CLOUD You mortals are a curious race-- More whirled by passions, hot in chase Of passions, than myself am whirled When tempests tug me o'er the world; I cannot understand your ways. We clouds live our divinest days Beneath great sunny depths of sky, High above all that you think high, Drifting through sunset's surf of gold, Dawn-lakes and moonlight's clear waves cold, In realms so distant, chill and lone, That Love, impatient, leaves the throne To meditative Amity.

RANDOLPH So would my guardian have it be, So flowed his constant voice to me, Of those to make me one, he sought, Who watch from mountain towers of thought, Or wandering into paths apart Pursue the lonely star of art.

WIND But you would rather love and do. Well said, so much the wiser you! But let your love be false as maid's, Your every fire a flame that fades-- A word, a smile, an easy thing To fledge and easy taking wing. Kiss every lip, as tired of rest As I am now. I'm off to west Good-bye, and some day when you're hot I'll meet you cool.

CLOUD And I should not Delay my showers so long as this. God speed! Good-bye!

RANDOLPH Good-bye. I miss Their wonderful companionship. So onward seems the world to slip. Now one glance backward firmly cast; Thy next foot forward bears thee past The mountain's crest. Ah, I behold Our reckless river leaping bold Down all its ledges. And I see The castle where Elaine must be. Lo, in yon window sits she oft.-- From yon green maze of willows soft I hear our hermitage's bell. Sweet sound, sweet many scenes, farewell. Elaine! Elaine!

CUJUS ANIMÆ PROPICIETUR DEUS.

A quiet, old cathedral folds apart At Oxford, from the world of colleges A world of tombs, and shades them in its heart; Contrasting with the busy knowledges This wisdom, that they all shall end in peace.-- "Vex you not, slaves of truth! there is release."

There every window is a monument Emblazoned: every slab along the pave, Each effigy with knees devoutly bent,-- Or prone, with folded gauntlets,--is a grave. Unnoticed down the sands of Kronos run: Slow move the sombre shadows with the sun.

Hard by a Norman shaft, along the floor A portraiture on ancient bronze designed In Academic hood and robes of yore, Commemorates some by-gone lord of mind. Mournful the face and dignified the head: A man who pondered much upon the dead.

Repose unbroken now his dust surrounds, He is with those whom mortals honor most. Respect and tender sighs and holy sounds Of choirs, and the presence of the Holy Ghost And fellow spirits and shadowy mem'ries dear Make for his rest a sacred atmosphere.

Sometime a gentle and profound Divine, Father revered of spiritual sons. He died. They laid him here. About his shrine, Of what they wrote this remnant legend runs: "Nascitur omnis homo peccato mortuus Una post cineres virtus vivere sola facit."[A]

There as I breathed the lesson of the dead: Sudden the rich bells chorussed overhead: "O be not of the throng ephemeral To whom to-day is fame, to-morrow fate, Proud of some robe no statelier than a pall, Mad for some wreath of cypress funeral-- A phantom generation fatuate. Stand thou aside and stretch a hand to save, Virtue alone revives beyond the grave."

[Footnote A: "Every man is born dead in sin. Virtue alone brings life eternal."]

STANCHEZZA.

EARLY LINES

Lo Zephyr floats, on pinions delicate, Past the dark belfry, where a deep-toned bell Sways back and forth, Grief tolling out the knell For thee, my friend, so young and yet so great. Dead--thou art dead. The destiny of men Is ever thus, like waves upon the main To rise, grow great, fall with a crash and wane, While still another grows to wane again, Dead--thou art dead. Would that I too were gone And that the grass which rustles on thy grave Might also over mine forever wave Made living by the death it grew upon. I ask not Orpheus-like, that Pluto give Thy soul to earth. I would not have thee live.

PRÆTERITA EX INSTANTIBUS.

How strange it is that, in the after age,-- When Time's clepsydra will be nearer dry-- That all the accustomed things we now pass by Unmarked, because familiar, shall engage The antique reverence of men to be; And that quaint interest which prompts the sage The silent fathoms of the past to gauge Shall keep alive our own past memory, Making all great of ours--the garb we wear-- Our voiceless cities, reft of roof and spire-- The very skull whence now the eye of fire Glances bright sign of what the soul can dare. So shall our annals make an envied lore, And men will say, 'Thus did the men of yore.'

SUNRISE.

EARLY LINES

I saw the shining-limbed Apollo stand, Exultant, on the rim of Orient, And well and mightily his bow he bent, And unseen-swift the arrow left his hand. Far on it sped, as did those elder ones That long ago shed plague upon the Greek-- Far on--and pierced the side of Night, who weak And out of breath with fright, fled to his sons, The nether ghosts; and lo! his jewelled robe No more did shade a sleep-encircled world; And thereupon the faëry legions furled The silk of silence, and the wheeling globe Spun freer on its grand, accustomed way, While all things living rose to hail the day.

REALITY.

A FANCY

Fade lesser dreams, that, built of tenderness, Young trust and tinted hopes, have led me long. These jagged ways ye whiled will pain me less Than hath your falsity. Your spirit song Sent magic wafted up and down along The waves of wind to me. Your world was real. There was no ruder world that I could feel. I lived in dreams and thought you all I would, Nor knew what dread, bare truth is doomed to rise, When love and hope and all but one far Good, Like sunset lands feel the cold night of lies.

Go, sweetest visions, die amid my tears, For hence, nor cheered, nor blinded, must I seek That larger dream that cannot fade; though years Of leaden days and leagues of by-path bleak Must intervene, with austere sadness gray, Fade dimmer! lest in agony I turn, And heartsick seek ye, though the Fates shriek "Nay!" And the wroth heavens with judgment lightnings burn.

Go useless lesser dreams. And where they were, Rise, grave aërial Good! Thy texture's true. There is no good can die. "No ill," says Time, "can bear, However beautiful, my long, long earnest view."

SEARCHINGS.

(EARLY LINES.)

Soul, thou hast lived before. Thy wing Hath swept the ancient folds of light Which once wrapt stilly everything, Before the advent of a Night.

O thou art blind and thou art dead Unto the knowledge that was thine. A longing and a dreamy dread Alone oft shadow the divine.

Full loud calls past eternity, But Lethe's murmur stills its roar, The one vague truth that reaches thee Is this--that thou hast lived before.

Home often comes some voice of eld Confused and low--a broken surge By fate and distance half withheld-- Rich in linked sadness like a dirge.

The muffled, great bell Silence clangs His solemn call, and thou, O soul! Dost stir in sense's torpid fangs, Like the blind magnet, toward a pole.

The deep, vast, swelling organ-sound; The cadence of an evening flute, Bring oft those ancient joys around To linger till the notes are mute.

And when thy hushéd breathing fills The shrine of quiet reverence, Then, too, a freeing angel stills The clanking of the chains of sense.

But nearest to that former life Another power calleth thee, Away from care, away from strife, Toward what thou wast--infinity.

And in thee, soul, the deepest chord Thrills to a strain rung from above; That strain is bound within a word, A sole, sweet word, and it is--Love.

Love--yet it cannot set thee free To sweep again those folds of light, It torches but a part to thee And dim, though fair. The rest is night.

As the fine structure of a man Fits into life's great world, foremade, So too it shadoweth the plan Of ages hidden in the shade.

And thou hast lived before; hast known The depth of every mystery, Has dwelt in Nature, hid, alone And winged the blue ætherial sea;

Hast looked upon the ends of space; Hast visited each rolling star,-- Before Time measured forth his pace, Scythe-armed, on a terrestrial war.

HOMER.

(EARLY LINES.)

Time, with his constant touch, has half erased The memory, but he cannot dim the fame Of one who best of all has paraphrased The tale of waters with a tale of flame, Yet left us but his accents and his name.

Upon that life, the sun of history Shines not, but Legend, like a moon in mist, Sheds over it a weird uncertainty, In which all figures wave and actions twist, So that a man may read them as he list.

We know not if he trod some Theban street, And sought compassion on his aged woe, We know not if on Chian sand his feet Left footprints once; but only this we know, How the high ways of fame those footprints show.

Along the border of the restless sea, The lonely thinker must have loved to roam, We feel his soul wrapt in its majesty, And he can speak in words that drip with foam, As though himself a deep, and depths his home.

Hark! under all and through and over all, Runs on the cadence of the changeful sea; Now pleasantly the graceful surges fall, And now they mutter in an angry key Ever, throughout their changes, grand and free.

How sternly sang he of Achilles' might, How sweetly of the sweet Andromache, How low his lyre when Ajax prays for light; (Well might he bend that lyre in sympathy For also great, and also blind was he.)

We almost see the nod of sternbrowed Jove, And feel Olympus shake; we almost hear The melodies that Greek youths interwove In pæan to Apollo, and the clear, Full voice of Nestor, sounding far and near.

A dignity of sadness filled his heart, That sadness, born of immortality, Which they alone who live in art Feel in its sweetness and its mystery, Half-filled already with infinity.

Yea, Zeus was wise when he decreed him blind, And wiser still when he decreed him poor; For insight grew as outer sight declined, And want overrode the ills it could not cure, Else rhapsody had lacked its lay most pure.

OUR UNDERLYING EXISTENCE.

O Fool, that wisdom dost despise, Thou knowest not, thou canst not guess Another part of thee is wise And silent sees thy foolishness.

Yet, fool, how dare I pity thee Because my heart reveres the sages; The fool lies also deep in me; We all are one beneath the ages.

TO ______.

"Creation--God's kind giving-- Continues: did not at one Adam end. New realms start open to each generation, Each man receives some gift, some revelation: I, in this late age living, The gift, the new-creation of a friend.

TO A DEBUTANTE.

Thou who smilest in thy freshness, Bright as bud in morning dew; Keep this thought in thy heart's bower "Ever turn, like sunward flower, To the Good, the Fair, the True."

A PROBLEM.

Once, in the University of Life, _Remember_ and _Inquire_, my old Professors, A question hard requested me to solve: "How can man's love be great and be eternal If Right forewarns he may be called to leave it: Whether should Love rule Duty and be all, Or Duty turn his back on sweet Love crying?"

I paused--then spoke, not having what to answer: "Ye know, Professors, how to utter problems And man perplex with his own elements. Yet I believe the ways ye teach are perfect And able are you what ye set to solve.-- Admiring you, however, aids me nothing, I speak because I have not what to answer." "Ponder," they said, those quiet, sage Professors,