The Project Gutenberg E-text of Sonnets and Other Verse, by W. M. MacKeracher

Scorn not the Old; 'twas sacred in its day,
A truth overpowering error with its might,
A light dispelling darkness with its ray,
A victory won, an intermediate height,
Which seers untrammel'd by their creeds of yore,
Heroes and saints, triumphantly attained
With hard assail and tribulation sore,
That we might use the vantage-ground they gain'd.

Scorn not the Old; but hail and seize the New
With thrill'd intelligences, hearts that burn,
And such truth-seeking spirits that it, too,
May soon be superseded in its turn,
And men may ever, as the ages roll,
March onward toward the still receding goal.

How many a man of those I see around
Has cherished fair ideals in his youth,
And heard the spirit's call, and stood spellbound
Before the shrine of Beauty or of Truth,
And lived to see his fair ideals fade,
And feel a numbness creep upon his soul,
And sadly know himself no longer swayed
By rigorous Truth or Beauty's sweet control!

For some, alas! life's thread is almost spun;
Few, few and poor, the fibres that remain;
But yet, while life lasts, something may be done
To make the heavenly vision not in vain;
Yet, even yet, some triumph may be won,
Yea, loss itself be turned to precious gain.

Sad is the wane of beauty to the fair,
Sad is the flux of fortune to the proud,
Sad is the look dejected lovers wear,
And sad is worth beneath detraction's cloud.
Sad is our youth's inexorable end,
Sad is the bankruptcy of fancy's wealth,
Sad is the last departure of a friend,
And sadder than most things is loss of health.

And yet more sad than these to think upon
Is this—the saddest thought beneath the sun—
Life, flowing like a river, almost gone
Into eternity, and nothing done.
Let me be spared that bootless last regret:
Let me work now; I may do something yet.

As one who finds his house no longer fit,
Too narrow for his needs, in nothing right,
Wanting in every homelike requisite,
Devoid of beauty, barren of delight,
Goes forth from door to door and street to street,
With eager-eyed expectancy to find
A new abode for his convenience meet,
Spacious, commodious, fair, and to his mind;

So living souls recurrently outgrow
Their mental tenements; their tastes appear
Too sordid, and their aims too cramped and low.
And they keep moving onward year by year,
Each dwelling in its turn prepared to leave
For one more like the mansion they conceive.

Heaven bless this new abode; defend its doors
Against the entry of malignant sprites—
Gaunt Poverty, pale Sickness, Care that blights;
And o'er its thresholds, like the enchanted shores
Of faery isles, serene amid the roars
Of baffled seas, let in all fair delights
(Such as make happy days and restful nights)
To tread familiarly its charmèd floors.

Within its walls let moderate Plenty reign,
And gracious Industry, and cheerful Health:
Plenish its chambers with Contentment's wealth,
Nor let high Joy its humble roof disdain;
Here let us make renewal of Love's lease,
And dwell with Piety, who dwells with Peace.

Here is a banquet-table of delights,
A sumptuous feast of true ambrosial food;
Here is a journey among goodly sights,
In choice society or solitude;
Here is a treasury of gems and gold—
Of purest gold and gems of brightest sheen;
Here is a landscape gloriously unroll'd,
Of heights sublime and pleasant vales between.

Here is the realm of Thought, diverse and wide,
To Genius and her sovereign sons assign'd;
The universal church, o'er which preside
The heaven-anointed hierarchy of mind
And spirit; the imperishable pride
And testament and promise of mankind.

As one, who, from an antechamber dim,
Is ushered suddenly to his surprise
Before a gathering of the great and wise,
Feels for the moment all his senses swim,
Then looks around him like a veteran grim
When peerless armies pass before his eyes,
Or Michael when he marshals in the skies
The embattled legions of the cherubim;

So shall the scholar pause within this door
With startled reverence, and proudly stand,
And feel that though the ages' flags are furled
By Time's rude breath, their spoils are here in store,
The riches of the race are at his hand,
And well-nigh all the glory of the world.

"Who first invented work?" asks Elia, he
Whose life to an ungenial task was wed,
And answers, "Satan"; but it could not be—
On idleness his foul ambition fed;
By idleness the heavenly domiciles
Were lost to him and all his idle crew;
In idleness he hatches all his wiles,
And mischief finds for idle hands to do.

His business ever was to scamp and shirk,
And scout the task that too ignoble seemed,
And in snug corners serpentlike to lurk
Where no one of his presence ever dreamed;
He never knew the zest of honest work,
Nor ever shall, or he would be redeemed.

Not to the Arch-Idler be the honor given
Of first inventing work, but to his Lord,
Who made the light, the firmament of heaven,
And sun and moon and planets in accord,
The land and cattle on it, and the sea
And fish therein, and flying fowl in air,
And grass and herb and fair fruit-yielding tree,
And man, His own similitude to wear;

Whose works are old and yet for ever new,
Who all sustains with providential sway,
Whose Son, "My Father worketh hitherto
And I work," said, and ere He went away,
"Finished the work thou gavest me to do,"
And unto us, "Work ye while it is day."

How must have thrilled the great Creator's mind
With radiant, glad and satisfying joy,
Ever new self-expressive forms to find
In those six days of rapturous employ!
How must He have delighted when He made
The stars, and meted ocean with His span,
And formed the insect and the tender blade,
And fashioned, after His own image, man!

And unto man such joy in his degree
He hath appointed, work of mind and hand,
To mould in forms of useful symmetry
Words, hues, wood, iron, stone, at his command
To toil upon the navigable sea
And ply his industry upon the land.

God made him, like the angels, innocent,
And made a garden marvellously fair,
With arbors green, sun-kissed and dew-besprent,
And fruits and flowers whose fragrance filled the air;
Where rivers four meandered with delight,
And in the soil were gleaming treasures laid,
Good gold and bdellium and the onyx bright;
And set therein the man whom He had made;

And proved to him by sad experience
That not in bowers of indolence, supine
On beds of ease, could ev'n Omnipotence
Work out in man His last and best design;
And in great love and wisdom drove him thence,
And cursed him with a blessing most benign.

There is a stream to northward, thinly spread
Over a shelving, many-fissured shale,
That brawls and blusters in its shallow bed,
And ends its course inglorious in a swale.
Its babble stirs the laughter of the hills;
The rooted mountains mock its fume and fret;
And all the summer long the idle mills
Wait wearily with water-wheel unwet.

Let us not waste our lives in froth and foam
And unavailing vanity of noise;
"Still waters deepest run"—the ancient gnome
Pricks well our sham, conceited bubble-toys;
Who serve best here in God's great halidome
Have volume, depth, serenity and poise.

Let no one say of Christ's Church, "Ichabod,"
Or deem her strength partaker of decay,
Or think her trumpet voices fail. To-day
I saw a man who was a man of God,
His feet with gospel preparation shod,
The Spirit's quick and mighty weapon sway;
I heard him faithfully point out the way,
To him familiar, which the Master trod.

Intrepid, patient follower of the Lord,
While such as thou, obedient to His call,
Living epistles, known and read of all,
Proclaim the wonders of His sacred Word,
No sound of lamentation should be heard,
No shade of apprehension should appal.

If one could have a hundred years to live,
After the settlement of youth's unrest,
A hundred years of vigorous life to give
To the pursuit of what he counted best,
A hundred summers, autumns, winters, springs,
To train and use the forces of his mind,
He might fulfil his fond imaginings,
And lift himself and benefit his kind.

O faint of heart, to whom this life appears
Too short for thy ambitious projects, He
Who plied His task in weakness and in tears
Along the countrysides of Galilee,
And blest the world for these two thousand years,
Did His incomparable work in three.

Who, careless, would behold a goodly tree
Or noble palace stricken to decay?
Who would drop precious jewels in the sea
Or cast rare heirlooms on the trodden way?
Who, but a prodigal in wantonness,
Would waste his patrimony for swine's food?
Who would his birthright sell for pottage-mess
But a dull, sensual Esau, blind to good?

Our tree o'ershadowing the sons of care,
Our palace welcoming the weary guest,
Our precious jewel and our heirloom rare,
Our birthright and our patrimony blest,
Art thou, to guard and keep for ever fair,
Sweet Christian Sabbath-day of joy and rest.

Say not that England ever kingless was:
'Twixt Charles and Charles two royal men appear,—
Cromwell, to give her health with arms and laws,
And Milton, thou, to speak out loud and clear
For freedom of man's conscience and the state,
For England and her deeds before the world,
And for the victims of religious hate
From Alpine summits pitilessly hurl'd.

Thou wast a Champion of Liberty:
In fair Italian cities thou had'st heard
Her voice upon the north wind summon thee,
And, like another Moses, had'st preferr'd
Affliction with thy brethren to the lure
Of beauty, art and cultur'd ease secure.

Three hundred years have left their telltale rings
Upon the tree of Time since he appeared—
Milton (to be remembered and revered);
Whose spirit mounted on seraphic wings;
Who saw, though blind, extraordinary things;
Who wrought in obloquy, and persevered,
And, Orpheus-like, with his great music reared
A monument surpassing those of kings.

Three hundred years, courageous, lofty soul,
Hast thou by precept and example taught
Thy lesson. Have we learned it as we ought?
Have we moved upward, nearer to the goal?
Yea, somewhat have we learned; be with us still,
And teach us Man's high function to fulfil.

We read his life of poverty and bane,
From weakness, folly, error, not exempt,
And turn aside with a depressing pain—
Compassion tinged with something like contempt.
We read his work, and see his human heart,
His manly mind, his true, if thwarted, will,
And all that's noblest in us takes his part,
And shames our former verdict, will or nill.

His was a fiery spirit that unbound
Men's fetters, sometimes leading him astray;
He was a seed that fell into the ground
And brought forth fruit; he cast himself away
Like bread upon the waters, and was found
To nourish worth in many an after day.

Twelve weeks had passed—how slowly!—day by day,
Since formal, dull Sir Calendar had bowed
Old Winter from the scene, and cried, "Make way!
The Spring, the Spring!" and still a sullen cloud
Obscured the sky, and the north wind blew chill;
When lo, one morn the miracle began;
A Presence brooded over vale and hill,
And through all life a quickening impulse ran.

Long-hushed, forgotten melodies awoke
Within my soul; the rapture of the boy
Refilled me; o'er my arid being broke
A brimming tide of elemental joy
From primal deeps; and all my happy springs
Came back to me—I was the peer of kings!

From shy expectancy to burgeoning,
From burgeoning to ripeness and decline,
The seasons run their various course and bring
Again at last the sober days benign.
And spring's pied garland, worn for Beauty's sake,
And summer's crown of pride, less fair appear
Than the subdued, enchanted tints that make
The aureole of the senescent year.

So grows the good man old—meek, glad, sublime;
More lovely than in all his youthful bloom,
Grander than in the vigor of his prime,
He lights with radiance life's autumnal gloom,
And through the fading avenue of Time
Walks in triumphal glory to his tomb.

Adown the track that skirts the shallow stream
I wandered with blank mind; a bypath drew
My aimless steps aside, and, ere I knew,
The forest closed around me like a dream.
The gold-strewn sward, the horizontal gleam
Of the low sun, pouring its splendors through
The far-withdrawing vistas, filled the view,
And everlasting beauty was supreme.

I knew not past or future; 'twas a mood
Transcending time and taking in the whole.
I was both young and old; my lost childhood,
Years yet unlived, were gathered round one goal;
And death was there familiar. Long I stood,
And in eternity renewed my soul.

Sombre November, least belov'd of all
The months that make the pleasurable year,
Too late for the resplendence of the fall,
Too soon for Christmas-bringing winter's cheer;
Ignoble interregnum following
The golden cycle of a good queen's reign,
Before her heir, proclaimed already king,
Has come of age to rule in her domain;

We do not praise you; many a dreary day
Impatiently we chide your laggard pace;
Backward we look, and forward, and we say:
The queen was kind and fair of form and face;
The king is stern, but clad in brave array:
God save His Majesty and send him grace.

O affluent Sun, unwilling to abate
Thy bounteous hospitality benign,
Whenas we deemed the banquet o'er, thy great
Gold flagon brims again with amber wine;
Whenas we thought t' have seen on plain and hill
Thy euthanasia in October's haze,
The blessing of thy light, unstinted still,
Irradiates the drear November days.

Naught can discourage thee, O thurifer
Of gladness to the else benighted face
Of the misfeatured earth; fit minister
Of Him whose love illumines every place,
Who pours His mercy forth without demur
Over the sins and sorrows of our race.

Now is the Sun, erst spendthrift of his rays
And lavish of his largesses of light,
Become a miser in his latter days,
An avaricious dotard, alter'd quite.
Is he the same that all the summer long
Strew'd with ungrudging hand his gleaming gold?
Can such ill grace to high estate belong?
Can bright be dim? can warm so soon be cold?

Ay, but he goes his parsimonious way,
And hoards his shining treasures from the view,
And garners up his riches 'gainst the day
When Earth, the prodigal, shall beg anew;
Then to her need he'll give no niggard dole,
But wealth incalculable, heart and soul.

Now are the trees all ruefully bereft
Of their brave liveries of green and gold,
No shred of all their pleasant raiment left
To shield them from the wind and nipping cold.
Now is the grass all withered up and dead,
And shrouded in its cerement of the snow;
Now the enfeebled Sun goes soon to bed,
And rises late and carries his head low.

Now is the night magnificent to view
When the Queen Moon appears with cloudless brow;
Now are our spirits cleans'd and born anew
In the clear, quickening atmosphere; and now
We re-make home, and find our hearts' desire
In common talk before the cheerful fire.

When we who dwell within this province old,
Cloven in twain by the great river's tide,
Gird at inhospitable winter's cold,
And rue the downfall of fair summer's pride;
Or turn our eyes from gazing on the vales
Of lavish verdure and abundant fruit,
To those rough wastes where Nature ever fails,
And tillage spurns a profitless pursuit;

Let us recall that sentence from the hand
Of history's father, laying down his pen,—
Those words of Cyrus, which he made to stand
To all his work as moral and amen;
'Tis not the richest and most fertile land
That always bears the noblest breed of men.[ 1 ]

[ 1 ] "Although the work seems unfinished, it concludes with a sentence which cannot have been placed casually at the end, viz., that, as the great Cyrus was supposed to have said, 'It is not always the richest and most fertile country which produces the most valiant men.'"— Commentary on the Work of Herodotus .

From lands where old abuses sit entrenched
And stern restriction thwarts aspiring merit,
And by gaunt men a meagre dole is wrenched
From the unkind conditions they inherit;
From teeming cities where the ceaseless moan
Of want is burthen to the traffic's hum,
From shrouded mills, and fields they ne'er might own,
From servitude and blank despair, they come.

And every ship that sails across the foam,
And every train that rushes from the sea,
And every sun that brightens heaven's dome,
And every breeze that stirs the leafing tree,
Sings to the pilgrims a glad song of home,
With freedom, joy and opportunity.

"I would rather have written those lines than take Quebec to-morrow."— Wolfe, on hearing Gray's "Elegy" read the night before the capture of Quebec .

Thou need'st no marble monuments to keep
Thy fame immortal and thy memory
An inspiration to make pulses leap
And resolution spring to mastery.
Thou need'st no gilded tablets on the walls
Of cities, no imposing sepulchre,
Imperishable Wolfe, whose name recalls
The flower of kings, who bore Excalibur.

The ultimate dispensers of renown,
The poets, shall accord thee honor fit,
And add fresh laurels ever to thy crown,
High-minded hero, who hadst rather writ
Those lines of one to every poet dear
Than take the fortress of a hemisphere.

"Ce n'est rien, ce n'est rien; ne vous affligez pas pour moi, mes bonnes amies."

Montcalm, calm mount, thou didst not faint nor fail
At that fierce volley from thy foemen near,
Nor at the charge's deafening prelude quail,—
The Highland slogan and the Saxon cheer.
But thou, even thou, couldst not withstand the shock
That broke and bore precipitately on
Tried regiments, La Sarre and Languedoc,
Béarn, Guienne and Royal Roussillon.

Thou couldst but fight as heroes e'er have fought,
With that high self-devotion which transcends
Vain-glorious victory: "'Tis naught, 'tis naught;
Fret not yourselves on my account, good friends,"
Yet 'twas thy mortal wound. Such words express
True chivalry and Christlike nobleness.

Up the St. Lawrence with well-weather'd sails
A lonely vessel clove its foaming track.
None hail'd its coming; the white floundering whales
Disported in the Bay of Tadoussac;
The wild duck div'd before its figured prow;
The painted savage spied it from the shore,
And dream'd not that his reign was ended now,—
That that strange ship a new Aeneas bore,

Whose pale-fac'd inconsiderable band
Were pioneers of an aggressive host
Of thousands, millions, filling all the land,
And 'stablishing therein from coast to coast
This civil state, with cities, temples, marts,
Schools, laws and peaceful industries and arts.

The lodges of the Montagnais were there,
Who reaped the harvest of the woods and rocks—
Skins of the moose and cariboo and bear,
Fur of the beaver, marten, otter, fox.
From where the shivering nomad lurks among
The stunted forests south of Hudson's Bay
They piloted their frail canoes along
By many a tributary's devious way;

Then between mountains stern as Teneriffe
Their confluent flotillas glided down
The Saguenay, and pass'd beneath the cliff
Whose shaggy brows athwart the zenith frown,
And reach'd the Bay of Trinity, dark, lone,
And silent as the tide of Acheron.

September bade the sail of Pontgravé
Godspeed, and smil'd upon the infant nation;
October deckt the shores and hills with "gay
Prognostics of approaching desolation."
Ere long the forest, steep'd in golden gloom,
Dropt rustling down its shrivel'd festal dress,
And chill November, sombre as the tomb,
Sank on the vast primeval wilderness.

Inexorable winter's iron vice
Gript hard the land, funereal with snow;
The stream was fill'd with grinding drifts of ice;
A fell disease laid twenty Frenchmen low
In death, and left the dauntless leader eight
With whom to hold the New World's fortress gate.

The purgatory pass'd—the stalactites
That fring'd the cliffs fell crashing to the earth;
With clamor shrill the wild geese skimm'd the heights,
In airy navies sailing to the north;
The bluebirds chirrup'd in the naked woods,
The water-willows donn'd their downy blooms,
The trim swamp-maple blush'd with ruddy buds,
The forest-ash hung out its sable plumes.

The shad-bush gleam'd a wreath of purest snow,
The white stars of the bloodroot peep'd from folds
Of rotting leaves, and in the meadows low
Shone saffron spots, the gay marsh-marigolds.
May made all green, and on the fifth of June
A sail appeared, with succor none too soon.

The street was brisk, an animated scene,
And every man was on some business bent,
Absorbed in some employment or intent,
Pre-occupied, intelligent and keen.
True, some were dwarf'd and some were pale and lean.
But to the sorriest visage Labor lent
A light, transfiguring with her sacrament
The abject countenance and slavish mien.

But one—he shambled aimlessly along
Asham'd, and shrunk from the abstracted ken
Of passers-by with conscience-struck recoil,
A pariah, a leper in the throng,
An alien from the commonwealth of men,
A stranger to the covenant of toil.

What is success? In mad soul-suicide
The world's vain spoils rapaciously to seize,
To pamper the base appetite of pride,
And live a lord in luxury and ease?
Is this success, whereof so many prate?—
To have the Midas-touch that turns to gold
Earth's common blessings? to accumulate,
And in accumulation to grow old?

Nay, but to see and undertake with zest
The good most in agreement with our powers,
To strive, if need be, for the second best,
But still to strive, and glean the golden hours,
With eyes for nature, and a mind for truth,
And the brave, loving, joyous heart of youth.

Is our renown'd Dominion then so small
As not to hold this new inhabitant?
Or are her means so pitiably scant
As not to yield a livelihood to all?
Or are we lesser men, foredoom'd to thrall?
Or so much better than the immigrant
That we should make our hearts as adamant
And guard against defilement with a wall?

Nay, but our land is large and rich enough
For us and ours and millions more—her need
Is working men; she cries to let them in.
Nor can we fear; our race is not the stuff
Servants are made of, but a royal seed,
And Christian, owning all mankind as kin.

Our hearts are set on pleasure and on gain.
Fine clothes, fair houses, more and daintier bread;
We have no strivings, and no hunger-pain
For spiritual food; our souls are dead.
So judged I till the day when news was rife
Of fire besieging scholars and their dames,
And bravely one gave up her own fair life
In saving the most helpless from the flames.

Then when I heard the instantaneous cheer
That broke with sobbing undertones from all
The multitude, and watched them drawing near,
Stricken and mute, around her funeral pall
In grief and exultation, I confest
My judgment erred,—we know and love the best.

Her fair companions she outshone,
As this or that transcendent star
Makes all its sister orbs look wan
And dim and lustreless and far.

Her charm impressed the fleeting glance,
But chiefly the reflective mind;
A century's inheritance,
By carefull'st nurture still refined.

Devotions, manners, hopes that were,
Ideals high, traditions fine,
Were felt to culminate in her,
The efflorescence of her line.

How can the man whose uneventful days,
Each like the other, are obscurely spent
Amid the mill's dead products, keep his gaze
Upon a lofty goal serenely bent?
Or he who sedulously tells and groups
Their minted shadows with deft finger-tips?
Or who above the shadow's shadow stoops,
And dips his pen and writes, and writes and dips?

How can he? Yet some such have been and are,
Prophets and seers in deed, if not in word,
And poets of a faery land afar,
By incommunicable music stirred;
Feasting the soul apart with what it craves,
Their occupation's masters, not its slaves.

Titanic craft of many thousand tons,
A smaller Britain free to come and go,
Relying on thy ten terrific guns
To daunt afar the most presumptuous foe;
Thick-panoplied with plates of hardened steel,
Equipped with all the engin'ry of death,
Unrivalled swiftness in thy massive keel,
Annihilation latent in thy breath.

"Dreadnought" thy name. And yet, for all thy size
And strength, the ocean might engulf thy prow,
Or the swift red torpedo of the skies,
The lightning, blast thy boast-emblazoned brow;
Thou hast thy use, but Britain's sons were wise
To put their trust in better things than thou.

From Lapland to the land of Tamerlane,
Kamchatka to the confines of the Turk,
The spirit tyrants never can restrain
When once awake is mightily at work.
Liberty, frantic with a fearful hope,
Out of long darkness suddenly arisen,
Maddens the dull half-human herds who grope
And rend the bars of their ancestral prison.

Over the wan lone steppe her couriers speed,
The secret forest echoes her command,
She smites the sword that made her children bleed,
And Death and Havoc hold the famished land.
But God overrules, and oft man's greatest good
Is won through nights of dread and days of blood.

Loved by a host from Noah's days till now,
Extolled by bards in many a glowing line,
My purple rival of the mantling brow
May laugh to scorn this swarthy face of mine.
I care not: many a weary pain I cure;
Cold, heat and thirst I harmlessly abate;
I bless the weak, the aged and the poor;
And I have known the favor of the great.

I've cheered the minds of mighty poets gone;
Philosophers have owned my solace true;
Shy Cowper was my sweet Anacreon;
Keen Hazlitt craved "whole goblets" of my brew;
De Quincey praised my stimulating draught;
What cups of me old Doctor Johnson quaffed!

When my time comes to quit this pleasing scene,
And drop from out the busy life of men;
When I shall cease to be where I have been
So willingly, and ne'er may be again;
When my abandoned tabernacle's dust
With dust is laid, and I am counted dead;
Ere I am quite forgotten, as I must
Be in a little while, let this be said:

He loved this good God's world, the night and day,
Men, women, children (these he loved the best);
Pictures and books he loved, and work and play,
Music and silence, soberness and jest;
His mind was open, and his heart was gay;
Green be his grave, and peaceful be his rest!

The rain came suddenly, and to the shore
I paddled, and took refuge in the wood,
And, leaning on my paddle, there I stood
In mild contentment watching the downpour,
Feeling as oft I have felt heretofore,
Rooted in nature, that supremest mood
When all the strength, the peace, of solitude,
Sink into and pervade the being's core.

And I have thought, if man could but abate
His need of human fellowship, and find
Himself through Nature, healing with her balm
The world's sharp wounds, and growing in her state,
What might and greatness, majesty of mind,
Sublimity of soul and Godlike calm!

Man's works grow stale to man: the years destroy
The charm they once possessed; the city tires;
The terraces, the domes, the dazzling spires
Are in the main but an attractive toy—
They please the man not as they pleased the boy;
And he returns to Nature, and requires
To warm his soul at her old altar fires,
To drink from her perpetual fount of joy.

It is that man and all the works of man
Prepare to pass away; he may depend
On naught but what he found her stores among;
But she, she changes not, nor ever can;
He knows she will be faithful to the end,
For ever beautiful, for ever young.

I rose, and idly sauntered to the pane,
And on the March-bleak mountain bent my look;
And standing there a sad review I took
Of what the day had brought me. What the gain
To Wisdom's store? What holds had Knowledge ta'en?
I mused upon the lightly-handled book,
The erring thought, and felt a stern rebuke:
"Alas, alas! the day hath been in vain!"

But as I gazed upon the upper blue,
With many a twining jasper ridge up-ploughed,
Sudden, up-soaring, swung upon my view
A molten, rolling, sunset-laden cloud:
My spirit stood, and caught its glorious hue—
"Not lost the day!" it, leaping, cried aloud.

Far stretched the landscape, fair, without a flaw,
Down to one silver sheet, some stream or cloud,
Through glamorous mists. Midway, an engine ploughed
Across the scene. In meditative awe
I stood and gazed, absorbed in what I saw,
Till sweet-breathed Evening came, the pensive-browed,
And creeping from the city, spread her shroud
Over the sunlit slopes of Outremont.

Soon the mild Indian summer will be past,
November's mists soon flee December's snows;
The trees may perish, and the winter's blast
Wreck the tall windmills; these weak eyes may close;
But ever will that scene continue fast
Fixed in my soul, where richer still it grows.

Hard by an ancient mansion stood an oak;
For centuries, 'twas said, it had been there:
The old towers crumbled 'neath decay's slow stroke,
While, hall by hall, upgrew a palace fair;
Lives and momentous eras waxed and waned,
Old barons died, and barons young and gay
Ruled in their stead, and still the oak remained,
And each new spring seemed older not a day.

The vesture of the spirit of mankind,—
Forms and beliefs, like meteors, rise and set;
The spirit too doth change; but o'er the mind
This old Evangel holds young lordship yet;
And here among Canadian snows we bring
Each Christmastide our tribute to the King.

Give me a cottage embower'd in trees,
Far from the press and the din of the town;
There let me loiter and live at my ease,
Happier far than the King with his crown.

There let the music that's sweeter than words
Waken my soul's inarticulate song,
Murmur of zephyrs and warbling of birds,
Babble of waters that hurry along.

Under the shade of the maple and beech
Let me in tranquil contentment recline,
Learning what nature and solitude teach,
Charming philosophy, human, divine;

Finding how trivial the myriad things
Life is concern'd with, to seek or to shun;
Seeing the sources whence blessedness springs,
Gathering strength for the work to be done.

Paestum, your temples and your streets
Have been restored to view;
Your fadeless Grecian beauty greets
The eyes of men anew.

But where are all your roses now—
Those wonderful delights
That made such garlands for the brow
Of your fair Sybarites?

They in your time were more renown'd,
And dearer to your heart,
Than these fine works which mark the bound
And highest reach of art.

We'd see you as you look'd of old;
Though column, arch and wall
Were worth a kingdom to behold,
One rose would shame them all.

An April day, when skies are blue,
And earth rejoices to renew
Her vernal youth by lawn and lea,
And sap mounts upward in the tree,
And ruddy buds come bursting through;

When violets of tender hue
And trilliums keep the morning dew
Through all the sweet forenoon—give me
An April day;

When surly Winter's roystering crew
Have said the last of their adieux,
And left the fettered river free,
And buoyant hope and ecstasy
Of life awake, my wants are few—
An April day.

The Year, an aged holy priest,
In gorgeous vestments clad,
Now celebrates the solemn feast
Of Autumn, sweet and sad.

The Sun, a contrite thurifer
After his garish days,
Through lessening arch, a wavy blur,
His burnish'd censer sways.

The Earth,—an altar all afire
Her hecatombs to claim,
Shoots upward many a golden spire
And crimson tongue of flame.

Like Jethro's shepherd, when he turn'd
In Midian's land to view
The bush that unconsuming burn'd,
I pause—and worship, too.

To some the heavenly Father good
Has given raiment rich and fine,
And tables spread with dainty food,
And jewels rare that brightly shine.

To some He's given gold that buys
Immunity from petty care,
Freedom and leisure and the prize
Of pleasing books and pictures fair.

To some He's given wide domains
And high estate and tranquil ease,
And homes where all refinement reigns
And everything combines to please.

To some He's given minds to know
The what and how, the where and when;
To some, a genius that can throw
A light upon the hearts of men.

To some He's given fortunes free
From sorrows and replete with joys;
To some, a thousand friends; to me
He's given my two little boys.

Ever hail'd with delight when my memory strays
O'er the various scenes of my juvenile days,
Do you mind if I sing a poor song in your praise,
My jolly old classical master?

You were kind—over-lenient, 'twas rumor'd, to rule—
And so learn'd, though the blithest of all in the school,
'Twas your pupil's own fault if he left you a fool,
My jolly old classical master.

"Polumetis Odusseus" you brought back to life,
"Xanthos Menelaos" recalled to the strife:
You knew more about Homer than Homer's own wife,
My jolly old classical master.

You could sever each classical Gordian knot,
Each "crux criticorum" explain on the spot;
We preferr'd your opinion to Liddell and Scott,
My jolly old classical master.

To you "Arma virumque," "All Gaul" and the rest
Were a snap of the fingers, a plaything, a jest,
Even Horace mere English—you lik'd Horace best,
My jolly old classical master.

We esteemed you a marvel in Latin and Greek,
An Erasmus, a Bentley, a Person, a freak;
And for all sorts of knowledge we held you unique,
My jolly old classical master.

You brought forth from your treasury things new and old,
Philosophical gems, oratorical gold;
And how many a capital story you told,
My jolly old classical master!

Your devotion to learning, whole-hearted and pure,
Your fine critical relish of literature,
And your gay disposition, had charms to allure,
My jolly old classical master.

Here's a health to you, sir, from a thousand old boys,
Who once plagu'd you with nonsense and tried you with noise,
But who learn'd from you, lov'd you, and wish you all joys,
My jolly old classical master.

May your mien be still jovial, your mind be still bright,
May your wit be still sprightly, your heart be still light,
And long, long may it be ere your spirit takes flight,
My jolly old classical master.

They come not from the sunny, sunny south,
Nor from the Arctic region,
Nor from the east, the busy, busy east,
The where man's name is legion;
But they come from the west, the rugged, rugged west,
From the world's remotest edges;
And their pockets they are filled with the yellow, yellow gold
That they mined in the mountain ledges.

Then, hey, lads, hey, for the mining man so bold,
Who comes from the world's far edges!
And hey for the gold, the yellow, yellow gold,
That is stored in the mountain ledges!

They basked not, they, in balmy tropic shade,
'Neath orange tree and banyan;
But braved the bush, the torrent and the steep,
By gorge and gulch and canyon.
They would not be held back in cities over desks,
Or among the homestead hedges;
So their pockets now are filled with the yellow, yellow gold
That they mined in the mountain ledges.

They left their homes, their loved ones all behind,
Forsook kind friend and neighbor,
And went to seek the thing of greatest worth,
For gold, rare gold, to labor.
Oh! they bled the old earth—they opened up her veins
With their picks and drills and sledges;
And their pockets now are filled with the yellow, yellow gold
That they mined in the mountain ledges.

The tread of armèd mariners is in our streets to-day,
An Empire's pulse is beating in the march of this array.
From western woods, and Celtic hills, and homely Saxon shires,
They sailed beneath the "meteor flag," the emblem of our sires;
And for the glory that has been, the pride that yet may be,
We hail them in the sacred names of home and liberty,
And know that not on sea or land more dauntless hearts there are
Than the hearts of these bold seamen from the English men-of-war.

Trafalgar's fame-crowned hero stands, encarved in storied stone,
And from his place of honor looks in silence and alone:
But no, to-day his spirit lives, and walks the crowded way;
For us Drake, Hawkins, Frobisher and Howard live to-day;
For us from many a page of eld, 'mid war and tempest blast,
A thousand thousand valiant forms come trooping from the past,
And say, "Forget not us to-day, we have a part with these,
The 'sea-dogs' of old England, the 'Mistress of the Seas.'"

No, no, ye gruff old heroes, ye can never be forgot;
The memory of your prowess will outlive the storm, the shot
Destruction pours impartially on common and sublime,
And scorn the volleying years that mount the battery of time;
For far above this tide of war your worth is written clear
On fame's bright rock of adamant, imperishable here;
Your names may be recorded not, your graves be 'neath the keel,
But many a million English hearts some love for you shall feel.

Five grim old ocean-buffeters, stern ploughshares of the deep,
Have come to visit us of those whose duty 'tis to keep,
With the old lion's courage and the young eagle's ken,
Their sleepless watch upon the sea that skirts this world of men:
And if again in stately pride their lordly forms they bear
Upon the ample bosom of our noble stream, whene'er
From massive prow impregnable their peaceful anchor falls,
We'll hail old England's hearts of steel who man her iron walls.

Large Book, with heavy covers worn and old,
Bearing clear proof of usage and of years,
Thine edges yellow with their faded gold,
Thy leaves with fingers stained—perchance with tears;

How oft thy venerable page has felt
The hardened hands of honorable toil!
How oft thy simple song had power to melt
The hearts of the rude tillers of the soil!

How oft has fancy borne them back to see
The Scottish peasant at his work, and thou
Hast made them feel the grandeur of the free
And independent follower of the plough!

What careth he that his proud name hath peal'd
From shore to shore since his new race began,
In humble cot and "histie stibble field"
Who doth "preserve the dignity of man"?

With reverent hands I lay aside the tome,
And to my longing heart content returns,
And in the stranger's house I am at home,
For thou dost make us brothers, Robert Burns.

And thou, old Book, go down from sire to son;
Repeat the pathos of the poet's life;
Sing the sweet song of him who fought and won
The outward struggle and the inward strife.

Go down, grand Book, from hoary sire to son;
Keep by the Book of books thy wonted place;
Tell what a son of man hath felt and done,
And make of us and ours a noble race,—

A race to scorn the sordid greed of gold,
To spurn the spurious and contemn the base,
Despise the shams that may be bought and sold,—
A race of brothers and of men,—a race

To usher in the long-expected time
Good men have sought and prophets have foretold,
When this bright world shall be the happy clime
Of brotherhood and peace, when men shall mould

Their lives like His who walked in Palestine;
The truly human manhood thou dost show,
Leading them upward to the pure divine
Nature of God made manifest below.

It was back in Renfrew County, near the Opeongo line,
Where the land's all hills and hollows and the hills are clothed
with pine,
And in the wooded valleys little lakes shine here and there
Like jewels in the masses of a lovely woman's hair;
Where the York branch, by a channel ripped through rugged rocks
and sand,
Sweeps to join the Madawaska, speeding downward to the Grand;
Where the landscape glows with beauty, like a halo shed abroad,
And the face of nature mirrors back the unseen face of God.

I was weary with my journey, and with difficulty strove
To keep myself awake at first, as, sitting by the stove
In old William Rankin's shanty, I attended as I might
To the pioneer backwoodsman's tales far on into the night;
But William talked until the need of sleep one quite forgot,
Not stopping but to stir the fire, which kept the stove red-hot;
For the wind was raw and cold without, although the month of May:
Up north the winter struggles hard before it yields its sway;
And the snow is in the forests, and the ice is in the lakes,
And the frost is in the seedland oft when sunny June awakes.

He talked of camps in winter time, of river drives in spring,
Of discords in the settlement,—in fact, of everything;
He told of one good elder who'd been eaten by a bear,
And wondered that a beast of prey should eat a man of pray'r;
Of beast, from wolf to porcupine, killed with gun, axe and fork,
And, finally, of college men who did not pine for pork.
"But yet among them students," said the bushman, "there wuz one
As hit me an' the settlement as fair as any gun.

"O' course, he wa'nt no buster, hed no shinin' gifts o' speech;
But jis' as reg'lar he could give some pointers how to preach.
He talked straight on like tellin' yarns—more heart, I'd say, 'an head;
But somehow people felt he meant 'bout every word he said.
He wa'n't chuck full o' larnin' from the peelin' to the core;—
Leastwise, he wa'n't the kind they call a college batch-o'-lore;
He'd no degree, the schoolma'am said,—though soon he let 'em see
That o' certain sterlin' qualities he had a great degree,—
Leastwise he hed no letters till the hind end o' his name,—
But, preacher, say, you don't set much importance by them same?—
Y' may hev titles o' y'r own, an' think I'm speakin' bold;
But there's that bob-tailed nag o' mine, the chestnut three-year-old;
It's true she can't make such a swish, to scare away the flies,
But if y'd see her cover ground, y'd scarce believe y'r eyes.

"O' course, he hed his enemies,—you preachers alluz hez,—
But 'twa'n't no use their tellin' us he wa'n't the stuff, I gez;
An' after while they closed right up an' looked like,—it wuz fun,—
When they seed the way he 'sisted out ol' Game-leg Templeton.
O' course, y' knows ol' Templeton,—twuz him as druv y' in;
Y' noticed, maybe, how he limped, and sort o' saved his shin.
He's run the mail through fair and foul 'tween this and Cumbermere,
And faithful served Her Majesty fur nigh on twenty year.

"The preacher stayed with Templeton, the same's you're stay'n' with me,
On a new clearance back o' this, which, course, y' didn't see.
An' one day on a visit tour the chap wuz startin' out
In the way o' Little Carlow,—twuz good twelve mile round about,—
An' in the bush he'd lose hisself, as everybody knowed:
'I'll take the axe,' says Templeton, 'an' go an' blaze a road.
It's only three mile through the bush.' An' so they started in,
Quite happy like,—men never knows when troubles will begin.
'Bout noon,—the folks was in the house a eatin' o' their snack,—
The chap comes home with Templeton a-hangin' on his back.

"The call wuz close fur Templeton, who'd somehow missed his stroke;
He alluz swung a heavy blow, an' the bone wuz well-nigh broke;
An' wust of all, 'twuz two whole days afore the doctor came;
He was up the Long Lake section, seein'—what's that fellow's name?—
Well, never mind.—An' when he did examine of the wound,
He said 'twould take all summer fur the man to git around.

"Well, what y' think thet preacher done, but turn right out an' mow
The meadow down an' put it in, and th' harvest, too, although
The ol' man worried and complained as how he'd orter stop;
An' there wa'nt no binders in them days, and work wuz work, sure pop.

"Well, when the people heerd about the way that preacher done,
All on 'em growed religious straight, sir, every mother's son;
The meetin'-house wuz crowded from the pulpit to the door—
Some on 'em hadn't showed face there fur twenty year or more;
An' them as sot out on the fence an' gossiped all the while,
Jis' brought the fence planks in and sot down on 'em in the aisle,
An' listened,—sir, no orator as ever spoke aloud
Worked on his audience the way as that chap on our crowd.

We aint no shakes o' people; we aint up to nothin' new;
But we knows a man what's shammin' and we knows a man what's true.
An' when we heerd that preacher talk 'bout Christian sacrifice
And bearin' burdens for the weak, we valued his advice;
An' we showed it—there wuz nothin' as we thought too good for him;
We poured our cup o' gratitude an' filled it to the brim.

"He aint been near so fort'nate 'n the city where he's went;
Some folks as didn't like him set them sticklers on his scent;
An' the presbytery giv him fits fur trimmin' of his lamp
The way it shined the brightest, an' he jined another camp.
But most men,—leastwise such as him,—I take it, fur my part,
Aint got much devil in their brains when God is in their heart;
An' I'll allow it yet, although they puts me in the stocks,
That religion what is practical's sufficient orthodox.

"Well, thet's the finest preacher as hez struck back here to spout,
An' there never wuz another we cared very much about.
I've heerd o' Beecher's meetings an' such men as John B. Gough;
But fourteen waggon loads druv down to see that preacher off.
We sent him back to college with a fresh supply o' socks,—
Nigh everything a student needs wuz jammed intill that box;
An', preacher, spite of what yourself with all your parts may feel,
Fur me an' Game-leg Templeton that man is our ideel."

O m'sieu, doan you hask me ma story, doan hask me how dis was happenn;
Dat's one beeg black hole on ma life, w'ere I doan want to look on some more....
Well, he's coom joos' so well for to tole you, all tak' beet tabac firs' and den
A'll tole you what cep' to de pries' a have nevare tole no one before.

Bien, M'sieu; he's come pass joos like dis way; a go out wit' de boys to make lark;
Dare was Armand and Joseph and Louiee, an' we drink on de deefront saloon.
An' we feenish in plac' wit' de music, like one of dose garden or park,
W'ere he's play dose curse wheel for de monee—in Hingleesh dat's wheel of fortune.

He was Saturday night on de week, M'sieu, an' a have ma week's pay on my bourse,
Wit'out w'at we pay for de whiskey—'bout one dollar feefty or less;
An' a'm t'ink a can win me lots monee, and eef a doan win some, of coorse,
A can stop 'fore a lose much, a tell me, but a've pooty beeg hope for success.

Well, Louiee, he's be careful, risk notting, he's laugh w'en a'm buy some paddell,
Armand he's buy some for obligement, he's not half so careful's Louiee.
An' we play dare teel half pas' eleven, an' de meantime she's go pooty well,
Teel Armand he's lose all she's monee, an' shortly 's de same ting wit' me.

But Louiee he's got plaintee of monee, an' he's got plaintee fr'en' on de plac',
An' a'm hask heem for lend me ten dollar, a'm pay wit' good interes', be sure;
He'll tol me he's got more as feefty an' he's give me plusieurs jours de grace,
For Louiee he was know a was hones' for all a was poor of de poor.

Well, I not was require all dat monee teel de wheel she was tak' few more whirl,
For a keep on to lose pooty steady, and Armand he say, "Doan play< some more,"
But Louiee he say, "Win yet posseeble," and Joseph he was off wit' his girl,
An' de croupier say, "Bettre luck nex' time, dare is good luck an' bad luck in store."

And de wheel she was turn on de peevot and shine in de light electrique,
She seem like beeg star to be turning, an' sing tune like she doan care notting;
But she turn like de pool on de river dat's tak' everyt'ing down pooty queek,
An' she shine like de snake w'en he's body is roll' up—de snake wit' de sting.

An' a'm play teel a lose all dat monee, an' de wicked roulette she go roun',
An' a'm play also feefty more dollar, an' ma head she commence for to reel;
An' oh, M'sieu, de hard time dat was follow teel a lay ma good wife in de groun',
An' hoffen a hask me forgiveness, as dare by dat grave a go kneel.

My name is Tim O'Gallagher,—there's Oirish in that same;
My parients from the Imerald Oisle beyant the ocean came;
My father came from Donegal, my mother came from Clare;
But oi was born in Pontiac, besoide the Belle Rivière.
Oi spint my choildhood tamin' bears, and fellin' timber trays,
And catchin' salmon tin fate long—and doin' what oi plaze.
Oi got my iddication from the Riverind Father Blake;
He taught me Latin grammar, and he after taught me Grake,
Till oi could rade the classics in a distint sort of way—
'Twas the sadetoime of the harvist that oi'm rapin' ivery day.

My parients thought me monsthrous shmart—of thim 'twas awful koind,
And where oi'd go to college now was what perplixed their moind;
So they axed the Riverind Father Blake what varsity was bist
To make a docthor, bachelor and lawyer and the rist.
Said Father Blake, "If oi must make decision, faith! oi will:
Sure, sind the boy to Munthreal, there's none loike Ould McGill."

So oi came to Munthreal and found McGill one afternoon,
And saw a great excoited crowd all shoutin' out of tune;
And in the cintre thorty min was foightin' jist loike mad,
And two big fellows on the top of one poor little lad.
Oi turned indignant to the crowd, and tould them to their face:
"Ye pack of coward savages, onciviloized and base,
To stand and see two stalwart min abusin' one that way!
Oi loike a gladiatorial show, but loike to see fair play."
So oi jumped at those two bullies and oi caught thim by the shirt,
And oi knocked their hids together and consoigned thim to the dirt.
Oi was removed and they were carried home, but all the same,
Though Ould McGill was two min short, she won that football game.
They thought oi was a tough gussoon, and whin they played agin,
They put me in the scrimmage—we got thorty-foive to tin.

Oi thin wint up to college whin the lictures would begin;
Oi attinded ivery licture—when oi happened to be in;
Got my work up, kipt my note-books in the illigantist shape;
Oi took notes of ivery licture—barrin' whin oi was ashlape.
But, och! oi try to do my bist, for sure it's Father Blake
As says the foinist faculty is Arts, and no mistake;
For there they tache philosophy and English literature,
The mathematics also, and the classic authors, sure.
Oi larned the Gracian poethry, oi larned the Latin prose;
Oi know as much about thim both as my profissor knows:
How Troy, that had for noine long years defoied the Graycian force,
Was "hors de combat" put at last by jist a wooden horse;
How Xerxes wipt because his army soon would pass away,
And Alexander wipt because there were no more to shlay;
How Cato from his toga plucked the Carthaginian fruit;
How Brutus murdered Saysar, and how Saysar called him "Brute."

Oi'd the honor of a mornin' with an influential Med,
And he took me to the room in which they mutilate the dead.
Oi don't objict to crack a skull or spoil a purty face,
But to hack a man who's dead is what oi called extramely base.
But all pursonal convictions, he explained, should be resoigned
For the binifit of scoience and the good of humankoind;
And though oi don't at all admoire their ways o' goin' on,
Oi'll take a course in Medicine, oi will, before oi'm gone.

Oi saw the Scoience workshops, too, and thought whin oi was made,
These little hands were niver mint to larn the blacksmith trade;
And for that illictricity, the thing what gives the shock,
They collared old Promaytheus and chained him to a rock
For a-playin' with the loightnin' and a-raychin to the skoies,
And the vultures gnawed his vittles, and the crows picked out his oyes.
But toimes has changed, and larnin' gives us power—don't you see?—
And whin oi'm done with Arts oi'll take that shplindid faculty;
For, sure, it's from their workshops that the solar system's run;
Besoides, they make the wither, too, and rigilate the sun.

Oi troied exams at Christmas, and oi didn't pass at all;
But oi can have another whack at thim nixt spring and fall.
In toime oi'll pass in iverything, and masther all they taiche;
Oi'll go through ivery faculty, and come out hid in aiche.
And whin oi've conquered all, loike Alexander oi will soigh
There is no more to conquer, and oi'll lay me down and doie.
They'll birry me with honors, and erict in my behalf
A monimint which shall disphlay the followin' epitaph:

"Here loies shwate Tim O'Gallagher,—sure he had wits to shpare,—
His father came from Donegal, his mother came from Clare.
He was a shplindid scholar, for he studied at McGill;
He drank the well of larnin' dhroy (and, faith! he got his fill).
Was niver mortal craythur larned to such a great degree,—
B.A.M.A.M.D.C.M.B.SC.LL.D."

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