A CANADIAN CALENDAR: XII LYRICS

XII. LYRICS: A LIST.

1. IN THE NORTH.

2. A ROAD SONG IN MAY.

3. THE LANDSMAN.

4. THE GHOST.

5. A SONG IN AUGUST.

6. TO AUTUMN.

7. THREE GREY DAYS.

8. THE WATCH.

9. THE SEEKERS.

10. FELLOWSHIP.

11. THE LODGER.

12. MARCH WIND.

I. IN THE NORTH.

Come, let us go and be glad again together

Where of old our eyes were opened and we knew that we were free!

Come, for it is April, and her hands have loosed the tether

That has bound for long her children.—who her children more than we?

Hark! hear you not how the strong waters thunder

Down through the alders with the word they have to bring?

Even now they win the meadow and the withered turf is under,

And, above, the willows quiver with foreknowledge of the spring.

Yea, they come, and joy in coming: for the giant hills have sent them.—

The hills that guard the portal where the South has built her throne:

Unloitering their course is,—can wayside pools content them,

Who were born where old pine forests for the sea forever moan?

And they, behind the hills, where forever bloom the flowers,

So they ever know the worship of the re-arisen Earth?

Do their hands ever clasp such a happiness as ours,

Now the waters foam about us and the grasses have their birth?

Fair is their land,—yea fair beyond all dreaming,—

With its sun upon the roses and its long summer day;

Yet surely they must envy us our vision of the gleaming

Of our lady's white throat as she comes her ancient way.

For their year is never April—Oh what were Time without her!

Yea, the drifted snows may cover us, yet shall we not complain:

Knowing well our Lady April—all her raiment blown about her—

Will return with many kisses for our unremembered pain!

II. A ROAD SONG IN MAY.

O come! Is it not surely May?

The year is at its poise today.

Northward, I hear the distant beat

Of Spring's irrevocable feet:

Tomorrow June will have her way.

O tawny waters, flecked with sun,

Come: for your labours all are done.

The grey snow fadeth from the hills;

And toward the sound of waking mills

Swing the brown rafts in, one by one.

O bees among the willow-blooms,

Forget your empty waxen rooms

Awhile, and share our golden hours!

Will they not come, the later flowers,

With their old colours and perfumes?

O wind that bloweth from the west,

Is not this morning road the best?

—Let us go hand in hand, as free

And glad as little children be

That follow some long-dreamed-of quest!

III. THE LANDSMAN.