OUT of the WILDERNESS 8 a SONG of the UNRETURNING 7 a Song to the VALIANT
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CONTENTS THE BOOK OF THE WILDERNESS .Aoa OUT OF THE WILDERNESS 8 A SONG OF THE UNRETURNING 7 A SoNG TO THE VALIANT . 8 THE CALL • 11 THE LoON. 18 THESE FRIENDS OF MINE 16 THE SONG OF THE SKI 17 M'SIEU • 20 LARANOWA 23 MUSKOKA U I HEARD A WOODMAN GRIEVE 81 AN ADVENTURER'S SoNG. 32 NOVEMBER. 83 THE BERRY PICKERS 87 THE WAR IN THE GORSE. 89 THE SONG OF THE WINDING ROAD 40 OAKS 45 BmCHES. 48 ix PAO. PAG& IN A WOOD CLEARING 51 GBADUATION DAY. 97 FEBRUARY THE FmsT ON TIlE PRAIRIES 54 I WONDER • 100 A SoNG OF LoNESOMENESS 57 HAECltEL OF JENA • IOi AND No ONE SHALL FORGET 108 THE BOOK OF MAN WHY NOT I? 109 I LoVE OLD THINGS 61 THE SoNG OF THE FLAsHING DooR. 111 64 IN THE FAR YEARS CHBISTMAS DINNER AT CHILDS' • 114 65 IN HOWARD PARK. TlmEE O'CLOCK 117 WHO ARE THESE SPIRITS? 74 EXIT. 119 75 FALLEN . THE SoNG OF A PLUTOCRAT I~i 76 ENGLISH BAY SEA HARVEST 124 78 THE MAKER OF DREAMS. TRINITY COLLEGE, TORONTO • 126 COME HERE NEVERMORE. 81 THE TOLL-GATE MAN 1i9 88 THE GARMENT. THE THREE RIDERS 182 84 ON THE STAIR • HE HAs KEPI' FAITH WITH BEAUTY 135 TWILIGHT AT CRESCENT BEACH . 85 CENTRE STREET 136 86 THE UNSUNG PASSION THE SHOE-COBBLER IN IlEAVEN 138 87 You ARE A HAVEN ON HIS GoLDEN-WEDDING DAY. 144 MAGGIE SWARTZ 88 . AN EVENING SoNG 145 YLETTE AND YVONNE. 89 "NIAGARA 146 UNSATISFIED 9i Foo . 151 SoNG OF Two HOUSES. 98 A SIR GEORGE PARKIN 15i SAINT C:EsAmE • 95 . o SWEET TRANSLATOR 154 X xi PAQ8 GHOST HORNPIPES. • 155 THE UNDYING BEAUTY 157 OFF JUAN DE FuCA 158 As A WHITE MOON 161 A STREET SONG 162 THE BOOK OF THE REBEL A GYPSY SoNG. 165 THE SONG OF THE REBEL 167 THE UNBURIED DEAD. • 172 FIRST SONG OF A VAGABOND. 174 THE BOOK OF THE WILDERNESS SECOND SONG OF A VAGABOND 175 THE PUPPETS • 176 THE SONG OF THE HEMP • 182 MOURNERS. 186 NINETEEN TwENTY-SIX 188 THE GOLDEN CROSS 190 VOLGA • 196 LwYD-GEORGE 199 THE SONG OF THE NEW COMMUNITIES. !tOO THE MAsKED BALL • 206 WESTWARD •••• !t08 THE LAsT PORTAGE ftl0 OUT OF THE WILDERNESS I. A VAGABOND. gypsy. lover forever of freedom, Come to you who are arrogant, proud, and fevered with civilization- Come with a tonic of sunlight, bottled in wild, careless acres, To cure you with secrets as old as the breathing of men; Come with the clean north wind in my nostrils, To blowout the dust and the smoke of your lives in a great blast of beauty; Come with a chaos of wild-flowers, grouped in a. lovely disorder. To shaq;le all your gardens of maddening, cloying per fection. I have in my veins all the sweet unrest of the wild places. And if you toss me aside I will come hither again on the morrow; For I am a force that you eannot deny; I am an offering that you finally must accept, For I ,am the herald of new things in & new land. H you knew what savagery I have endured That you might know peace; If you knew how often mine eyes have been blinded To giv;e you light; H you knew how many times mine ears have been deaf ened 3 To give you sound; But blesses with beauty of yellow and crimson and all If you knew the chains and manacles I have worn flaming colors To give you freedom, Whoever beholds it with wisdom and love. Then would you open the doors you have closed in my face My song is a roseate rug, yet not of the Orient. And recant all you have spoken against me Here is the weave of it: seaweed, curled black with salt, And drink my song to the full measure of my cup. Under the cold, high cliffs of Gaspe; Pine-shadowed snow, at the dome of the Selkirks, I am a renegade, laughing at rules and laws, Burning with suns and flaming with moons and remain- And my whims are my king and my royal family. ing forever; I am an adventurer, delving in joy and sorrow Sands from the restless and changeable dunes of Wasaga; And love and friendship and the white quarries of Slim, hardy reeds in the broad, lonely marshes truth. Where James Bay falters between her allegiance I am a plunderer, taking all that the sages have left me To land and the gray, green of water; And adding thereto, that the children to come may have Gold suns that slip from the world at Alberni, peace. Warming the seas with their fires; I am a highwayman, stealing the gold of the dawn Threads of blue mist from the indolent valleys And the star-heavy, blue-purple robe of the night. Of the low, lovely, lounging Laurentians; I hold up the wind for its fragrance and wrestle the sea Sighs of the hemlock and snow-loving tamarack, With my brown, naked arms, for the tang of its salt. Where the trees march to the south in Saskatchewan; I am a pirate, a gay, laughing, profligate pirate Firs that leap up from dark Capilano Sailing the seas of delight, where my loot . Where music glides down a long stair to the sea; Is diamonds of sunlight and the cold pearls of the moon. Orange and purple and crimson and bronze From the gay palette of gorgeous October My song is a lily in darkness, keeping the whiteness of In the lake-lyric land of Algonquin; truth Shadows from deep, frosty fissures whose waters To guide the lost soul of the night up to dawn. Slip from their turbulent life to the hill-cradled Shuswap; My song is a cactus that stings him who touches, Leaves of the red-limbed arbutus and roses of yellow and With misunderstanding, its sharp, biting needles, red, ' 4 5 Leaning low to the sea in VictOria, A SONG OF THE UNRETURNING The all-lovely lyric of cities. And, through all these colorful threads of my song, TO-NIGHT a crimson sun Tolerance, truth, and the kiss of full brotherhood! With no attendants by Goes down in lonely splendor I am the herald of new things in a new land. An orange waste of sky. The light of my song blinds the bats and the night-owls. Never in all the years I tear from all men their false trappings Garbed thus will he go from me: And they in their anger revile me. Red is the sea-gull's wing The disciples of Cant feel my words in their hearts, And blood-red is the sea. As a dead tree that knows not sunlight from moonlight. Like the dancing of rain upon water Never again will the clouds I run with a song in my feet. Group in this austere way; Never again will love Who then shall hear me? Be as it is to-day; Men with brown limbs who rise up with joy to the sun Never again will the waves At the dawn; children who know a pure song Break as now on the shore: From their own flowing rhythm of flesh; Nothing in earth or heaven Old men who hunger for youth; Comes as it came before. Young men who thirst for the blue, living waters of life. High Beauty will never return I am forever the foe of Intolerance, In the same hood and gown, Hating her soul with a hatred undying. Whether the rose grows red I am a renegade, I am a highwayman, Or the old oak burns brown, I am a plunderer, I am a vagabond. Or the blue rain dances swiftly I am a pirate, a gay, laughing, profligate pirate Down the green-aisled sea, Sailing the seas of delight, where my loot Or whether on gray, winding roads Is diamonds of sunlight and the cold pearls of the moon.. My love walks with me. 6 7 A SONG TO THE VALIANT On the hill alone! The bare trees moan with a dead thing's cry, I'LL walk on the storm-swept side of the hill And their skeletons crawl along the sky, In my young days, in my strong days, Like a dinosaur In the days of ardent pleasure. Who would live once more I'll go where the winds are fierce and chill In the flesh that blooms to-morrow. On the storm-swept side of the daring hill And there will I shout my song-lays I'll walk on the sheltered side of the hill In a madly tumbling measure. In myoId days, in my cold days, Hilloo the dusk, As the sap of life is waning. And hilloo the dark! I'll :find a road where the trees are still The wind hath a tusk On the sheltered side of the placid hill And I wear its mark. And dream a dream of the bold days The day's last spark hath a valiant will: When the leash of Time was straining. Hilloo the dark on the wind-swept hill! Adieu the snows, From the hour of pain And the fang that rips! Two joys we gain- And hilloo the rose The strife and the after-leisure. With her velvet lips! Where the brown bee sips with his gorgeous lust When the fang of the wind is bared and white, I'll pay earth back with her borrowed dust; In the strong days, in the wild days, Nor shall I grieve In the days that laugh at sorrow, At the clay I leave, I love to wander the hills at night- But joy in the gifts I'm gaining.