Arthur Weir

“ Of the great sun, through stones, and sea, and air,
Up to ourselves, in Nature everywhere.
Life differs from the soul. This is beyond
The realms of science;
God and mankind it joins in closest bond,
And bids defiance
To Death and Change. By faith alone confessed,
It dwells within our bodies as a guest.
The germ of life sleeps in the aged hills
And stately rivets,
And wakes into the life our hearts that thrills
And in leaves quivers.
The universe is one great reservoir
From which man draws of thinking life his store. ”

“ Hear him praying to the Virgin to restrain the rising flood,
Vowing that if she would heed him and preserve the little town,
He himself would bear a cross and plant it on Mount Royal's crown!
True crusader, in whose heart there never dwelt one sordid thought,
Guardian of the Virgin's city: this is he you honor not.
"Of our Queen a stately statue stands upon Victoria Square,
In its hand a wreath of laurel, in that wreath a tiny pair
Nesting year by year uninjured, heedless of the passing throng,
Living symbols of a reign that guards the weak from every wrong. ”

“ DE SALABERRY AT CHATEAUGUAY. We are scarcely one to seven,
But our cause is just;
Help us in our trial, heaven!
Keep the ford we must.
Swiftly through the reeds and rushes
Pours the Outarde flood,
Turned by sunset's rosy flushes
To a stream of blood.
Sprinkled with the hues of slaughter,
Wave the forest trees.
Gently o'er the sparkling water,
In the autumn breeze.
Strange that Nature should remind us
Of the coming fight!
Let it come—it will but find us
Battling for the right. ”

“ On earth shall cease to dwell,
As sign of which the chapel bell shall toll
Its slow funereal knell.
Then seek me, if you will, and you shall find
Upon the altar stair
The prison-house my soul will leave behind,
Kneeling as though in prayer.
"Seek, then, Père Compain, on the Isle aux Coudres,
Nor fear the rising gale,
For Heaven will guide you through the angry flood,
And it shall not prevail. ”

“ And all save love is banished by his rays.
THE WIFE. There stands a cottage by a river side,
With rustic benches sloping eaves beneath,
Amid a scene of mountain, stream and heath.
A dainty garden, watered by the tide,
On whose calm breast the queenly lilies ride,
Is bright with many a purple pansy wreath,
While here and there forbidden lion's teeth
Uprear their golden crowns with stubborn pride.
See! there she leans upon the little gate,
Unchanged, save that her curls, once flowing free,
Are closely coiled upon her shapely head,
And that her eyes look forth more thoughtfully. ”

“ Oh! my comrades, if you love me, lighten the disgrace I feel,
Lend your ready hands to aid me, bend your hearts to my appeal:
Raise a statue to the founder of this great, historic town,
Chomedey de Maisonneuve, or pity me and take mine down."
RED ROSES. TO ONE WHO LOVES RED ROSES. _
When our lives were in their springtime and our souls were in the bud,
While the watchful world was silent, heeding not such childish love,
I poured forth for thee my heart-thoughts in a sweet, unthinking flood,
Like a bird that carols freely in the grove. ”

“ Through the lake to the far-off sea,
Full of light as a maiden's eye,
At Chateauguay.
Stands a house by the river side,
(Weeds upspring where the hearth should be) ,
Only its tottering walls abide
At Chateauguay.
Birds are singing the live-long day,
Trembling, stoopeth an aspen tree.
Eager to hear what the wind will say
At Chateauguay.
Still the sunlight around me falls,
Still in fancy I seem to see
Two who stand on the crumbling walls
At Chateauguay. ”

“ Summoned the faithful who were dwelling there
To kneel and seek the Lord in humble prayer.
The sexton had a daughter, than whom dreamed
Man fairer none, and from whose great, dark eyes
An angel soul in spotless radiance beamed,
As shines a star from out the midnight skies.
She loved the Rabbi with a maid's first love:
He worshipped her well nigh like God above.
Whene'er by mortal sickness sorely pressed
One of the little congregation lay,
The sexton's mallet to the flock expressed
With its sad knock his woe, and bade them pray ”

“ Sleep, Bright Eyes, sleep.
LOVE GUIDES US. Love guides our bark, and we have naught to fear.
We are the world ourselves, and as we glide
Upon the stream of life, if Love but steer,
We care not how tempestuous the tide.
Thy head leans on my shoulder, and my arm
Is round thee clasped. Thine eyes upturn to mine,
So full of faith the future feels their charm
Blunting Fate's dart that threatens joy of thine. ”

“ One must be weak and one be strong,
One huge, another small,
To help this teeming world along,
And make a home for all.
Equality is death, not life,
In Nature and with man,
And progress is but upward strife
With some one in the van. ”

“ Made equal all, when God
Made one well nigh divinity
And one a soulless clod.
Nowhere in Nature can we find
Things equal, save in death,
One man must rule with thoughtful mind,
One serve with panting breath. ”

“ The skiffs dart off for the distant goal:
The oars are bent like blades of steel,
And the hissing waters, cleft in twain,
Curl away astern in a feathery train,
While girlish laughter, peal on peal,
Rings over the river and over the shore,
And from the island the echoes roll.
We hear the mysterious voice again.
"We have won! we have won!
Will you race once more?" ”

“ Though the flowers be dead,
There are seeds instead,
That, with the spring of the dawning year,
With life will find all their being thrilled.
You tread the wood, and the wind behold
Tear down the leaves from the crackling bough
Till they make a pall,
As they thickly fall,
To hide dead flowers. The air seems cold,
No summer gladdens the forest now.
HOPE AND DESPAIR I tread the maze of the changing wood,
And though no light through the maples plays,
Yet they glow each one,
Like a rose-red sun,
And drop their leaves, like a glittering flood
Of warm sunbeams, in the woodland ways. ”

“ The brutal Haynau smiled,
But all too soon. Weeping, the mother said:
"Be not thy country's, traitor, oh! my child!
Too old am I the loss of life to dread."
Then spake the sister: "Brother mine, be brave!
Life hath no charms, if with dishonor bought;
Think not of us, our bleeding country save—
Life is so short at best, death matters naught."
The hero made no answer, but he drove
His nails into his palms, and choked for breath;
His captor bade the soldiery remove
The noble women—and they went to death.
"He hath a sweetheart," Haynau said again:
"Go, bring her hither;" ”

“ One that the gentle Virgin mother
Has kept from ruin by her grace.
She saved it from the dusky foes
Who thirsted for its heroes' blood,
And when December waters rose
About its walls she stilled the flood.
What noble deeds and cruel, stranger
Than aught in fiction ere befell,
What weary years of war and danger
That village knew, the Oak might tell.
Perchance, brave Dollard sat of yore
Beneath its very shade, and planned
A deed should make for evermore
His name a trumpet in the land. ”

“ His was one long fight with scarcely seven score to do his will,
With a host of open foes and secret foes, more deadly still;
Foes in every bush and hollow, foes behind his monarch's throne,
Stabbing with one hand extended seemingly to clasp his own.
Yet he triumphed, and behold you! now a country growing fast,
With a glorious future breaking through the darkness of the past,
With a host of stout hearts toiling day and night to make you great,
And a glittering roll of heroes worthy of a mighty state. ”

“ And a sixteenth year to-day
Brings a wreath of budding hours,
Saying: "Let not one decay;
All must grow to flowers."
All have not the self-same needs;
Loving smiles are life to some,
Others but by kindly deeds. ”

“ Of labor in the wilderness foretells
The greatness of a nation yet to come.
In Southern seas
Another nation grows by slow degrees,
In dreamy India, under tropic sun,
Two hundred millions own an Empress' sway,
And day by day.
New territories won
Shed lustre on our Queen's half century.
FLEURS DE LYS. THE CAPTURED FLAG. Loudly roared the English cannon, loudly thundered back our own,
Pouring down a hail of iron from their battlements of stone,
Giving Frontenac's proud message to the clustered British ships:
"I will answer your commander only by my cannons' lips." ”

“ And, trembling, to his child he cried in fear:
"Some one is dying, daughter, dost thou hear?"
She heard the sound and answered with a cry,
Love teaching her: "Oh! it is he, mine own:
Rabbi Ben Horad is about to die—
Oh! father, haste! life may not yet have flown ”

“ Hearing of the advance of the Americans, De Salaberry, with 400 Voltigeurs, entrenched himself at the junction of the Chateauguay and Outarde rivers, not many miles from Montreal. On the morning of October the 26th, this little band of heroes was attacked by 3,500 Americans. In spite of the most determined bravery, the Canadians would have been overcome by sheer force of numbers, but for the ruse described in the poem, assisted by a rapid discharge of musketry from new ambuscades. The Americans withdrew, and Lower Canada was saved. ”

“ He only is a poet who can find
In sorrow happiness, in darkness light,
Love everywhere; and lead his fellow-kind
By flowery paths towards life's sunny height.
TO WILLIAM AND ELIZABETH SOMERVILLE WEIR, HIS MOST SEVERE AND KINDLY CRITICS, THIS VOLUME IS LOVINGLY DEDICATED BY THEIR SON. PREFACE The name FLEURS DE LYS has been chosen for the Canadian Poems in the early portion of this book, because the scenes and incidents they describe belong to the Monarchial, or Fleur de Lys, period of France in Canada. The royal crest during the seventeenth century is depicted upon the cover. ”

“ Father de La Brosse was, at the time of his death, a priest at Tadousac, at the mouth of the Saguenay, and about seventy miles below the Isle aux Coudres, where he celebrated the first mass, in 1765. He died at midnight, on the 11th April, 1782, and, so says the legend, his death was preceded and followed by miraculous occurrences. He is said to have foretold it, and to have bidden his people seek Père Compain on the Isle aux Coudres, and bring him to perform the funeral offices. ”

“ In Sir William Dawson's Fossil Men is a picture of Hochelaga as seen by Cartier, with an oak tree near it. This oak is sketched from one in the McGill University grounds, and it needs but a little stretch of the imagination to consider them identical, though actually this is not so. The poem traces the history of Montreal from its foundation up to the present time. Jacques Cartier's visit was made in October, 1535, when he was well received by the Hochelagans. When Champlain came, in 1611, Hochelaga had disappeared. The reference to the flood occurs again in "Nelson's Appeal for Maisonneuve." ”

“ THE PRIEST AND THE MINISTER. In the opening paragraphs of the third chapter of Parkman's Champlain and His Associates, will be found an account, of which these verses are little more than a paraphrase. When de Monts was commissioned to settle New France, the Roman Catholic clergy insisted that they be given charge of the souls of the heathen in the new land. De Monts was, himself, a Huguenot, and brought his own ministers with him, so that the ship that sailed to Acadia in 1604 bore with it clergy of both sects. ”

“ To such an extent was this rage for marriage carried that, it is said, a widow was married before her first husband's body had been consigned to the grave. Large bounties were paid to parents having from ten to fifteen children, and the slightest sign of courtship between the unmarried officers and ladies of Quebec and Montreal, was chronicled in official documents and transmitted to France. For further particulars, the reader is referred to Parkman's The Old Regime in Canada, chapter xiii.
THE OAK. The two villages referred to are Hochelaga and Ville Marie, now Montreal. ”

“ CHAMPLAIN. This poem is a resumé of the life of him whom Parkman calls "The Æneas of a destined people." "Yon fair town" alludes to Quebec, which Champlain founded July 3rd, 1608. His defiance of Admiral Kirkt took place in 1628, and was successful for a season, but a second summons from Kirkt next summer led to the first surrender of Canada to England. Champlain died on Christmas Day, 1635, after twenty-seven years of labor for the country in which his name can never be forgotten. ”

“ From 1665 to 1673, bachelors in Canada underwent a martyrdom of great severity, and Jules' fear lest he find himself married in spite of himself is hardly an exaggeration. From 1665 to 1673, about one thousand girls were sent out from France to find husbands in Canada. Each couple married was given an ox, a cow, a pair of swine, a pair of fowls, two barrels of salted meat, and eleven crowns in money. Girls under sixteen and youths under twenty were given twenty livres when they married, and were encouraged to marry at fourteen and eighteen respectively. ”

“ The incident took place in 1642, and Maisonneuve actually fulfilled his vow and bore a heavy cross to the mountain top, where it was planted. Dollard, with seventeen Frenchmen and fifty Indians, by heroic self-sacrifice, in 1660, saved Canada from destruction by the Iroquois. Vaudreuil surrendered Canada to the English on September 8th, 1760. He had been driven to Montreal, and was surrounded by 17,000 men, under General Amherst. The Americans took Montreal in 1775, and were defeated at Chateauguay, October 26th, 1813, and at Chrysler's Farm, November 11th, of the same year. ”