Arthur Weir

“ Since I but falter, though of earnest heart,—
Friends, I have thought, reading your measures sweet,
Your verses, though with many a charm replete,
Were bettered did they some high thought impart,
Or in man’s conscience plant a sudden dart.
Why proffer roses when the world craves wheat?
Who paints a picture hath ill done his task,
If he show not the soul in that he paints.
Why give to mere description all your lays
While what the eye beholds is but a mask
To some grand truth the poet’s hand should raise,
Revealing that for which man’s spirit faints. ”

“ In woodland and meadow, all Nature’s awake.
At the wind’s kiss, the lake
Breaks forth into smiles; but as yet passion fails
To weary itself. Soul is searching for soul,
And has not reached its goal.
Life leaping to life doth each moment employ,
And love doth all Nature’s grand chorus attune.
I am virginal June.
JULY.
I am the month of warm, passionate love,
When Earth silent lies, with shy longings opprest,
While soft sighs stir her breast.
All unclasped is her zone, and the Sun’s warm lips prove
Her lips ruby treasures, and make her soul his
With many a kiss. ”

“ She passed, like a sungleam at dawn, through mistlands of sorrows and fears,
Seeking the soul of the babe at her bosom now nursing and clinging,
And stood in the valley of death, gloomed with the shadow of tears.
Ghost glided past after ghost, and shook ghastly arms at the mortal
Who dared to the valley of pain go down for the winning of life.
Hour after hour trembled by, as we crouched in our woe at the portal,
Made strangers to her whom we loved by strangers who looked on her strife. ”

“ None braver, and no one more gentle, none wiser in council than he,
Maisonneuve, this, the new world’s defender, who for God held his whole life in fee.
He led them in worship, consoled them when thickly their troubles did fall,
Maisonneuve the undaunted, the founder, Æneas of old Montreal.
And here where he battled lone-handed with savages thirsting for blood,
Where now beats the pulse of a city, the heart of a new nationhood,
Long years may his monument stand that our children may ask and be told
Of the leader who founded Ville Marie, and honor the heroes of old. ”

“ The heart of my heart and my wife to be;
Who cam’st, with the gifts of the gods arrayed,
To lighten the labors of life for me;
Ere yet I had looked on the face of thee,
My soul dreamed dreams and awoke and said:
“None other is worthier love than she,
And earth shall be heaven when we are wed.”
But woe as a burden on man is laid,
And the soul finds its vision not readily. ”

“ Face the strife
And live your life;
Be no coward in distress!
{114}
FLESH AND SPIRIT.
Say what you will,
If love would have its fill,
Though it may feed long on the one dear face,
It never is content, save in embrace.
Say what you will,
Though passion have its fill,
It never is content, nor has delight,
If love come not to sanctify the rite.
Harmonious flesh and spirit,
These only shall inherit
The joys of earth, and in the dread To Be
Not death itself shall break that unity.
Woe to the narrow heart
Would strive these twain to part ”

“ Give voice round the farmsteads, and course o’er the moors,
With a hundred detours,
Till they leap on the forests, whose branches are rent.
I heap up the snowdrifts, bind firmer the streams,
And defy the sun’s beams.
My heart throbs with hate, and all tenderness spurning,
With winter again I span heaven’s blue arch.
I am passionate March.
APRIL.
I am the month of transition. ”

“ Efface the sorrows of the past, and all past joys renew.
We, the children of the sun,
Who watch the precious moments run,{20}
Will wreathe thy brow with stars of snow and flowers sweet and fair.
But while we sow the fruits of earth,
That man shall garner in with mirth,
To Time alone belongs the power
Of harvesting each ripened hour.
Welcome, welcome, with chime of merry bell!
Another year is given to man to sow and reap his life.
When next the mystic book is sealed, what story will it tell?
Will it speak of love triumphant, will it tell of sin and strife? ”

“ The flowers awoke from their sleep, and broke
With many an emerald spear
And banner bright to the warm sunlight
Through the leaves of the bygone year.
And one with a crown of gold bent down
And took me to its heart,
“Poor waif of the storm,” it said, “grow warm
And share of my joy a part.
In the sky above there are many will love
A heart as pure as thine;
Leave grief with the past, like the shadow we cast
As we hasten where sunbeams shine.” ”

“ We, weary of the toil and strife,
Must envy you your scorn of fame,
Your eager, loving trust in life.
Perchance, the babe that, thoughtless, piles
His blocks unsteadily in air,
May yet a minster build, whose aisles
Shall echo to a nation’s prayer.
Perchance, the child that scarce can tell
The letters on his cubes of wood,
May yet with a poetic spell
Charm and uplift the multitude.
They question not, they only live
To pluck the blossoms of each hour.
Ambition frets them not, they give
No thought to pomp or place or power.{88}
We too have toys, and we pursue
Our trivial aims ”

“ And those who leave the world awhile
With nature’s spirit to commune,
May still see nymphs in woodland aisle
And naiads bathe at sunny noon.
Beside the murmurous streams that wind
Beneath the tangled foliage-meshes
Some sleeping naiad we may find,
With charms the inmost soul deems precious.
And deep within the tawny shade
Of pathless forests we may meet
Some true wood-nymph, who, unafraid,
Receives us in her cool retreat.
At every step through sunny wood,
Beneath our feet the wild flowers spring,
Nymphs of that sylvan solitude
That us to love their beauty bring ”

“ Crushing to earth the beauteous flowers
With which he fain had wreathed thy head.”
The Muse grew pensive. Softly sighing,
She said: “Now pity him I can.
Strong, purposeful and self-denying,
Here I have what I seek, a Man.
Would that this noble self-surrender,
These high resolves, this purpose stern,
Might yet the grander verse engender,
And brighter make his genius burn!
“How grief must gnaw his heart asunder
As still Fate balks him, day by day!”
“Nay!” cried the Pen, “thou may’st wonder,
But know, my master’s heart is gay. ”

“ Through early summer guard the young they love,
And fill the air with tuneful melodies.
Then, as the fledgelings wake from dreamful ease,
Eager throughout the unknown world to rove,
The parents teach them their new strength to prove,
And beat with fearless wings the summer breeze.
And then the nest sways empty on the bough.
The parents, weary, although sweet the task,
Take flight to other haunts, to rest from care.
The fledgelings in the glowing sunbeams bask,
Living their life. So is it everywhere,—
The patriarch dies; he is but resting now. ”

“ Pluck flowers in youth, in age it is too late;
Pluck flowers when it is morn with flowers and you.
So soon they wither, do not hesitate,
Lest you should gather roses not, but rue.
Pluck flowers ere life grows cold and desolate,
And love turns hate.
Pluck flowers in youth; age is the time for wheat;
To age not even the rose itself is sweet,
Pluck flowers, pluck flowers in youth, while faith is great,
Ere life and joy grow cankered with deceit.
Pluck flowers in youth ”

“ That the moments I bring shall bear fruit ere they fall.
The past none can alter; its grief and its sinning
Are writ for all time in the volume of life,
But behold me, the New Year, new records beginning;
Let love be their burden, not envy and strife. ”

“ And guarded thy heart from woe.
“Thy wish I refused thee never.
I granted thee love and peace;
Yet thou scornest me now, or ever
My labor for thee doth cease.
“See, here are the gifts I showered
Thy life’s pathway upon,
And now that thou hast been dowered
With all, canst thou wish me gone?
“O thankless heart, wilt thou never
Be satisfied with thy lot,
Or must thou be pining ever
For joys that as yet are not?
“And turn from my fond embraces
An utter unknown to greet,
As a child a butterfly chases
Treading flowers beneath his feet?”{49} ”

“ And the flowers once gay all lifeless lay
Upon the dreary plains.
There was no sound in the air around,
No voice upon earth below,
Save the angry beat of the wild winds’ feet,
That wandered to and fro.
In a frenzy of fear, with many a tear,
I clung to my darling’s breast,
For the wintry night with its baleful light
My timorous soul distressed.
“Beloved,” he cried, “sweet sea-nurtured bride,
My love brings sorrow to thee,{7}
For I feel at my heart the pitiless dart
That Death has made keen for me.” ”

“ Her offspring, the flowers, till they nestle up warm,
Folding their leaves and their blossomy eyes
Closing, child-wise.
I warn the still woodland, that doffs its gay dress
And upsprings, like a warrior armed for the fray,
To meet the dread day
When the Tempest’s huge shoulders against it shall press.
I breathe to the streams the fell tidings, until
Every bickering rill,
With a tremor of fear, seaward hurls its lithe form
In mad flight, ere with fetters the Ice King draws nigh. ”

“ To fate, fights upwards far beyond life’s mist,
And with the broadened vision of the sage
Beholds all earth by hope’s warm sungleams kissed.
He learns that all who would be truly great
Mix with the battling world, nor shirk their part,
But take such trials as are given by Fate
And set them to sweet music by their art.
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.
{91}
GOLD TRESSES.
My love is now a woman grown. ”

“ And made their home in the new lake’s heart,
And dwelt therein content.
But woe to the town and its people all!
Earth giveth no deathless joy,
And where man’s merciless glances fall
The simple they fain destroy. ”

“ At home the blossoms are asleep
Beside the frost-bound rills;
At home the snow is drifting deep
Upon the windy hills;
At home the ice king mocks the sun,
The woods are drear and bare,
And of the birds there is not one
Left singing anywhere.
But here the fields are green with grain,
The mesas bright with flowers. ”

“ How each was a Christian and soldier, who founded Ville Marie of old.
They lived on the confines of chaos. Whenever the savage horde broke
On the ill-fated colony, they were the first whose arm parried the stroke.
They were Dollards in heart, and went even to torture and death with a smile,
While the women, like angels of mercy, stanched their wounds and their woes did beguile. ”

“ When trust in men we must fain deny, the miserere replaces song.{52}
Like slaves that ply in the galley’s den the laboring oar, through sin and wrong,
The soul plods on, and heaven is gone; we can but suffer and yet be strong.
When the snows of age fall thick and fast, and passion has faded like flowers that grow,
The memory sage dreams dreams of the past and all that has made it have joys below. ”

“ When Earth, as the sun its first passion discloses,
Blushes with roses,
When all things are new, and nothing can cloy.
The birds, in a cloudland of leafage concealed,
By their songs are revealed.{15}
All is young, all is love. ”

“ When the friends long laid in the grave, at last, stand beckoning us in the twilight glow,
And wrongs endured prove that which cured, the heaven behind us too late we know.
The heaven of man is never here; it always is where his treasures are.
To-day’s brief span arches little dear; the stream of bliss seems wider afar.
From this to this the path is drear; there’s always something each joy to mar,
Till the past that is real becomes ideal under the gold of life’s twilight star.
{53}
NEW YEAR’S EVE.
Air—Belle Mahone. ”

“ Our ’arts are true to Poll.
{107}
A LITTLE MAID.
I know a maid beyond compare
For virtue sweet and beauty rare.
Her eyes are turquoise and her hair
Is sunlight netted.
She has her lovers, great and small,
The quiet student, wise and tall,
The child that hugs its battered doll,—
By them she’s petted.
Her heart seems ever warm and gay,
In smiles and kindly words, each day,
She scatters round her on life’s way
Love beyond measure.
The wild flowers, as she passes by,
Bloom sweeter for her being nigh ”

“ From the land of their fathers afar, and anear the keen Iroquois knives.
But the pilgrims, to fear ever strangers, to the Cross had entrusted their lives.
Not sordid were they. Not the treasures of earth they had come to pursue,
Not for honor nor glory. Far nobler the object our sires had in view.
To carry the cross to the savage, braving danger and hardship they came.
They came for the love of the Virgin, a city to found in her name.{42}
Their hearts were o’erflowing with gladness. ”

“ Dawn drew aside night’s veil of mist, and came
Across the hills. The clouds retired, and lo!
On every wind-swept crag, as Day looked forth,
Bright in the southern sunshine gleamed the snow,
A vision of the unforgotten North
’Twixt golden skies and poppy fields aflame.
{82}
In the Valley.
Snow on the hills, but in the valley, flowers,
Poppies aflame and orange blooms, whose scent
With the faint odor of the snow is blent.
Snow on the peaks, but in the canyons, showers,
And torrents drinking strength from stormy hours. ”

“ The Ishmael cactus and the sage brush grow.{81}
The golden orange bends the lithe branch low,
The sunflowers throng the by-ways everywhere,
Palms wave, birds sing. The earth lies free of care,
Basking in skies one golden, cloudless glow.
Then come the rains, and in their cortege bring
Streams to the canyons, and to ranch and glen
Wild flowers and orange blossoms, wherein rides
The bee on golden zephyrs. Swiftly then,
Like wind-blown fire, up the Sierra sides
A blaze of poppies runs, and it is Spring. ”