Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

“ For should he come not by the road, and come not by the hill
And come not by the far seaway, yet come he surely will—
Close all the roads of all the world, love’s road is open still!
My heart is light with singing (though they pity me my fate
And drop their merry voices as they pass the garden gate)
For love that finds a way to come, can find a way to wait! ”

“ Up to the hill and over—
Owner of all beneath the blue,
On till the end, and after, too!
I am the monarch of the Road!
Mine are the keys of morning,
I know where evening keeps her store
Of stars for night’s adorning,
I know the wind’s wild will, and why
The lone thrush hurries down the sky!
I am the monarch of the Road!
My court I hold with singing,
Each bird a gay ambassador,
Each flower a censer, swinging;
And every little roadside thing
A wonder to confound a king.
I am the monarch of the Road!
I ask no leave for living ”

“ Naught she cares for harvest that lies so far away.
Cosmos
THE tiny thing of painted gauze that flutters in the sun
And sinks upon the breast of night with all its living done;
The unconsidered seed that from the garden blows away,
Blooming its little time to bloom in one short summer day;
The leaf the idle wind shakes down in autumn from the tree,
The grasshopper who for an hour makes gayest minstrelsy—
These—and this restless soul of mine—are one with flaming spheres
And cold, dead moons whose ghostly fires haunt unremembered years. ”

“ Oh, to breast the windy hill while yet the dew is falling—
Waking all the meadow-larks to carol in the blue!
Smile upon us, Canada! None shall fail who love you
While they hold a memory of your fields where flowers are—
High the task to keep unstained the skies that bend above you,
Proud the life that shields you from the flaming wind of war! ”

“ White as the beaten foam her face, and she was wond’rous eyed.
The soft, south-wind came creeping up, creeping stealthily
To breathe upon his clay-cold face—but all too cold was he,
Too cold for you to warm, south-wind, since cold at heart was she!
Sweet morning peeped above the hill, above the hill to find
The shattered, useless, godlike thing the night had left behind—
Wept the sweet morn her crystal tears that love should prove unkind! ”

“ Along the road of stone;
And no one looks to Babylon
Save I—save I alone!
My mother’s eyes are glory-filled
(Save when they fall on me)
The shining of my father’s face
I tremble when I see,
For they were slaves in Babylon,
And now they’re walking free—
They leave their chains in Babylon,
I bear my chains with me!
At night a sound of singing
The vast encampment fills;
“Jerusalem! Jerusalem!”
It sweeps the nearing hills—
But no one sings of Babylon
(Their home of yesterday)
And no one prays for Babylon,
And I—I dare not pray!
Last night the Prophet saw me ”

“ Ayont the Tulloch Hill;
And, laughing, draws me to her door
And, laughing, holds me still.
I bless myself and bless myself,
But in the holy sign,
There seems to be no heart of love,
To still the pain in mine.
The morning, bright above the moor,
Is bright no more for me—
A weary bit of burning pain
Is where my heart should be!
For since the wild, sweet laugh of her
Has drawn me to her snare,
The only sunlight in the world
Is shining from her hair. ”

“ My joy lie buried ’neath a rounded moon.
Only a day—it’s worth you scarce could tell
From other days; but in my life ’twill dwell
An oasis with palm trees and a well!
Little Brown Bird
O LITTLE brown bird in the rain,
In the sweet rain of spring,
How you carry the youth of the world
In the bend of your wing!
For you the long day is for song
And the night is for sleep—
With never a sunrise too soon
Or a midnight too deep! ”

“ My heart roams, mendicant, forlorn and tired,
From door to door,
Begging of every stern-faced memory
An alms of pity—just to come to thee,
No more thy knight, thy champion no more—
Only thy devotee!
Spring will Come
SPRING will come to help me: she’ll be back again,
Back with the soft sun, the sun I knew before.
She will wear her green gown, the emerald gown she wore
When the white-faced windflowers blew along the lane.
Spring will come to help me: When her waking sigh
Drifts across my sore heart all the pain will go. ”

“ And sunset marks a mystic way
To the far-shining Port of Souls.
We, watching on the darkening shore,
Wave you farewell, and strain our eyes
Till that bright speck which is your sail
Is lost in the enfolding skies.
Brave Heart, Sweet Singer! Speed you well
To those dim islands of the blest,
Far—far—and ever farther, till
The end of distance brings you rest!
* For Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake.)
The Way to Wait
O WHETHER by the lonesome road that lies across the lea
Or whether by the hill that stoops, rock-shadowed, to the sea,
Or by a sail that blows from far, my love returns to me! ”

“ I, too, shall take the road—I wonder where?
First Love
BY the pulse that beats in my throat
By my heart like a bird
I know who passed through the dusk
Though he spoke no word!
I cannot move in my place,
I am chained and still;
I pray that the moon pause not
By my window-sill.
I have hidden my face in my hair
And my eyes are veiled—
Not even a star must know
How my lips have paled—
Was ever a night so quick
’Neath a moon so round?
I hear the earth as it turns—
And my heart’s low sound!
Sad One, Must You Weep
“SAD one, must you weep alway?
Youth’s ill wedded with despair ”

“ Thy fisher lover drifteth where the sea is full of stars;
Why weep for one who weeps no more?—since grief thy beauty mars!”
The moan of Rose Dolores (she prayed me patiently)
“O jailer, now I know who called from out the calling sea,
I know whose kiss was in the wind—O jailer, set me free!” ”

“ So versed in holy spell and magic rune.
I love my love. O words that be too feeble and too few!
I love my love!—as April on the hill
Brings back earth’s morning with each daffodil,
So she within my heart makes all things new. ”

“ The prairie trail that wanders by to the place where the four winds meet—
A trail with never an end at all to the children’s eager feet.
The morning scents, the morning sun, a morning sky so blue
The distance melts to meet it till both are lost to view
In a little line of glory where the new day beckons through—
And out of the glow, the children: a whoop and a calling gay,
A clink of lunch-pails swinging as they clash in mimic fray,
A shout and a shouting echo from a world as young as they! ”

“ But it ringeth not in the bourne of time.
With the wind it swells, with the wind ’twill sink,
Dying at last by the sea’s dim brink.
By mortal hands the bell was hung
By mortal hands ’tis never swung. ”

“ TO-NIGHT the air discloses
Souls of a million roses,
And ghosts of hyacinths that died too soon;
From Pan’s safe-hidden altar
Dim wraiths of incense falter
In waving spiral, making sweet the moon!
Aroused from fragrant covers,
The vows of vanished lovers
Take voice in whisperings that rise and pass;
Where the crisped leaves are lying
A tremulous, low sighing
Breathes like a startled spirit o’er the grass. ”

“ Low across the fields of camas bluer than the sky?
I’ve a tryst with Spring here—maybe they’ll be few
Now the world grows older—and shall I delay
Just because a Winter has stolen joy away?
What cares Spring for old joys, all her joys are new.
Maybe there’ll be singing in my sorrow yet—
I have heard of such things—but, if there be not,
Still there’ll be the green pool in the pasture lot,
All a-trail with willow fingers, delicate and wet.
Winter is a passing thing and Spring is always gay ”

“ The darkness stirs, it awakes, it outspreads its arms,
O and O! and the birds in their nests are still,
The red-browed hill bleats low with the lamb’s alarms,
And a sound of singing comes from the slipping rill.
My soul is awake alone, all alone in the earth,
O and O! and around is the lonely night. ”

“ The lone trail and the known trail, the trail you must take on trust,
And never a trail without a grave where a wanderer’s bones are thrust—
Never a look or a turning back till the dust shall claim the dust!
Gold
WHEN life wakened in the Spring
All the world was gold and green!
Sunlight lay on everything,
Sailing cloud and soaring wing,
Emerald banks where snow had been,
Drifts of daffodils between.
When Life’s pulse beat strong and high
Shone the world in gold and blue! ”

“ Oh, to be in Canada! there’s a road that rambles
Through a leafing maple-wood and up a windy hill,
Velvet pussy-willows press soft hands amid the brambles
Fringing round a sky-filled pool where cattle drink their fill. ”

“ I mind the long, white road that ran between the hedgerows neat,
In that little, strange old world I left behind me long ago,
I mind the air so full of bells at evening, far and sweet—
All and all for someone else—I had leave to go! ”

“ The thanks of the author are due to the editors of Ainslee’s Magazine, The American Magazine, The Canadian Magazine, Canadian Home Journal, The Canadian Bookman, The Forum, The Globe, Harper’s Magazine, The Independent, The Ladies’ World, McClure’s Magazine, Metropolitan Magazine, The Reader Magazine, Scribner’s Magazine, Saturday Night, and The Youth’s Companion for permission to publish this verse in its present form. ”