Sir Charles G. D. Roberts

“ We are gods! Let us cast us adrift
From the world of the flesh and its power!
It is only a plunge, a quick roll
Of our skiff—I will gather and fold
You close, for the waters are cold,—
A few sobs, and we rise one soul,
Undissevered for ever and ever.
RECKONING. What matter that the sad gray city sleeps,
Sodden with dull dreams, ill at ease, and snow
Still falling chokes the swollen drains! I know
That even with sun and summer not less creeps
My spirit thro' gloom, nor ever gains the steeps
Where Peace sits, inaccessible, yearned for so. ”

“ Still are the slim, gray masts of fishing boats dry on the flats.
Ah, how well I remember those wide red flats, above tide-mark
Pale with scurf of the salt, seamed and baked in the sun!
Well I remember the piles of blocks and ropes, and the net-reels
Wound with the beaded nets, dripping and dark from the sea!
Now at this season the nets are unwound; they hang from the rafters
Over the fresh-stowed hay in upland barns, and the wind
Blows all day through the chinks, with the streaks of sunlight,
and sways them
Softly at will, or they lie heaped in the gloom of a loft. ”

“ AN ODE FOR THE CANADIAN CONFEDERACY. Awake, my country, the hour is great with change!
Under this gloom which yet obscures the land,
From ice-blue strait and stern Laurentian range
To where giant peaks our western bounds command,
A deep voice stirs, vibrating in men's ears
As if their own hearts throbbed that thunder forth,
A sound wherein who hearkens wisely hears
The voice of the desire of this strong North,—
This North whose heart of fire
Yet knows not its desire
Clearly, but dreams, and murmurs in the dream.
The hour of dreams is done. Lo, on the hills the gleam! ”

“ Long grass waves in the windless water, strown with the lote-leaf;
Twist thro' dripping soil great alder roots, and the air
Glooms with the dripping tangle of leaf-thick branches, and stillness
Keeps in the strange-coiled stems, ferns, and wet-loving weeds.
Hither comes Pan, to this pregnant earthy spot, when his piping
Flags; and his pipes outworn breaking and casting away,
Fits new reeds to his mouth with the weird earth-melody in them,
Piercing, alive with a life able to mix with the god's. ”

“ Where shadowless to the sky the marsh expands,
And the noon-heats must scar them, and the drought.
Yet soon for them the solacing tide returns
To quench their thirst of longing. Ah, not so
Works the stern law oar tides of life obey!
Ebbing in the night-watches swift away,
Scarce known ere fled forever is the flow;
And in parched channel still the shrunk stream mourns.
CONSOLATION. Dear Heart, between us can be no farewell.
We have so long to live, so much to endure,
What ills despair might work us who can tell,
Had we not help in that one trust secure! ”

“ Lurk thro' hollows, hide in fern!
Then; the old house, ample-eaved,
Night-long quiet beneath the stars,—
How the maples, many-leaved,
Screened us at the orchard bars!
Path by which her feet have gone,
Still you climb the windy hill;
Still the hillside fronts the dawn,
Fronts the clustering village still;
But no longer she, my own,
Treads you, save as dreams allow.
And these eyes in dreams alone
Dare to look upon you now.
TOUT OU RIEN. Love, if you love me, love with heart and soul! ”

“ Sacred and secret forever, Tempe, vale of the gods.
How, through the cleft of its bosom, goes sweetly the water Penëus!
How by Penëus the sward breaks into saffron and blue!
How the long slope-floored beech-glades mount to the wind-wakened uplands,
Where, through flame-berried ash, troop the hoofed Centaurs at morn!
Nowhere greens a copse but the eye-beams of Artemis pierce it.
Breathes no laurel her balm but Phoebus' fingers caress.
Springs no bed of wild blossom but limbs of dryad have pressed it. ”

“ Have late well learned their hate is swift as fire,
Be one so wretched to encounter it;
Ay, have I seen a multitude of good deeds
Fly up in the pan like husks, like husks blown dry.
Hereafter let none question the high gods!
I questioned; but these watching eyes have seen
Actaeon, thewed and sinewed like a god,
Godlike for sweet speech and great deeds, hurled down
To hideous death,—scarce suffered space to breathe
Ere the wild heart in his changed quivering side
Burst with mad terror, and the stag's wide eyes
Stared one sick moment 'mid the dogs' hot jaws. ”

“ Stript and cast forth as time's slow wheel revolves.
THE TANTRAMAR REVISITED. Summers and summers have come, and gone with the flight of the swallow;
Sunshine and thunder have been, storm, and winter, and frost,
Many and many a sorrow has all but died from remembrance,
Many a dream of joy fall'n in the shadow of pain.
Hands of chance and change have marred, or moulded, or broken,
Busy with spirit or flesh, all I most have adored;
Even the bosom of Earth is strewn with heavier shadows,—
Only in these green hills, aslant to the sea, no change! ”

“ The tide
Of scorching sand that chafes thy landward side
Storming thy palms; and past thy front outpoured
The Nile's vast dread and wonder! Late there roared
(While far off paused the long war, long defied)
Mad tumult thro' thy streets; and Gordon died,
Slaughtered amid the yelling rebel horde!
Yet, spite of shame and wrathful tears, Khartoum,
We owe thee certain thanks, for thou hast shown
How still the one a thousand crowds outweighs,—
Still one man's mood sways millions,—one man's doom
Smites nations;—and our burning spirits own
Not sordid these nor unheroic days! ”

“ Luring me out across the irised hills
Where Autumn broods o'er purple deeps of space!
A BREATHING TIME. Here is a breathing time, and rest for a little season.
Here have I drained deep draughts out of the springs of life.
Here, as of old, while still unacquainted with toil and faintness,
Stretched are my veins with strength, fearless my heart and at peace.
I have come back from the crowd, the blinding strife and the tumult,
Pain, and the shadow of pain, sorrow in silence endured ”

“ Cithaeron, bosomed deep in soundless hills,
Its fountained vales, its nights of starry calm,
Its high chill dawns, its long-drawn golden days,—
Was dearest to him. Here he dreamed high dreams,
And felt within his sinews strength to strive
Where strife was sorest and to overcome,
And in his heart the thought to do great deeds,
With power in all ways to accomplish them.
For had not he done well to men, and done
Well to the gods? Therefore he stood secure.
But him,—for him—Ah that these eyes should see!—
Approached a sudden stumbling in his ways! ”

“ Lumbers the wain; and day fades out like smoke.
AFLOAT. Afloat!—
Ah Love, on the mirror of waters
All the world seems with us afloat,—
All the wide, bright world of the night;
But the mad world of men is remote,
And the prating of tongues is afar.
We have fled from the crowd in our flight,
And beyond the gray rim of the waters
All the turmoil has sunk from our sight.
Turn your head, Love, a little, and note
Low down in the south a pale star.
The mists of the horizon-line drench it,
The beams of the moon all but quench it,
Yet it shines thro' this flood-tide of light. ”

“ Thro' storm and peace, thro' shine and gloom, thro' warm
And pregnant periods of teeming birth,
And seething realms of thunderous overthrow,—
In the obscure and formless dawn of life,
In gradual march from simple to complex,
From lower to higher forms, and last to Man
Through faint prophetic fashions,—stands declared
The God of order and unchanging purpose.
Creation, which He covers, Him contains,
Even to the least up-groping atom. His
The impulse and the quickening germ, whereby
All things strive upward, reach toward greater good ”

“ Pressing my face against the streaming pane.
How the rain beats! Ah God, if love had power
To voice its utmost yearning, even tho'
Thro' time and bitter distance, not in vain,
Surely Her heart would hear me at this hour,
Look thro' the years, and see! But would She know
The white face pressed against the streaming pane?
MIST. Its hand compassionate guards our restless sight
Against how many a harshness, many an ill!
Tender as sleep, its shadowy palms distil
Weird vapors that ensnare our eyes with light. ”

“ Are mixed with far Canadian fields
And murmur of Canadian streams.
But thou, my Country, dream not thou!
Wake, and behold how night is done,—
How on thy breast, and o'er thy brow,
Bursts the uprising sun!
ACTAEON. A WOMAN OF PLATAEA SPEAKS. I have lived long, and watched out many days,
And seen the showers fall and the light shine down
Equally on the vile and righteous head.
I have lived long, and served the gods, and drawn
Small joy and liberal sorrow,—scorned the gods,
And drawn no less my little meed of good,
Suffered my ill in no more grievous measure. ”

“ Your poet's eyes must recognize
The side on which your bread is buttered!
Dream not I tempt you to forswear
One pastoral joy, or rural frolic.
I call you to a city where
The most urbane are most bucolic.
'Twill charm your poet's eyes to find
Good husbandmen in brokers burly;—
Their stock is ever on their mind;
To water it they rise up early. ”

“ Purple sleeps the shore and floats the wave before us,
Eachwhere from the oar-stroke eddying warm like wine.
Soundless foams the creamy violet wake behind us;
We but see the creaking of the labored oar;
We have stopped our ears,—mad were we not to blind us,
Lest our eyes behold our Ithaca no more.
See the purple splendor o'er the island streaming,
O'er the prostrate sails and equal-sided ship!
Windless hangs the vine, and warm the sands lie gleaming ”

“ And seeing mine eyes were drièd of their tears
So that once more the light grew sweet for me,
Once more grew fair the fields and valley streams,
I thought with how small profit men take heed
To worship with bowed heads, and suppliant hands,
And sacrifice, the everlasting gods,
Who take small thought of them to curse or bless,
Girt with their purples of perpetual peace! ”

“ The trust in greatness not thine own?
Surely the lion's brood is strong
To front the world alone!
How long the indolence, ere thou dare
Achieve thy destiny, seize thy fame—
Ere our proud eyes behold thee bear
A nation's franchise, nation's name?
The Saxon force, the Celtic fire,
These are thy manhood's heritage!
Why rest with babes and slaves? Seek higher
The place of race and age. ”

“ Eyes averse, and war-worn faces made afraid,
O'er the waste warm reaches drive our prow, sea-cleaving,
Past the luring death, into the folding night.
Home shall hold us yet, and cease our wives from grieving,—
Safe from storm, and toil, and flame, and clanging fight. ”

“ To the one good gift of the gods hold sure,
Lest ye too mourn, in vain, in vain,
Your green Ogygian Isle secure!
RAIN. Sharp drives the rain, sharp drives the endless rain.
The rain-winds wake and wander, lift and blow. ”

“ Surge and flow of the tides vexing the Westmoreland shores.
Yonder, toward the left, lie broad the Westmoreland marshes,—
Miles on miles they extend, level, and grassy, and dim,
Clear from the long red sweep of flats to the sky in the distance,
Save for the outlying heights, green-rampired Cumberland Point;
Miles on miles outrolled, and the river-channels divide them,—
Miles on miles of green, barred by the hurtling gusts.
Miles on miles beyond the tawny bay is Minudie.
There are the low blue hills; villages gleam at their feet. ”

“ Earth's kingdoms tremble and her empires reel!
Who dost the low uplift, the small make great,
And dost abase the ignorantly proud,
Of our scant people mould a mighty state,
To the strong, stern,—to Thee in meekness bowed! ”

“ A rivulet thro' the hot, bright square apace,
And lo! her brow casts off each servile trace—
The wave's cool breath hath won her thoughts astray.
Ah desolate heart! Thy fate thou hast forgot
One moment; the dull pain hath left those eyes
Whose yearning pierces time, and space, and tears.
Thou seest what was once, but now is not,—
By Niger thy bright home, thy Paradise,
Unscathed of flame, and foe, and hostile spears.
THE MARVELLOUS WORK. "Rise after rise bow the phantoms behind me"—Whitman
Not yet, for all their quest of it, have men
Cast wholly by the ignoble dread of truth! ”

“ Furtive withdraw; and a bird stirs and flutes in the gloom
Answering. Float with the stream the outworn pipes, with a whisper,—
"What the god breathes on, the god never can wholly evade!"
God-breath lurks in each fragment forever. ”

“ Exerts the silent forethought of his toil.
Alone he treads the glebe, his measured stride
Dumb in the yielding soil; and tho' small joy
Dwell in his heavy face, as spreads the blind
Pale grain from his dispensing palm aside,
This plodding churl grows great in his employ;—
Godlike, he makes provision for mankind.
THE POTATO HARVEST. A high bare field, brown from the plough, and borne
Aslant from sunset; amber wastes of sky
Washing the ridge, a clamor of crows that fly
In from the wide flats where the spent tides mourn
To yon their rocking roosts in pines wind-torn ”

“ Be still; my heart is not in tune.
Sweet is thy voice; but yet, but yet—
Of all 'twere sweetest to forget!
FREDERICTON, N. B. THE PIPES OF PAN. Ringed with the flocking of hills, within shepherding watch of Olympus,
Tempe, vale of the gods, lies in green quiet withdrawn ”