A Canadian Calendar: XII Lyrics

Come, let us go and be glad again together Where of old our eyes were opened and we knew that we were free! Come, for it is April, and her hands have loosed the tether That has bound for long her children.--who her children more than we?

Hark! hear you not how the strong waters thunder Down through the alders with the word they have to bring? Even now they win the meadow and the withered turf is under, And, above, the willows quiver with foreknowledge of the spring.

Yea, they come, and joy in coming: for the giant hills have sent them.-- The hills that guard the portal where the South has built her throne: Unloitering their course is,--can wayside pools content them, Who were born where old pine forests for the sea forever moan?

And they, behind the hills, where forever bloom the flowers, So they ever know the worship of the re-arisen Earth? Do their hands ever clasp such a happiness as ours, Now the waters foam about us and the grasses have their birth?

Fair is their land,--yea fair beyond all dreaming,-- With its sun upon the roses and its long summer day; Yet surely they must envy us our vision of the gleaming Of our lady's white throat as she comes her ancient way.

For their year is never April--Oh what were Time without her! Yea, the drifted snows may cover us, yet shall we not complain: Knowing well our Lady April--all her raiment blown about her-- Will return with many kisses for our unremembered pain!

II. A ROAD SONG IN MAY.

O come! Is it not surely May? The year is at its poise today. Northward, I hear the distant beat Of Spring's irrevocable feet: Tomorrow June will have her way.

O tawny waters, flecked with sun, Come: for your labours all are done. The grey snow fadeth from the hills; And toward the sound of waking mills Swing the brown rafts in, one by one.

O bees among the willow-blooms, Forget your empty waxen rooms Awhile, and share our golden hours! Will they not come, the later flowers, With their old colours and perfumes?

O wind that bloweth from the west, Is not this morning road the best? --Let us go hand in hand, as free And glad as little children be That follow some long-dreamed-of quest!

III. THE LANDSMAN.

"It well may be just as you say, Will Carver, that your tales are true; Yet think what I must put away, Will Carver, if sail with you."

"If you should sail with me (the wind Is west, the tide's at full, my men!) The things that you have left behind Will be as nothing to you then."

"Inland, it's June! And birds sing Among the wooded hills, I know; Between green fields, unhastening, The Nashwaak's shadowed waters flow.

"What know you of such things as these Who have the grey sea at your door,-- Whose path is as the strong winds please Beyond this narrow strip of shore?"

"_Your_ fields and woods! Now, answer me: Up what green path have your feet run So wide as mine, when the deep sea Lies all-uncovered to the sun?

And down the hollows of what hills Have you gone--half so glad of heart As you shall be when our sail fills And the great waves ride far apart?"

"O! half your life is good to live, Will Carver; yet, if I should go, What are the things that you can give Lest I regret the things I know!

"Lest I desire the old life's way? The noises of the crowded town? The busy streets, where, night and day, The traffickers go up and down?"

"What can I give for these? Alas, That all unchanged your path must be! Strange lights shall open as we pass And alien wakes traverse the sea;

"Your ears shall hear (across your sleep) New hails, remote, disquieted, For not a hand-breadth of the deep But has to soothe some restless dead.

"These things shall be. And other things, I think, not quite so sad as these! --Know you the song the rigging sings When up the opal-tinted seas

"The slow south-wind comes amorously? The sudden gleam of some far sail Going the same glad way as we, Hastily, lest the good wind fail?

"The dreams that come (so strange, so fair!) When all your world lies well within The moving magic circle where The sea ends and the skies begin?"......

......"What port is that, so far astern, Will Carver? And how many miles Shall we have run ere the tide turn? --And is it far to the farthest isles?"

IV. THE GHOST.

Just where the field becomes the wood I thought I saw again Her old remembered face--made grey As it had known the rain.

The trees grow thickly there; no place Has half so many trees; And hunted things elude one there Like ancient memories.

The path itself is hard to find, And slopes up suddenly; --In the old days it was a path None knew so well as we.

The path slopes upward, till it leaves The great trees far behind; --I met her once where the slender birch Grow up to meet the wind.

Where the poplars quiver endlessly And the falling leaves are grey, I saw her come, and I was glad That she had learned the way.

She paused a moment where the path Grew sunlighted and broad; Within her hair slept all the gold Of all the golden-rod.

And then the wood closed in on her. And my hand found her hand; She had no words to say, yet I Was quick to understand.

I dared to look in her two eyes; They too, I thought, were grey: But no sun shone, and all around Great, quiet shadows lay.

Yet, as I looked, I surely knew That they knew nought of tears,-- But this was very long ago, --A year, perhaps ten years.

All this was long ago. Today, Her hand met not with mine; And where the pathway widened out I saw no gold hair shine.

I had a weary, fruitless search, --I think that her wan face Was but the face of one asleep Who dreams she knew this place.

V. A SONG IN AUGUST.

O gold is the West and gold the river-waters Washing past the sides of my yellow birch canoe, Gold are the great drops that fall from my paddle, The far-off hills cry a golden word of you.