Emily Pauline Johnson

There's a spirit on the river, there's a ghost upon the shore,
They are chanting, they are singing through the starlight evermore,
As they steal amid the silence,
        And the shadows of the shore.

You can hear them when the Northern candles light the Northern sky,
Those pale, uncertain candle flames, that shiver, dart and die,
Those dead men's icy finger tips,
        Athwart the Northern sky.

You can hear the ringing war-cry of a long-forgotten brave
Echo through the midnight forest, echo o'er the midnight wave,
And the Northern lanterns tremble
        At the war-cry of that brave.

And you hear a voice responding, but in soft and tender song;
It is Dawendine's spirit singing, singing all night long;
And the whisper of the night wind
        ...

All yesterday the thought of you was resting in my soul,
And when sleep wandered o'er the world that very thought she stole
To fill my dreams with splendour such as stars could not eclipse,
And in the morn I wakened with your name upon my lips.

Awakened, my beloved, to the morning of your eyes,
Your splendid eyes, so full of clouds, wherein a shadow tries
To overcome the flame that melts into the world of grey,
As coming suns dissolve the dark that veils the edge of day.

Cool drifts the air at dawn of day, cool lies the sleeping dew,
But all my heart is burning, for it woke from dreams of you;
And O! these longing eyes of mine look out and only see
A dying night, a waking day, and calm on all but me.

So gently creeps the morning through the heavy air,
The d...

April 1, 1888

Lent gathers up her cloak of sombre shading
    In her reluctant hands.
Her beauty heightens, fairest in its fading,
    As pensively she stands
Awaiting Easter's benediction falling,
    Like silver stars at night,
Before she can obey the summons calling
    Her to her upward flight,
Awaiting Easter's wings that she must borrow
    Ere she can hope to fly -
Those glorious wings that we shall see to-morrow
    Against the far, blue sky.
Has not the purple of her vesture's lining
    Brought calm and rest to all?
Has her dark robe had naught of golden shining
    Been naught but pleasure's pall?
Who knows? Perhaps when to the world returning
    In youth's light joyousness,
We'll wear some rarer jewels we found burning
  ...

A dash of yellow sand,
Wind-scattered and sun-tanned;
Some waves that curl and cream along the margin of the strand;
And, creeping close to these
Long shores that lounge at ease,
Old Erie rocks and ripples to a fresh sou'-western breeze.

A sky of blue and grey;
Some stormy clouds that play
At scurrying up with ragged edge, then laughing blow away,
Just leaving in their trail
Some snatches of a gale;
To whistling summer winds we lift a single daring sail.

O! wind so sweet and swift,
O! danger-freighted gift
Bestowed on Erie with her waves that foam and fall and lift,
We laugh in your wild face,
And break into a race
With flying clouds and tossing gulls that weave and interlace.

'Tis morning now, yet silently I stand,
Uplift the curtain with a weary hand,
Look out while darkness overspreads the way,
        And long for day.

Calm peace is frighted with my mood to-night,
Nor visits my dull chamber with her light,
To guide my senses into her sweet rest
        And leave me blest.

Long hours since the city rocked and sung
Itself to slumber: only the stars swung
Aloft their torches in the midnight skies
        With watchful eyes.

No sound awakes; I, even, breathe no sigh,
Nor hear a single footstep passing by;
Yet I am not alone, for now I feel
        A presence steal

Within my chamber walls; I turn to see
The sweetest guest that courts humanity;
With subtle, slow enchantment draws she near,
      ...

And only where the forest fires have sped,
    Scorching relentlessly the cool north lands,
A sweet wild flower lifts its purple head,
And, like some gentle spirit sorrow-fed,
    It hides the scars with almost human hands.

And only to the heart that knows of grief,
    Of desolating fire, of human pain,
There comes some purifying sweet belief,
Some fellow-feeling beautiful, if brief.
    And life revives, and blossoms once again.

There was a man - a Jew of kingly blood,
    But of the people - poor and lowly born,
Accused of blasphemy of God, He stood
    Before the Roman Pilate, while in scorn
The multitude demanded it was fit
    That one should suffer for the people, while
Another be released, absolved, acquit,
    To live his life out virtuous or vile.

"Whom will ye have - Barabbas or this Jew?"
    Pilate made answer to the mob, "The choice
Is yours; I wash my hands of this, and you,
    Do as you will." With one vast ribald voice
The populace arose and, shrieking, cried,
    "Give us Barabbas, we condone his deeds!"
And He of Nazareth was crucified -
    Misjudged, condemned, dishonoured for their needs.

And down these nineteen centuries anew
    Comes the hoarse...

A trail upwinds from Golden;
It leads to a land God only knows,
To the land of eternal frozen snows,
That trail unknown and olden.

And they tell a tale that is strange and wild -
Of a lovely and lonely mountain child
That went up the trail from Golden.

A child in the sweet of her womanhood,
Beautiful, tender, grave and good
As the saints in time long olden.

And the days count not, nor the weeks avail;
For the child that went up the mountain trail
Came never again to Golden.

And the watchers wept in the midnight gloom,
Where the canyons yawn and the Selkirks loom,
For the love that they knew of olden.

And April dawned, with its suns aflame,
And the eagles wheeled and the vultures came
And poised o'er the town of Golden.

Sounds of the seas grow fainter,
    Sounds of the sands have sped;
The sweep of gales,
The far white sails,
    Are silent, spent and dead.

Sounds of the days of summer
    Murmur and die away,
And distance hides
The long, low tides,
    As night shuts out the day.

Halifax sits on her hills by the sea
    In the might of her pride, -
Invincible, terrible, beautiful, she
    With a sword at her side.

To right and to left of her, battlements rear
    And fortresses frown;
While she sits on her throne without favour or fear
    With her cannon as crown.

Coast guard and sentinel, watch of the weal
    Of a nation she keeps;
But her hand is encased in a gauntlet of steel,
    And her thunder but sleeps.

Pillowed and hushed on the silent plain,
Wrapped in her mantle of golden grain,

Wearied of pleasuring weeks away,
Summer is lying asleep to-day, -

Where winds come sweet from the wild-rose briers
And the smoke of the far-off prairie fires;

Yellow her hair as the goldenrod,
And brown her cheeks as the prairie sod;

Purple her eyes as the mists that dream
At the edge of some laggard sun-drowned stream;

But over their depths the lashes sweep,
For Summer is lying to-day asleep.

The north wind kisses her rosy mouth,
His rival frowns in the far-off south,

And comes caressing her sunburnt cheek,
And Summer awakes for one short week, -

Awakes and gathers her wealth of grain,
Then sleeps and dreams for a year again.

Measures of oil for others,
    Oil and red wine,
Lips laugh and drink, but never
    Are the lips mine.

Worlds at the feet of others,
    Power gods have known,
Hearts for the favoured round me
    Mine beats, alone.

Fame offering to others
    Chaplets of bays,
I with no crown of laurels,
    Only grey days.

Sweet human love for others,
    Deep as the sea,
God-sent unto my neighbour -
    But not to me.

Sometime I'll wrest from others
    More than all this,
I shall demand from Heaven
    Far sweeter bliss.

What profit then to others,
    Laughter and wine?
I'll have what most they covet -
    Death, will be mine.

I am sailing to the leeward,
Where the current runs to seaward
        Soft and slow,
Where the sleeping river grasses
Brush my paddle as it passes
        To and fro.

On the shore the heat is shaking
All the golden sands awaking
        In the cove;
And the quaint sand-piper, winging
O'er the shallows, ceases singing
        When I move.

On the water's idle pillow
Sleeps the overhanging willow,
        Green and cool;
Where the rushes lift their burnished
Oval heads from out the tarnished
        Emerald pool.

Where the very silence slumbers,
Water lilies grow in numbers,
        Pure and pale;
All the morning they have rested,
Amber crowned, and pearly crested,
        Fair and frail.

Here, impo...

A meadow brown; across the yonder edge
A zigzag fence is ambling; here a wedge
Of underbush has cleft its course in twain,
Till where beyond it staggers up again;
The long, grey rails stretch in a broken line
Their ragged length of rough, split forest pine,
And in their zigzag tottering have reeled
In drunken efforts to enclose the field,
Which carries on its breast, September born,
A patch of rustling, yellow, Indian corn.
Beyond its shrivelled tassels, perched upon
The topmost rail, sits Joe, the settler's son,
A little semi-savage boy of nine.
Now dozing in the warmth of Nature's wine,
His face the sun has tampered with, and wrought,
By heated kisses, mischief, and has brought
Some vagrant freckles, while from here and there
A few wild locks of vagabon...

Little Lady Icicle is dreaming in the north-land
And gleaming in the north-land, her pillow all a-glow;
    For the frost has come and found her
    With an ermine robe around her
Where little Lady Icicle lies dreaming in the snow.

Little Lady Icicle is waking in the north-land,
And shaking in the north-land her pillow to and fro;
    And the hurricane a-skirling
    Sends the feathers all a-whirling
Where little Lady Icicle is waking in the snow.

Little Lady Icicle is laughing in the north-land,
And quaffing in the north-land her wines that overflow;
    All the lakes and rivers crusting
    That her finger-tips are dusting,
Where little Lady Icicle is laughing in the snow.

Little Lady Icicle is singing in the north-land,
And bringing from t...

I

Lady Lorgnette, of the lifted lash,
    The curling lip and the dainty nose,
The shell-like ear where the jewels flash,
    The arching brow and the languid pose,
The rare old lace and the subtle scents,
    The slender foot and the fingers frail, -
I may act till the world grows wild and tense,
    But never a flush on your features pale.
The footlights glimmer between us two, -
    You in the box and I on the boards, -
I am only an actor, Madame, to you,
    A mimic king 'mid his mimic lords,
For you are the belle of the smartest set,
        Lady Lorgnette.

II

Little Babette, with your eyes of jet,
    Your midnight hair and your piquant chin,
Your lips whose odours of violet
    Drive men to madness and saints to sin, -

(NEW BRUNSWICK)

The long red flats stretch open to the sky,
Breathing their moisture on the August air.
The seaweeds cling with flesh-like fingers where
The rocks give shelter that the sands deny;
And wrapped in all her summer harmonies
St. Andrews sleeps beside her sleeping seas.

The far-off shores swim blue and indistinct,
Like half-lost memories of some old dream.
The listless waves that catch each sunny gleam
Are idling up the waterways land-linked,
And, yellowing along the harbour's breast,
The light is leaping shoreward from the west.

And naked-footed children, tripping down,
Light with young laughter, daily come at eve
To gather dulse and sea clams and then heave
Their loads, returning laden to the town,
Leaving a strange grey sil...

Little brown baby-bird, lapped in your nest,
        Wrapped in your nest,
        Strapped in your nest,
Your straight little cradle-board rocks you to rest;
        Its hands are your nest;
        Its bands are your nest;
It swings from the down-bending branch of the oak;
You watch the camp flame, and the curling grey smoke;
But, oh, for your pretty black eyes sleep is best, -
Little brown baby of mine, go to rest.

Little brown baby-bird swinging to sleep,
        Winging to sleep,
        Singing to sleep,
Your wonder-black eyes that so wide open keep,
        Shielding their sleep,
        Unyielding to sleep,
The heron is homing, the plover is still,
The night-owl calls from his haunt on the hill,
Afar the fox barks, afar the stars peep, ...