Kate Seymour Maclean

Under the bare brown rafters,
    In his garret bed he lay,
And dreamed of the bright hereafters.
    And the merry morns of May.

The snow-flakes slowly sifted
    In through each cranny and seam,
But only the sunshine drifted
    Into the news-boy's dream.

For he dreamed of the brave to-morrows,
    His eager eyes should scan,
When battling with wants and sorrows,
    He felt himself a Man.

He felt his heart grow bolder
    For the struggle and the strife,
When shoulder joined to shoulder,
    In the battle-field of life.

And instead of the bare brown rafters,
    And the snowflakes sifting in,
He saw in the glad hereafters,
    The home his hands should win.

The flowers that grew in its shadow,
    And t...

Moss-grown, and venerable it stands,
    From the way-side dust and noise aloof,
And the great elms stretch their sheltering hands
    To bless its grey old roof.

About it summer's greenery waves;
    The birds build fearless overhead;
Its shadow falls among the graves;
    Around it sleep the dead.

The summer sunshine softly takes
    The chancel window's pictured gloom;
The moonlight enters too, and makes
    The shadow of a tomb.

Along these aisles the bride hath passed,
    And brightened, with her innocent grace.
The pensive twilight years have cast
    About the holy place.

They brought her here--a tiny maid,
    Unweeting any gain or loss,
And on her baby forehead laid
    The symbol of the Cross.

And he...

I wonder what he is thinking
    In the ploughing field all day.
He watches the heads of his oxen,
    And never looks this way.

And the furrows grow longer and longer,
    Around the base of the hill,
And the valley is bright with the sunset,
    Yet he ploughs and whistles still.

I am tired of counting the ridges,
    Where the oxen come and go,
And of thinking of all the blossoms
    That are trampled down below.

I wonder if ever he guesses
    That under the ragged brim
Of his torn straw hat I am peeping
    To steal a look at him.

The spire of the church and the windows
    Are all ablaze in the sun.
He has left the plough in the furrow,
    His summer day's work is done.

And I hear him carolling softly

I have been where the roses blow,
    Where the orange ripens its gold,
And the mountains stand with their peaks of snow,
    To fence away the cold,
Where the lime and the myrtle lent
    Their fragrance to the air,
To make the land of my banishment
    More exquisitely fair.

And I heard the ring dove call
    To his mate in the blossoming trees,
And I saw the white waves heave and fall.
    Far away over southern seas.
I listened along the beach,
    By the shore of the shifting sea,
To the waves, till I knew their murmured speech,
    And the message they bore to me.

And I watched the great sails furled.
    Like the wings of some ocean bird,
That brought me, out of another world,
    A warning, and a word;
For still beside m...

Sundown--and silence--and deep peace,--
Night's benediction and release;--
The tints of day die out and cease.

This morn I heard the Sabbath bells
Across the breezy upland swells;--
My path lay down the woodland dells.

To-day, I said, the dust of creeds,
The wind of words reach not my needs;--
I worship with the birds and weeds.

From height to height the sunbeam sprung,
The wild vine, touched with vermeil, clung,
The mountain brooklet leapt and sung.

The white lamp of the lily made
A tender light in deepest shade,--
The solitary place was glad.

The very air was tremulous,--
I felt its deep and reverent hush,--
God burned before me in the bush!

And nature prayed with folded palm,
And looks that wear perpetual c...

Oh Sea, that with infinite sadness, and infinite yearning
Liftest thy crystal forehead toward the unpitying stars,--
Evermore ebbing and flowing, and evermore returning
Over thy fathomless depths, and treacherous island bars:--

Oh thou complaining sea, that fillest the wide void spaces
Of the blue nebulous air with thy perpetual moan,
Day and night, day and night, out of thy desolate places--
Tell me thy terrible secret, oh Sea! what hast thou done.

Sometimes in the merry mornings, with the sunshine's golden wonder
Glancing along thy cheek, unwrinkled of any wind,
Thou seemest to be at peace, stifling thy great heart under
A face of absolute calm,--with danger and death behind!

But I hear thy voice at midnight, smiting the awful silence
With the long suspir...

Above the roofs and chimney-tops,
    And through the slow November rain,
    A light from some far attic pane,
Shines twinkling through the water-drops.

Some lonely watcher waits and weeps,
    Like me, the step that comes not yet;--
    Her watch for weary hours is set,
While far below the city sleeps.

The level lamp-rays lay the floors,
    And bridge the dark that lies below,
    O'er which my fancies come and go,
And peep, and listen at the doors;

And bring me word how sweet and plain,
    And quaint the lonely attic room,
    Where she sits singing in the gloom,
Words sadder than the autumn rain.

A thousand times by sea and shore,
    In my wild dreams I see him lie,
    With face upturned toward the sky,
Murdered, ...

        In the sleep-haunted gloom
Born of the slumbrous twilight in these shades,
These vast and venerable collonades,
        I welcome thee, dear June!

        And while with head reclined,
And limbs aweary with my woodland walk,
I listen to the low melodious talk
        Of leaves and singing wind,

        The merry roundelay
Of the swart ploughman, sowing summer grain,
And tinkling sheep-bell on the distant plain,
        And pastures far away,

        Come with a soft refrain,
Like a faint echo from the outer world,
While Peace sits by me with her white wings furled,
        Within my green domain.

        This is my palace, where
Great trunks are amber pillars to support
The blue roof of the vast and silent court,
...

Through many-winding valleys far inland,
A maze among the convoluted hills,
Of rocks up-piled, and pines on either hand,
And meadows ribbanded with silver rills,
Faint, mingled-up, composite sweetnesses
Of scented grass and clover, and the blue
Wild-violet hid in muffling moss and fern,
Keen and diverse another breath cleaves through,
Familiar as the taste of tears to me,
As on my lips, insistent, I discern
The salt and bitter kisses of the sea.

The tide sets up the river; mimic fleetnesses
Of little wavelets, fretted by the shells
And shingle of the beach, circle and eddy round,
And smooth themselves perpetually: there dwells
A spirit of peace in their low murmuring noise
Subsiding into quiet, as if life were such
A struggle with inexorable bound,<...

I never looked upon thy face;
I never saw thy dwelling-place;
My home is by Lake Erie's shore,
Beyond Niagara's distant roar;
And thine where ships at anchor ride,
By fair St. Lawrence's rolling tide,
With half a continent between
Its seas of blue, and isles of green,
And many a mountain's nodding crest,
And many a valley's jewelled breast.
Thou in the east, I in the west;
Yet in this book thou hast to me
An individuality;
Something more tangible and fair
Than any dream or shape of air,
With more than an ideal grace,
And sweeter than a pictured face:
For in this book my thought recalls
The garden quaint, the convent walls.
And thou beneath their shadow set,
A blue-eyed fragrant violet.
So for the maiden of the tale,
Whose brave tr...

I.


One looks into the sun lawn, and the steep
    Curved slopes of hills, set sharp against the sky,
    With tufted woods encinctured, waving high
O'er vales below, where broken shadows sleep.
    Here, looking forth before the first faint cry
    Of mother-bird, fluttering a drowsy wing
Above her brood, awakes the full-voiced choir,
Ere yet the morning tips the hills with fire,
    And turns the drapery of the east to gold,
    My wondering eyes the opening heavens behold,
Where far within deep calleth unto deep,
    And the whole world stands hushed and worshipping.
Even thus,--I muse,--shall heaven's gates unfold,
    When earth beholds the coming of her King.


II.


This opens on the sunset, and the sea
    From its h...

In your beautiful book, dear Mary,
    With pages so white and fair,
I pause ere I trace the first sentence,
    And thoughtfully breathe a prayer:--

That in the dew of the morning,
    Ere the shadows begin to fall,
You may turn with a child's devotion
    To the Book that is best of all:--

And learn with the gentle Mary,
    At the Saviour's feet to stay,
And to choose that better portion
    Which shall never be taken away.

Ah! lovely and thrice beloved,
    Sitting at Jesus' feet,
In the shady walks of Bethany,
    And the summer twilight sweet,--

With the thrilling palms and the olives,
    Listening overhead,
To that wonderful voice whose music
    Had power to waken the dead!

Even thus through life's gra...

It is the hither side, O Hope,
And afternoon; our shadows slope
Backward along the mountain cope.

The early morning was so sweet,
We seemed to climb with winged feet,
Like moving vapors fine and fleet,

Not more elastic poised and swung
Harebell or yellow adder's tongue,
Nor blither any bird that sung.

Thy light foot bent not any stem
Of frailest plant, whose diadem
In passing kissed thy garment's hem.

O Hope! so near me and so bright,
Thy foot above me on the height,
I might not touch thy garments white.

Thy lifted face, so fair, so rapt,
Like sunshine rolled and overlapped
Cliff, slope, and tall peak thunder-capped.

Thy voice to me like silver brooks
Down dropped from secret mountain nooks,
Still drew me...

The moon went under a ragged cloud,
    The owl cried out of the ruined wall,
Slow and solemn, distinct and loud,
    His melancholy call:
Tu-whit, tu-whit, tu-whoo!
Like a creature in a shroud.

Across the night in a silver chain,
    While a lonesome wind arose and died,
Slow stepped the ghostly feet of the rain;
    The owl from the wall replied:
Tu-whit, tu-whoo, hoo-hoo'
    With a peal of goblin laughter,
    And silence fell thereafter.

Weird fingers of the wandering rain,
    Reaching out of the hollow dark,
Paused and tapped at my window-pane,--
    A muffled voice cried, Hark!
Tu-whit, tu-whit, tu-whoo!
    The moon is drowned in the dark,
And the world belongs to me and you!

(In an Album.)


In the spring-time, out of the dew,
    From my garden, sweet friend, I gather,
    A garland of verses, or rather
A poem of blossoms for you.

There are pansies, purple and white,
    That hold in their velvet splendour,
    Sweet thoughts as fragrant and tender,
And rarer than poets can write.

The Iris her pennon unfurls,
    My unspoken message to carry,
    A flower-poem writ by a fairy,
And Buttercups rounder than pearls.

And Snowdrops starry and sweet,
    Turn toward thee their pale pure faces
    And Crocus, and Cowslips, and Daisies
The song of the spring-time repeat.

So merry and full of cheer,
    With the warble of birds overflowing,
    The wind through the fresh grass blowing
A...

Stay yet awhile, oh flowers!--oh wandering grasses,
    And creeping ferns, and climbing, clinging vines;--
Bend down and cover with lush odorous masses
        My darling's couch, where he in sleep reclines.

Stay yet awhile;--let not the chill October
    Plant spires of glinting frost about his bed;
Nor shower her faded leaves, so brown and sober,
    Among the tuberoses above his head.

I would have all things fair, and sweet, and tender,--
    The daisy's pearl, the cowslip's shield of snow,
And fragrant hyacinths in purple splendour,
    About my darling's grassy couch to grow.

Oh birds!--small pilgrims of the summer weather,
    Come hither, for my darling loved ye well;--
Here floats the thistle down for you to gather,
    And bearded grasse...