The Lodger
What! and do you find it good,
Sitting here alone with me?
Hark! the wind goes through the wood
And the snow drifts heavily.
When the morning brings the light
How know I you will not say,
“What a storm there fell last night.
Is the next inn far away?”
How know I you do not dream
Of some country where the grass
Grows up tall around the gleam
Of the milestones you must pass?
Even now perhaps you tell
(While your hands play through my hair)
Every hill, each hidden well,
All the pleasant valleys there,
That before a clear moon shines
You will be with them again?
—Hear the booming of the pines
And the sleet against the pane.
Wake, and look upon the sun.
I awoke an hour ago,
When the night was hardly done
And still fell a little snow.
Since the hill-tops touched the light
Many things have my hands made,
Just that you should think them right
And be glad that you have stayed.
—How I worked the while you slept!
Scarcely did I dare to sing!
All my soul a silence kept—
Fearing your awakening.
Now, indeed, I do not care
If you wake; for now the sun
Makes the least of all things fair
That my poor two hands have done. [page 13]
No, it is not hard to find.
You will know it by the hills—
Seven—sloping up behind;
By the soft perfume that fills
(O the red, red roses there!)
Full the narrow path thereto;
By the dark pine-forest where
Such a little wind breathes through;
By the way the bend o’ the stream
Takes the peace that twilight brings;
By the sunset, and the gleam
Of uncounted swallows’ wings
—No, indeed, I have not been
There; but such dreams I have had!
And, when I grow old, the green
Leaves will hide me, too, made glad.
Yes, you must go now, I know.
You are sure you understand?
—How I wish that I could go
Now, and lead you by the hand.
A Word From Canada
Lest it be said,
One sits at ease
Westward, beyond the outer seas,
Who thanks me not that my decrees
Fall light as love, nor bends her knees
To make one prayer
That peace my latter days may find,—
Lest all these bitter things be said
And we be counted as one dead,
Alone and unaccredited
I give this message to the wind:
Secure in thy security,
Though children, not unwise are we;
And filled with unplumbed love for thee,—
Call thou but once, if thou wouldst see!
Where the gray bergs
Come down from Labrador, and where
The long Pacific rollers break
Against the pines, for thy word’s sake
Each listeneth,—alive, awake,
And with thy strength made strong to dare.
And though our love is strong as Spring,
Sweet is it, too,—as sweet a thing
As when the first swamp-robins sing
Unto the dawn their welcoming.
Yea, and more sweet
Than the clean savor of the reeds
Where yesterday the June floods were,—
Than perfumed piles of new-cut fir
That greet the forest-worshipper
Who follows where the wood-road leads.
But unto thee are all unknown
These things by which the worth is shown
Of our deep love; and, near thy throne,
The glory thou hast made thine own
Hath made men blind
To all that lies not to their hand,—
But what thy strength and theirs hath done:
As though they had beheld the sun
When the noon-hour and March are one
Wide glare across our white, white land.
For what reck they of Empire,—they,
Whose will two hemispheres obey?
Why shouldst thou not count us but clay
For them to fashion as they may
In London-town?
The dwellers in the wilderness
Rich tribute yield to thee their friend;
From the flood unto the world’s end
They London ships ascend, descend,
Gleaning—and to thy feet regress.
Yea, thou and they think not at all
Of us, nor note the outer wall
Around thy realm imperial
Our slow hands rear as the years fall,
Which shall withstand
The stress of time and night of doom;
For we who build, build of our love,—
Not as they built, whose empires throve
And died,—for what knew they thereof
In old Assyria, Egypt, Rome?
Therefore, in my dumb country’s stead,
I come to thee, unheralded,
Praying that Time’s peace may be shed
Upon thine high, anointed head.
—One with the wheat,
The mountain pine, the prairie trail,
The lakes, the thronging ships thereon,
The valley of the blue Saint John,
New France—her lilies—not alone,
Empress, I bid thee, Hail!
