Fleurs de lys and other poems
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FLEURS DE LYS
AND
OTHER POEMS.
BY
ARTHUR WEIR, B.A. Sc.
He only is a poet who can find
In sorrow happiness, in darkness light,
Love everywhere; and lead his fellow-kind
By flowery paths towards life's sunny height.
TO
WILLIAM AND ELIZABETH SOMERVILLE WEIR,
HIS
MOST SEVERE AND KINDLY CRITICS,
THIS VOLUME
IS LOVINGLY DEDICATED BY THEIR SON.
PREFACE
The name FLEURS DE LYS has been chosen for the Canadian Poems in the
early portion of this book, because the scenes and incidents they
describe belong to the Monarchial, or Fleur de Lys, period of France in
Canada. The royal crest during the seventeenth century is depicted
upon the cover.
Many of these poems have already appeared in the columns of the
Carnival and Jubilee _Star_, the Toronto _Week_, the
_University Gazette_, and the Montreal _Gazette_, as well as
in the Daily and Weekly _Star_, and it is the kindly reception
which they met with that has led the author to publish them in this
more permanent form.
Some of the poems were written at twenty, and the latest at twenty-
three, so that the author hopes the critics will consider this volume
rather as a bud than as a flower, and will criticize it with the view
to aiding him to avoid faults in the future rather than to censuring
him for errors of the present and past.
To Mr. George Murray, of this city, the author is deeply indebted for
encouragement when encouragement was most needed, and for much valuable
assistance in the selection and revision of these verses for
publication.
It is hoped that the notes at the end of this book will throw
sufficient light upon the verses to make them perfectly intelligible to
the reader.
December, 1st, 1887.
CONTENTS
Ode for the Queen's Jubilee
FLEURS DE LYS.
The Captured Flag
Pere Brosse
L'Ordre de Bon Temps
Champlain
The Priest and the Minister
Pilot
The Secret of the Saguenay
Jules' Letter
The Oak
Nelson's Appeal for Maisonneuve
RED ROSES.
To One Who Loves Red Roses
Three Sonnets
Long Ago
At Chateauguay
A Birthday
The Lovers
The Sea Shell
A January Day
Remembrance
In Absence
Love Guides Us
The Lover's Appeal
OTHER POEMS.
The Spirit Wife
Rhodope's Shoe
Hope and Despair
Carlotta
Equality
Lachine
De Salaberry at Chateauguay
Tennyson
At Rainbow Lake
The Race
My Treasure
Welcoming the New Year
A Greater Than He
Life in Nature
Winter and Summer
Dauntless
A Child's Kiss
The Grave and the Tree
A Mother's Jewels
Notes
_FLEURS DE LYS AND OTHER POEMS_.
ODE FOR THE QUEEN'S JUBILEE.
1837-1887.
I
_Sailor William is dead. And now
Toll the great bells disconsolate.
Let the maiden have time for tears
Ere you set on her gentle brow
England's glittering crown of state.
Heavy burden for eighteen years.
Grant the maiden some weeping space
Ere on her youthful brow you place
England's crown.
Once her stately head it presses,
Fifty years it must rest on her tresses
Till their brown
Turns to white beneath King Time's caresses--
Grant her weeping space._
II.
Set the crown on the maiden's brow,
And silence the bells disconsolate.
Peal! Ye loud joy-bells, now;
Over city and wold let your echoes reverberate.
Peal! for the crowning of smiles and the death of tears,
Peal! for the crowning of hopes and the death of fears,
Peal! for a Queen who shall rule us for fifty years.
The maiden is crowned with her glorious crown,
Heavy with care;
Yet it shall never burden her down
Into despair.
We will watch over her with our love,
And our loyalty prove.
We will bear, each, his share
Of the worry, grief, and pain
That may seek to mar her reign.
III.
Blow! ye silvery bugles, over the sunny land,
Our Queen has yielded to love.
Ring out with merry clangor, O ye bells!
Ye mountains! give the laughing bells reply.
_Hark! how the joyous tumult sinks and swells,
And beats against the sky
In melody!
Mark how the billows of the mighty sea
Toss their white arms in glee,
And race along the strand,
Joining their voices with the symphony!
Our Queen has yielded to love.
Blow! silvery bugles blow!
That all may know._
IV.
_Toll! toll! ye deep-mouthed bells,
Answer! each thundering gun.
Your cadence sadly tells
Of a great life-work done.
Death rules this changing earth,
Through royal halls he stalks,
And with an awful mirth
Man's noblest efforts mocks.
He stills the busy brain,
Tears loving souls apart,
And leaves alone to reign_
_A Queen with empty heart.
Upon her lonely throne
She sits, and ever weeps,
For him who, once her own,
Now wed to heaven sleeps.
Albert has fallen, conquered by Death's dart,
A shadow lies across her anguished heart.
She dwells in loneliness that none can gauge;
In grief that only heaven can assuage.
She trembles and her soul would fain depart,
And beats with tireless wings against its cage.
Oh! live for us, dear Queen,
Thou who for years hast been
Our leader in all good,
Live! Live for us, O Queen!_
V.
_Ring! ye loud bells, in deep, triumphal tone,
And bind a zone
Around this earth of glorious melody,
Till land and sea
Awaken and, rejoicing, answer ye.
Ah! noble Queen! who lookst around thee now
On this great nation.
Thy life, since first the circlet touched thy brow,
Was consecration
Of self to us. Through half a century
From darkness into light we followed thee.
The poet, patriot, warrior, statesman, sage
Have given thee service long,
Lending their fiery youth and thoughtful age
To make thy sceptre strong,
And in the never-ending march of man
To higher things, still England leads the van._
VI.
In fifty years what change! The world is bound
In close communion, and a sentence flies
O'er half the earth ere yet the voice's sound
Upon the calm air dies.
Behold at England's feet her offspring pour
Their bounteous store;
To her each yields
The first fruits of its virgin fields;
Each country throws
Its hospitable portals open wide
To the great tide
That from the dense-thronged mother country flows.
New homes arise
By rivers once unknown, among whose reeds
The wild fowl fed, but now no longer dwells.
No more the bison feeds
Upon the prairie, for the once drear plain
Laughs in the sun and waves its golden grain.
By a slender chain
Ocean is linked to ocean, and the hum
Of labor in the wilderness foretells
The greatness of a nation yet to come.
In Southern seas
Another nation grows by slow degrees,
In dreamy India, under tropic sun,
Two hundred millions own an Empress' sway,
And day by day.
New territories won
Shed lustre on our Queen's half century.
FLEURS DE LYS.
THE CAPTURED FLAG.
Loudly roared the English cannon, loudly thundered back our own,
Pouring down a hail of iron from their battlements of stone,
Giving Frontenac's proud message to the clustered British ships:
"I will answer your commander only by my cannons' lips."
Through the sulphurous smoke below us, on the Admiral's ship of war,
Faintly gleamed the British ensign, as through cloudwrack gleams a
star,
And above our noble fortress, on Cape Diamond's rugged crest--
Like a crown upon a monarch, like an eagle in its nest--
Streamed our silken flag emblazoned with the royal fleur de lys,
Flinging down a proud defiance to the rulers of the sea.
As we saw it waving proudly, and beheld the crest it bore,
Fiercely throbbed our hearts within us, and with bitter words we swore,
While the azure sky was reeling at the thunder of our guns,
We would strike that standard never, while Old France had gallant sons.
Long and fiercely raged the struggle, oft our foes had sought to land,
But with shot and steel we met them, met and drove them from the
strand,
Though they owned them not defeated, and the stately Union Jack,
Streaming from the slender topmast, seemed to wave them proudly back.
Louder rose the din of combat, thicker rolled the battle smoke,
Through whose murky folds the crimson tongues of thundering cannon
broke,
And the ensign sank and floated in the smoke-clouds on the breeze,
As a wounded, fluttering sea-bird floats upon the stormy seas.
While we looked upon it sinking, rising through the sea of smoke,
Lo! it shook, and bending downwards, as a tree beneath a stroke,
Hung one moment o'er the river, then precipitously fell
Like proud Lucifer descending from high heaven into hell.
As we saw it flutter downwards, till it reached the eager wave,
Not Cape Diamond's loudest echo could have matched the cheer we gave;
Yet the English, still undaunted, sent an answering echo back:
Though their flag had fallen conquered, still their fury did not slack,
And with louder voice their cannon to our cannonade replied,
As their tattered ensign drifted slowly shoreward with the tide.
There was one who saw it floating, and within his heart of fire,
Beating in a Frenchman's bosom, rose at once a fierce desire,
That the riven flag thus resting on the broad St. Lawrence tide
Should, for years to come, betoken how France humbled England's pride.
As the stag leaps down the mountain, with the baying hounds in chase,
So the hero, swift descending, sought Cape Diamond's rugged base,
And within the water, whitened by the bullets' deadly hail,
Springing, swam towards the ensign with a stroke that could not fail.
From the shore and from the fortress we looked on with bated breath,
For around him closer, closer, fell the messengers of death,
And as nearer, ever nearer, to the floating flag he drew,
Thicker round his head undaunted still the English bullets flew.
He has reached and seized the trophy. Ah! what cheering rent the skies,
Mingled with deep English curses, as he shoreward brought his prize!
Slowly, slowly, almost sinking, still he struggled to the land,
And we hurried down to meet him, as he reached the welcome strand.
Proudly up the rock we bore him, with the flag that he had won,
And that night the English vessels left us with the setting sun.
PERE BROSSE.
He had been with the Indians all the day,
But sat with us at eve,
Chatting and laughing in his genial way,
Till came the hour to leave;
And then he rose, we with him, for we loved
Our good old parish priest,
Who all his lifetime in our midst had moved
At death-bed and at feast.
He raised his hand for silence, and each head
Was bowed as though in prayer,
Expectant of his blessing, but instead
He stood in silence there.
Thrice he essayed to speak, and thrice in vain,
And then his voice came back,
Vibrating in a deep, triumphal strain
That it was wont to lack.
"My children, we must part. My task is done.
God calls me to His rest,
And though my labors seem scarce yet begun,
Surely He knoweth best.
I have grown old in laboring for Him,
My hair with age is white,
My footsteps feeble, and my eyesight dim--
But all shall change to-night.
"When strikes the hour of twelve, my weary soul
On earth shall cease to dwell,
As sign of which the chapel bell shall toll
Its slow funereal knell.
Then seek me, if you will, and you shall find
Upon the altar stair
The prison-house my soul will leave behind,
Kneeling as though in prayer.
"Seek, then, Pere Compain, on the Isle aux Coudres,
Nor fear the rising gale,
For Heaven will guide you through the angry flood,
And it shall not prevail.
He will be waiting for you on the sands,
Amid the morning gloom,
To be your comrade, and, with kindly hands
Consign me to my tomb."
He ceased, and left us, as though turned to stone,
All motionless and still:
And faintly fell his footsteps, as alone
He slowly climbed the hill.
Then we awoke, and all so wondrous seemed,
His words so strange at best,
We almost fancied we had slept and dreamed
That he had been our guest.
We turned unto our merriment anew,
With some kind thoughts for him;
Yet as the hour of midnight nearer drew,
And waxed the hearth fire dim,
A silence fell upon us, and in fear
We stopped and held our breath,
As though more clearly through the gloom to hear
The promised knell of death.
There had been something in his face that night
That thrilled our hearts with fear,
An undefinable, mysterious light,
Which told us Heaven was near.
He had a deeper lustre in his eyes,
His smile had seemed more bright,
Till, looking in his face, all Paradise
Seemed opened to our sight.
Soon chimed the clock. And scarcely had it ceased,
Than tolled the chapel bell,
As though for some long-suffering soul released,
Its slow funereal knell,
And on its ebon wings the rising gale
Swept landward from the sea,
And mingled with the chapel bell's long wail
Its own sad symphony.
We found him lying lifeless, as he said,
Before the altar, prone,
Nor laid our sinful hands upon the dead,
But left him there alone,
And launched our frail canoe upon the tide,
Not marvelling to behold
Before our prow the billows fall aside,
Like the Red Sea of old.
On every hand the screaming waters flung
Their great, white arms on high,
And over all the thundering storm-clouds hung
And battled in the sky.
Yet fearless we sailed on, until when day
Broke, panting, through the night,
The fertile Isle aux Coudres before us lay,
Its beach with breakers white.
And there, upon that tempest-beaten strand,
Waiting, Pere Compain stood
And beckoned to us with uplifted hand
Across the raging flood.
No need to tell our errand, for that night
Pere Brosse had sought his cell,
And told him all, then faded from his sight,
Breathing a kind farewell.
L'ORDRE DE BON TEMPS.
When Champlain with his faithful band
Came o'er the stormy wave
To dwell within this lonely land,
Their hearts were blithe as brave;
And Winter, by their mirth beguiled,
Forgot his sterner mood,
As by the prattling of a child
A churl may be subdued.
Among the company there came
A dozen youths of rank,
Who in their eager search for fame
From no adventure shrank;
But, with the lightness of their race
That hardship laughs to scorn,
Pursued the pleasures of the chase
'Till night from early morn.
And soon their leader, full of mirth.
And politic withal--
Well knowing that no spot on earth
Could hold them long in thrall,
Unless into their company,
Its duties and its sport,
Were introduced the pageantry
And etiquette of court--
Enrolled them in a titled band,
_L'Ordre de Bon Temps_ named,
First knighthood's grade for which this land
Of Canada is famed.
Each one in turn Grand Master was--
At close of day released--
His duty to maintain the laws,
And furnish forth a feast.
Filled with a pardonable pride
In nobles wont to dwell,
Each with his predecessor vied
In bounty to excel,
And thus it was the festive board
With beaver, otter, deer,
And fish and fowl was richly stored,
Throughout the changing year.
At mid-day--for our sires of old
Dined when the sun was high--
To where the cloth was spread, behold
These merry youths draw nigh,
Each bearing on a massy tray
Some dainty for the feast,
While the Grand Master leads the way,
Festivity's high priest!
Then seated round the banquet board,
Afar from friends and home,
They drank from goblets freely poured
To happier days to come.
And once again, in story, shone
The sun, that erst in France
Was wont, in days long past and gone,
Amid the vines to dance.
Still later, when the sun had set,
And round the fire they drew
To sing, or tell a tale ere yet
Too old the evening grew,
He who had ruled them for the day
His sceptre did resign,
And drink to his successor's sway
A brimming cup of wine.
CHAMPLAIN.
Would that with the bold Champlain,
And his comrades staunch and true,
I had crossed the stormy main,
Golden visions to pursue:
And had shared
Their lot, and dared
Fortune with that hardy crew!
Thus I murmur, as I close
Parkman, day being long since sped,
Yet in vain I seek repose,
For the stirring words I read
In the sage's
Learned pages,
Still are ringing in my head.
All the perils of the sea.
All the dangers of the land,
Of the waves that hungrily
Leapt round Champlain's stalwart band,
Of the foes,
That round him rose,
Numerous as the ocean sand.
Every trial he underwent,
Winter's famine and disease,
Weeks in dreary journey spent,
Battle, treason, capture--these
Sweep my mind,
As sweeps the wind,
Sighing, through the forest trees.
Wandering through the tangled brakes,
Where the treacherous Indians hide,
Launching upon crystal lakes,
Stemming Uttawa's dark tide;
Still my sight,
Pursues his flight
Through the desert, far and wide.
With the sunlight in his face,
I behold him as he plants
At Cape Diamond's rugged base,
In the glorious name of France,
Yon fair town
That still looks down
On the river's broad expanse.
I behold him as he hurls
Proud defiance at the foe,
And the fleur-de-lys unfurls
High o'er Admiral Kirkt below,
Till he slips,
With all his ships,
Down the river, sad and slow.
And I see him lying dead,
On that dreary Christmas day,
While the priests about his bed
Weeping kneel, and softly pray,
As the bell
Rings out its knell
For a great soul passed away!
Yes, a gallant man was he,
That brave-hearted, old French tar,
Whose great name through history
Shines on us, as from afar
Through the gray
Of dawning day
Gleams the glorious Morning Star!
THE PRIEST AND THE MINISTER.
From Old France once sailed a vessel,
Bearing hearts that came to nestle
In Acadia's breast and wrestle
With its Winters cold.
Priests and ministers it bore,
Who had sought that desert shore,
Filled with ardor to restore
Lost sheep to the fold.
Yet though on such errand wending,
They debated without ending,
Each his cherished faith defending
Morning, noon and night.
Never on the balmy air
Heavenward rose united prayer,
Stout Champlain was in despair
At the godless sight.
Late and early they debated,
Never ceasing, never sated,
Till the very sailors hated
Them and their debates.
Not at dinner were they able,
Even, to forego their Babel,
But, disputing, smote the table
Till they jarred the plates.
Tossed about by the gigantic
Billows of the wild Atlantic,
Still they argued, until, frantic
With religious zeal,
Tonsured priests and Huguenots
From discussions came to blows,
Sieur de Monts had no repose
From their fierce appeal.
Oft the minister came crying,
How, while he had been replying
To the cure and denying
Something he had said,
That the latter fell on him
And, with more than priestly vim,
Beat him, body, head and limb--
Beat him till he fled.
Days passed by, and then one morning,
While the sunbeams were adorning
Sea and sky, the lookout's warning
Echoed from the mast;
And, before the close of day,
Safe the little vessel lay,
Anchored in a sheltered bay:
Land was reached at last.
But, within their cabins lying,
Priest and Minister were dying,
To their future haven nighing,
Ere the dawn they died,
And within the forest shade
Soon a narrow grave was made,
Where the two were gently laid,
Sleeping side by side.
That same evening, as they rested
Round the fire, the sailors jested
Of the dead, how they contested
All across the sea,
And a sailor, laughing said:
"Let us hope the reverend dead
Yonder in their narrow bed
Manage to agree."
PILOT.
Merry Carlo, who runn'st at my heels
Through the dense-crowded streets of the city,
In and out among hurrying wheels,
And whose run in the suburbs reveals
Only scenes that are peaceful and pretty.
Raise to mine your intelligent face,
Open wide your great brown eyes in wonder
While I tell how lived one of your race
Years ago in this now busy place--
Ay, and ran at the heels of its founder.
Mistress Pilot, for that was her name,
And you could not have called her a better,
Was a gallant and dutiful dame--
Since her breed is forgotten by Fame,
For your sake I will call her a setter.
Pilot lived when _Ville Marie_ was young,
And the needs of its people were sorest;
When the rifle unceasing gave tongue,
And the savage lay hidden among
The Cimmerian shades of the forest;
When the hearts of frail women were steeled
Not to weep for the dead and the dying;
When by night the fierce battle-cry pealed
And by day all who worked in the field
Kept their weapons in readiness lying;
When full oft at the nunnery gate,
As the darkness fell over the village,
Would a swart savage crouch and await,
With the patience of devilish hate,
A chance to kill women, and pillage.
Every one had his duty to do,
And our Pilot had hers like another,
Which she did like a heroine true,
At the head of a juvenile crew
Of the same stalwart stuff as their mother.
In a body these keen-scented spies
Used to roam through the forests and meadows,
And protect _Ville Marie_ from surprise,
Though its foes clustered round it like flies
In a swamp, or like evening shadows.
Oftentimes in the heat of the day,
Oftentimes through the mists of the morning,
Oftentimes to the sun's dying ray
There was heard her reechoing bay
Pealing forth its brave challenge and warning.
And so nobly she labored and well,
It was fancied--so runneth the story--
She had come down from heaven to dwell
Upon earth, and make war upon hell,
For the welfare of man and God's glory.
"When her day's work was over, what then?"
Well, my boy, she had one of your habits;
She would roam through the forest again,
But instead of bold hunting for men,
Would amuse herself hunting jack rabbits.
_THE SECRET OF THE SAGUENAY._
Like a fragment of torn sea-kale,
Or a wraith of mist in the gale,
There comes a mysterious tale
Out of the stormy past:
How a fleet, with a living freight,
Once sailed through the rocky gate
Of this river so desolate,
This chasm so black and vast.
'Twas Cartier, the sailor bold,
Whose credulous lips had told
How glittering gems and gold
Were found in that lonely land
How out of the priceless hoard
Within their rough bosoms stored,
These towering mountains poured
Their treasures upon the strand.
Allured by the greed of gain,
Sieur Roberval turned again,
And sailing across the main,
Passed up the St. Lawrence tide.
He sailed by the frowning shape
Of Jacques Cartier's Devil's Cape,
Till the Saguenay stood agape,
With hills upon either side.
Around him the sunbeams fell
On the gentle St. Lawrence swell,
As though by some mystic spell
The water was turned to gold;
But as he pursued, they fled,
Till his vessels at last were led
Where, cold and sullen and dead,
The Saguenay River rolled.
Chill blew the wind in his face,
As, still on his treasure chase,
He entered that gloomy place
Whose mountains in stony pride,
Still, soulless, merciless, sheer,
Their adamant sides uprear,
Naked and brown and drear,
High over the murky tide.
No longer the sun shone bright
On the sails that, full and white,
Like sea gulls winging their flight,
Dipped into the silent wave;
But shadows fell thick around,
Till feeling and sight and sound
In their awful gloom were drowned,
And sank in a depthless grave.
Far over the topmost height
Great eagles had wheeled in flight,
But, wrapped in the gloom of night,
They ceased to circle and soar:
Grim silence reigned over all,
Save that from a rocky wall
A murmuring waterfall
Leapt down to the river shore.
O merciless walls of stone!
What happened that night is known
By you, and by you alone:
Though the eagles unceasing scream,
How once through that midnight air,
For an instant a trumpet's blare,
And the voices of men in prayer,
Arose from the murky stream.
_JULES' LETTER._
MA CHERE,
Since the morning we parted
On the slippery docks of Rochelle,
I have wandered, well nigh broken-hearted,
Through many a tree-shadowed dell:
I've hunted the otter and beaver,
Have tracked the brown bear and the deer,
And have lain almost dying with fever,
While not a companion was near.
I've toiled in the fierce heat of summer
Under skies like a great dome of gold,
And have tramped, growing number and number,
In winter through snowstorm and cold.
Yet the love in my heart was far hotter,
The fear of my soul far more chill,
As my thoughts crossed the wild waste of water
To your little home on the hill.
But now Father Time in a measure
Has reconciled me to my fate,
For I know he will bring my dear treasure
Back into my arms soon or late.
And, besides, every evening, when, weary,
I lie on my soft couch of pine,
Sleep wafts me again to my dearie,
And your heart once more beats against mine.
You never have heard of such doings
As those that are going on here;
We've nothing but weddings and wooings
From dawn till the stars reappear.
For the king, gracious monarch, a vessel
Has sent, bearing widows and maids
Within our rough bosoms to nestle,
And make us a home in the glades.
They are tall and short, ugly and pretty,
There are blondes and brunettes by the score:
Some silent and dull, others witty,
And made for mankind to adore.
Some round as an apple, some slender--
In fact--so he be not in haste--
Any man with a heart at all tender
Can pick out a wife to his taste.