The Complete Works of L M Montgomery, page 765
Faint, thirst-maddened we prayed and fought
By night and by day;
Eyes glared at us with serpent hate —
Yet sometimes a hush fell, and then we heard naught
Save the wind’s shrill harping far away,
The piping of birds, and the softened calls
Of the merry, distant water-falls;
Then of other scenes we thought —
Of valleys beloved in sunny France,
Purple vineyards of song and dance,
Hopes and visions roseate;
Of many a holy festal morn,
And many a dream at vesper bell —
But anon the shuddering air was torn
By noises such as the fiends of hell
Might make in holding high holiday!
Once, so bitter the death-storm hailed,
We shrank and quailed.
Daulac sprang out before us then,
Shamed in our fears;
Glorious was his face to see,
The face of one who listens and hears
Voices unearthly, summonings high —
Rang his tone like a clarion, “Men,
See yonder star in the golden sky,
Such a man’s duty is to him,
A beacon that will not flicker nor dim,
Shining through darkness and despair.
Almost the martyr’s crown is yours!
Thinking the price too high to be paid,
Will you leave the sacrifice half made?
I tell you God will answer the prayer
Of the soul that endures!
“Comrades, far in the future I see
A mighty land;
Throned among the nations of earth,
Noble and happy, calm and free;
As a veil were lifted I see her stand,
And out of that future a voice to me
Promises that our names shall shine
On the page of her story with lustre divine
Impelling to visions and deeds of worth.
“Ever thus since the world was begun,
When a man hath given up his life,
Safety and freedom have been won
By the holy power of self-sacrifice;
For the memory of your mother’s kiss
Valiantly stand to the breach again.
Comrades, blench not now from the strife,
Quit you like men!”
Oh, we rushed to meet at our captain’s side
Death as a bride!
All our brave striplings bravely fell.
I, less fortunate, slowly came
Back from that din of shot and yell
Slowly and gaspingly, to know
A harder fate reserved for me
Than that brief, splendid agony.
Through many a bitter pang and throe
My spirit must to-morrow go
To seek my comrades; but I bear
The tidings that our desperate stand
By the Long Sault has saved our land,
And God has answered Daulac’s prayer.
THE EXILE
We told her that her far off shore was bleak and dour to view,
And that her sky was dull and mirk while ours was smiling blue.
She only sighed in answer, “It is even as ye say,
But oh, the ragged splendor when the sun bursts through the gray!”
We brought her dew-wet roses from our fairest summer bowers,
We bade her drink their fragrance, we heaped her lap with flowers;
She only said, with eyes that yearned, “Oh, if ye might have brought
The pale, unscented blossoms by my father’s lowly cot!”
We bade her listen to the birds that sang so madly sweet,
The lyric of the laughing stream that dimpled at our feet;
“But, O,” she cried, “I weary for the music wild that stirs
When keens the mournful western wind among my native firs!”
We told her she had faithful friends and loyal hearts anear,
We prayed her take the fresher loves, we prayed her be of cheer;
“Oh, ye are kind and true,” she wept, “but woe’s me for the grace
Of tenderness that shines upon my mother’s wrinkled face!”
THE THREE SONGS
The poet sang of a battle-field
Where doughty deeds were done,
Where stout blows rang on helm and shield
And a kingdom’s fate was spun
With the scarlet thread of victory,
And honor from death’s grim revelry
Like a flame-red flower was won!
So bravely he sang that all who heard
With the sting of the fight and the triumph were stirred,
And they cried, “Let us blazon his name on high,
He has sung a song that will never die!”
Again, full throated, he sang of fame
And ambition’s honeyed lure,
Of the chaplet that garlands a mighty name,
Till his listeners fired with the god-like flame
To do, to dare, to endure!
The thirsty lips of the world were fain
The cup of glamor he vaunted to drain,
And the people murmured as he went by,
“He has sung a song that will never die!”
And once more he sang, all low and apart,
A song of the love that was born in his heart,
Thinking to voice in unfettered strain
Its sweet delight and its sweeter pain;
Nothing he cared what the throngs might say
Who passed him unheeding from day to day,
For he only longed with his melodies
The soul of the one beloved to please.
The song of war that he sang is as naught,
For the field and its heroes are long forgot,
And the song he sang of fame and power
Was never remembered beyond its hour!
Only to-day his name is known
By the song he sang apart and alone,
And the great world pauses with joy to hear
The notes that were strung for a lover’s ear.
IN AN OLD TOWN GARDEN
Shut from the clamor of the street
By an old wall with lichen grown,
It holds apart from jar and fret
A peace and beauty all its own.
The freshness of the springtime rains
And dews of morning linger here;
It holds the glow of summer noons
And ripest twilights of the year.
Above its bloom the evening stars
Look down at closing of the day,
And in its sweet and shady walks
Winds spent with roaming love to stray,
Upgathering to themselves the breath
Of wide-blown roses white and red,
The spice of musk and lavender
Along its winding alleys shed.
Outside are shadeless, troubled streets
And souls that quest for gold and gain,
Lips that have long forgot to smile
And hearts that burn and ache with pain.
But here is all the sweet of dreams,
The grace of prayer, the boon of rest,
The spirit of old songs and loves
Dwells in this garden blossom-blest.
Here would I linger for a space,
And walk herein with memory;
The world will pass me as it may
And hope will minister to me.
THE SEEKER
I sought for my happiness over the world,
Oh, eager and far was my quest;
I sought it on mountain and desert and sea,
I asked it of east and of west.
I sought it in beautiful cities of men,
On shores that were sunny and blue,
And laughter and lyric and pleasure were mine
In palaces wondrous to view;
Oh, the world gave me much to my plea and my prayer
But never I found aught of happiness there!
Then I took my way back to a valley of old
And a little brown house by a rill,
Where the winds piped all day in the sentinel firs
That guarded the crest of the hill;
I went by the path that my childhood had known
Through the bracken and up by the glen,
And I paused at the gate of the garden to drink
The scent of sweet-briar again;
The homelight shone out through the dusk as of yore
And happiness waited for me at the door!
THE POET’S THOUGHT
It came to him in rainbow dreams,
Blent with the wisdom of the sages,
Of spirit and of passion born;
In words as lucent as the morn
He prisoned it, and now it gleams
A jewel shining through the ages.
THE CALL
Mother of her who is close to my heart
Cease to chide!
For no small thing must I wander afar
From the tender arms and lips of my bride —
My love with eyes like the glowing star
In the twilight sky apart.
Coulds’t thou have seen Him standing there
Ere the day was born,
With the mild high look that was like a prayer,
Thou woulds’t not marvel that I must leave all
I hold most dear to answer the call
Of that wonderful morn.
We were casting our nets in the sea,
Andrew and I;
Over the mountains a young wind came
To kiss the waters of Galilee,
And in the calm blue northern sky
The gleaming crest of old Hermon rose
Girt with its diadem of snows,
And the east was smit with flame.
All our thoughts were simple and glad
As toilers’ should be;
Andrew, that careless, dark-eyed lad
Sang a song right merrily,
Joyous of melody and word,
As he worked with oar and net and sail,
But I dreamed of the face that would blush and pale
When my step should be heard!
Then, as we lifted heedless eyes,
We saw Him there,
Where the silver waters curled on the shore;
Behind Him the radiance of the skies
Shining over His long, fair hair
Wreathed it as with a crown of light;
And oh, the grandeur and the grace
Of that pale and kingly face —
We were weary and hungered with toil of the night
But we thought not of it more!
He looked upon us with eyes that must see
Far in our hearts past mortal ken;
All the delights of the world grew dim —
Sweeter is seemed to suffer pain
And wander, outcast of men with Him,
Than share in another’s joy and gain;
Spake He thus royally, “Come with me;
I will make you fishers of men.”
Mother of her who weeps at my side
Cease to chide!
Thou knowest not how that one word rings
Ever by day and by night in my ear,
I cannot hearken to olden things
I cannot listen to hope or fear;
Mother of her who is dearest of all,
I must follow the Nazarene’s call!
THE OLD HOME CALLS
Come back to me, little dancing feet that roam the wide world o’er,
I long for the lilt of your flying steps in my silent rooms once more;
Come back to me, little voices gay with laughter and with song,
Come back, little hearts beating high with hopes, I have missed and
mourned you long.
My roses bloom in my garden walks all sweet and wet with the dew,
My lights shine down on the long hill road the waning twilights
through,
The swallows flutter about my eaves as in the years of old,
And close about me their steadfast arms the lisping pine trees fold.
But I weary for you at morn and eve, O, children of my love,
Come back to me from your pilgrim ways, from the seas and plains ye
rove,
Come over the meadows and up the lane to my door set open wide,
And sit ye down where the red light shines from my welcoming fireside.
I keep for you all your childhood dreams, your gladness and delights,
The joy of days in the sun and rain, the sleep of carefree nights,
All the sweet faiths ye have lost and sought again shall be your own,
Darlings, come to my empty heart — I am old and still and alone!
GENIUS
A hundred generations have gone into its making,
With all their love and tenderness, with all their dreams and tears;
Their vanished joy and pleasure, their pain and their heart-breaking,
Have colored this rare blossom of the long-unfruitful years.
Their victory and their laughter for this have strong men given,
For this have sweet, dead women paid in patience which survives —
That a great soul might bring the world, as from the gate of heaven,
All that was rich and beautiful in those forgotten lives.
LOVE’S PRAYER
Beloved, this the heart I offer thee
Is purified from old idolatry,
From outworn hopes, and from the lingering stain
Of passion’s dregs, by penitential pain.
Take thou it, then, and fill it up for me
With thine unstinted love, and it shall be
An earthy chalice that is made divine
By its red draught of sacramental wine.
THE PRISONER
I lash and writhe against my prison bars,
And watch with sullen eyes the gaping crowd ...
Give me my freedom and the burning stars,
The hollow sky, and crags of moonlit cloud!
Once I might range across the trackless plain,
And roar with joy, until the desert air
And wide horizons echoed it amain:
I feared no foe, for I was monarch there!
I saw my shadow on the parching sand,
When the hot sun had kissed the mountain’s rim;
And when the moon rose o’er long wastes of land,
I sought my prey by some still river’s brim;
And with me my fierce love, my tawny mate,
Meet mother of strong cubs, meet lion’s bride ...
We made our lair in regions desolate,
The solitude of wildernesses wide.
They slew her ... and I watched the life-blood flow
From her torn flank, and her proud eyes grow dim:
I howled her dirge above her while the low,
Red moon clomb up the black horizon’s rim.
Me, they entrapped ... cowards! They did not dare
To fight, as brave men do, without disguise,
And face my unleashed rage! The hidden snare
Was their device to win an untamed prize.
I am a captive ... not for me the vast,
White dome of sky above the blinding sand,
The sweeping rapture of the desert blast
Across long ranges of untrodden land!
Yet still they fetter not my thought! In dreams
I, desert-born, tread the hot wastes once more,
Quench my deep thirst in cool, untainted streams,
And shake the darkness with my kingly roar!
COMPANIONED
I walked to-day, but not alone,
Adown a windy, sea-girt lea,
For memory, spendthrift of her charm,
Peopled the silent lands for me.
The faces of old comradeship
In golden youth were round my way,
And in the keening wind I heard
The songs of many an orient day.
And to me called, from out the pines
And woven grasses, voices dear,
As if from elfin lips should fall
The mimicked tones of yesteryear.
Old laughter echoed o’er the leas
And love-lipped dreams the past had kept,
From wayside blooms like honeyed bees
To company my wanderings crept.
And so I walked, but not alone,
Right glad companionship had I,
On that gray meadow waste between
Dim-litten sea and winnowed sky.
YOU
Only a long, low-lying lane
That follows to the misty sea,
Across a bare and russet plain
Where wild winds whistle vagrantly;
I know that many a fairer path
With lure of song and bloom may woo,
But oh! I love this lonely strath
Because it is so full of you.
Here we have walked in elder years,
And here your truest memories wait,
This spot is sacred to your tears,
That to your laughter dedicate;
Here, by this turn, you gave to me
A gem of thought that glitters yet,
This tawny slope is graciously
By a remembered smile beset.
Here once you lingered on an hour
When stars were shining in the west,
To gather one pale, scented flower
And place it smiling on your breast;
And since that eve its fragrance blows
For me across the grasses sere,
Far sweeter than the latest rose,
That faded bloom of yesteryear.
For me the sky, the sea, the wold,
Have beckoning visions wild and fair,
The mystery of a tale untold,
The grace of an unuttered prayer.
Let others choose the fairer path
That winds the dimpling valley through,
I gladly seek this lonely strath
Companioned by my dreams of you.
UNRECORDED
I like to think of the many words
The Master in his early days
Must have spoken to them of Nazareth —
Words not freighted with life and death,
Piercing through soul and heart like swords.
