Song-waves

Excerpt

TO EMELINE.

would enshrine in silvern song
The charm that bore our souls along,
As in the sun-flushed days of summer
We felt the pulsings of nature's throng;

When flecks of foam of flying spray
Smote white the red sun's torrid ray,
Or wimpling fogs toyed with the mountain,
Aërial spirits of dew at play;

When hovering stars, poised in the blue,
Came down and ever closer drew;
Or, in the autumn air astringent,
Glimmered the pearls of the moonlit dew.

We talked of bird and flower and tree,
Of God and man and destiny.
The years are wise though days be foolish,
We said, as swung to its goal the sea.

Our spirits knew keen fellowship
Of light and shadow, heart and lip;
The veil of Mâyâ grew transparent,
And hidden things came within our grip.

And then we sang: "In Arcady
All hearts are born, thus happy-free,
Till film of sin shuts out the Vision
That is, and was, and that is to be."

Thus wrought the Seen-Unseen the spell
To which our spirits rose and fell.
As drops of dew throb with the ocean,
We felt ourselves of His tidal swell.

"Nature's enchantment is of Love,—
Goodness, and truth, and beauty wove;
In Him all things do hold together,
And onward, upward to Him they move."

And as we spake the full moon came,
A splendid globe in silver flame,
From out the dusky waste of waters,
Reposeful sped by His mighty name.

Sweetheart, I dedicate to thee
These Song-Waves from life's voiceful sea.
They ebb and flow with swift occasion,
Bearing rich freight, and perhaps debris.

Each murmuring low its song apart
May hint a symphony of art,
Since under all, within, and over,
Is diapason of Love's great heart.

For thee, as on the bridal day,
(Sweet our November as the May!)
Are joined in one our high communings;
So take them, dear, as thine own, I pray.

TORONTO, 1900.

soul, that art essential change,
Bickering beams, a flutter strange,
Lightning of thought and gust of passion,
A silver thread in this mountain range;

The waters of thy shimmering rill,
More real are they than granite hill;
Thy tremulous waves of mystic feeling
Nourish a life of enduring will.

The sun and moon from spacious height,
And stars, may crumble into night;
Why shouldst thou cease to move forever,
A living glow of eternal light?

pirit of Song, life's golden ray
That burneth in this house of clay,
Despite the stress of blast and tempest
To quench the flickering light and play;

Rapture of seraphs bright thou art,
Yet kindlest in the human heart
The fluid soul's upbreathed emotion,
Whose light shines clear as a star apart,—

A fairer light of sweeter fame
Than science knows to praise or blame,
Wherein the soul has open vision,
And feels the glow of His holy flame.

mpressions vast and vague flow in
From Somewhat that to me is kin.
Shall I assemble them all careless
In the mind's garret or waste dust-bin?

Nay. In solution in the soul's
Own hot equators, frosty poles,
I'll more and more their import cherish,
Their deeps on deeps to my shelving shoals.

O heart, with tentacles in sea,
Like oral-disked anemone,
Taste thou the wine of shoreless oceans,
And feed on food that was meant for thee!