Verses and Rhymes By the Way

Excerpt

PART I

Lays of fair dames of lofty birth,
  And golden hair alt richly curled;
Of knights that venture life for love,
  Suit poets of the older world.
We wilt not fill our simple rhymes,
  With diamond flash, or gleaming pearl;
In singing of the by-gone times;
We simply sing the love and faith,
Outliving absence, strong as death,
Of one Jow-born Canadian girl.

'Twas long ago the rapid spring
  Had scarce given place to summer yet,
The Ottawa, with swollen flood,
  Rolled past thy banks, Plantagenet;
Thy banks where tall and plumed pines
Stood rank on rank, in serried lines.
Green islands, each with leafy crest,
Lay peaceful on the river's breast,
The trees, ere this, had, one by one,
Shook out their leaflets to the sun,
Forming a rustling, waving screen,
While swollen waters rolled between.

The wild deer trooped through woodland path,
  And sought the river's strand,
Slight danger then of flashing death,
  From roving hunter's hand;
For very seldom was there seen
  A hunter of the doomed red race,
Few spots, with miles of bush between,
  Marked each a settler's dwelling-place.
No lumberer's axe, no snorting scream
Of fierce, though trained and harnessed steam,
No paddle-wheel's revolving sound,
No raftsman's cheer, no bay of hound
Was heard to break the silent spell
That seemed to rest o'er wood and dell,
All was so new, so in its prime—
  An almost perfect solitude,
As if had passed but little time
  Since the All Father called it good.
Nature in one thanksgiving psalm,
Gathered each sound that broke the calm.

There was a little clearing there—
A snow white cot—a garden fair—
Where useful plants in order set,
With bergamot and mignonette.
Glories that round the casement run,
And pansies smiling at the sun,
And wild-wood blossoms fair and sweet,
Showed forth how thrift and beauty meet;
There was a space to plant and sow,
Fenced by the pines strong hands laid low.
By that lonely cottage stood,
With eyes fixed on the swollen flood,
A slight young girl with raven hair,
And face that was both sad and fair.

Oh, fair and lovely are the maids,
Nursed in Canadian forest shades;
The beauties of the older lands
Moulded anew by nature's hands,
Fired by the free Canadian soul,
Join to produce a matchless whole.
The roses of Britannia's Isle,
In rosy blush and rosy smile;
The light of true and tender eyes,
As blue and pure as summer skies;
Light-footed maids, as matchless fair
  As grow by Scotia's heath fringed rills—
Sweet as the hawthorn scented air,
  And true as the eternal hills.
We have the arch yet tender grace,
The power to charm of Erin's race;
The peachy cheek, the rosebud mouth,
Imported from the sunny south,
With the dark, melting, lustrous eye,
Silk lashes curtain languidly.

The charms of many lands had met
In Marie of Plantagenet;
She had the splendid southern eye
  She had the northern brow of snow,
The blush caught from a northern sky,
  Dark silky locks of southern flow,
Light-footed as the forest roe,
  As stately as the mountain pine,
A smile that lighted up her face,
The sunshine of a maiden's grace,
  And made her beauty half divine....