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THE CANADIANS OF OLD (From the French of PHILIPPE AUBERT DE GASPE)
TORONTO WILLIAM BRIGGS MONTREAL: C. W. COATES. HALIFAX: S. F. HUESTIS
By the kind courtesy of Messrs. D. Lothrop Company, I am permitted to reprint in this collection seven sonnets from my volume entitled ‘In Divers Tones.’ This is done to complete the series of sonnets dealing with aspects of common outdoor life. The sonnets reprinted are ‘The Sower,’ ‘The Potato Harvest,’ ‘Tides,’ ‘In September,’ ‘Dark,’ ‘Rain,’ and ‘Mist.’ The Ode for the Centenary of Shelley’s Birth was first published by the Williamson Book Company, of Toronto, in December 1892, in a limited edition of two hundred copies.
IN THE WIDE AWE AND WISDOM OF THE NIGHT 28
THE BIRD’S SONG, THE SUN, AND THE WIND 74
NEW YEAR’S EVE (_After the French of Fréchette_) 81
AVE! AN ODE FOR THE CENTENARY OF SHELLEY’S BIRTH 111
Across the fog the moon lies fair. Transfused with ghostly amethyst, O white Night, charm to wonderment The cattle in the mist!
Thy touch, O grave Mysteriarch, Makes dull, familiar things divine. O grant of thy revealing gift Be some small portion mine!
Make thou my vision sane and clear, That I may see what beauty clings In common forms, and find the soul Of unregarded things!
How sombre slope these acres to the sea And to the breaking sun! The sun-rise deeps Of rose and crocus, whence the far dawn leaps, Gild but with scorn their grey monotony. The glebe rests patient for its joy to be. Past the salt field-foot many a dim wing sweeps; And down the field a first slow furrow creeps, Pledge of near harvests to the unverdured lea.
With clank of harness tramps the serious team-- The sea air thrills their nostrils. Some wise crows Feed confidently behind the ploughman’s feet. In the early chill the clods fresh cloven steam, And down its griding path the keen share goes: So, from a scar, best flowers the future’s sweet.
A brown, sad-coloured hillside, where the soil Fresh from the frequent harrow, deep and fine, Lies bare; no break in the remote sky-line, Save where a flock of pigeons streams aloft, Startled from feed in some low-lying croft, Or far-off spires with yellow of sunset shine; And here the Sower, unwittingly divine, Exerts the silent forethought of his toil.