When I was twenty inches long,
I could not hear the thrush's song;
The radiance of the morning skies
Was most displeasing to my eyes.
For loving looks, caressing words,
I cared no more than sun or birds;
But I could bite my mother's breast,
And that made up for all the rest.
The need to love that all the stars obey
Entered my heart and banished all beside.
Bare were the gardens where I used to stray;
Faded the flowers that one time satisfied.
Before the beauty of the west on fire,
The moonlit hills from cloister-casements viewed
Cloud-like arose the image of desire,
And cast out peace and maddened solitude.
I sought the City and the hopes it held:
With smoke and brooding vapors intercurled,
As the thick roofs and walls close-paralleled
Shut out the fair horizons of the world---
The need for love knocked on my door.
Unsuspecting and oblivious, I lead her inside.
And suddenly she left me craving for more,
and I was unhappy with what was already mine.
The need for love stayed for years,
and she was bossy and whiny and always alone.
She brought sleepless nights and terrible fears,
so I couldn’t find peace even in my home.
The need for love left one morning,
only her memory lingered in my room.
But somehow she managed to leave me a yearning –
There's a thing we love to think of when the summer days are long,
And the summer winds are blowing, and the summer sun is strong,
When the orchards and the meadows throw their fragrance on the air,
When the grain-fields flaunt their riches, and the glow is everywhere.
Something sings it all the day,
Canada, fair Canada,
And the pride thrills through and through us,
'Tis our birthplace, Canada!
There's a thing we love to think of when the frost and ice and snow
Hold high carnival together, and the biting north winds blow.
Despair has no wings,
Nor has love,
No countenance:
They do not speak.
I do not stir,
I do not behold them,
I do not speak to them,
But I am as real as my love and my despair.
When the shadows take their nightly places,
When departing light is faint and pale,
Then in my chamber gather phantom faces,
Gazing thro' the mystic veil.
One there is with features so familiar,
Glimpse of her give[s] my pulse a start;
Oh! tell me truely is it you, love,
Come to cheer my lonly heart?
Come one step nearer! (One step nearer!)
one shade clearer? (one shade clearer!)
Breath on word before we part; (before we part;)
And tell me--truly it is you, love,
Come to cheer my lonely heart?
O! The spring-time of life is the season of blooming,
And the morning of love is the season of joy;
Ere noontide and summer, with radiance consuming,
Look down on their beauty, to parch and destroy.
0! faint are the blossoms life's pathway adorning,
When the first magic glory of hope is withdrawn;
For the flowers of the spring, and the light of the morning,
Have no summer budding, and no second dawn.
Through meadows all sunshine, and verdure, and flowers
The stream of the valley in purity flies;
NOT in rich glebe and ripe green garden only
Does Summer weave her sweet resistless spells,
But in high hills, and moorlands waste and lonely,
The vast enchantment of her presence dwells.
Wide sky, and sky-wide waste of thyme and heather,
Perpetual sleepy hum of golden bees--
If you and I were only there together,
Free from the weight of all your garden's trees!
The north is mine; though bred by elm and meadow,
Pines, torrents, rocks, and moors my heart loves best;
Sleep! Cast thy canopy
Over this sleeper's brain,
Dim grow his memory,
When he wake again.
Love stays a summer night,
Till lights of morning come;
Then takes her winged flight
Back to her starry home.
Sleep! Yet thy days are mine;
Love's seal is over thee:
Far though my ways from thine,
Dim though thy memory.
Love stays a summer night,
Till lights of morning come;
Then takes her winged flight
Back to her starry home.
In mirth he mocks the other birds at noon,
Catching the lilt of every easy tune;
But when the day departs he sings of love,--
His own wild song beneath the listening moon.
