Here is strength, here,
In my own breast:
If I go whining to the Earth and the stars,
And beseech help of a sweet invisible one in the air about me,
Let me also go where I belong:
Among children and invalids.

Off with this habit of sickness!
Let me puff out my cheeks and blow away the vapors of sadness and downheartedness!
The erect pride shall beget a manner of triumph:
And the bugle of that manner shall call out the regiments of my tented soul.

Men of the High North, the wild sky is blazing,
Islands of opal float on silver seas;
Swift splendors kindle, barbaric, amazing;
Pale ports of amber, golden argosies.
Ringed all around us the proud peaks are glowing;
Fierce chiefs in council, their wigwam the sky;
Far, far below us the big Yukon flowing,
Like threaded quicksilver, gleams to the eye.

Men of the High North, you who have known it;
You in whose hearts its splendors have abode;
Can you renounce it, can you disown it?
Can you forget it, its glory and its goad?

My rhymes are rough, and often in my rhyming
I've drifted, silver-sailed, on seas of dream,
Hearing afar the bells of Elfland chiming,
Seeing the groves of Arcadie agleam.

I was the thrall of Beauty that rejoices
From peak snow-diademed to regal star;
Yet to mine aerie ever pierced the voices,
The pregnant voices of the Things That Are.

The Here, the Now, the vast Forlorn around us;
The gold-delirium, the ferine strife;
The lusts that lure us on, the hates that hound us;
Our red rags in the patch-work quilt of Life.

" Plus doux que les soirs vermeils de l'automne. "

Sweeter than Autumn's golden evenings are,
Or vernal skies that bend o'er daffodils;
Sweeter than windflowers that the wildwood star,
Or crannied blossoms on the April hills;
Sweeter than vows breathed by a convent maid,
Or earthier vows by lover to his lass;
Sweeter than thrush-notes in the darkening glade,
Or river singing through the swaying grass;
Sweeter than roseleaves in the boudoir air,
Than secret sweeter, sweeter than a smile,
Or the sweet tangles of Neaera's hair,

Upon a certain old Lady, who play'd very much at Cards, but with little Temper.

In Form, a Patagonian Size,
Disgustful, e'en to vulgar Eyes;
O'er-run with Manners gross and rude,
Affecting—what?—A worn out Prude:
Fie, Lady Dainty , give up play,
No more at Cards growl Time away;
To Church, instead of Rooms, repair,
Confess yourself in daily Pray'r.

The wheeling heavens, at this moment wheeling:
The self-absorbed crowds in the street â?¦
Gigantic paradox!
If they saw the sublimity of which they are part
They would hurry and hide, like children afraid of the dark.

I long for household voices gone,
For vanished smiles I long;
But God hath led my dear ones on,
And he can do no wrong.

I know not what the future hath
Of marvel or surprise,
Assured alone that life and death
His mercy underlies.

And if my heart and flesh are weak
To bear an untried pain,
The bruisèd reed he will not break,
But strengthen and sustain.

I know not where his islands lift
Their fronded palms in air;
Only know I cannot drift
Beyond his love and care.

And so beside the Silent Sea

I long for the city, but God knoweth best,
For there I fall short of a saint;
There are lovable characters out in the West
With humour heroic and quaint.
And, be it Up Country or be it Out Back,
When I shall have gone to my home,
I hope to be buried 'twixt river and track
Where my lovable characters roam.

There are lovable characters drag through the scrubs,
Where the Optimist ever prevails;
There are lovable characters hang round the pubs,
There are lovable jokers at Sales,
Where the Auctioneer's one of the lovable wags

'Twas a year ago and the moon was bright
(Oh, I remember so well, so well);
I walked with my love in a sea of light,
And the voice of my sweet was a silver bell.
And sudden the moon grew strangely dull,
And sudden my love had taken wing;
I looked on the face of a grinning skull,
I strained to my heart a ghastly thing.

'Twas but fantasy, for my love lay still
In my arms, with her tender eyes aglow,
And she wondered why my lips were chill,
Why I was silent and kissed her so.
A year has gone and the moon is bright,

My bold, aspiring, honest Muse,
(Despising ceremonious Views)
Ambitious in her Thirst of Fame,
And glorying in a C OLMAN'S Name,
Has urg'd me with intruding Speech,
To soar above my pigmy Reach;
I wou'd have check'd her daring Flight,
But she, all Fire, by this good Light!
Declar'd she'd leave me to my Fate,
And grov'lling I shou'd rue my State,
If I presum'd to stop her Speed:
She will'd it, and I must proceed;
I dare no more; this her own Lay,
By stern Command, I've pen'd To-day:
Beseech you to her Faults be blind,