There is a widowhood of doubt, there is a deeper hurt than death—
A life of always looking out, of listening with halted breath:
A sudden likeness in the street, a sound familiar in the tread
Of some one passing—so to meet some daily vision of the dead.

The Missing, dead yet living, they who live no more, and never died:
How these their widows day by day must bear a grief unsatisfied!
Not theirs a great Physician's balm, not theirs to linger by a cross,
Not theirs the years of sorrow's calm, the blessed certitude of loss.

O LIED! o Lied,
gij helpt de smert
 wanneer de rampen raken,
gij kunt, o Lied, de wonde in ‘t hert,
 de wonde in ‘t hert vermaken!
o Lied, o Lied!
gij laaft den dorst,
 gij bluscht het brandend blaken,
gij kunt, o Lied, de drooge borst
 en ‘t wee daarvan doen staken.
o Lied! o Lied,
het zwijgend nat
 dat leekt nu langs mijn kaken,
gij kunt het, en uw kunst is dat,
 gij kunt het honing maken…
o Lied! o Lied!

Where all the rivers northward run
Beyond the Height of Land,
And where the law is just a gun,
The judge a steady hand,
The feeble aspen of the drouth
Becomes a giant thing,
The quivering aspen of the South
Becomes an arctic king.

And so the man who journeys where
The road to Hudson's lies,
His wine the sharp Canadian air,
His compass in the skies,
Grows stronger like the aspen tree
That in the North appears —
Takes on the stature presently
Of arctic pioneers.

Heavy and white the cold snow lay,
As, nearing my cottage one winter day,
I saw by the porch a foot-print small,
A bare little foot-print, toes and all,
Pressed — ah, so wearily! — into the snow,
As if the wee step had been jaded and slow.
" Poor little homeless waif! " I thought;
But the fleeting sympathy came to naught —
For pity may fall from a heart that 's gay
As lightly as snow-flakes melting away;
And soon would be greeting me, strong in their charms,
Bright little faces and warm little arms.

Rusty, an' greasy, an' not very beautiful —
Holes in her fire-box, an' scale in her tubes —
Ready to rock in a manner undutiful,
Rollin' the rookies an' scarin' the rubes;
Loose in her bearin's, an' loose in her habit, too,
Shakin', an' quakin', an' rattlety-bang,
Needin' some paint an' some bolts, an' some babbitt, too —
But she's the pride of the whole of the gang.

Rusty, an' greasy, an' dirty she maybe is,
Wantin' some paint an' a week in the shops,
Cranky perhaps as a colicky baby is,

Right where you sit she sat
That last, last night we knew —
With roses in her hat,
A dress of blue;
And, just like you,
She would not have a light
But just the fire,
And all outdoors was night,
And night a lyre
That played a hundred tunes,
Old Junes,
Old Junes and new.
It seemed that all the songs I ever heard
Were echoed in the song of just one bird
Who would not stop when westward sank the sun,
Who would not stop until his song was done,
His singing through.

But still the musk
Came to us through the dusk,

You know the kind of morning that it was
(There are three mornings I remember well —
This was the first): The east a thing of gauze
Where one by one the filmy curtains fell,
So delicately fell, the morning light
Came now from nowhere, only grew and grew —
A little more of day and less of night
Until the west and east were equal blue.

That was the morning we came driving home
After the weekly dance at Coopersville,
When first the grayness stole across the dome;
Remember it was three we danced until?

Christina don't daintily dress,
Christina don't giggle an' gush.
She ain't got a dollar, I guess;
Christina slings hash for her cush.
She sweats in the dinin'-room rush;
She scolds now an' then more or less;
She's boss of the boardin'-house mess
An' rassles the coffee an' mush.

But where can you show me the dame
That has such a hold on a chap?
There isn't a guy in the game
But jumps when she gives him a slap.
She's queen of the White River map;
She sets all the mill-crew aflame;
For her all the scrappers are tame;

Let us sit here on the porch, my son.
Soon the night will come up the valley
Lighting her candles one by one,
Hiding the mill and the lumber alley.
Soon the night will come slowly stealing
Over the housetops and the street;
Soon the night will come gently healing
All of the hurt of the Summer's heat.

You are weary, my boy, to-night,
And I know it is not the working.
In your heart that was always light
There is another sadness lurking.
Toil may weary the limbs that bear you,
Toil may weary the arm that's strong;

Why, upon this lovely day,
Must that wretched fiddler play, —
All the sky one stainless blue, —
Every note he strikes, untrue! ...
Summer deep embowered in flowers,
Silent music in the hours,
In the east a feather moon, —
And — that fiddler out of tune!
God's hand never slipped to mar
At the making of a star;
There's no true excuse yet made
For the bungler at his trade!