English

The nights are colder than they was,
The days are shorter, too;
The starry light
Shines out to-night
From skies of deeper blue.
The green that lies along the hills
Is turning brown an' sear —
Yet I don't need
No signs to read
Tp know the time o' year.

An' I don't need no almanac
To tell what time it is,
No Autumn haze
An' shorter days
An' all that kind of biz.
Lord! Don't I know the Fall is here
When loud the nightwind groans?
Lord! Don't I know

You can always tell a loafer, if there's loafin' in the crew;
You can always tell a loafer, for he has so much to do:
When the men are in the maintop he is fussin' with a jib;
On the drive he's always lookin' for a chance away to snib;
In the woods the smallest timber is the timber he will find;
In the yard the twelve-by-twenty is the kind he leaves behind.
He will fuss an' he will fiddle huntin' up the softest snap:
Life is one eternal treadmill for the take-it-easy chap.
Yes, it takes a lot of trouble skippin' labor day by day;

The love of a woman is sweet;
In life I have fondled a few,
Have felt the red blood as it beat
The uttermost arteries through.
Yet God in His wisdom divine,
Yet God in His infinite plan,
Made nothing as holy and fine
As the love of a man for a man.

There was one with the dark in her hair,
There was one with the dawn in her eyes,
There was one who had kisses to spare —
For never a memory dies.
But, maids, you were nothing but maids;
You passed, as the waters that ran.

Our way to camp we used to drive
Along about this time of year.
A man felt good to be alive
When it come time again to steer
Up-river way. We'd top the hill
An' then the town would drop from sight
An' all the night got calm an' still
An' all the world got pure an' white.

You know, when you let loose of men
An' git up there among the trees,
You slip right back to God again
An' you're a kid on bended knees.
Then things you thought you had forgot
Come back to you by jump an' leap;

The man with an ax,
The lad with a saw,
Learn numerous facts
Of natural law.
A thing you will see
As you work at your art:
The older the tree,
The greater the heart.

There are sorrow and storm
As the forest grows old;
There are Summers too warm,
There are Winters too cold.
Gray the Autumn may be
And the sun may depart —
But the older the tree,
The greater the heart.

Grow old like the pine
Through the smiles and the tears,
Growing better, like wine,

The work in the woods, oh, it's heavy the hurt of it,
The long day of labor, the short night of rest,
The camp, and the tramp, and the damp and the dirt of it,
Afoot when the stars are still out in the west,
The sting of the wind, or the snow and the rain of it,
The cold sky if clear and the wet sky if gray —
And yet there is something, with all of the pain of it,
That finds us and coaxes and calls us away.

The work in the woods! — There is something in spite of it
That pulls at the heart like a sailor the sea,

They'll soon be callin' up the crew to cut the Edwards pine;
You feel it in the lungs of you, you fill 'em full of wine;
The night is full of piney smells, the perfume of the North;
An' cold an' clear as icicles the starbeams glitter forth.

They'll soon be callin' us to come; they'll need us in the bush—
The sturdy sons of Scotia some, the old Toronto push,
The Frenchman with his shinin' saw, the sons of Englishmen—
They'll need us up the Ottawa to cut their pine again.

We're getherin' at Wullie's bar, we're settin' in the sun,

When Marco passed, all young men
Leaned to see his eyes, Sodoms
Where the fires of love burning mercilessly
Your poor hut, O Friendship cold;
Danced around mystical perfumes
Where the soul is crying annihilated,
On her red hair slipping charm;
Her dress made strange music
When Marco happening.

When Marco sang, his hands on ivory
Often evoked the black depth
Primitive that no air has redits,
And his voice rose in paradise
The great symphony of dreams
And enthusiasm was carrying

The heavy apple-trees
Are shaking off their snow in breezy play;
The frail anemones
Have fallen, fading, from the lap of May;
Lanterned with white, the chestnut branches wave,
And all the woods are gay.
Come, children, come away,
And we will make a flower-bed to-day
About our dear one's grave.
O, if we could but tell the wild-flowers where
Lies his dear head, gloried with sunny hair,
So noble and so fair,
How would they haste to bloom and weep above
The heart that loved them with so fond a love!

A year ago this day, my girl,
The clover told a thing to you,
Amid the stir and noisy whirl
Of wheels, as toward his home we flew;
And now you know how fond and true
The thing the clover said to you.

With modest mirth and girlish grace,
You took the gift and lightly smiled;
You pressed it softly to your face,
(What wonder that the flower grew wild!)
And now, in thought, again we trace,
The clover bloom, the girlish grace.

Over the self-same road again
You journey, — yours the homeward way;