The Complete Works of L M Montgomery
Page 772
And everybody in every place
Seemed to have something to do.
So it must be the best way after all
And I mean to stay on shore
And learn my lessons and do my tasks
And be Lazy-Lad no more.
The busiest folks are the happiest,
And what mother said was true,
For I’ve found out there is no such place
As the Land of Nothing-to-do.”
Up In The Poplars
Up in the poplars all together
Five of us swung in the blithesome weather,
Long ago in the garden old,
When the sunshine fell in showers of gold
Through a leafy riot of dancing shadows.
And over and up from the clover meadows
Winds blew dreamily, odor-freighted,
From hills that ever in calmness waited.
There in the poplars we were sitting,
Golden visions around us flitting.
Three of us lads with the fire of youth,
And two were girls with eyes of truth.
All of us dreamers all together,
There in the mellow summer weather.
Nell, with her dark eyes’ flashing splendor,
Lil, with her sweet voice, low and tender,
Dick and Tom, with their laughter gay —
All of us light at heart that day.
There we talked of the years on-coming,
Heart and fancy alike went roaming,
Nell was a singer laurel-crowned,
Known and praised all the world around;
Lil, a nurse on the field of battle,
Angel-faced’mid the roar and rattle;
Dick was a sailor to far-off seas
And islands as fair as Hesperides.
Tom was an artist with brush inspired,
I was a writer with pen untired —
All of us famous there together
Up in the poplars in summer weather.
Up in the poplars we swung and chattered —
What were our dreamings little mattered.
Wealth and fame we were sure of winning,
There in the joyance of life’s beginning —
Never a thought of the world’s sure sorrow,
Never a fear of the dim tomorrow.
Alas, for the dreams we dreamed together
There in the heartsome summer weather!
Dark-eyed Nellie is soundly sleeping
Where far-off mountains their watch are keeping.
Lil in a humble home is queen.
Tom is a merchant, hard and keen.
And Dick, the careless and debonair,
Is a gouty, unhappy millionaire,
While I am a penniless, unknown rover
Hither and thither, the wide world over.
Alas for the dreams we dreamed together
Up in the poplars in summer weather.
What Children Know
Many things the children know —
Where the ripest berries grow,
Where the first pale violets peep
Shyly from their winter’s sleep,
And how many blue eggs rest
In the robin’s woven nest.
Children know where echoes hide
Over on the brown hillside,
How to tell a fortune bright
By the daisy petals white,
How the honey you may sup
From the meadow clover’s cup.
Something else the children know —
Oh, they learned it long ago!
Mother’s shoulder is the best
Place in all the world to rest.
And the sweetest dreams belong
To a mother’s twilight song!
The New Year’s Book
The book of the New Year lies open to you,
Dear lassies and lads, to be all written through.
Its pages have never a spot or a stain:
See to it that unspoiled and unmarred they remain,
Taking all care,
With effort and prayer,
To make of this volume a thing pure and fair.
Write in it no record of wrong and of ill
But kindness and courage and deeds of good will.
Let nothing of evil creep stealthily in
To darken the pages with shadows of sin,
But write every day,
As the year goes its way,
Shining thoughts of high worth that will sparkle for aye.
Put in it the splendor and hope of your youth,
Lines of honor and glory and beauty and truth,
Temptations o’ermastered and weakness made strong,
The sunshine of smiles and the blessing of song,
Striving always that not
A mistake or a blot
This beautiful book of the year may bespot.
For this record once written is written for aye,
No time can erase, no repentance gainsay,
With its evil or good, with its joy and its tears,
It is signed and sealed fast by the angel of years.
Then let us take heed,
Since God hath decreed
In eternity’s halls what we’ve written we’ll read.
Farewell
Sunset: and all the distant hills are shrouded
In dusky golden light!
Day burns herself to death in funeral splendor
Before the birth of night.
I stand beside the softly flowing river
Its deeps another sky,
Far up the winding curves are lost in glory
Far down the shadows lie.
Across the prairie misty glooms are creeping
And clustering by the stream;
The evening breezes rustle mid the branches
And all things lonely seem.
Half-sad, I gaze upon the noble river
In its remorseless flow;
Onward and onward ever — all regardless
Of human joy or woe.
A dewy hush; I hear the softened chiming
Of some faint, far-off bell;
And here beneath the golden skies of sunset,
I come to say — farewell!
Proud river, rolling past the floods of ages;
Fair isles with beauty crowned!
Dark forests tossing weirdly’gainst the golden
Dim misty hills beyond.
’Tis time to bid farewell to these and hasten
To a far distant land,
Back where the ocean moans in ceaseless sorrow
On the Atlantic’s strand.
Farewell! blue tide of mighty waters
A living friend you seem;
How oft in rapture gazing on your beauty,
I’ve wandered by your stream.
Your spirit speaks to mine in nature’s music
Beneath the darkening light;
’Tis with a saddened heart — that now I bid thee
A long farewell to-night.
Farewell, ye prairies, bright in sunlit beauty
Where buds of sweetness bloom,
Where breezes float across the dimpled lakelets
In breaths of rich perfume.
Bright pleasant memories round your hillsides cluster
And through the coming years
Your fairy slopes my thoughts will oft revisit
Farewell, with many tears.
Farewell dark forests with your lonely vistas,
Your secrets of the past,
The mystic whisper of your soughing branches
Your purple shadows cast!
Your myriad voices answer through the stillness
In one long shivering sigh:
Farewell, farewell, they seem to whisper softly
And then in silence die.
Farewell, dear friends, your kindness I will cherish
Among all memories sweet
Long ye
ars may pass ere once again I’ll greet you,
Yet oft in thought we’ll meet.
Farewell, Prince Albert, pride of western prairies!
Bright may thy future be;
Rise to a noble and a wealthy city,
Farewell, farewell to thee.
Fainter and fainter grow the distant outlines
And phantom shadows glide
Where’neath the thickets of o’erhanging branches
Plashes the rippling tide.
In the far blue some early stars are shining,
The west has lost its light
All sounds are mingled in one gentle murmur
Beneath the touch of night.
I turn to go “my eyes with tears are misty.”
Still rings that distant bell
Hills, prairies, forests, river, all — I bid you
One last, one long farewell.
On Cape Le Force
(A legend of the early days of Prince Edward Island)
One evening, when the sun was low,
I stood upon the wave-kissed strand,
And watched the white-sailed boats glide by,
Their sails by evening breezes fanned.
In dimpling azure lay the sea,
The rippling wavelets tinged with gold,
While to the rosy-clouded west
A sparkling path of glory rolled.
I climbed the rocky cliffs and gained
A rugged cape, around whose sides
The wavelets crept with moaning sigh,
Or surges dashed their mighty tides.
Behind the lovely village lay
The fertile fields of waving green,
Fair sloping hills and quiet dales,
With spruce and maple groves between.
Before me slept that peerless sea,
Its beauty tranquil and serene:
Search all our lovely Island o’er
Thou wilt not find a fairer scene.
I stood upon that lovely cliff
And called to mind the legend dread
Which made it an accursed spot —
One shunned by superstitious tread.
’Twas years ago — ere yet the flag
Of Britain claimed our loyalty,
And fair Prince Edward Island owned
Allegiance to the fleur-de-lis.
When war’s dark cloud hung threatening low
Above our fair Canadian land,
And echoes of the troubled strife
Reached e’en our Island’s quiet strand;
And o’er our blue Saint Lawrence Gulf
Sailed many a plundering privateer,
Defying law and right and force
In their piratical career.
But, when the strife of war had passed
And gentle Peace resumed her reign,
They met the fate they well deserved —
Captured or wrecked upon the main.
And one — a treasure-laden ship —
Was stranded here one autumn day,
And off this headland, lone and bleak,
With all her precious freight she lay;
And, loth to lose his ill-won wealth,
The captain planned how he might save
The treasure that his vessel held
From English foes or ocean wave.
“The shore,” he said, “is bleak and wild,
The rocks no human footsteps bear;
And death will seal the lips of those
Who know I hide the treasure there.”
So all that sunny autumn day,
The captain and his pirate band
Bore untold wealth from ship to shore
And hid it on the rocky strand.
But, when the western sky had pealed
And darkness veiled the forests wide,
They tented on the lonely cape
To wait the dawn of morning tide.
Then rose the bursts of laughter wild,
Mingled with curses deep and strong,
The taunting sneer, the fierce reply,
The vulgar joke, and drunken song.
Wild was the scene; but when the moon
Rose slowly up the eastern blue,
Tipping the dark fir trees with light,
Unconscious lay the drunken crew.
And all were wrapped in heavy sleep
Save two — the captain and the mate —
Who sat together in a tent,
Their faces drawn with rage and hate.
And, as they sat, above them poised
The friends of hatred and despair,
Of malice, envy, murder, scorn,
Revenge and avarice — all were there.
There, to divide their ill-won gains
And plan the murder of the crew,
Had met those different types of crime,
And quarrelled — as all such will do.
Facing each other, there they sat —
The captain, tall and dark and stem,
With sneering lip and glittering eye,
Where all dark passions seemed to burn.
The mate, with vicious brutal face,
Growled, like some snarling beast at bay
Defiant threats and savage oaths
Of vengeance on the coming day.
“Well, be it so,” the captain cried,
“To-morrow, when the sun shall rise,
Our pistols will decide our claims
And one shall lose or win the prize.
Good night, my friend, and pleasant dreams,
I leave you now till dawn of day.”
He bowed with air of mocking scorn
And sought the moonlight’s silver ray.
The night was calm; all sounds were hushed,
Save for some lonely night-bird’s cry,
Or wavelets splashing on the shore,
Or cool night-breezes rustling by.
All night, upon the sullen verge,
With restless tread the captain walked,
While o’er the sea the moonbeams played
And shadows past the headland stalked.
Did some presentiment of ill,
Upon the morrow, cross his brain?
Felt he repentance for the past?
Or schemed he but fresh crimes again?
At length, when morning flushed the east,
The rivals met. The half-drunk crew
Stood huddled in a powerless group,
Not knowing what to say or do.
A look of craven fear was stamped
Upon the mate’s low, brutal face,
Mingled with sinister cunning, as
Before the tent he took his place.
The captain, calm, composed and firm,
Betrayed no trace of doubt or fear;
His face still wore its cool contempt,
His lips, their cold sardonic sneer.
“Twelve paces off, I’ll stand,” he said,
And, with his pistol in his hand,
He lightly turned upon his heel
And calmly walked toward his stand.
Sudden the mate his pistol raised —
What need is there the rest to tell?
A sharp reportl and, in his blood,
Shot through the heart, the captain fell.
Then’ere the fear-struck crew could stir,
Flinging his weapon from his hand,
The guilty wretch sprang down the cliff
And fled along the rocky strand.
No hand was raised to stay his flight;
Few knew the crime, nor cared who did,
And’ere the sun had left the wave,
The murderer was in safety hid.
And ne’er was he to justice brought,
For, in those days of blood and strife,
Murder was deemed a light offence
And lightly held was one man’s life.
And, on this lonely wind-swept cape
Right where the murdered captain
fell,
A hasty grave the sailors made,
And winds and surges rang his knell.
Forgotten in his lonely grave
He slept, while years unnumbered fled,
And dark traditions of the spot
Enwrapped it with unfading dread.
Long since, all vestige of the grave
Has vanished — but the legend lives,
And to this headland’s rocky steeps
A weird and awful interest gives.
And, to this day, this lonely cape,
Which stems the billows stormy course,
Still bears the name of him who fell
Upon its summit — Cape Le Force.
June!
“Wake up,” the robins warble,
“The summer time” is here,
The month of blushing roses,
The darling of the year.
Wake up, you lazy dreamers!
The summer’s waiting you,
The days are long and golden;
The skies are tender blue.
The earth is full of gladness,
Of light and song and bloom,
Join in the summer brightness,
Nor ever think of gloom.
Make haste, June-days to welcome,
For summer-time will fleet
As swift as flying shadows
Across the ripened wheat.
And, when the autumn breezes
Sigh through September’s leaves,
And all the sloping hillsides
Wave rows to tasselled sheaves.
The birds that follow summer
Will seek a southern sky,
The sweetness of her blossoms
Will, all forgotten, die.
And summer to her lover
Will yield her weary charms,
Sink peacefully to slumber,
And die in autumn’s arms.
Come, then, ye lazy dreamers,
Come forth to light and love,
The earth is wreathed with garlands,
The skies are blue above.
The birds their love songs carol
‘Mid golden summer blooms;
The breezes whisper softly
In twilight’s opal glooms;
All glad things bid you welcome
While last the summer hours.
Who wishes more than June-time,
With song and light and flowers.
I Feel (Vers Libre)
I — feel
Very much
Like taking
Its unholy perpetrators
By the hair
Of their heads
(If they have any hair)
And dragging them around
A few times,
And then cutting them
Into small, irregular pieces
And burying them
In the depths of the blue sea.
They are without form