Flint and Feather: Collected Verse Part 16

THE INDIAN CORN PLANTER

He needs must leave the trapping and the chase, For mating game his arrows ne'er despoil, And from the hunter's heaven turn his face, To wring some promise from the dormant soil.

He needs must leave the lodge that wintered him, The enervating fires, the blanket bed-- The women's dulcet voices, for the grim Realities of labouring for bread.

So goes he forth beneath the planter's moon With sack of seed that pledges large increase, His simple pagan faith knows night and noon, Heat, cold, seedtime and harvest shall not cease.

And yielding to his needs, this honest sod, Brown as the hand that tills it, moist with rain, Teeming with ripe fulfilment, true as G.o.d, With fostering richness, mothers every grain.

THE CATTLE COUNTRY

Up the dusk-enfolded prairie, Foot-falls, soft and sly, Velvet cus.h.i.+oned, wild and wary, Then--the coyote's cry.

Rush of hoofs, and roar and rattle, Beasts of blood and breed, Twenty thousand frightened cattle, Then--the wild stampede.

Pliant la.s.so circling wider In the frenzied flight-- Loping horse and cursing rider, Plunging through the night.

Rim of dawn the darkness losing Trail of blackened soil; Perfume of the sage brush oozing On the air like oil.

Foothills to the Rockies lifting Brown, and blue, and green, Warm Alberta sunlight drifting Over leagues between.

That's the country of the ranges, Plain and prairie land, And the G.o.d who never changes Holds it in His hand.

AUTUMN'S ORCHESTRA

(INSCRIBED TO ONE BEYOND SEAS)

Know by the thread of music woven through This fragile web of cadences I spin, That I have only caught these songs since you Voiced them upon your haunting violin.

THE OVERTURE

October's orchestra plays softly on The northern forest with its thousand strings, And Autumn, the conductor wields anon The Golden-rod-- The baton that he swings.

THE FIRS

There is a lonely minor chord that sings Faintly and far along the forest ways, When the firs finger faintly on the strings Of that rare violin the night wind plays, Just as it whispered once to you and me Beneath the English pines beyond the sea.

MOSSES

The lost wind wandering, forever grieves Low overhead, Above grey mosses whispering of leaves Fallen and dead.

And through the lonely night sweeps their refrain Like Chopin's prelude, sobbing 'neath the rain.

THE VINE

The wild grape mantling the trail and tree, Festoons in graceful veils its drapery, Its tendrils cling, as clings the memory stirred By some evasive haunting tune, twice heard.

THE MAPLE

I

It is the blood-hued maple straight and strong, Voicing abroad its patriotic song.

II

Its daring colours bravely flinging forth The ensign of the Nation of the North.

HARE-BELL

Elfin bell in azure dress, Chiming all day long, Ringing through the wilderness Dulcet notes of song.

Daintiest of forest flowers Weaving like a spell-- Music through the Autumn hours, Little Elfin bell.

THE GIANT OAK

And then the sound of marching armies 'woke Amid the branches of the soldier oak, And tempests ceased their warring cry, and dumb The las.h.i.+ng storms that muttered, overcome, Choked by the heralding of battle smoke, When these gnarled branches beat their martial drum.

ASPENS

A sweet high treble threads its silvery song, Voice of the restless aspen, fine and thin It trills its pure soprano, light and long-- Like the vibretto of a mandolin.

FINALE

The cedar trees have sung their vesper hymn, And now the music sleeps-- Its benediction falling where the dim Dusk of the forest creeps.

Mute grows the great concerto--and the light Of day is darkening, Good-night, Good-night.

But through the night time I shall hear within The murmur of these trees, The calling of your distant violin Sobbing across the seas, And waking wind, and star-reflected light Shall voice my answering. Good-night, Good-night.

THE TRAIL TO LILLOOET

Sob of fall, and song of forest, come you here on haunting quest, Calling through the seas and silence, from G.o.d's country of the west.

Where the mountain pa.s.s is narrow, and the torrent white and strong, Down its rocky-throated canyon, sings its golden-throated song.

You are singing there together through the G.o.d-begotten nights, And the leaning stars are listening above the distant heights That lift like points of opal in the crescent coronet About whose golden setting sweeps the trail to Lillooet.

Trail that winds and trail that wanders, like a cobweb hanging high, Just a hazy thread outlining mid-way of the stream and sky, Where the Fraser River canyon yawns its pathway to the sea, But half the world has shouldered up between its song and me.

Here, the placid English August, and the sea-encircled miles, There--G.o.d's copper-coloured suns.h.i.+ne beating through the lonely aisles Where the waterfalls and forest voice for ever their duet, And call across the canyon on the trail to Lillooet.