Songs of the Prairie Part 1

Songs of the Prairie.

by Robert J. C. Stead.

THE PRAIRIE

The City? Oh, yes, the City Is a good enough place for a while, It fawns on the clever and witty, And welcomes the rich with a smile; It lavishes money as water, It boasts of its palace and hall, But the City is only the daughter-- The Prairie is mother of all!

The City is all artificial, Its life is a fas.h.i.+on-made fraud, Its wisdom, though learned and judicial, Is far from the wisdom of G.o.d; Its hope is the hope of ambition, Its l.u.s.t is the l.u.s.t to acquire, And the larger it grows, its condition Sinks lower in pestilent mire.

The City is cramped and congested, The haunt and the covert of crime; The Prairie is broad, unmolested, It points to the high and sublime; Where only the sky is above you And only the distance in view, With no one to jostle or shove you-- It's there a man learns to be true!

Where the breeze whispers over the willows Or sighs in the dew laden gra.s.s, And the rain clouds, like big, stormy billows, Besprinkle the land as they pa.s.s; With the smudge-fire alight in the distance, The wild duck alert on the stream, Where life is a psalm of existence And opulence only a dream.

Where wide as the plan of creation The Prairies stretch ever away, And beckon a broad invitation To fly to their bosom, and stay; The prairie fire smell in the gloaming-- The water-wet wind in the spring-- An empire untrod for the roaming-- Ah, this is a life for a king!

When peaceful and pure as a river They lie in the light of the moon, You know that the Infinite Giver Is stringing your spirit a-tune; That life is not told in the telling, That death does not whisper adieu, And deep in your bosom up-welling, You know that the Promise is true!

To those who have seen it and smelt it, To those who have loved it alone To those who have known it and felt it-- The Prairie is ever their own; And far though they wander, unwary, Far, far from the breath of the plain, A thought of the wind on the Prairie Will set their blood rus.h.i.+ng again.

Then you to the City who want it, Go, grovel its gain-glutted streets, Be one of the ciphers that haunt it, Or sit in its opulent seats; But for me, where the Prairies are reaching As far as the vision can scan-- Ah, that is the prayer and the preaching That goes to the heart of a man!

THE GRAMOPHONE

Where the lonely settler's shanty dots the plain, And he sighs for friends and comrades.h.i.+p in vain, Through the silences intense Comes a sound of eloquence Shrilling forth in steely, brazen, waxen strain-- The deep, resonant voice of Gladstone calling from the tomb, Or Ingersoll's deliverance before his brother's bier; Then a saucy someone singing, "When the daisies are in bloom,"

And the fife and drummers rendering "The British Grenadier."

Back as far into the hills as they could get, They've a roof that turns the winter and the wet, They are grizzled but they're gay, They've a daily matinee, They are happy though they're head and ears in debt-- "I wish I had my old girl back again,"

"If the wind had only blown the other way,"

Uncertain voices join an old refrain And repeat the same performance every day.

There's a Scotchman holding down a mining claim All unknown to Fortune, Influence or Fame, But a few of Harry's songs Are a solace for his wrongs And he sings them ev'ry evening in his "hame"-- "I'm courtin' Bonnie Leezy Lindsay noo,"

"When I get back again"--you know the lilt-- "We parted on the sh.o.r.e," "I'm fou', I'm fou',"

"And that's the reason noo I wear the kilt."

There's a son of Erin in Saskatchewan, He's at work a half an hour before the dawn, But before he goes to bunk He makes a table of his trunk And he sets his clock-work concert thereupon-- "The harp that once through Tara's halls,"

"St Patrick's day in the mornin',"

"The last rose of summer," and Fancy recalls A glimpse of his "Kathleen Mavourneen."

There's an Englishman who's living in a shack, He's a victim of the gramophone attack, With a half-a-dozen kids (He has half that many "quids") But he dances with the youngest on his back-- Though he's living in the country of the Cree The horn that hangs a fathom from his head Stretches out a thousand leagues across the sea And sings in dear old London town instead.

They are far from auditorium or hall, But their minds are still a-tune to Music's call, They can hear Caruso sing, Or the bells of Shandon ring, As they smoke and count the cracks along the wall.

_I'm a miracle of eloquence imprisoned in the wax, I'm a mental inspiration operated by a spring, I'm a nightly consolation from Yukon to Halifax, And the ends of all creation sit and listen while I sing: I'm the Voice of all that man has sought and gained; I'm the throb of ev'ry heart that ever pained; I'm the Genesis of Fate, I'm the Soul of Love and Hate, I'm the humanly impossible attained!_

THE PLOW

What power is this that stands behind the steel?-- A homely implement of blade and wheel-- Neglected by the margin of the way, And flas.h.i.+ng back the blaze of dying day; Or dragging slow across the yellow field In silent prophecy of lavish yield, It marks the pace of innocence and toil, And taps the boundless treasure of the soil.

Before you came the red man rode the plain.

Unt.i.tled lord of Nature's great domain; The s.h.a.ggy herds, knee deep in mellow gra.s.s; The lazy summer hours were wont to pa.s.s; The wild goose nested by the water side; The red deer roamed upon the prairie wide; The black bear trod the woods in solemn might; The lynx stole through the bushes in the night.

No sound of toil was heard in all the land; No joyous laugh of voice or sharp command, No cloud of smoke from iron funnels thrown Was through the autumn hazes gently blown; No edge of steel tore up the virgin sod; No church its s.h.i.+ning finger turned to G.o.d; No tradesman labored over bench and tool; No children chattered on their way to school.

But all the land lay desolate and bare, Its wealth of plain its forest riches rare Unguessed by those who saw it through their tears, And Nature--miser of a thousand years-- Was adding still to her immense reserve That shall supply the world with brawn and nerve: But all lay silent, useless, and unused, And useless 'twas because it was unused.

You came. Straightway the silent plain Grew mellow with the glow of golden grain; The axes in the solitary wood Rang out where stately oak and maple stood; The land became alive with busy din, And as the many settled, more came in; The world looked on in wonder and dismay-- The building of a nation in a day!

By lake and river, rock and barren waste, A peaceful army toiled in eager haste; Ten thousand workers sweating in the sun Pressed on the task so recently begun; Their outworks every day were forced ahead-- And every day they gave their toll of dead-- Until at length the double lines of steel Received the steaming steed and whirling wheel!

Where yesterday the lazy bison lay A city glitters in the sun to-day; His paths are turned to streets of wood and stone, And thousands tread the way he trod alone; The mighty hum of industry and trade Fills all the place where once he held parade, And far away the unheard river's play Makes joyous night still brighter than the day!

Upon the plains a thousand towns arise, And quickly each to be a city tries; The sound of trade is heard on every hand And st.u.r.dy men rise to possess the land; Awhile they lingered, thinking it a dream, But now they flow in a resistless stream That seems to fill the prairie far and near, Yet in its vastness soon they disappear.

Where once the silent red man spurned the ground A land of peace and plenty now is found, A land by Nature destined to be great, Where every man is lord of his estate; Where men may dwell together in accord, And honest toil receive its due reward; Where loyal friends and happy homes are made, And culture follows hard the feet of trade.

This you have made it. Is it vain to hope The sons of such a land will climb and grope Along the undiscovered ways of life, And neither seek nor be found shunning strife, But ever, beckoned by a high ideal, Press onward, upward, till they make it real; With feet sure planted on their native sod, And will and aspirations linked with G.o.d?

THE MOTHERING

I had lain untrod for a million years from the line to the Arctic sea; I had dreamed strange dreams of the vast unknown, Of the lisping wind and the dancing zone Where the Northland fairies' feet had flown, And it all seemed good to me.

At the close of a thousand eons of sleep came a pang that was strange to me; The pang of a new life in my breast, The swell of a vast and a vague unrest, And it thrilled my soul from East to West As it fluttered to be free.

But I steeled my heart to the biped thing; of vast presumption he: He would lure my lonely thoughts away, He would sport himself on the sacred clay Where the dust of the prehistoric lay; But he scorned the soul of me.

So I stretched my plains for a thousand leagues from the mountains to the sea; But he rolled them back with a steel-laid line, And he crumbled s.p.a.ce by man's design And he filled his life with the breath of mine; But his love he gave not me.

Then I called him foes from the farthest north and the snowflake fluttered free; But he took him trees I had given birth, And he delved him coal from my bowels of earth, And he laughed at me as he sat in mirth; But he cursed the cold of me.