Flint and Feather: Collected Verse Part 12

And the watchers wept in the midnight gloom, Where the canyons yawn and the Selkirks loom, For the love that they knew of olden.

And April dawned, with its suns aflame, And the eagles wheeled and the vultures came And poised o'er the town of Golden.

G.o.d of the white eternal peaks, Guard the dead while the vulture seeks!-- G.o.d of the days so olden.

For only G.o.d in His greatness knows Where the mountain holly above her grows, On the trail that leads from Golden.

THE SONGSTER

Music, music with throb and swing, Of a plaintive note, and long; 'Tis a note no human throat could sing, No harp with its dulcet golden string,-- Nor lute, nor lyre with liquid ring, Is sweet as the robin's song.

He sings for love of the season When the days grow warm and long, For the beautiful G.o.d-sent reason That his breast was born for song.

Calling, calling so fresh and clear, Through the song-sweet days of May; Warbling there, and whistling here, He swells his voice on the drinking ear, On the great, wide, pulsing atmosphere Till his music drowns the day.

He sings for love of the season When the days grow warm and long, For the beautiful G.o.d-sent reason That his breast was born for song.

THISTLE-DOWN

Beyond a ridge of pine with russet tips The west lifts to the sun her longing lips,

Her blushes stain with gold and garnet dye The sh.o.r.e, the river and the wide far sky;

Like floods of wine the waters filter through The reeds that brush our indolent canoe.

I beach the bow where sands in shadows lie; You hold my hand a s.p.a.ce, then speak good-bye.

Upwinds your pathway through the yellow plumes Of goldenrod, profuse in August blooms,

And o'er its tossing sprays you toss a kiss; A moment more, and I see only this--

The idle paddle you so lately held, The empty bow your pliant wrist propelled,

Some thistles purpling into violet, Their blossoms with a thousand thorns afret,

And like a cobweb, shadowy and grey, Far floats their down--far drifts my dream away.

THE RIDERS OF THE PLAINS [2]

Who is it lacks the knowledge? Who are the curs that dare To whine and sneer that they do not fear the whelps in the Lion's lair?

But we of the North will answer, while life in the North remains, Let the curs beware lest the whelps they dare are the Riders of the Plains; For these are the kind whose muscle makes the power of the Lion's jaw, And they keep the peace of our people and the honour of British law.

A woman has painted a picture,--'tis a neat little bit of art The critics aver, and it roused up for her the love of the big British heart.

'Tis a sketch of an English bulldog that tigers would scarce attack, And round and about and beneath him is painted the Union Jack.

With its blaze of colour, and courage, its daring in every fold, And underneath is the t.i.tle, "What we have we'll hold."

'Tis a picture plain as a mirror, but the reflex it contains Is the counterpart of the life and heart of the Riders of the Plains; For like to that flag and that motto, and the power of that bulldog's jaw, They keep the peace of our people and the honour of British law.

These are the fearless fighters, whose life in the open lies, Who never fail on the prairie trail 'neath the Territorial skies, Who have laughed in the face of the bullets and the edge of the rebels' steel, Who have set their ban on the lawless man with his crime beneath their heel; These are the men who battle the blizzards, the suns, the rains, These are the famed that the North has named the "Riders of the Plains,"

And theirs is the might and the meaning and the strength of the bulldog's jaw, While they keep the peace of the people and the honour of British law.

These are the men of action, who need not the world's renown, For their valour is known to England's throne as a gem in the British crown; These are the men who face the front, whose courage the world may scan, The men who are feared by the felon, but are loved by the honest man; These are the marrow, the pith, the cream, the best that the blood contains, Who have cast their days in the valiant ways of the Riders of the Plains; And theirs is the kind whose muscle makes the power of old England's jaw, And they keep the peace of her people and the honour of British law.

Then down with the cur that questions,--let him slink to his craven den,-- For he daren't deny our hot reply as to "who are our mounted men."

He shall honour them east and westward, he shall honour them south and north, He shall bare his head to that coat of red wherever that red rides forth.

'Tis well that he knows the fibre that the great North-West contains, The North-West pride in her men that ride on the Territorial plains,-- For of such as these are the muscles and the teeth in the Lion's jaw, And they keep the peace of our people and the honour of British law.

[2] The above is the Territorial pet name for the North-West Mounted Police, and is in general usage throughout a.s.siniboia, Saskatchewan and Alberta. At a dinner party in Boston the writer was asked, "Who are the North-West Mounted Police?" and when told that they were the pride of Canada's fighting men the questioner sneered and replied, "Ah! then they are only some of British Lion's whelps. We are not afraid of them." His companions applauded the remark.

SILHOUETTE

The sky-line melts from russet into blue, Unbroken the horizon, saving where A wreath of smoke curls up the far, thin air, And points the distant lodges of the Sioux.

Etched where the lands and cloudlands touch and die A solitary Indian tepee stands, The only habitation of these lands, That roll their magnitude from sky to sky.

The tent poles lift and loom in thin relief, The upward floating smoke ascends between, And near the open doorway, gaunt and lean, And shadow-like, there stands an Indian Chief.

With eyes that lost their l.u.s.tre long ago, With visage fixed and stern as fate's decree, He looks towards the empty west, to see The never-coming herd of buffalo.

Only the bones that bleach upon the plains, Only the fleshless skeletons that lie In ghastly nakedness and silence, cry Out mutely that naught else to him remains.

A PRODIGAL

My heart forgot its G.o.d for love of you, And you forgot me, other loves to learn; Now through a wilderness of thorn and rue Back to my G.o.d I turn.

And just because my G.o.d forgets the past, And in forgetting does not ask to know Why I once left His arms for yours, at last Back to my G.o.d I go.

"THROUGH TIME AND BITTER DISTANCE" [3]

Unknown to you, I walk the cheerless sh.o.r.e.