Fires of Driftwood by Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
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Isabel Ecclestone Mackay >> Fires of Driftwood
FIRES OF DRIFTWOOD
BY ISABEL ECCLESTONE MACKAY
WITH DECORATIONS BY J.E.H. MACDONALD A.R.C.A.
First published by McClelland & Stewart, Limited, Toronto, 1922.
The thanks of the author are due to the editors of Ainslee's Magazine,
The American Magazine, The Canadian Magazine, Canadian Home Journal,
The Canadian Bookman, The Forum, The Globe, Harper's Magazine,
The Independent, The Ladies' World, McClure's Magazine, Metropolitan
Magazine, The Reader Magazine, Scribner's Magazine, Saturday Night,
and The Youth's Companion for permission to publish this verse
in its present form.
CONTENTS
FIRES OF DRIFTWOOD
WHEN AS A LAD
LAUREATE
OUT OF BABYLON
LAST SPRING
PRESENCE
IN AN AUTUMN GARDEN
ROSE DOLORES
A PILGRIM
SPRING WILL COME
COSMOS
THE SECRET
I WATCH SWIFT PICTURES
FEAR
RESURRECTION
THE LOST NAME
THE HAPPY TRAVELLER
THE DEAD BRIDE
THE CROCUS BED
THE VISION
THE MIRACLE
THE HOMESTEADER
WET WEATHER
THE SLEEPING BEAUTY
DOWN AT THE DOCKS
LAKE LOUISE
THE GATEKEEPER
THE BRIDGE BUILDER
THE PRAIRIE SCHOOL
CALGARY STATION
VALE
THE WAY TO WAIT
THE PASSER BY
FIRST LOVE
SAD ONE, MUST YOU WEEP
JOSEPH
A CHRISTMAS CHILD
SPRING IN NAZARETH
INHERITANCE
SONG OF THE SLEEPER
THE TYRANT
THE GIFTS
THE TOWN BETWEEN
ON THE MOUNTAIN
THE PROPHET
GIVE ME A DAY
LITTLE BROWN BIRD
THE WATCHER
POSSESSION
TO ARCADY
THE FIELDS OF EVEN
I LOVE MY LOVE
SPRING AWOKE TO-DAY
IN TOWN
SUMMER'S PASSING
THE DOOM OF YS
TIME'S GARDEN
THE COMING OF LOVE
PREMONITION
THE CHILD
INTRUSION
THE SEA'S WITHHOLDING
LOVE UNKIND
CHRISTMAS IN HEAVEN
I WHISPERED TO THE BOB-O-LINK
YOU
THE MOTHER
THE VASSAL
THE TROUBADOUR
INDIAN SUMMER
THE UNCHANGED
INDIFFERENCE
LAST THINGS
CALLOUS CUPID
THE MEETING
THE PIPER
WANDERLUST
GOLD
THE MATERIALIST
TIR NAN OG
THE LITTLE MAN IN GREEN
THE ENCHANTRESS
THE BANSHEE
THE WITCH
FAIRY SINGING
KILLED IN ACTION
SPRING CAME IN
FROM THE TRENCHES
THE REASONS
TO-DAY
MEMORY
DREAM
PERHAPS
GLAMOUR
FRIENDSHIP
THE RETURNED MAN
EPITAPH
FOR ONE WHO WENT IN SPRING
Fires of Driftwood
ON what long tides
Do you drift to my fire,
You waifs of strange waters?
From what far seas,
What murmurous sands,
What desolate beaches--
Flotsam of those glories that were ships!
I gather you,
Bitter with salt,
Sun-bleached, rock-scarred, moon-harried,
Fuel for my fire.
You are Pride's end.
Through all to-morrows you are yesterday.
You are waste,
You are ruin,
For where is that which once you were?
I gather you.
See! I set free the fire within you--
You awake in thin flame!
Tremulous, mistlike, your soul aspires,
Blue, beautiful,
Up and up to the clouds which are its kindred!
What is left is nothing--
Ashes blown along the shore!
When as a Lad
WHEN, as a lad, at break of day
I watched the fishers sail away,
My thoughts, like flocking birds, would follow
Across the curving sky's blue hollow,
And on and on--
Into the very heart of dawn!
For long I searched the world--ah, me!
I searched the sky, I searched the sea,
With much of useless grief and rueing
Those winged thoughts of mine pursuing--
So dear were they,
So lovely and so far away!
I seek them still and always must
Until my laggard heart is dust
And I am free to follow, follow,
Across the curving sky's blue hollow,
Those thoughts too fleet
For any save the soul's swift feet!
Laureate
DEATH met a little child who cried
For a bright star which earth denied,
And Death, so sympathetic, kissed it,
Saying: "With me
All bright things be!"--
And only the child's mother missed it.
Death met a maiden on the brae,
Her eyes held dreams life would betray,
And gallant Death was greatly taken--
"Leave," whispered he,
"Your dream with me
And I will see you never waken."
Death met an old man in a lane;
So gnarled was he and full of pain
That kindly Death was struck with pity--
"Come you with me,
Old man," said he,
"I'll set you down in a fair city."
So, kingly Death along the way
Scatters rare gifts and asks no pay--
Yet who to Death will write a sonnet?
If any dare,
Let him take care
No foolish tear be spilled upon it!
Out of Babylon
THEIR looks for me are bitter,
And bitter is their word--
I may not glance behind unseen,
I may not sigh unheard.
So fare we forth from Babylon,
Along the road of stone;
And no one looks to Babylon
Save I--save I alone!
My mother's eyes are glory-filled
(Save when they fall on me)
The shining of my father's face
I tremble when I see,
For they were slaves in Babylon,
And now they're walking free--
They leave their chains in Babylon,
I bear my chains with me!
At night a sound of singing
The vast encampment fills;
"Jerusalem! Jerusalem!"
It sweeps the nearing hills--
But no one sings of Babylon
(Their home of yesterday)
And no one prays for Babylon,
And I--I dare not pray!
Last night the Prophet saw me;
And, while he held me there,
The holy fire within his eyes
Burned all my secret bare.
"What! Sigh you so for Babylon?"
(I turned away my face)
"Here's one who turns to Babylon,
Heart traitor to her race!"
I follow and I follow!
My heart upon the rack;
I follow to Jerusalem--
The long road stretches back
To Babylon, to Babylon!
And every step I take
Bears farther off from Babylon
A heart that cannot break.
Last Spring
THIS morning at the door
I heard the Spring.
Quickly I set it wide
And, welcoming,
"Come in, sweet Spring," I cried,
"The winter ash, long dried,
Waits but your breath to rise
On phantom wing."
A brown leaf shivered by,
A soulless thing--
My heart in quick dismay
Forgot to sing--
Twisted and grim it lay,
Kin to the ghost-ash gray,
Dead, dead--strange herald this
Of jocund Spring!
I spurned it from the door.
I longed that Spring
Should come with song and glow
And rush of wing,
Not this, not this!--But O
Dead leaf, a year ago
You were the dear first-born
Of Hope and Spring!
Presence
BY a sense of Presence, keenly dear,
I, who thought her distant,
Knew her near.
By an echo that most sweetly woke,
I, long keyed to silence,
Knew she spoke.
By her nearness and the word she said,
I, who thought her living,
Knew her dead.
In an Autumn Garden
TO-NIGHT the air discloses
Souls of a million roses,
And ghosts of hyacinths that died too soon;
From Pan's safe-hidden altar
Dim wraiths of incense falter
In waving spiral, making sweet the moon!
Aroused from fragrant covers,
The vows of vanished lovers
Take voice in whisperings that rise and pass;
Where the crisped leaves are lying
A tremulous, low sighing
Breathes like a startled spirit o'er the grass.
Ah, Love! in some far garden,
In Arcady or Arden,
We two were lovers! Hush--remember not
The years in which I've missed you--
'Twas yesterday I kissed you
Beneath this haunted moon! Have you forgot?
Rose Dolores
THE moan of Rose Dolores, she made her plaint to me,
"My hair is lifted by the wind that sweeps in from the sea;
I taste its salt upon my lips--O jailer, set me free!"
"Content thee, Rose Dolores; content thee, child of care!
There's satin shoon upon thy feet and emeralds in thy hair,
And one there is who hungers for thy step upon the stair."
The moan of Rose Dolores, "O jailer, set me free!
These satin shoon and green-lit gems are terrible to me;
I hear a murmur on the wind, the murmur of the sea!"
"Bethink thee, Rose Dolores, bethink thee, ere too late!
Thou wert a fisher's child, alack, born to a fisher's fate;
Would'st lay thy beauty 'neath the yoke--would'st be a fisher's mate?"
The moan of Rose Dolores "Kind jailer, let me go!
There's one who is a fisher--ah! my heart beats cold and slow
Lest he should doubt I love him--I! who love not heaven so!"
"Alas, sweet Rose Dolores, why beat against the bars?
Thy fisher lover drifteth where the sea is full of stars;
Why weep for one who weeps no more?--since grief thy beauty mars!"
The moan of Rose Dolores (she prayed me patiently)
"O jailer, now I know who called from out the calling sea,
I know whose kiss was in the wind--O jailer, set me free!"
A Pilgrim
ACROSS the trodden continent of years
To shrines of long ago,
My heart, a hooded pilgrim, turns with tears--
For could I know
That in the temple of thy constancy
There still may burn a taper lit for me,
'Twould be a star in starless heaven, to show
That Heaven could be.
Bent with the weight of all that I desired
And all that I forswore,
My heart roams, mendicant, forlorn and tired,
From door to door,
Begging of every stern-faced memory
An alms of pity--just to come to thee,
No more thy knight, thy champion no more--
Only thy devotee!
Spring will Come
SPRING will come to help me: she'll be back again,
Back with the soft sun, the sun I knew before.
She will wear her green gown, the emerald gown she wore
When the white-faced windflowers blew along the lane.
Spring will come to help me: When her waking sigh
Drifts across my sore heart all the pain will go.
How shall hearts be aching when larks are flying low,
Low across the fields of camas bluer than the sky?
I've a tryst with Spring here--maybe they'll be few
Now the world grows older--and shall I delay
Just because a Winter has stolen joy away?
What cares Spring for old joys, all her joys are new.
Maybe there'll be singing in my sorrow yet--
I have heard of such things--but, if there be not,
Still there'll be the green pool in the pasture lot,
All a-trail with willow fingers, delicate and wet.
Winter is a passing thing and Spring is always gay;
If she, too, be passing she does not weep to know it.
Time she takes to quicken seed but never time to grow it--
Naught she cares for harvest that lies so far away.
Cosmos
THE tiny thing of painted gauze that flutters in the sun
And sinks upon the breast of night with all its living done;
The unconsidered seed that from the garden blows away,
Blooming its little time to bloom in one short summer day;
The leaf the idle wind shakes down in autumn from the tree,
The grasshopper who for an hour makes gayest minstrelsy--
These--and this restless soul of mine--are one with flaming spheres
And cold, dead moons whose ghostly fires haunt unremembered years.
The Secret
IF I should tell you what I know
Of where the first primroses grow,
Betray the secrets of the lily,
Bring crocus-gold and daffodilly,
Would you tell me if charm there be
To win a maiden, willy-nilly?
I lie upon the fragrant heath,
Kin to the beating heart beneath;
The nesting plover I discover
Nor stir the scented screen above her,
Yet am I blind--I cannot find
What turns a maiden to her lover!
Through all the mysteries of May,
Initiate, I take my way--
Sure as the blithest lark or linnet
To touch the pulsing soul within it--
Yet with no art to reach Her heart,
Nor skill to teach me how to win it!
I Watch Swift Pictures
I WATCH swift pictures flash and fade
On the closed curtains of my eyes,--
A bit of river green as jade
Under green skies;
A single bird that soars and dips
Remote; a young and secret moon
Stealing to kiss some flower's lips
Too shy for noon;
A pointing tree; a lifted hill,
Sun-misted with a golden ring,--
Were these once mine? And am I still
Remembering?
A path that wanders wistfully
With no beginning there nor here,
Nor special grace that it should be
So sharply dear,
Unless,--what if when every day
Is yesterday, with naught to borrow,
I may slip down this wistful way
Into to-morrow?
Fear
I HEARD a sound of crying in the lane,
A passionless, low crying,
And I said, "It is the tears of the brown rain
On the leaves within the lane!"
I heard a sudden sighing at the door,
A soft, persuasive sighing,
And I said, "The summer breeze has sighed before,
Gustily, outside the door!"
Yet from the place I fled, nor came again,
With my heart beating, beating!
For I knew 'twas not the breeze nor the brown rain
At the door and in the lane!
Resurrection
I BURIED Joy; and early to the tomb
I came to weep--so sorrowful was I
Who had not dreamed that Joy, my Joy, could die.
I turned away, and by my side stood Joy
All glorified--ah, so ashamed was I
Who dared to dream that Joy, my Joy, could die!
The Lost Name
THE voice of my true love is low
And exquisitely kind,
Warm as a flower, cold as snow--
I think it is the Wind.
My true love's face is white as mist
That moons have lingered on,
Yet rosy as a cloud, sun-kissed--
I think it is the Dawn.
The breath of my true love is sweet
As gardens at day's close
When dew and dark together meet--
I think it is a Rose.
My true love's heart is wild and shy
And folded from my sight,
A world, a star, a whispering sigh--
I think it is the Night.
My true love's name is lost to me,
The prey of dusty years,
But in the falling Rain I see
And know her by her tears!
The Happy Traveller
WHO is the monarch of the Road?
I, the happy rover!
Lord of the way which lies before
Up to the hill and over--
Owner of all beneath the blue,
On till the end, and after, too!
I am the monarch of the Road!
Mine are the keys of morning,
I know where evening keeps her store
Of stars for night's adorning,
I know the wind's wild will, and why
The lone thrush hurries down the sky!
I am the monarch of the Road!
My court I hold with singing,
Each bird a gay ambassador,
Each flower a censer, swinging;
And every little roadside thing
A wonder to confound a king.
I am the monarch of the Road!
I ask no leave for living;
I take no less, I seek no more
Than nature's fullest giving--
And ever, westward with the day,
I travel to the far away!
The Dead Bride
WITHIN my circled arm she lay and faintly smiled the long night through,
And oh, but she was fair to view, fair to view!
Upon the whiteness of her robe the dew distilled, and on her veil
And on her cheek of carved pearl that gleamed so pale.
(How still the air is in the night, how near and kind the heavens are,
One might a naked hand outstretch and grasp a star!)
I kissed her heavy, folded hair. I kissed her heavy lids full oft;
Beneath the shining of the stars her eyes shone soft.
"Love, Love!" I said, "the day was long"--"Oh, long indeed," she sighing said.
"I grow so jealous of the sun, since I am dead."
(How sweet the air is in the night, how sweet, sweet, sweet the flowers seem--
But oh, the emptiness of dawn that breaks the dream!)
The Crocus Bed
YELLOW as the noonday sun,
Purple as a day that's done,
White as mist that lingers pale
On the edge of morning's veil,
Delicate as love's first kiss--
Crocuses are just like this.
Ere the robin paints his breast,
Ere the daffodil is drest,
Ere the iris' lovely head
Waves above her perfumed bed
Comes the crocus--and the Spring
Follows after, wing on wing!
Sweet perfection, holding up
Magic dew in topaz cup,
Alabaster, amethyst--
Curling lips which Earth has kissed,
Folded hearts where secrets hide,
Secrets old when Eve was bride!
Beauty's soul was born with wings,
Flight inspires all lovely things--
Would you gather rainbow fire?
See the rose of dawn's desire
Turn to ash beneath the moon?--
Crocuses must leave us soon.
The Vision
"O SISTER, sister, from the casement leaning,
What sees thy tranced eye, what is the meaning
Of the strange rapture that thy features know?"
"I see," she said, "the sunset's crimson glow."
"O sister, sister, from the casement turning,
What saw'st thou there save sunset's sullen burning?
--Thy hand is ice, and fever lights thine eye!"
"I saw," she said, "the twilight drifting by."
"O sister, oft the sun hath set and often
Have we beheld the twilight fold and soften
The edge of day-- In this no mystery lies!"
"I saw," she said, "the crescent moon arise."
"O sister, speak! I fear when on me falleth
Thine empty glance which some wild spell enthralleth!
--How chill the air blows through the open door!"
"I saw," she said, "I saw"--and spake no more.
The Miracle
THERE'S not a leaf upon the tree
To show the sap is leaping,
There's not a blade and not an ear
Escaped from winter's keeping--
But there's a something in the air
A something here, a something there,
A restless something everywhere--
A stirring in the sleeping!
A robin's sudden, thrilling note!
And see--the sky is bluer!
The world, so ancient yesterday,
To-day seems strangely newer;
All that was wearisome and stale
Has wrapped itself in rosy veil--
The wraith of winter, grown so pale
That smiling spring peeps through her!
The Homesteader
WIND-SWEPT and fire-swept and swept with bitter rain,
This was the world I came to when I came across the sea--
Sun-drenched and panting, a pregnant, waiting plain
Calling out to humankind, calling out to me!
Leafy lanes and gentle skies and little fields all green,
This was the world I came from when I fared across the sea--
The mansion and the village and the farmhouse in between,
Never any room for more, never room for me!
I've fought the wind and braved it; I cringe to it no more!
I've fought the creeping fire back and cheered to see it die.
I've shut the bitter rain outside and, safe within my door,
Laughed to think I feared a thing not so strong as I!
I mind the long, white road that ran between the hedgerows neat,
In that little, strange old world I left behind me long ago,
I mind the air so full of bells at evening, far and sweet--
All and all for someone else--I had leave to go!
It cost a tear to leave it--but here across the sea
With miles and miles of unused sky, and miles of unturned loam,
And miles of room for someone else, and miles of room for me
I've found a bigger meaning for the little word called "Home."
Wet Weather
IT is the English in me that loves the soft, wet weather--
The cloud upon the mountain, the mist upon the sea,
The sea-gull flying low and near with rain upon each feather,
The scent of deep, green woodlands where the buds are breaking free.
A world all hot with sunshine, with a hot, white sky above it--
Oh then I feel an alien in a land I'd call my own;
The rain is like a friend's caress, I lean to it and love it,
'Tis like a finger on a nerve that thrills for it alone!
Is it the secret kinship which each new life is given
To link it by an age-long chain to those whose lives are through,
That wheresoever he may go, by fate or fancy driven,
The home-star rises in his heart to keep the compass true?
Ah, 'tis the English in me that loves the soft, gray weather--
The little mists that trail along like bits of wind-flung foam,
The primrose and the violet--all wet and sweet together,
And the sound of water calling, as it used to call at home.
*The Sleeping Beauty
SO has she lain for centuries unguessed,
Her waiting face to waiting heaven turned,
While winds have wooed and ardent suns have burned
And stars have died to sentinel her rest.
Only the snow can reach her as she lies,
Far and serene, and with cold finger-tips
Seal soft the lovely quiet of her lips
And lightly veil the shadows of her eyes.
Man has no part--his little, noisy years
Rise to her silence thin and impotent--
There are no echoes in that vast content,
No doubts, no dreams, no laughter and no tears!
* A formation of mountain peaks above Vancouver Harbor,
outlining the profile and form of a sleeping maiden.
Down at the Docks
DOWN at the docks--when the smoke clouds lie,
Wind-ript and red, on an angry sky--
Coal-dumps and derricks and piled-up bales,
Tar and the gear of forgotten sails,
Rusted chains and a broken spar
(Yesterday's breath on the things that are)
A lone, black cat and a snappy cur,
Smell of high-tide and of newcut fir,
Smell of low-tide, fish, weed!--I swear
I love every blessed smell that's there--
For, aeons ago when the sea began,
My soul was the soul of a sailorman.
Down at the docks--where the ships come in,
And the endless trails of the sea begin,
Where the shining wake of a steamer's track
Is barred by the tow of the tugboats black,
Where slim yachts dip to the singing spray
And a gay wind whistles the world away--
Here sad ships lie which will sail no more,
But new ships build on the noisy shore,
And always the breath of the wind and tide
Whispers the lure of the sea outside,
Till now and to-morrow and yesterday
Are linked by the spell of the faraway!
Down at the docks--when the morning's new
And the air is gold and the distance blue,
There's a pull at the heart! But best of all
Is to see the sun shrink, red and small,
While the fog steals in (more surely fleet
Than the smacks that run from her white-shod feet)
And clamours of startled calls arise
From bewildered ships that have lost their eyes;
The fog horn bellows its deep-mouthed shout,
The little lights on the shore blur out
And strange, dim shapes pass wistfully
With a secret tide to a secret sea.
Lake Louise
I THINK that when the Master Jeweler tells
His beads of beauty over, seeking there
One gem to name as most supremely fair,
To you He turns, O lake of hidden wells!
So very lovely are you, Lake Louise,
The stars which crown your lifted peaks at even
Mistake you for a little sea in heaven
And nightly launch their shining argosies.
From shore to dim-lit shore a ripple slips,
The happy sigh of faintly stirring night
Where safe she sleeps upon this virgin height
Captive of dream and smiling with white lips.
Surely a spell, creation-old, was made
For you, O lake of silences, that all
Earth's fretting voices here should muted fall,
As if a finger on their lips were laid!
The Gatekeeper
THE sunlight falls on old Quebec,
A city framed of rose and gold,
An ancient gem more beautiful
In that its beauty waxes old.
O Pearl of Cities! I would set
You higher in our diadem,
And higher yet and higher yet,
That generations still to be
May kindle at your history!
'Twas here that gallant Champlain stood
And gazed upon this mighty stream,
These towering rock-walls, buttressed high--
A gateway to a land of dream;
And all his silent men stood near
While the great fleur-de-lis fell free,
(Too awe-struck they to raise a cheer)
And while the shining folds outspread
The sunset burned a sudden red.
Here paced the haughty Frontenac,
His great heart torn with pride and pain,
His clear eye dimming as it swept
The land he might not see again,
This infant world, this strange New France
Dropped down as by some vagrant wind
Upon the New World's vast expanse,
Threatened yet safe! Through storm and stress
Time's challenge to the wilderness.
Here, when to ease her tangled skein
Fate cut her threads and formed anew
The pattern of the thing she planned
And red war slipped the shuttle through,
Montcalm met Wolfe! The bitter strife
Of flag and flag was ended here--
And every man who gave his life
Gave it that now one flag may wave,
One nation rise upon his grave!
The twilight falls on old Quebec
And in the purple shines a star,
And on her citadel lies peace
More powerful than armies are.
O fair dream city! Ebb and flow
Of race feuds vex no more your walls.
Can they of old see this? and know
That, even as they dreamed, you stand
Gatekeeper of a peace-filled land!
The Bridge Builder
OF old the Winds came romping down,
Oh, wild and free were they!
They bent the prairie grasses low
And made a place to play.
Then, that the gods might hear their voice
On purple days of spring,
They sought the tossing, pine-clad slope
And made a place to sing.
Tired at last of song and play,
They found a canyon deep
And in its echoing silences
They made a place to weep.
Man came, a small and feeble thing,
And looked upon the plain.
"Lo, this is mine," he said, and set
A seal of golden grain.
Upon the mountain slopes he gazed,
Where the great pine trees grow,
Then gashed their mighty sides and laid
Their singing branches low.
He clung upon the canyon's ledge
And from its topmost ridge,
Above its vast and awful deeps,
He built himself a bridge.
A bauble in the light of day,
New gilded by the sun,
It seemed like some great, golden web
By giant spider spun!
The homeless winds came rushing down--
Oh they were wild and free!
And angry for their stolen plain
And for their felled pine tree--
And angry--angry most of all
For that brave bridge of gold!
With deep-mouthed shout they hurtled down
To tear it from its hold--
The girders shrieked, the cables strained
And shuddered at the roar--
Yet, when the winds had passed, the bridge
Held firmly as before!
Still fairy-like and frail it shone
Against the sunset's glow--
But one, the builder of the bridge,
Lay silent, far below!
The Prairie School
THE sweet west wind, the prairie school a break in the yellow wheat,
The prairie trail that wanders by to the place where the four winds meet--
A trail with never an end at all to the children's eager feet.