Frost Magic
I
Now, in the moonrise, from a wintry sky,
The frost has come to charm with elfin might
This quiet room; to draw with symbols bright
Faces and forms in fairest charactery
Upon the casement; all the thoughts that lie
Deep hidden in my heart's core he would tell,
How the red shoots of fancy strike and swell,
How they are watered, what soil nourished by.
With eerie power he piles his atomies,
Incrusted gems, star-glances overborne
With lids of sleep pulled from the moth's bright eyes,
And forests of frail ferns, blanched and forlorn,
Where Oberon of unimagined size
Might in the silver silence wind his horn.
II
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poem by Duncan Campbell Scott
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The Builder
WHEN the deep cunning architect
Had the great minster planned,
They worked in faith for twice two hundred years
And reared the building grand;
War came and famine and they did not falter,
But held his line,
And filled the space divine
With carvings meet for the soul's eye;
And not alone the chantry and thereby
The snowy altar,
But in every part
They carved the minster after his own heart,
And made the humblest places fair,
Even the dimmest cloister-way and stair,
With vineyard tendrils,
With ocean-seeming shells,
With filmy weeds from sea,
With bell-flowers delicate and bells,
All done minute with excellent tracery.
Come, O my soul,
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poem by Duncan Campbell Scott
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O Turn Once More
O turn once more!
The meadows where we mused and strayed together
Abound and glow yet with the ruby sorrel;
'Twas there the bluebirds fought and played together,
Their quarrel was a flying bluebird-quarrel;
Their nest is firm still in the burnished cherry,
They will come back there some day and be merry;
O turn once more.
O turn once more!
The spring we lingered at is ever steeping
The long, cool grasses where the violets hide,
Where you awoke the flower-heads from their sleeping
And plucked them, proud in their inviolate pride;
You left the roots, the roots will flower again,
O turn once more and pluck the flower again;
O turn once more.
O turn once more!
We were the first to find the fairy places
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poem by Duncan Campbell Scott
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At William Maclennan's Grave
Here where the cypress tall
Shadows the stucco wall,
Bronze and deep,
Where the chrysanthemums blow,
And the roses--blood and snow--
He lies asleep.
Florence dreameth afar;
Memories of foray and war,
Murmur still;
The Certosa crowns with a cold
Cloud of snow and gold
The olive hill.
What has he now for the streams
Born sweet and deep with dreams
From the cedar meres?
Only the Arno's flow,
Turbid, and weary, and slow
With wrath and tears.
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poem by Duncan Campbell Scott
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Rapids at Night
Here at the roots of the mountains,
Between the sombre legions of cedars and tamaracks,
The rapids charge the ravine:
A little light, cast by foam under starlight,
Wavers about the shimmering stems of the birches:
Here rise up the clangorous sounds of battle,
Immense and mournful.
Far above curves the great dome of darkness
Drawn with the limitless lines of the stars and the planets.
Deep at the core of the tumult,
Deeper than all the voices that cry at the surface,
Dwells one fathomless sound,
Under the hiss and cry, the stroke and the plangent clamour.
O human heart that sleeps,
Wild with rushing dreams and deep with sadness!
The abysmal roar drops into almost silence,
While over its sleep play in various cadence
Innumerous voices crashing in laughter;
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The Half-breed Girl
She is free of the trap and the paddle,
The portage and the trail,
But something behind her savage life
Shines like a fragile veil.
Her dreams are undiscovered,
Shadows trouble her breast,
When the time for resting cometh
Then least is she at rest.
Oft in the morns of winter,
When she visits the rabbit snares,
An appearance floats in the crystal air
Beyond the balsam firs.
Oft in the summer mornings
When she strips the nets of fish,
The smell of the dripping net-twine
Gives to her heart a wish.
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To a Canadian Aviator Who Died for his Country in France
Tossed like a falcon from the hunter's wrist,
A sweeping plunge, a sudden shattering noise,
And thou hast dared, with a long spiral twist,
The elastic stairway to the rising sun.
Peril below thee and above, peril
Within thy car; but peril cannot daunt
Thy peerless heart: gathering wing and poise,
Thy plane transfigured, and thy motor-chant
Subduéd to a whisper -- then a silence, --
And thou art but a disembodied venture
In the void.
But Death, who has learned to fly,
Still matchless when his work is to be done,
Met thee between the armies and the sun;
Thy speck of shadow faltered in the sky;
Then thy dead engine and thy broken wings
Drooped through the arc and passed in fire,
A wreath of smoke -- a breathless exhalation.
But ere that came a vision sealed thine eyes,
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Night Burial In The Forest
Lay him down where the fern is thick and fair.
Fain was he for life, here lies he low:
With the blood washed clean from his brow and his beautiful hair,
Lay him here in the dell where the orchids grow.
Let the birch-bark torches roar in the gloom,
And the trees crowd up in a quiet startled ring
So lone is the land that in this lonely room
Never before has breathed a human thing.
Cover him well in his canvas shroud, and the moss
Part and heap again on his quiet breast,
What recks he now of gain, or love, or loss
Who for love gained rest?
While she who caused it all hides her insolent eyes
Or braids her hair with the ribbons of lust and of lies,
And he who did the deed fares out like a hunted beast
To lurk where the musk-ox tramples the barren ground
Where the stroke of his coward heart is the only sound.
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The Forgers
IN the smithy it began:
Let's make something for a man!
Hear the bellows belch and roar,
Splashing light on roof and floor:
From their nest the feathery sparks
Fly like little golden larks:
Hear each forger's taunting yell,
Tell–tell–tell–tell–
Tell us what we make, my master!
Hear the tenor hammers sound,
Ring-a-round, ring-a-round;
Hear the treble hammers sing,
Ding-a-ring, ding-a-ring;
Hear the forger's taunting yell,
Tell–tell–tell–tell!
Though the guess be right or wrong
You must wear it all life long!
How it glows as it grows,
Ding-a-ring-a-derry-down,
Into something–is't a crown?
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poem by Duncan Campbell Scott
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Mist And Frost
Veil-like and beautiful
Gathered the dutiful
Mist in the night,
True to the messaging,
Dreamful and presaging
Vapour and light.
Ghostly and chill it is,
Pallid and still it is,
Sudden uprist;
What is there tragical,
Moving or magical,
Hid in the mist?
Millions of essences,
Fairy-like presences
Formless as yet;
Light-riven spangles,
Crystalline tangles
Floating unset.
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poem by Duncan Campbell Scott
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