Erie waters
A dash of yellow sand,
Wind-scattered and sun-tanned;
Some waves that curl and cream along the margin of the strand;
And, creeping close to these
Long shores that lounge at ease,
Old Erie rocks and ripples to a fresh sou'-western breeze.
A sky of blue and grey;
Some stormy clouds that play
At scurrying up with ragged edge, then laughing blow away,
Just leaving in their trail
Some snatches of a gale;
To whistling summer winds we lift a single daring sail.
O! wind so sweet and swift,
O! danger-freighted gift
Bestowed on Erie with her waves that foam and fall and lift,
We laugh in your wild face,
And break into a race
With flying clouds and tossing gulls that weave and interlace.
poem by Emily Pauline Johnson
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The city and the sea
I
To none the city bends a servile knee;
Purse-proud and scornful, on her heights she stands,
And at her feet the great white moaning sea
Shoulders incessantly the grey-gold sands,--
One the Almighty's child since time began,
And one the might of Mammon, born of clods;
For all the city is the work of man,
But all the sea is God's.
II
And she--between the ocean and the town--
Lies cursed of one and by the other blest:
Her staring eyes, her long drenched hair, her gown,
Sea-laved and soiled and dank above her breast.
She, image of her God since life began,
She, but the child of Mammon, born of clods,
Her broken body spoiled and spurned of man,
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poem by Emily Pauline Johnson
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The cattle country
Up the dusk-enfolded prairie,
Foot-falls, soft and sly,
Velvet cushioned, 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 lasso 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.
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poem by Emily Pauline Johnson
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The train dogs
Out of the night and the north;
Savage of breed and of bone,
Shaggy and swift comes the yelping band,
Freighters of fur from the voiceless land
That sleeps in the Arctic zone.
Laden with skins from the north,
Beaver and bear and raccoon,
Marten and mink from the polar belts,
Otter and ermine and sable pelts--
The spoils of the hunter's moon.
Out of the night and the north,
Sinewy, fearless and fleet,
Urging the pack through the pathless snow,
The Indian driver, calling low,
Follows with moccasined feet.
Ships of the night and the north,
Freighters on prairies and plains,
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poem by Emily Pauline Johnson
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Rainfall
From out the west, where darkling storm-clouds float,
The 'waking wind pipes soft its rising note.
From out the west, o'erhung with fringes grey,
The wind preludes with sighs its roundelay,
Then blowing, singing, piping, laughing loud,
It scurries on before the grey storm-cloud;
Across the hollow and along the hill
It whips and whirls among the maples, till
With boughs upbent, and green of leaves blown wide,
The silver shines upon their underside.
A gusty freshening of humid air,
With showers laden, and with fragrance rare;
And now a little sprinkle, with a dash
Of great cool drops that fall with sudden splash;
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poem by Emily Pauline Johnson
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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 God-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
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poem by Emily Pauline Johnson
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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 God,
With fostering richness, mothers every grain.
poem by Emily Pauline Johnson
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Harvest time
Pillowed and hushed on the silent plain,
Wrapped in her mantle of golden grain,
Wearied of pleasuring weeks away,
Summer is lying asleep to-day,--
Where winds come sweet from the wild-rose briers
And the smoke of the far-off prairie fires;
Yellow her hair as the goldenrod,
And brown her cheeks as the prairie sod;
Purple her eyes as the mists that dream
At the edge of some laggard sun-drowned stream;
But over their depths the lashes sweep,
For Summer is lying to-day asleep.
The north wind kisses her rosy mouth,
His rival frowns in the far-off south,
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poem by Emily Pauline Johnson
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Lullaby of the iroquois
Little brown baby-bird, lapped in your nest,
Wrapped in your nest,
Strapped in your nest,
Your straight little cradle-board rocks you to rest;
Its hands are your nest;
Its bands are your nest;
It swings from the down-bending branch of the oak;
You watch the camp flame, and the curling grey smoke;
But, oh, for your pretty black eyes sleep is best,--
Little brown baby of mine, go to rest.
Little brown baby-bird swinging to sleep,
Winging to sleep,
Singing to sleep,
Your wonder-black eyes that so wide open keep,
Shielding their sleep,
Unyielding to sleep,
The heron is homing, the plover is still,
The night-owl calls from his haunt on the hill,
Afar the fox barks, afar the stars peep,--
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poem by Emily Pauline Johnson
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Through Time and Bitter Distance
Unknown to you, I walk the cheerless shore.
The cutting blast, the hurl of biting brine
May freeze, and still, and bind the waves at war,
Ere you will ever know, O! Heart of mine,
That I have sought, reflected in the blue
Of these sea depths, some shadow of your eyes;
Have hoped the laughing waves would sing of you,
But this is all my starving sight descries-
I
Far out at sea a sail
Bends to the freshening breeze,
Yields to the rising gale
That sweeps the seas;
II
Yields, as a bird wind-tossed,
To saltish waves that fling
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poem by Emily Pauline Johnson
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