Fleurs de lys and Other Poems

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Title: Fleurs de lys and other poems
Author: Arthur Weir
Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7034]?[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]?[This file was first posted on February 25, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: Latin-1
? START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FLEURS DE LYS AND OTHER POEMS ***
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FLEURS DE LYS
AND
OTHER POEMS.
BY
ARTHUR WEIR, B.A. Sc.
He only is a poet who can find
In sorrow happiness, in darkness light,
Love everywhere; and lead his fellow-kind
By flowery paths towards life's sunny height.
TO
WILLIAM AND ELIZABETH SOMERVILLE WEIR,
HIS?MOST SEVERE AND KINDLY CRITICS,
THIS VOLUME?IS LOVINGLY DEDICATED BY THEIR SON.
PREFACE
The name FLEURS DE LYS has been chosen for the Canadian Poems in the early portion of this book, because the scenes and incidents they describe belong to the Monarchial, or Fleur de Lys, period of France in Canada. The royal crest during the seventeenth century is depicted upon the cover.
Many of these poems have already appeared in the columns of the Carnival and Jubilee Star_, the Toronto _Week, the?University Gazette_, and the Montreal _Gazette, as well as in the Daily and Weekly Star, and it is the kindly reception which they met with that has led the author to publish them in this more permanent form.
Some of the poems were written at twenty, and the latest at twentythree, so that the author hopes the critics will consider this volume rather as a bud than as a flower, and will criticize it with the view to aiding him to avoid faults in the future rather than to censuring him for errors of the present and past.
To Mr. George Murray, of this city, the author is deeply indebted for encouragement when encouragement was most needed, and for much valuable assistance in the selection and revision of these verses for publication.
It is hoped that the notes at the end of this book will throw sufficient light upon the verses to make them perfectly intelligible to the reader.
December, 1st, 1887.
CONTENTS
Ode for the Queen's Jubilee
FLEURS DE LYS.
The Captured Flag?Père Brosse?L'Ordre de Bon Temps?Champlain?The Priest and the Minister?Pilot?The Secret of the Saguenay?Jules' Letter?The Oak?Nelson's Appeal for Maisonneuve
RED ROSES.
To One Who Loves Red Roses?Three Sonnets?Long Ago?At Chateauguay?A Birthday?The Lovers?The Sea Shell?A January Day?Remembrance?In Absence?Love Guides Us?The Lover's Appeal
OTHER POEMS.
The Spirit Wife?Rhodope's Shoe?Hope and Despair?Carlotta?Equality?Lachine?De Salaberry at Chateauguay?Tennyson?At Rainbow Lake?The Race?My Treasure?Welcoming the New Year?A Greater Than He?Life in Nature?Winter and Summer?Dauntless?A Child's Kiss?The Grave and the Tree?A Mother's Jewels?Notes
FLEURS DE LYS AND OTHER POEMS.
ODE FOR THE QUEEN'S JUBILEE.?1837-1887.
I
_Sailor William is dead. And now?Toll the great bells disconsolate.?Let the maiden have time for tears?Ere you set on her gentle brow?England's glittering crown of state.?Heavy burden for eighteen years.?Grant the maiden some weeping space?Ere on her youthful brow you place
England's crown.?Once her stately head it presses,?Fifty years it must rest on her tresses
Till their brown?Turns to white beneath King Time's caresses--
Grant her weeping space._
II.
Set the crown on the maiden's brow,?And silence the bells disconsolate.?Peal! Ye loud joy-bells, now;?Over city and wold let your echoes reverberate.?Peal! for the crowning of smiles and the death of tears,?Peal! for the crowning of hopes and the death of fears,?Peal! for a Queen who shall rule us for fifty years.?The maiden is crowned with her glorious crown,
Heavy with care;?Yet it shall never burden her down
Into despair.?We will watch over her with our love,
And our loyalty prove.?We will bear, each, his share?Of the worry, grief, and pain?That may seek to mar her reign.
III.
Blow! ye silvery bugles, over the sunny land,?Our Queen has yielded to love.?Ring out with merry clangor, O ye bells!?Ye mountains! give the laughing