Fleurs de lys and Other Poems | Page 5

of the forest;
When the hearts of frail women were steeled?Not to weep for the dead and the dying;?When by night the fierce battle-cry pealed?And by day all who worked in the field?Kept their weapons in readiness lying;
When full oft at the nunnery gate,?As the darkness fell over the village,?Would a swart savage crouch and await,?With the patience of devilish hate,?A chance to kill women, and pillage.
Every one had his duty to do,?And our Pilot had hers like another,?Which she did like a heroine true,?At the head of a juvenile crew?Of the same stalwart stuff as their mother.
In a body these keen-scented spies?Used to roam through the forests and meadows,?And protect Ville Marie from surprise,?Though its foes clustered round it like flies?In a swamp, or like evening shadows.
Oftentimes in the heat of the day,?Oftentimes through the mists of the morning,?Oftentimes to the sun's dying ray?There was heard her re?choing bay?Pealing forth its brave challenge and warning.
And so nobly she labored and well,?It was fancied--so runneth the story--?She had come down from heaven to dwell?Upon earth, and make war upon hell,?For the welfare of man and God's glory.
"When her day's work was over, what then?"?Well, my boy, she had one of your habits;?She would roam through the forest again,?But instead of bold hunting for men,?Would amuse herself hunting jack rabbits.
THE SECRET OF THE SAGUENAY.
Like a fragment of torn sea-kale,?Or a wraith of mist in the gale,?There comes a mysterious tale?Out of the stormy past:?How a fleet, with a living freight,?Once sailed through the rocky gate?Of this river so desolate,?This chasm so black and vast.
'Twas Cartier, the sailor bold,?Whose credulous lips had told?How glittering gems and gold?Were found in that lonely land?How out of the priceless hoard?Within their rough bosoms stored,?These towering mountains poured?Their treasures upon the strand.
Allured by the greed of gain,?Sieur Roberval turned again,?And sailing across the main,?Passed up the St. Lawrence tide.?He sailed by the frowning shape?Of Jacques Cartier's Devil's Cape,?Till the Saguenay stood agape,?With hills upon either side.
Around him the sunbeams fell?On the gentle St. Lawrence swell,?As though by some mystic spell?The water was turned to gold;?But as he pursued, they fled,?Till his vessels at last were led?Where, cold and sullen and dead,?The Saguenay River rolled.
Chill blew the wind in his face,?As, still on his treasure chase,?He entered that gloomy place?Whose mountains in stony pride,?Still, soulless, merciless, sheer,?Their adamant sides uprear,?Naked and brown and drear,?High over the murky tide.
No longer the sun shone bright?On the sails that, full and white,?Like sea gulls winging their flight,?Dipped into the silent wave;?But shadows fell thick around,?Till feeling and sight and sound?In their awful gloom were drowned,?And sank in a depthless grave.
Far over the topmost height?Great eagles had wheeled in flight,?But, wrapped in the gloom of night,?They ceased to circle and soar:?Grim silence reigned over all,?Save that from a rocky wall?A murmuring waterfall?Leapt down to the river shore.
O merciless walls of stone!?What happened that night is known?By you, and by you alone:?Though the eagles unceasing scream,?How once through that midnight air,?For an instant a trumpet's blare,?And the voices of men in prayer,?Arose from the murky stream.
JULES' LETTER.
MA CHèRE,
Since the morning we parted?On the slippery docks of Rochelle,?I have wandered, well nigh broken-hearted,?Through many a tree-shadowed dell:?I've hunted the otter and beaver,?Have tracked the brown bear and the deer,?And have lain almost dying with fever,?While not a companion was near.
I've toiled in the fierce heat of summer?Under skies like a great dome of gold,?And have tramped, growing number and number,?In winter through snowstorm and cold.?Yet the love in my heart was far hotter,?The fear of my soul far more chill,?As my thoughts crossed the wild waste of water?To your little home on the hill.
But now Father Time in a measure?Has reconciled me to my fate,?For I know he will bring my dear treasure?Back into my arms soon or late.?And, besides, every evening, when, weary,?I lie on my soft couch of pine,?Sleep wafts me again to my dearie,?And your heart once more beats against mine.
You never have heard of such doings?As those that are going on here;?We've nothing but weddings and wooings?From dawn till the stars reappear.?For the king, gracious monarch, a vessel?Has sent, bearing widows and maids?Within our rough bosoms to nestle,?And make us a home in the glades.
They are tall and short, ugly and pretty,?There are blondes and brunettes by the score:?Some silent and dull, others witty,?And made for mankind to adore.?Some round as an apple, some slender--?In fact--so he be not in haste--?Any man with a heart at all tender?Can pick out a wife to his taste.
Now, darling, don't pout and grow jealous,?I still am a bachelor free,?In spite of the governor's zealous?And extra-judicial decree,?Commanding all men to be married?In less than two weeks from this date,?And promising all who have tarried?Shall feel the full strength of his hate:
In spite of his