Rhymes of a Rolling Stone | Page 7

I faltered, "stay with me, oh, stay!"?Yet ere I finished, in a moment's flight,?There in her angel purity she lay --?Ah! but I know she'll come again to-night.?EVEN AS RADIANT SWORD LEAPS FROM THE SHEATH,?SOUL FROM THE BODY LEAPS -- WE CALL IT DEATH.
XIV
Even as this line I write,?Do I know that she is near;?Happy am I, every night?Comes she back to bid me cheer;?Kissing her, I hold her fast;?Win her into life at last.
Did I dream that yesterday?On yon mountain ridge a glow?Soft as moonstone paled away,?Leaving less forlorn the snow??Could it be the sun? Oh, fain?Would I see the sun again!
Oh, to see a coral dawn?Gladden to a crocus glow!?Day's a spectre dim and wan,?Dancing on the furtive snow;?Night's a cloud upon my brain:?Oh, to see the sun again!
You who find us in this place,?Have you pity in your breast;?Let us in our last embrace,?Under earth sun-hallowed rest.?Night's a claw upon my brain:?Oh, to see the sun again!
XV
The Sun! at last the Sun! I write these lines,?Here on my knees, with feeble, fumbling hand.?Look! in yon mountain cleft a radiance shines,?Gleam of a primrose -- see it thrill, expand,?Grow glorious. Dear God be praised! it streams?Into the cabin in a gush of gold.?Look! there she stands, the angel of my dreams,?All in the radiant shimmer aureoled;?First as I saw her from my bed of pain;?First as I loved her when the darkness passed.?Now do I know that Life is not in vain;?Now do I know God cares, at last, at last!?Light outlives dark, joy grief, and Love's the sum:?Heart of my heart! Sunshine! I come . . . I come. . . .
The Idealist
Oh you who have daring deeds to tell!?And you who have felt Ambition's spell!?Have you heard of the louse who longed to dwell?In the golden hair of a queen??He sighed all day and he sighed all night,?And no one could understand it quite,?For the head of a slut is a louse's delight,?But he pined for the head of a queen.
So he left his kinsfolk in merry play,?And off by his lonesome he stole away,?From the home of his youth so bright and gay,?And gloriously unclean.?And at last he came to the palace gate,?And he made his way in a manner straight?(For a louse may go where a man must wait)?To the tiring-room of the queen.
The queen she spake to her tiring-maid:?"There's something the matter, I'm afraid.?To-night ere for sleep my hair ye braid,?Just see what may be seen."?And lo, when they combed that shining hair?They found him alone in his glory there,?And he cried: "I die, but I do not care,?For I've lived in the head of a queen!"
Athabaska Dick
When the boys come out from Lac Labiche in the lure of the early Spring, To take the pay of the "Hudson's Bay", as their fathers did before, They are all a-glee for the jamboree, and they make the Landing ring With a whoop and a whirl, and a "Grab your girl",?and a rip and a skip and a roar.?For the spree of Spring is a sacred thing, and the boys must have their fun; Packer and tracker and half-breed Cree, from the boat to the bar they leap; And then when the long flotilla goes, and the last of their pay is done, The boys from the banks of Lac Labiche swing to the heavy sweep. And oh, how they sigh! and their throats are dry,?and sorry are they and sick:?Yet there's none so cursed with a lime-kiln thirst as that Athabaska Dick.
He was long and slim and lean of limb, but strong as a stripling bear; And by the right of his skill and might he guided the Long Brigade. All water-wise were his laughing eyes, and he steered with a careless care, And he shunned the shock of foam and rock, till they came to the Big Cascade. And here they must make the long portage, and the boys sweat in the sun; And they heft and pack, and they haul and track, and each must do his trick; But their thoughts are far in the Landing bar,?where the founts of nectar run:?And no man thinks of such gorgeous drinks as that Athabaska Dick.
'Twas the close of day and his long boat lay just over the Big Cascade, When there came to him one Jack-pot Jim, with a wild light in his eye; And he softly laughed, and he led Dick aft, all eager, yet half afraid, And snugly stowed in his coat he showed a pilfered flask of "rye". And in haste he slipped, or in fear he tripped,?but -- Dick in warning roared --?And there rang a yell, and it befell that Jim was overboard.
Oh, I heard a splash, and quick as a flash I knew he could not swim. I