Rhymes of a Rolling Stone | Page 7

cast.
There were
her lashes locking as before.
(Oh, but it filled me with a joy so vast!)

No, 'twas a freak, a fancy of the brain,
(Oh, but to-night I'll try
again, again!)
XIII
It was no dream; now do I know that Love
Leapt from the starry
battlements of Death;
For in my vigil as I bent above,
Calling her
name with eager, burning breath,
Sudden there came a change: again
I saw
The radiance of the rose-leaf stain her cheek;
Rivers of
rapture thrilled in sunny thaw;
Cleft were her coral lips as if to speak;

Curved were her tender arms as if to cling;
Open the flower-like
eyes of lucent blue,
Looking at me with love so pitying
That I could
fancy Heaven shining through.
"Sunshine," 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