Thoughts, Moods and Ideals: Crimes of Leisure

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Title: Thoughts, Moods and Ideals: Crimes of Leisure
Author: W.D. Lighthall
Release Date: January 6, 2005 [EBook #14616]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THOUGHTS, MOODS AND IDEALS
Crimes of Leisure
by
W.D. LIGHTHALL,
ADVOCATE.
Montreal:
"WITNESS" PRINTING HOUSE, ST. JAMES
STREET
1887
Dedicated
to
My Friends.
THOUGHTS, MOODS AND IDEALS.

THE CONFUSED DAWN.
YOUNG MAN
What are the Vision and the Cry
That haunt the
new Canadian soul?
Dim grandeur spreads we know not why
O'er
mountain, forest, tree and knoll,
And murmurs indistinctly fly.--

Some magic moment sure is nigh.
O Seer, the curtain roll!
SEER
The Vision, mortal, it is this--
Dead mountain, forest, knoll
and tree
Awaken all endued with bliss,
A native land--O think!--to
be--
Thy native land--and ne'er amiss,
Its smile shall like a lover's
kiss
From henceforth seem to thee.
The Cry thou couldst not understand,
Which runs through that new
realm of light,
From Breton's to Vancouver's strand
O'er many a
lovely landscape bright,
It is their waking utterance grand,
The
great refrain "A NATIVE LAND!"--
Thine be the ear, the sight.
(1882.)
NATIONAL HYMN.
To Thee whose smile is might and fame,
A nation lifts united praise

And asks but that Thy purpose frame
A useful glory for its days.
We pray no sunset lull of rest,
No pomp and bannered pride of war;

We hold stern labor manliest,
The just side real conqueror.
For strength we thank Thee: keep us strong,
And grant us pride of
skilful toil;
For homes we thank Thee: may we long
Have each
some Eden rood of soil.
O, keep our mothers kind and dear,
And make the fathers stern and
wise;
The maiden soul preserve sincere,
And rise before the young
man's eyes.
Crush out the jest of idle minds,
That know not, jesting, when to hush;


Keep on our lips the word that binds,
And teach our children when
to blush.
Forever constant to the good
Still arm our faith, thou Guard Sublime,

To scorn, like all who have understood,
The atheist dangers of the
time.
Thou hearest!--Lo, we feel our love
Of loyal thoughts and actions
free
Toward all divine achievement move,
Ennobled, blest, ensured,
by Thee.
CANADA NOT LAST.
AT VENICE
Lo! Venice, gay with color, lights and song,
Calls
from St. Mark's with ancient voice and strange:
I am the Witch of
Cities! glide along
My silver streets that never wear by change
Of
years: forget the years, and pain, and wrong,
And every sorrow
reigning men among.
Know I can soothe thee, please and marry thee

To my illusions. Old and siren-strong,
I smile immortal, while the
mortals flee
Who whiten on to death in wooing me.
AT FLORENCE
Say, what more fair, by Arno's bridgéd gleam,[A]

Than Florence, viewed from San Miniato's slope
At eventide, when
west along the stream,
The last of day reflects a silver hope!--
Lo,
all else softened in the twilight beam:--
The city's mass blent in one
hazy cream,
The brown Dome midst it, and the Lily tower,
And
stern Old Tower more near, and hills that seem
Afar, like clouds to
fade, and hills of power,
On this side, greenly dark with cypress, vine
and bower.
AT ROME
End of desire to stray I feel would come
Though Italy
were all fair skies to me,
Though France's fields went mad with
flowery foam
And Blanc put on a special majesty.
Not all could
match the growing thought of home
Nor tempt to exile. Look I not on
ROME--
This ancient, modern, mediæval queen--
Yet still sigh

westward over hill and dome,
Imperial ruin and villa's princely scene

Lovely with pictured saints and marble gods serene.
REFLECTION
Rome, Florence, Venice--noble, fair and quaint,

They reign in robes of magic round me here;
But fading, blotted, dim,
a picture faint,
With spell more silent, only pleads a tear.
Plead not!
Thou hast my heart, O picture dim!
I see the fields, I see the autumn
hand
Of God upon the maples! Answer Him
With weird,
translucent glories, ye that stand
Like spirits in scarlet and in
amethyst!
I see the sun break over you; the mist
On hills that lift
from iron bases grand
Their heads superb!--the dream, it is my native
land.
[Footnote A: "Sovra'l bel fiume d'Arno la gran villa."--Dante.]
O DONNA DI VIRTU!
(DANTE--INFERNO, CANTO I.)
"_O mystic Lady; Thou in whom alone
Our human race surpasses all
that stand
In Paradise the nearest round the throne!
So eagerly I
wait for thy command
That to obey were slow though ready done._"
How oft I read. How agonized the turning,
In those my earlier days of
loss and pain,--
Of eyes to space and night as though by yearning--

Some wall might yield and I behold again
A certain angel, fled
beyond discerning;
In vain I chafed and sought--alas, in vain,
From
spurring though my heart's