Edward William Thomson
A Day-Dream
WHEN, high above the busy street,
Some hidden voice poured Mary’s song.
Oh, then my soul forgot the heat
And roaring of the city’s throng:
Then London bells and cries fell low,
Blent to a far and murmured tone
That changed and chimed in mystic flow,
Weaving a spell for me alone.
No more the towering blocks were there,
No longer pressed the crowds around:
All freely roamed a magic air
Within what vast horizon’s bound:
Beneath a sky of lucent gray
Far stretched my circled northern plain,
Wild sunflowers decked a prairie gay,
And one dear Autumn came again.
Before me trod a winsome maid,
And oh, the mien with which she stept!
Her soft brown hair, without a braid,
Hiding the shoulders where it swept;
And glancing backward now she gave
To me the smile so true and wise,
The radiant look from eyes so grave
That spoke her inmost Paradise.
Divinely on my daughter went,
The wild flowers leaning from her tread;
Dreaming she lived, I watched intent
Till, ah, the gracious vision fled;
The plain gave place to blocks of grey,
The sunlit heaven to murky cloud—
Staring I stood in common day.
And never knew the street so loud.
The Song-Sparrow
WHEN plowmen ridge the steamy brown,
And yearning meadows sprout to green,
And all the spires and towers of town
Blent soft with wavering mists are seen:
When quickened woods in freshening hue
Along Mount Royal billowy swell,
When airs caress and May is new,
Oh, then my shy bird sings so well!
Because the blood-roots flock in white,
And blossomed branches scent the air,
And mounds with trillium flags are dight,
And myriad dells of violets rare;
Because such velvet leaves unclose,
And newborn rills all chiming ring,
And blue the dear St Lawrence flows—
My timid bird is forced to sing.
A joyful flourish lilted clear,—
Four notes—then fails the frolic song,
And memories of a vanished year
The wistful cadences prolong:
“A vanished year—O, heart too sore—
I cannot sing;” thus ends the lay:
Long silence, then awakes once more
His song, ecstatic of the May!
The Bad Year
MAY, blighted by keen frosts, passed on to June
No blooms, but many a stalk with drooping leaves,
And arid Summer wilted these full soon,
And Autumn gathered up no wealthy sheaves;
Plaintive October saddened for the year,
But wild November raged that hope was past,
Shrieking, “All days of life are made how drear—
Mad whirl of snow! and Death comes driving fast.”
Yet sane December, when the winds fell low,
And cold, calm light with sunshine tinkled clear,
Hearkened to bells more sweet than long ago,
And meditated in a mind sincere:—
“Beneath these snows shining from yon red west
How sleep the blooms of some delighted May,
And June shall riot, lovely as the best
That flung their odors forth on all their way:
Yes, violet Spring, the balms of her soft breath,
Her birdlike voice, the child-joy in her air.
Her gentle colors”—sane December saith
“They come, they come—O heart, sigh not ‘They were.’”