E. Pauline Johnson (Tekahiońwake)
The Song My Paddle Sings
WEST wind, blow from your prairie nest!
Blow from the mountains, blow from the west.
The sail is idle, the sailor too;
O! wind of the west, we wait for you.
Blow, blow!
I have wooed you so,
But never a favor you bestow.
You rock your cradle the hills between,
But scorn to notice my white lateen.
I stow the sail, unship the mast:
I wooed you long, but my wooing’s past;
My paddle will lull you into rest.
O! drowsy wind of the drowsy west,
Sleep, sleep,
By your mountain steep,
Or down where the prairie grasses sweep!
Now fold in slumber your laggard wings,
For soft is the song my paddle sings.
August is laughing across the sky,
Laughing while paddle, canoe and I,
Drift, drift,
Where the hills uplift
On either side of the current swift.
The river rolls in its rocky bed;
My paddle is plying its way ahead;
Dip, dip,
While the waters flip
In foam as over their breast we slip.
And oh, the river runs swifter now;
The eddies circle about my bow.
Swirl, swirl!
How the ripples curl
In many a dangerous pool awhirl!
And forward far the rapids roar,
Fretting their margin for evermore.
Dash, dash,
With a mighty crash,
They seethe, and boil, and bound, and splash.
Be strong, O paddle! be brave, canoe!
The reckless waves you must plunge into.
Reel, reel,
On your trembling keel,
But never a fear my craft will feel.
We’ve raced the rapid, we’re far ahead!
The river slips through its silent bed.
Sway, sway,
As the bubbles spray
And fall in tinkling tunes away.
And up on the hills against the sky,
A fir tree rocking its lullaby,
Swings, swings,
Its emerald wings,
Swelling the song that my paddle sings.
At Husking Time
AT husking time the tassel fades
To brown above the yellow blades,
Whose rustling sheath enswathes the corn
That bursts its chrysalis in scorn
Longer to lie in prison shades.
Among the merry lads and maids
The creaking ox-cart slowly wades
’Twixt stalks and stubble, sacked and torn
At husking time.
The prying pilot crow persuades
The flock to join in thieving raids;
The sly raccoon with craft inborn
His portion steals; from plenty’s horn
His pouch the saucy chipmunk lades
At husking time.
Shadow River
A STREAM of tender gladness,
Of filmy sun, and opal-tinted skies;
Of warm midsummer air that lightly lies
In mystic rings,
Where softly swings
The music of a thousand wings
That almost tone to sadness.
Midway ’twixt earth and heaven,
A bubble in the pearly air, I seem
To float upon the sapphire floor, a dream
Of clouds of snow,
Above, below,
Drift with my drifting, dim and slow,
As twilight drifts to even.
The little fern-leaf, bending
Upon the brink, its green reflection greets,
And kisses soft the shadow that it meets
With touch so fine,
The border line
The keenest vision can’t define;
So perfect is the blending.
The far fir trees that cover
The brownish hills with needles green and gold,
The arching elms o’erhead, vinegrown and old,
Repictured are
Beneath me far,
Where not a ripple moves to mar
Shades underneath, or over.
Mine is the undertone;
The beauty, strength, and power of the land
Will never stir or bend at my command;
But all the shade
Is marred or made,
If I but dip my paddle blade;
And it is mine alone.
O! pathless world of seeming!
O! pathless life of mine whose deep ideal
Is more my own than ever was the real.
For others Fame
And Love’s red flame,
And yellow gold: I only claim
The shadows and the dreaming.
Brier
BECAUSE, dear Christ, your tender, wounded arm
Bends back the brier that edges life’s long way,
That no hurt comes to heart, to soul no harm,
I do not feel the thorns so much to-day.
Because I never knew your care to tire,
Your hand to weary guiding me aright,
Because you walk before and crush the brier,
It does not pierce my feet so much to-night.
Because so often you have hearkened to
My selfish prayers, I ask but one thing now,
That these harsh hands of mine add not unto
The crown of thorns upon your bleeding brow.
Prairie Greyhounds
C. P. R. Westbound—No. 1
I SWING to the sunset land,
The world of prairie, the world of plain,
The world of promise, and hope, and gain,
The world of gold, and the world of grain,
And the world of the willing hand.
I carry the brave and bold,
The one who works for the nation’s bread,
The one whose past is a thing that’s dead,
The one who battles and beats ahead,
And the one who goes for gold.
I swing to the land to be:
I am the power that laid its floors,
I am the guide to its western stores,
I am the key to its golden doors,
That open alone to me.
C. P. R. Eastbound—No. 2
I swing to the land of morn,
The grey old East, with its grey old seas,
The land of leisure, the land of ease,
The land of flowers and fruits and trees,
And the place where we were born.
Freighted with wealth I come:
Food, and fortune, and fellow that went
Far out west on adventure bent,
With well-worn pick and a folded tent,
Is bringing his bullion home.
I never will be renowned
As my twin that swings to the western marts,
For I am she of the humbler parts;
But I am the joy of the waiting hearts,
For I am the homeward bound!