Willow-Pipes
So in the shadow by the nimble flood
He made her whistles of the willow wood,
Flutes of one note with mellow slender tone;
(A robin piping in the dusk alone).
Lively the pleasure was the wand to bruise,
And notch the light rod for its lyric use,
Until the stem gave up its tender sheath,
And showed the white and glistening wood beneath.
And when the ground was covered with light chips,
Grey leaves and green, and twigs and tender slips,
They placed the well-made whistles in a row
And left them for the careless wind to blow.
poem by Duncan Campbell Scott
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The Apparition
Gentle angel with your mantle,
All of tender green,
I was yearning for a vision
Of the life unseen.
When you hovered in the sunset,
Just as rain was done;
Where the dropping from the poplars
Seemed like rain begun.
There you gathered forming slowly
Rounding into view:
All your vesture glowed like verdure
When the sap is new.
Then you mutely gave your warning
And I felt the stress
Of its passion and its presage
And its utterness.
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poem by Duncan Campbell Scott
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Enigma
Some men are born to gather women's tears,
To give a harbour to their timorous fears,
To take them as the dry earth takes the rain,
As the dark wood the warm wind from the plain;
Yet their own tears remain unshed,
Their own tumultuous fears unsaid,
And, seeming steadfast as the forest and the earth
Shaken are they with pain.
They cry for voice as earth might cry for the sea
Or the wood for consuming fire;
Unanswered they remain
Subject to the sorrows of women utterly -
Heart and mind,
Subject as the dry earth to the rain
Or the dark wood to the wind.
poem by Duncan Campbell Scott
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The Ghost's Story
All my life long I heard the step
Of some one I would know,
Break softly in upon my days
And lightly come and go.
A foot so brisk I said must bear
A heart that's clean and clear;
If that companion blithe would come,
I should be happy here.
But though I waited long and well,
He never came at all,
I grew aweary of the void,
Even of the light foot-fall.
From loneliness to loneliness
I felt my spirit grope--
At last I knew the uttermost,
The loneliness of hope.
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poem by Duncan Campbell Scott
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Life And Death
I THOUGHT of death beside the lonely sea
That went beyond the limit of my sight,
Seeming the image of his mastery,
The semblance of his huge and gloomy might.
But firm beneath the sea went the great earth,
With sober bulk and adamantine hold,
The water but a mantle for her girth,
That played about her splendor fold on fold.
And life seemed like this dear familiar shore
That stretched from the wet sand’s last wavy crease,
Beneath the sea’s remote and sombre roar,
To inland stillness and the wilds of peace.
Death seems triumphant only here and there;
Life is the sovereign presence everywhere.
poem by Duncan Campbell Scott
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The Onondaga Madonna
She stands full-throated and with careless pose,
This woman of a weird and waning race,
The tragic savage lurking in her face,
Where all her pagan passion burns and glows;
Her blood is mingled with her ancient foes,
And thrills with war and wildness in her veins;
Her rebel lips are dabbled with the stains
Of feuds and forays and her father's woes.
And closer in the shawl about her breast,
The latest promise of her nation's doom,
Paler than she her baby clings and lies,
The primal warrior gleaming from his eyes;
He sulks, and burdened with his infant gloom,
He draws his heavy brows and will not rest.
poem by Duncan Campbell Scott
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At Sea
Three are emerald pools in the sea,
And wing-like flashes of light;
The sea is bound with the heavens
In a large delight.
Night comes out of the east
And rushes down on the sun;
The emerald pools and the light pools
Are darkened and done.
Our boat dips and cleaves onward,
Careless of night or of light,
Following the line of her compass
By her engines' might.
Through the desert of air and of water;
Like the lonely soul of man,
Following her fate to the ending,
Unaware of the hidden plan.
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poem by Duncan Campbell Scott
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Night
The night is old, and all the world
Is wearied out with strife;
A long gray mist lies heavy and wan
Above the house of life.
Four stars burn up and are unquelled
By the low, shrunken moon;
Her spirit draws her down and down--
She shall be buried soon.
There is a sound that is no sound,
Yet fine it falls and clear,
The whisper of the spinning earth
To the tranced atmosphere.
An odour lives where once was air,
A strange, unearthly scent,
From the burning of the four great stars
Within the firmament.
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poem by Duncan Campbell Scott
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Feuilles D'Automne
Gather the leaves from the forest
And blow them over the world,
The wind of winter follows
The wind of autumn furled.
Only the beech tree cherishes
A leaf or two for ruth,
Their stems too tough for the tempest,
Like thoughts of love and of youth.
You may sit by the fire and ponder
While darkness veils the pane,
And fear that your memories are rushing away
In the wind and the rain.
But you'll find them in the quiet
When the clouds race with the moon,
Making the tender silver sound
Of a beech in the month of June.
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poem by Duncan Campbell Scott
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In Snow-Time
I have seen things that charmed the heart to rest:
Faint moonlight on the towers of ancient towns,
Flattering the soul to dream of old renowns;
The first clear silver on the mountain crest
Where the lone eagle by his chilly nest
Called the lone soul to brood serenely free;
Still pools of sunlight shimmering in the sea,
Calm after storm, wherein the storm seemed blest.
But here a peace deeper than peace is furled,
Enshrined and chaliced from the changeful hour;
The snow is still, yet lives in its own light.
Here is the peace which brooded day and night,
Before the heart of man with its wild power
Had ever spurned or trampled the great world.
poem by Duncan Campbell Scott
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