Part 4 (1/2)

Lake Louise

I THINK that when the Master Jeweler tells His beads of beauty over, seeking there One gem to name as most supremely fair, To you He turns, O lake of hidden wells!

So very lovely are you, Lake Louise, The stars which crown your lifted peaks at even Mistake you for a little sea in heaven And nightly launch their s.h.i.+ning argosies.

From sh.o.r.e to dim-lit sh.o.r.e a ripple slips, The happy sigh of faintly stirring night Where safe she sleeps upon this virgin height Captive of dream and smiling with white lips.

Surely a spell, creation-old, was made For you, O lake of silences, that all Earth's fretting voices here should muted fall, As if a finger on their lips were laid!

The Gatekeeper

THE sunlight falls on old Quebec, A city framed of rose and gold, An ancient gem more beautiful In that its beauty waxes old.

O Pearl of Cities! I would set You higher in our diadem, And higher yet and higher yet, That generations still to be May kindle at your history!

'Twas here that gallant Champlain stood And gazed upon this mighty stream, These towering rock-walls, b.u.t.tressed high-- A gateway to a land of dream; And all his silent men stood near While the great fleur-de-lis fell free, (Too awe-struck they to raise a cheer) And while the s.h.i.+ning folds outspread The sunset burned a sudden red.

Here paced the haughty Frontenac, His great heart torn with pride and pain, His clear eye dimming as it swept The land he might not see again, This infant world, this strange New France Dropped down as by some vagrant wind Upon the New World's vast expanse, Threatened yet safe! Through storm and stress Time's challenge to the wilderness.

Here, when to ease her tangled skein Fate cut her threads and formed anew The pattern of the thing she planned And red war slipped the shuttle through, Montcalm met Wolfe! The bitter strife Of flag and flag was ended here-- And every man who gave his life Gave it that now one flag may wave, One nation rise upon his grave!

The twilight falls on old Quebec And in the purple s.h.i.+nes a star, And on her citadel lies peace More powerful than armies are.

O fair dream city! Ebb and flow Of race feuds vex no more your walls.

Can they of old see this? and know That, even as they dreamed, you stand Gatekeeper of a peace-filled land!

The Bridge Builder

OF old the Winds came romping down, Oh, wild and free were they!

They bent the prairie gra.s.ses low And made a place to play.

Then, that the G.o.ds might hear their voice On purple days of spring, They sought the tossing, pine-clad slope And made a place to sing.

Tired at last of song and play, They found a canyon deep And in its echoing silences They made a place to weep.

Man came, a small and feeble thing, And looked upon the plain.

”Lo, this is mine,” he said, and set A seal of golden grain.

Upon the mountain slopes he gazed, Where the great pine trees grow, Then gashed their mighty sides and laid Their singing branches low.

He clung upon the canyon's ledge And from its topmost ridge, Above its vast and awful deeps, He built himself a bridge.

A bauble in the light of day, New gilded by the sun, It seemed like some great, golden web By giant spider spun!