Part 16 (2/2)

THE MAPLE

I

It is the blood-hued maple straight and strong, Voicing abroad its patriotic song.

II

Its daring colours bravely flinging forth The ensign of the Nation of the North.

HARE-BELL

Elfin bell in azure dress, Chiming all day long, Ringing through the wilderness Dulcet notes of song.

Daintiest of forest flowers Weaving like a spell-- Music through the Autumn hours, Little Elfin bell.

THE GIANT OAK

And then the sound of marching armies 'woke Amid the branches of the soldier oak, And tempests ceased their warring cry, and dumb The las.h.i.+ng storms that muttered, overcome, Choked by the heralding of battle smoke, When these gnarled branches beat their martial drum.

ASPENS

A sweet high treble threads its silvery song, Voice of the restless aspen, fine and thin It trills its pure soprano, light and long-- Like the vibretto of a mandolin.

FINALE

The cedar trees have sung their vesper hymn, And now the music sleeps-- Its benediction falling where the dim Dusk of the forest creeps.

Mute grows the great concerto--and the light Of day is darkening, Good-night, Good-night.

But through the night time I shall hear within The murmur of these trees, The calling of your distant violin Sobbing across the seas, And waking wind, and star-reflected light Shall voice my answering. Good-night, Good-night.

THE TRAIL TO LILLOOET

Sob of fall, and song of forest, come you here on haunting quest, Calling through the seas and silence, from G.o.d's country of the west.

Where the mountain pa.s.s is narrow, and the torrent white and strong, Down its rocky-throated canyon, sings its golden-throated song.

You are singing there together through the G.o.d-begotten nights, And the leaning stars are listening above the distant heights That lift like points of opal in the crescent coronet About whose golden setting sweeps the trail to Lillooet.

Trail that winds and trail that wanders, like a cobweb hanging high, Just a hazy thread outlining mid-way of the stream and sky, Where the Fraser River canyon yawns its pathway to the sea, But half the world has shouldered up between its song and me.

Here, the placid English August, and the sea-encircled miles, There--G.o.d's copper-coloured suns.h.i.+ne beating through the lonely aisles Where the waterfalls and forest voice for ever their duet, And call across the canyon on the trail to Lillooet.

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