A Song in August / Francis Sherman

A Song in August

O gold is the West and gold the river-waters
Washing past the sides of my yellow birch canoe,
Gold are the great drops that fall from my paddle,
The far-off hills cry a golden word of you.

I can almost see you! Where its own shadow
Creeps down the hill’s side, gradual and slow.
There you stand waiting; the goldenrod and thistle
Glad of you beside them — the fairest thing they know.

Down the worn foot-path, the tufted pines behind you,
Grey sheep between,— unfrightened as you pass;
Swift through the sun-glow, I to my loved one
Come, striving hard against the long trailing grass.

Soon shall I ground on the shining gravel-reaches:
Through the thick alders you will break your way:
Then your hand in mine, and our path is on the waters,—
For us the long shadows and the end of day.

Whither shall we go? See, over to the westward,
An hour of precious gold standeth still for you and me;
Still gleams the grain, all yellow on the uplands;
West is it, or East, O Love that you would be?

West now, or East? For, underneath the moonrise,
Also it is fair; and where the reeds are tall,
And the only little noise is the sound of quiet waters,
Heavy, like the rain, we shall hear the duck-oats fall.

And perhaps we shall see, rising slowly from the driftwood,
A lone crane go over to its inland nest:
Or a dark line of ducks will come in across the islands
And sail overhead to the marshes of the west.

Now a little wind rises up for our returning;
Silver grows the East as the West grows grey;
Shadows on the waters, shaded are the meadows,
The firs on the hillside — naught so dark as they.

Yet we have known the light!— Was ever such an August?
Your hand leaves mine; and the new stars gleam
As we separately go to our dreams of opened heaven,
— The golden dawn shall tell you that you did not dream.

~~
Francis Sherman (1871-1926)
From A Canadian Calendar: XII lyrics, 1900

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

Francis Sherman biography 

Canoeing on the Upper Tomoka River, Florida, 1905. Wikimedia Commons.

The Lodger / Francis Sherman

The Lodger

1.

What! and do you find it good,
Sitting here alone with me?
Hark! the wind goes through the wood
And the snow drifts heavily,

When the morning brings the light
How know I you will not say,
"What a storm there fell last night,
Is the next inn far away?"

How know I you do not dream
Of some country where the grass
Grows up tall around the gleam
Of the milestones you must pass?

Even now perhaps you tell
(While your hands play through my hair)
Every hill, each hidden well,
All the pleasant valleys there,

That before a clear moon shines
You will be with them again!
— Hear the booming of the pines
And the sleet against the pane.


2.

Wake, and look upon the sun,
I awoke an hour ago,
When the night was hardly done
And still fell a little snow,

Since the hill-tops touched the light
Many things have my hands made,
Just that you should think them right
And be glad that you have stayed.

—How I worked the while you slept!
Scarcely did I dare to sing!
All my soul a silence kept —
Fearing your awakening.

Now, indeed, I do not care
If you wake; for now the sun
Makes the least of all things fair
That my poor two hands have done.


3.

No, it is not hard to find.
You will know it by the hills —
Seven — sloping up behind;
By the soft perfume that fills

(O, the red, red roses there!)
Full the narrow path thereto:
By the dark pine-forest where
Such a little wind breathes through;

By the way the bend o' the stream
Takes the peace that twilight brings:
By the sunset, and the gleam
Of uncounted swallows' wings.

— No, indeed, I have not been
There: but such dreams I have had!
And, when I grow old, the green
Leaves will hide me, too, made glad.

Yes, you must go now, I know.
You are sure you understand?
— How I wish that I could go
Now, and lead you by the hand.

~~
Francis Sherman (1871-1926)
From A Canadian Calendar: XII lyrics, 1900

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

Francis Sherman biography

George Morland (1763-1804), Outside an Inn, Winter, 1795. Wikimedia Commons.

Song at Parting / Francis Sherman

Song at Parting

And after many days (for I shall keep
    These old things unforgotten, nevertheless!)
    My lids at last, feeling thy faint caress,
Shall open, April, to the wooded sweep
Of Northern hills; and my slow blood shall leap
    And surge, for joy and very wantonness —
    Like Northern waters when thy feet possess
The valleys, and the green year wakes from sleep.

That morn the drowsy South, as we go forth
    (Unseen thy hand in mine; I, seen of all)
        Will marvel that I seek the outmost quay,—
The while, gray leagues away, a new-born North
    Harkens with wonder to thy rapturous call
        For some old lover down across the sea.

~~
Francis Sherman (1871-1926)
from Two Songs at Parting, 1899

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

Francis Sherman biography

J.M.W. Turner (1785-1851), The Parting of Hero and Leander. Wikimedia Commons.

A March Wind / Francis Sherman

A March Wind

High above the trees, swinging in across the hills,
   There’s a wide cloud, ominous and slow;
And the wind that rushes over sends the little stars to cover
   And the wavering shadow fade along the snow.
Surely on my window (Hark the tumult of the night!)
   That’s a first, fitful drop of scanty rain;
And the hillside wakes and quivers with the strength of newborn rivers
   Come to make our Northland glad and free again.

O remember how the snow fell the long winter through!
   Was it yesterday I tied your snowshoes on?
All my soul grew wild with yearning for the sight of your returning
   But I waited all those hours that you were gone.
For I watched you from our window through the blurring flakes that fell
   Till you gained the quiet wood, and then I knew
(When our pathways lay together how we reveled in such weather!)
   That the ancient things I loved would comfort you.

Now I knew that you would tarry in the shadow of the firs
   And remember many winters overpast;
All the hidden signs I found you of the hiding life around you,
   Sleeping patient till the year should wake at last.
Here a tuft of fern underneath the rounded drift;
   A rock, there, behind a covered spring;
And here, nowhither tending, tracks beginning not nor ending,— 
   Was it bird or shy four-footed furry thing?

And remember how we followed down the woodman’s winding trail!
   By the axe-strokes ringing louder, one by one,
Well we knew that we were nearing now the edges of the clearing,—
   O the gleam of chips all yellow in the sun!
But the twilight fell about us as we watched him at his work;
   And in the south a sudden moon, hung low,
Beckoned us beyond the shadows — down the hill — across the meadows
   Where our little house loomed dark against the snow.

And that night, too — remember?— outside our quiet house,
   Just before the dawn we heard the moaning wind;
Only then its wings were weighted with the storm itself created
   And it hid the very things it came to find.
In the morn, when we arose, and looked out across the fields,
   (Hark the branches! how they shatter overhead!)
Seemed it not that Time was sleeping, and the whole wide world was keeping
   All the silence of the Houses of the Dead?

Ah, but that was long ago! And tonight the wind foretells
   (Hark, above the wind, the little laughing rills!)
Earth’s forgetfulness of sorrow when the dawn shall break tomorrow
   And lead me to the bases of the hills:
To the low southern hills where of old we used to go —
   (Hark the rumor of ten thousand ancient Springs!)
O my love, to thy dark quiet — far beyond our North’s mad riot —
   Do thy new Gods bring remembrance of such things?

~~
Francis Sherman (1871-1926)
From A Canadian Calendar: XII lyrics, 1900

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

Francis Sherman biography

At the Year's Turn / Francis Sherman

At the Year's Turn

This year, the perfume of her hair
Has fallen about me many times —
Dimly; as when you waken where
One long ago made subtle rhymes
Your vain hands clasp the empty air.

When April first came in, and Spring
Called loud from valley unto hill,
Awhile I laughed at each new thing —
Strong as the risen waters: still,
I dreamed upon her wandering.

And when the warm, warm days were come,
And roses bloomed in any lane,
My heart, that should have sung, was dumb
As waiting birds before the rain:
The heavy air was burthensome.

Today, I paused, at the year’s turn,
Between the sunset and the wood
Where many broad-leaved maples burn;
Until I saw her, where I stood,
Across the tawny seas of fern

(Red rowan-berries in her hair) —
October — come to me again:
And as I waited for her there,
Softly the Hunter’s Moon made plain
Her curvèd bosom, white and bare.

~~
Francis Sherman (1871-1926)
from An Acadian Easter, and other poems, 1900

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

Francis Sherman biography

The Landsman / Francis Sherman

The Landsman

“It well may be just as you say,
Will Carver, that your tales are true;
Yet think what I must put away,
Will Carver, if I sail with you.”

“If you should sail with me (the wind
Is west, the tide’s at full, my men!)
The things that you have left behind
Will be as nothing to you then.”

“Inland, it’s June! And the birds sing
Among the wooded hills, I know;
Between green fields, unhastening,
The Nashwaak’s shadowed waters flow.

“What know you of such things as these
Who have the gray sea at your door, —
Whose path is as the strong winds please
Beyond this narrow strip of shore?”

“Your fields and woods! Now, answer me:
Up what green path have your feet run
So wide as mine, when the deep sea
Lies all-uncovered to the sun?

“And down the hollows of what hills
Have you gone — half so glad of heart
As you shall be when our sail fills
And the great waves ride far apart?”

“O! half your life is good to live,
Will Carver; yet, if I should go,
What are the things that you can give
Lest I regret the things I know!

“Lest I desire the old life’s way?
The noises of the crowded town?
The busy streets, where, night and day,
The traffickers go up and down?”

“What can I give for these? Alas,
That all unchanged your path must be!
Strange lights shall open as we pass
And alien wakes traverse the sea;

“Your ears shall hear (across your sleep)
New hails, remote, disquieted,
For not a hand-breadth of the deep
But has to soothe some restless dead.

“These things shall be. And other things,
I think, not quite so sad as these!
— Know you the song the rigging sings
When up the opal-tinted seas

“The slow south-wind comes amorously?
The sudden gleam of some far sail
Going the same glad way as we,
Hastily, lest the good wind fail?

“The dreams that come (so strange, so fair!)
When all your world lies well within
The moving magic circle where
The sea ends and the skies begin?” . . .

. . . “What port is that, so far astern,
Will Carver? And how many miles
Shall we have run ere the tide turn?
— And is it far to the farthest isles?”

~~
Francis Sherman (1871-1926)
From A Canadian Calendar: XII lyrics, 1900

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

Francis Sherman biography

A Memory / Francis Sherman

A Memory

You are not with me though the Spring is here!
And yet it seemed to-day as if the Spring
Were the same one that in an ancient year
Came suddenly upon our wandering.

You must remember all that chanced that day.
Can you forget the shy awaking call
Of the first robin?— And the foolish way
The squirrel ran along the low stone wall?

The half-retreating sound of water breaking,
Hushing, falling; while the pine-laden breeze
Told us the tumult many crows were making
Amid innumerable distant trees;

The certain presence of the birth of things
Around, above, beneath us,— everywhere;
The soft return of immemorial Springs
Thrilling with life the fragrant forest air;

All these were with us then. Can you forget?
Or must you — even as I — remember well?
To-day, all these were with me, there,— and yet
They seemed to have some bitter thing to tell;

They looked with questioning eyes, and seemed to wait
One’s doubtful coming whom of old they knew;
Till, seeing me alone and desolate,
They learned how vain was strong desire of you.

~~
Francis Sherman (1871-1926)
from Matins, 1896

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

Francis Sherman biography

A Road Song in May / Francis Sherman

A Road Song in May

O come! Is it not surely May?
The year is at its poise today.
Northward, I hear the distant beat
Of Spring’s irrevocable feet;
Tomorrow June will have her way.

O tawny waters, flecked with sun,
Come; for your labors all are done.
The gray snow fadeth from the hills;
And toward the sound of waking mills
Swing the brown rafts in, one by one.

O bees among the willow-blooms,
Forget your empty waxen rooms
Awhile, and share our golden hours!
Will they not come, the later flowers,
With their old colors and perfumes?

O wind that bloweth from the west,
Is not this morning road the best?
— Let us go hand in hand, as free
And glad as little children be
That follow some long-dreamed-of quest!

~~
Francis Sherman (1871-1926)
From A Canadian Calendar: XII lyrics, 1900

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

Francis Sherman biography

Alan Bowring, The winding road, 2008. CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.