Alas, that my heart is a lute.
Whereon you have learn'd to play!
For a many years it was mute,
Until one summer's day
You took it, and touched it, and made it thrill,
And it thrills and throbs, and quivers still!
I had known you, dear, so long!
Yet my heart did not tell me why
It should burst one morn into song,
And wake to new life with a cry,
Like a babe that sees the light of the sun,
And for whom this great world has just begun.
Your lute is enshrined, cased in,
Kept close with love's magic key,
So no hand but yours can win
And wake it to minstrelsy;
Yet leave it not silent too long, nor alone,
Lest the strings should break, and the music be done.
~~ Caroline Blanche Elizabeth Lindsay (1844-1912) from Lyrics, and other poems, 1890
"It was only a little bunch of clover-blossoms gathered for her, near a way-side station, soon after our parlies were introduced on the East-bound train. But how much it meant! That was just one year ago to-day, — and now we are going back together! " — from his letter.
A year ago this day, my girl,
The clover told a thing to you,
Amid the stir and noisy whirl
Of wheels, as toward his home we flew;
And now you know how fond and true
The thing the clover said to you.
With modest mirth and girlish grace,
You took the gift and lightly smiled;
You pressed it softly to your face,
(What wonder that the flower grew wild!)
And now, in thought, again we trace,
The clover bloom, the girlish grace.
Over the self-same road again
You journey,— yours the homeward way;
And bright upon that Western plain
The nodding clover smiles to-day;
And still, though not in lightsome play,
It has a blessed thing to say.
Still waves the clover in the sun,
And whispers near the whirring track:
"Two lives are floating into one,
Two travellers are speeding back.
God bless them both till Heaven is won,
And bless the love in bloom begun!"
When friendly summer calls again,
Calls again
Her little fifers to these hills,
We’ll go — we two — to that arched fane
Of leafage where they prime their bills
Before they start to flood the plain
With quavers, minims, shakes, and trills.
“—We’ll go,” I sing; but who shall say
What may not chance before that day!
And we shall see the waters spring,
Waters spring
From chinks the scrubby copses crown;
And we shall trace their oncreeping
To where the cascade tumbles down
And sends the bobbing growths aswing,
And ferns not quite but almost drown.
“—We shall,” I say; but who may sing
Of what another moon will bring!
~~
Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)
from Late Lyrics and Earlier, with many other verses, 1922
[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]
Tell all the world that summer's here again
With song and joy; tell them, that they may know
How, on the hillside, in the shining fields
New clumps of violets and daisies grow.
Tell all the world that summer's here again.
That white clouds voyage through a sky so still
With blue tranquillity, it seems to hang
One windless tapestry, from hill to hill.
Tell all the world that summer's here again:
Folk go about so solemnly and slow,
Walking each one his grooved and ordered way —
I fear that, otherwise thev will not know!
~~ Harry Kemp (1883-1960) from Chanteys and Ballads, 1920
[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]
Our Canada, young, strong and free,
Whose sceptre stretches far,
Whose hills look down on either sea,
And front the polar star,—
Not for thy greatness, half unknown,
Wide plains or mountains grand
But,— as we hold thee for our own,—
We love our native land! God bless our mighty forest-land Of mountain, lake and river. Whose loyal sons, from strand to strand, Sing 'Canada for ever!'
In winter robes of virgin snow
We proudly hail thee ours;
We crown thee when the south winds blow
'Our Lady of the Flowers;'
We love thy rainbow-tinted skies,
Thy mystic charm of spring ;
For us thine autumn's gorgeous dyes,
For us thy song-birds sing. God bless our own Canadian land Of mountain, lake and river. Whose loyal sons, from strand to strand, Sing 'Canada for ever!'
Fair art thou when the summer wakes
The cornfields' yellow gold;
Thy quiet pastures, azure lakes.
For us their treasures hold;
To us each hill and dale is dear,
Each rock and stream and glen,
Dear scattered homes of kindly cheer,
And busy haunts of men. God bless our own Canadian land Of mountain, lake and river. Whose loyal sons, from strand to strand, Sing 'Canada for ever!'
Our sires their old traditions brought,
Their lives of faithful toil;
For home and liberty they fought
On our Canadian soil.
Queenston, Quebec, and Lundy's Lane
Can stir our pulses still;
The lands they held through blood and pain
A free-born people fill. God bless our own Canadian land Of mountain, lake and river. Whose loyal sons, from strand to strand, Sing 'Canada for ever!'
Saxon and Celt and Norman we:—
Each race its memory keeps ;
Yet o'er us all, from sea to sea,
One Red Cross banner sweeps
Long may our Greater Britain stand
The bulwark of the free!
But, Canada, our own fair land,
Our first love is for thee! God bless our own Canadian land Of mountain, lake and river. Well may thy sons, from strand to strand, Sing 'Canada for ever!'
~~
Agnes Maule Machar (1837-1927)
from Lays of the True North, and other Canadian poems, 1902
[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]
