The Oxford Book of Canadian Verse
InnocenceCharles Mair (18381927)
O
In openings of the woods and pleasant ways,
Where leaves beset her,
And hanging branches crowned her head with bays.
Through flower-deck’d fields unto the oaken pass
Where knelt the chewing flock,
And lambkins gambolled round her on the grass.
By wandering brooks o’er which the willows met,
Or where the meadow-land
Balmed the soft air with dew-mist drapery wet.
Had bloomed her cheek with colour of the rose;
Rare beauty was entwined
With locks and looks in movement or repose.
Her bosom-gourds swelled chastely, white as spray,
Wind-tost—without a fleck—
The air which heaved them was less pure than they.
There came unto her airy laughter-chimes,
Nature’s night-hymn and cry,
The music of the leaves and river rhymes.
And Summer’s coronals were hers in trust,
Till came the Winter-King
To droop their sweetness into native dust.
And wavering snow, or heaped in rimy hills,
She loved; aye! she could bind
On Fancy’s brow his charmèd icicles.
The rock-ribbed wilderness, the talking trees
Seemed fairer while she stayed,
And drank of their dim meanings and old ease.
Her spirit at her mighty breast as one
Who felt the forests’ thirst,
The hunger of the mountains for the sun.
From starry quietude and noiseless sleep;
Scenes which the Fancy holds
In easy thraldom in her joyous keep.
And pious legends told at dimmest eve,
Came thronging, faintly bright,
The habit of her inner life to weave.
To soothe the hidden ruth, the bridled tear;
With counsel from above,
Alleviating woe, allaying fear.
Another’s was her own; Life’s ceaseless care,
Which loads with chain on chain
The heavenward spirit, she was wont to share.
What the sad soul remits to God alone;
What the fond heart avers
In secret helplessness before His throne.
Earth and the biding stars, was all her guide.
She worshipped in his sight,
She joyed, she wept, she flung away her pride.
The awful burden of the world’s despair;
What could she give him more
Than helpful deeds, a simple life and fair?
She lives and moves upon the grass-green earth,
And, as of old, doth fill
Her heart with love, still mingling tears with mirth.
For sect or creed from which no rancour spreads,
Since we can make her out
By following the peaceful path she treads?
And blind belief is oft in error’s thrall;
Though unbelief is blind,
Though we who know a portion know not all—
Throughout the puzzled world we wander in,
And free—though unrepealed
Her statutes—since she hath the power to sin.
Her life sublime by putting it to test;
And in this wise awakes
The evil that is in us for the best.