The Oxford Book of Canadian Verse
PeccaviJames E. Caldwell
H
The blue and bending sky,
A child, I lived in happiness,
Unmindful of the Why.
Of Nature softly fell
By day, at night the wonderment
Which lips can never tell.
Were blent with human tears;
And hearkening oft there faintly came
The music of the spheres.
Weird travellers’ tales I heard
Of fairy lands and magic towers,
And realms of grief unstirred.
Might bathe the Earth in light,
No more the rapture of the hills
Did sanctify the night.
Was writ Unclean, Unclean;
Upon the idly rusting plough
My nerveless hand did lean.
Fast bound to grossest needs;
While far away I heard the call
Of winged and fiery steeds.
Rich largess too I bore
Of ruddy blood and supple limbs,
And sought that mystic shore.
Of tantalizing quest,
Of desert wind that inly sears
The disenchanted breast.
Fantastically blent,
Of poppied dreams, and tilted seas,
And meteors cold and spent.
And giddy hours, the swine—
Basest of all my former years—
Alone, alone were mine.
After a night of mirth,
Came to my heart the piercing cry,
Ah! why scorned I the Earth!
The chisel-marks it bears;
Myriad, uncounted, infinite,
Its upward mounting stairs.
And blesses with his thought;
The friendly door, the garment fair,
The ring with jewels wrought.
From that astringent word!
Scarce uttered till beside me sang
A tiny fearless bird.
With many an uncouth call;
Why grudged I then my service while
In turn man claim’d their all?
Stripped, penitent, and worn,
But in my heart a feeling surged—
I am not all forlorn.
With all I once did scorn;
And smite with sharp and willing too
The thistle and the thorn.
But all the place was still;
I waited at the silent door,
Irresolute of will.
All mildewed was the crook;
A terror fill’d my trembling frame,
So fearful did it look!
My brother, bent and grey;
Till then I had not dream’d what years
Had swiftly passed away!
At last he caught the clue;
With outstretched hand he slowly spake,
‘Ah, brother, is it you?’
Of fear my spirit stirred,
And all the melancholy tale
In voiceless grief I heard.
And o’er the distant hills;
But something in the vanished past
No more my spirit fills.
Comes with insistent tone;
And I, alas! am all too free
To tread my path alone.
The Earth with chemic force;
From unseen founts the rivers run
To seek their ocean source.
My spirit upward springs,
And seeks the precious grain of truth
From endless winnowings.
I gaze with mortal eye,
Still o’er the old familiar scene
His blessing seems to lie.
In him personified,—
Strength, goodness, wisdom, charity,
Forgiveness free and wide.
Which never shall return,
With vaster, nobler meaning charged,
In purer love to burn.