Thirteen  Poems

by  my  Grandfather

Gordon  Stace  Smith

1930 — 1960

from

In  the  Kootenays  and  Other  Verses  

and

  Far  West  and  Book  of  Sonnets

The Old Homestead

That stumpy farm — I see it now —
My sturdy father at the plough;
In crooked drills the virgin soil
Would register his daily toil.
Old Dox, the cow, in the corral.

The startled tinkling of her bell —
Her calf — contrary, gorged and plump —
Tethered to a birchen stump.
The wooden trough wherein I’d keep
Great water-creatures that do creep;
With brothers there, on business terms.
For hours I’d sit and barter worms.
Ten slimy leeches I would trade
For an Indian arrow-head;
And, should it have a double prong,
A beetle full three inches long.

My mother and her old sun-bonnet
(A theme itself to weave a sonnet!),
From peep of dawn till dewy eve
Her little tasks she’d never leave.
While we, not dreaming of her cares.
Excelled in mischief unawares;
Or in the river’s shallow wave
All day our youthful limbs we’d lave;
Or by some pool whose limpid creek
Would mirror towering Granite Peak,
We’d run about, with naked toes.
And sun-tanned shins and unkempt clothes.
Save once a week, when we were dressed
And polished in our decent best —
Perhaps on a Saturday or Monday,
Uncertain just which day was Sunday.
Wild, primitive, obscure, remote
From carriage, thoroughfare or boat;
A little world all of our own.
Where visitors were things unknown;
A stranger passing by the gate,
A nine-days’ wonder to relate.

The old log house, all ivy-green.
Through twining leaves the doors half seen.
Within whose walls each night (not late!)
To-morrow’s plans we would debate;
And when the clock struck drowsy nine.
The good-night kisses passed in line;
On bended knees, around our chairs.

We’d race and rattle through our prayers.
Too thoughtless to know what about.
Too innocent to dream a doubt.
Then tripping lightly up the stairs
To (poppied sleep that knows no cares!)
The attic where, in dreams, I’d span
The period ’twixt boy and man —
A vision, when attained, we find
We’ve left a paradise behind.

In Solitude

When oppositions all my hopes confound;
When sometimes seeming wedded to all woe
When ceaselessly the storms of ruin blow
And tumble my big castles to the ground:
And when I hear the curfew’s solemn sound
Knell that a broken-hearted day doth go —
Yes, and when I think of long ago
How loveliness was smiling all around —
Then in some solitary silent place
I hide away and sweetly meditate
On some lorn verse, admitting nothing base
Into the mind — and then, however great
The sorrows are, this heavenly solace brings
Such joy that I forget all earthly things.

Home-longing

When from this desolation I return
And see again the garden and the gate
Of my far home, where love and gladness wait.
And children — all unconscious of the stem.
Harsh things of earth that we in travel learn —
Come laughing down the pathway all elate
To meet this weary derelict of fate
And claim their kisses, love … when I return …

Ah! then shall I be ready to forego
This empty quest of fortune far abroad;
To live the simple life, with spade and hoe.
Nearer to Nature, closer to my God:
With books and love and children and sweet home —
When these are mine why should I longer roam?

The Lass That Came Over The Sea

Long since, on a beautiful spring
A lassie came over the sea,
From Scotland. And what did she bring
from that country for me?

Some heather? A kiss and some tears;
Sweet memories, roses and rue;
But, shining through all these years,
She brought me a heart steel true.

And no, when the twilights are long
The lass that came over the sea
Sings gaily a sad Scotch song,
Sings to her children — and me.

Water-Lilies

I love those large, broad-leaved, Canadian water-lilies
With green and yellow petals and strange purple hues within;
And it’s sweet on meadow waters when the evening still is —
In glib canoe the silences and solitudes to win.

To skim along the edges of the pristine, tall bullrushes;
To watch the mirrored sunset on the placid waters fade —
As the paddle dips make music then, between the hushes.
To gather water-lilies in the cooling twilight shade.

Exaltation

How often have I, in the sleepy night,
Stirred up, to put on paper, fourteen lines! 
Hemming my wild thoughts in those tight confines.
And yet they lilt their joy with feet so light
I scarcely know the message I indite:
Only I know that, when the morning shines,
No halo round my lowly pillow twines,
And all the exaltation’s taken flight.

For Psyche speaks, and she the clearer speaks
The more we are unconscious of the clay
And out of self, in the forgotten hour:
Then truths we have absorbed through days, or weeks
Or years, unfold as in a crystal ray
Like from the bud the rose bursts into flower.

Time, Men and Moths

From where the slow, deep Kootenay joins the Lake
A little mountain prairie  stretches out.
So broad and beautiful that it could make
A thousand homes — with the attendant shout
Of the ignoble mob, brawling about
Their acres — save that the mild, melting snow
Rolls from the hills each Spring and floods the flats below.

But this is a large boon Nature provides
To hold her virgin loveliness untamed;
A wilderness of mountains on all sides.
Unnumbered, dim, and often, too, unnamed 
As when the first fire of the pioneer flamed
Into the dusk. And changes barely mar
The meadow, where the many river-channels are.
Yet on the foothill flares the human stain.
For there a little village has been born —
Prosaic, commonplace and very vain.
That does itself with snobbery adorn;
There dark Hypocrisy on Sunday morn
Crawls into Church; while gossips, steeped in pride.
Sneer at the hapless maid should she once step aside.
But in the woods the shy birds still rejoice;
And calm and quiet is the river’s shore.
Though changes come, even by Nature’s choice:
The Redman’s buckskin teepee is no more.
And all his noble race is nearly o’er!
And gone the grazing herds of caribou
That, not so long ago, these grassy meadows knew.

Along the margins of the river rose
A narrow forest of tall cottonwoods;
The work of centuries, and the repose
Of creatures numberless in Summer’s moods;
And overhead a thousand interludes
Of varied nesting birds among the leaves.
With the low undertone the tireless river heaves.

Then suddenly a little moth appeared;
The tent leaf caterpillar found the place!
And soon the ancient forest’s grandeur seared.
And did each leaf, from every branch, deface —
Then death and desolation came apace:
We watched the whole enactment to the last,
Till, through the leafless boughs, the Summer breezes passed.

It chanced that, when again the winds were warm
And one whole year had numbered all its days.
An eager fire, born of a thunderstorm,
The ruined forest swept in sudden blaze,
That lingered long into the Autumn’s haze:
We watched it, every night, like flames of gold,
Leaping from tree to tree and craving to enfold.

Out of the ashes, hiding all deform,
A field of honeyed fireweed blooms and blows;
A flower of Hope, like rainbow after storm.
Where most there is Despair there best it grows.
Bringing a gladness everywhere it goes:
A sense of trust that the great Maker planned
All the unnumbered ways we cannot understand.

By The Kootenay River

I rise from my writing a moment
And open the door of my cabin
To look to the mood of the night.
Of the night that is lonesome and late —
And what is the gain?
There floats the moon on her hulk
Through her mythical sea.
To the south and the west
Is a look that is wistful;
Black clouds to the norward.
And here, in a chasm of wonderful blue.
Is bright Venus, a wonderful star.
A long stretch of meadow;
The glint of the river far off,
Like a passion of beauty;
Great mountains in profile beyond,
Like the graves of dead gods.
What of it?
I, with the soul of a poet,
I, with a vagrant’s heart,
I, with my hair tossed wildly
And tears in my eyes — unsatisfied still!

A Nocturne

Toll! the bells of midnight toll.
Waking me from reverie.
Bringing back my wandering soul
From the home where it would be.

Yes, I tip-toed (if a ghost
May so tip-toe) to the door.
Slipped inside and left it closed;
Noiselessly I crossed the floor —

A white sheet of moonlight streaming
Through the window on the bed
Where my little girls lay dreaming:
“God be good to them!” I said.

On the dresser, in strange freaks.
All their little clothes were piled.
And I kissed their moon-lit cheeks.
And I fancied that they smiled.

Ask them, Mother, when they waken.
If they saw me in their sleep?
Say that fairies must have taken
What I meant themselves to keep —

Baskets of delicious fruits.
Boxes full of sweetmeat rare.
Golden toys and silver flutes.
Talking dolls with curly hair —

Naughty fairies! but they often
Do the same to you and me.
From the cradle to the coffin
Fairies steal our cake and tea.

Does She Think Of This?

Sombre, sombre is the dwelling
That so lately was so free;
Sombre is the ghost-voice telling:
This is where she longs to be.

Every room in which I enter
Holds some thing she cherished so:
Here’s a trinket that I sent her
Half a hundred years ago.

Little does it ease the aching
That the portraits smile again —
Golden memories awaking
Mingled with a stab of pain.

In the dark, when late returning,
Sad and lone the old home seems;
No light at the window burning,
No smoke from the chimney streams.

Footfalls, light as feathers, pass me
As my sleepy eyelids ache;
Sounds, like whispered thoughts, address me
When I waken — half awake.

Nothing is the same, nor ever
Can be as it was before:
Only we must hope forever,
Hope — and awful Fate implore! 

Nocturnal

Long after midnight and I close my book
And hear the rhythmic silence of the room.
What does it matter? — let my thoughts consume
Another hour in this Loved Authors nook:
I would not pale if jocund Shakespeare’s spook
Should enter, or should old FitzGerald loom
Beside his volumes! Fear, that myth of doom,
Is conquered: straight into his eyes I look:

I count not Past nor Future any more;
Eternity is not to be, but is.
And all is well. The deaths that were my toll
Were even as the change that lies before;
And I am part of God’s metropolis
Of earths, of stars, and that more distant goal.

Little River

Why hurry, little river, on your journey to the sea?
Just linger where the lilies are along the shores with me.
And all the flowers of April how they beckon you to stay,
And I who am your lover too — but still you run away!

Ah, your journey is like mine, little river; while we go
We must work and serve and carry and part from friends you know.
Yes, from those we love the most we must hurry to our fate,
There to suffer our sea-changes — for time and tide won't wait.

Golden Light

Dwelling with those volumes olden
In his garret closed from all;
Vainly seeking there the golden
Secrets of this cosmic ball.

Crammed with lore and learned madness,
With his dream of golden light:
Found a world of antique sadness
In those books of perished night.

Then from out his dingy garrett —
Away from all that lore and rhyme —
Walked he in the living air, at
Sun-peep in the August time.

Then he wept for all the wasted
Years spent in the Perished Night,
For he knew that now he tasted
What he longed for — Golden Light.