Ave! (An Ode for the Shelley Centenary, 1892)
Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts 1860 (Douglas) – 1943 (Toronto)
I
O tranquil meadows, grassy Tantramar,
Wide marshes ever washed in clearest air,
Whether beneath the sole and spectral star
The dear severity of dawn you wear,
Or whether in the joy of ample day
And speechless ecstasy of growing June
You lie and dream the long blue hours away
Till nightfall comes too soon,
Or whether, naked to the unstarred night,
You strike with wondering awe my inward sight, --
II
You know how I have loved you, how my dreams
Go forth to you with longing, though the years
That turn not back like your returning streams
And fain would mist the memory with tears,
Though the inexorable years deny
My feet the fellowship of your deep grass,
O'er which, as o'er another, tenderer sky,
Cloud phantoms drift and pass, --
You know my confident love, since first, a child,
Amid your wastes of green I wandered wild.
III
Inconstant, eager, curious, I roamed;
And ever your long reaches lured me on;
And ever o'er my feet your grasses foamed,
And in my eyes your far horizons shone.
But sometimes would you (as a stillness fell
And on my pulse you laid a soothing palm)
Instruct my ears in your most secret spell;
And sometimes in the calm
Initiate my young and wondering eyes
Until my spirit grew more still and wise.
IV
Purged with high thoughts and infinite desire
I entered fearless the most holy place,
Received between my lips the secret fire,
The breath of inspiration on my face.
But not for long these rare illumined hours,
The deep surprise and rapture not for long.
Again I saw the common, kindly flowers,
Again I heard the song
Of the glad bobolink, whose lyric throat
Peeled like a tangle of small bells afloat.
V
The pounce of mottled marsh-hawk on his prey;
The flicker of sand-pipers in from sea
In gusty flocks that puffed and fled; the play
Of field-mice in the vetches, -- these to me
Were memorable events. But most availed
Your strange unquiet waters to engage
My kindred heart's companionship; nor failed
To grant this heritage, --
That in my veins forever must abide
The urge and fluctuation of the tide.
VI
The mystic river whence you take your name,
River of hubbub, raucous Tantramar,
Untamable and changeable as flame,
It called me and compelled me from afar,
Shaping my soul with its impetuous stress.
When in its gaping channel deeps withdrawn
Its waves ran crying of the wilderness
And winds and stars and dawn,
How I companioned them in speed sublime,
Led out a vagrant on the hills of Time!
VII
And when the orange flood came roaring in
From Fundy's tumbling troughs and tide-worn caves,
While red Minudie's flats were drowned with din
And rough Chignecto's front oppugned the waves,
How blithely with the refluent foam I raced
Inland along the radiant chasm, exploring
The green solemnity with boisterous haste;
My pulse of joy outpouring
To visit all the creeks that twist and shine
From Beauséjour to utmost Tormentine.
VIII
And after, when the tide was full, and stilled
A little while the seething and the hiss,
And every tributary channel filled
To the brim with rosy streams that swelled to kiss
The grass-roots all awash and goose-tongue wild
And salt-sap rosemary, -- then how well content
I was to rest me like a breathless child
With play-time rapture spent, --
To lapse and loiter till the change should come
And the great floods turn seaward, roaring home.
IX
And now, O tranquil marshes, in your vast
Serenity of vision and of dream,
Wherethrough by every intricate vein have passed
With joy impetuous and pain supreme
The sharp, fierce tides that chafe the shores of earth
In endless and controlless ebb and flow,
Strangely akin you seem to him whose birth
One hundred years ago
With fiery succour to the ranks of song
Defied the ancient gates of wrath and wrong.
X
Like yours, O marshes, his compassionate breast,
Wherein abode all dreams of love and peace,
Was tortured with perpetual unrest.
Now loud with flood, now languid with release,
Now poignant with the lonely ebb, the strife
Of tides from the salt sea of human pain
That hiss along the perilous coasts of life
Beat in his eager brain;
But all about the tumult of his heart
Font size:Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 3:40 min read
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Quick analysis:
Scheme Text too long Closest metre Iambic pentameter Characters 4,299 Words 727 Stanzas 10 Stanza Lengths 12, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 9
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