Jean Blewett

We met her on the hillside green Below old Castle Blarney; Her name, she whispered, was Eileen,

When I was but a little lad One thing I could not bear, It was to stand at mother's knee

Her eyes are the windows of a soul Where only the white thoughts spring, And they look, as the eyes of the angels look,

Among the vivid green I see A yellow leaf, And yonder in the basswood tree

A prayer of love, O Father! A fair and flowery way Life stretches out before these

Here's a song of cheer For the whole long year: We've only to do our best,

Praise God for blessings great and small, For garden bloom and orchard store, The crimson vine upon the wall,

I built a castle in the air - A radiant thing made out of dreams; Love's dear desire its golden stair -

The teacher was wise and learned, I wis, All nonsense she held in scorning, But you never can tell what the primmest miss

In powdered wig and buckled shoe, Knee-breeches, coat and waistcoat gay, The wealthy squire rode forth to woo

God's garden is this dim old wood, And hidden in its bosom The bursting bud, the feathery leaf

"Poet by the grace of God." You sing of winter gray and chill, Of silent stream and frozen lake,

Oh, a big broad-shouldered fellow was Ben, And homely as you would see, Such an awkward walker and stammering talker,

A little crippled figure, two big pathetic eyes, A face that looked unchildish, so wan it was and wise; I watched her as the homesick tears came chasing down each cheek.

God in His own right hand doth take each day - Each sun-filled day - each rare and radiant night, And drop it softly on the earth and say:

O! He was the boy of the house, you know, A jolly and rollicking lad; He never was sick, he never was tired,

When I'm at gran'dad's on the farm, I hear along 'bout six o'clock, Just when I'm feelin' snug an' warm,

I can see her in the kitchen, Apron on and sleeves rolled up, Measurin' spices in a teaspoon,

'Twas a score of years since I'd heard the pipes, But the other night I heard them; There are sweet old memories in my heart,

They lift their faces to the light, And aye they are a gallant band; The queen of all is snowy white -

It is time for bed, so the nurse declares, But I slip off to the nook, The cozy nook at the head of the stairs,

I cannot echo the old wish to die at morn, as darkness strays! We have been glad together greeting some new-born radiant days, The earth would hold me, every day familiar things

Gray old gardener, what do you bring? "Laurel and ivy and bay, With palms for the crowning of a King -

We catch a glimpse of it, gaunt and gray, When the golden sunbeams are all abroad; We sober a moment, then softly say:

My soul spoke low to Discontent: Long hast thou lodged with me, Now, ere the strength of me is spent,

You cannot take from out my heart the growing, The green, sweet growing, and the vivid thrill. "O Earth," you cry, "you should be old, not glowing

When Satan sends - to vex the mind of man And urge him on to meanness and to wrong - His satellites, there is not one that can

"It is good-bye," she said; "the world is wide, There's space for you and me to walk apart. Though we have walked together side by side,

The Allans o' Airlie they set muckle store On ancestry, acres, and siller, Nor cared to remember the good days of yore,

They were a couple well content With what they earned and what they spent, Cared not a whit for style's decree -

I'll tell you the sweetest thing, dear heart, I'll tell you the sweetest thing - 'Tis saying to one that we love: "Forgive

There's a man I know - A likeable man - Whom you meanly wound

O glad sun, creeping through the casement wide, A million blossoms have you kissed since morn, But none so fair as this one at my side -

(JUNE 13, 1899.) So still you sleep upon your bed, So motionless and slender,

'Tis woman rules the whole world still, Though faults the critics say she has; She smiles her smile and works her will -

She is so winsome and so wise She sways me at her will, And oft the question will arise,

Low in the ivy-covered church she kneeled, The sunshine falling on her golden hair; The moaning of a soul with hurt unhealed

The fluttering leaves above his grave, The grasses creeping toward the light, The flowers fragile, sweet, and brave,

(A Tribute to Mrs. George A. Cox.) The Golden Rule - the blessed creed That shelters frail humanity,

In the farmhouse kitchen were Nan and John, With only the sunflowers looking on. A farmhouse kitchen is scarce the place

Jack's dead an' buried; it seems odd, A deep hole covered up with sod Lyin' out there on the hill,

Janet, she was trim and small, Swift her feet could go; Sandy, he was great and tall,

You miss the touch of her dear hand, Her laughter gay and sweet, The dimpled cheek, the sunny smile,

From the little bald head to the two little feet, You are winsome, and bonnie, and tender, and sweet, But not for this do I love you.

"Life's day is too brief," he said at dawn, "I would it were ten times longer, For great tasks wait for me further on."

What is the greatest work of all? The work that comes every day; The work that waits us on ev'ry hand

O freshness, living freshness of a day In June! Spring scarce has gotten out of sight, And not a stain of wear shows on the grass

One lesson let us bear in mind - Be very gentle with our own, Be to their faults a little blind,

"And behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment and stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head." The eyes He turned on her who kneeling wept Were filled with tenderness and pity rare;

Your presence is a psalm of praise, And as its measure grandly rings God's finger finds my heart and plays

Madam, they say, has lost her way. Tell me, has she passed thither? Let her alone and she'll come home,

A woman in her youth, but lost to all The joys of innocence. Love she had known, Such love as leaves the soul filled full of shame.

Her eyes - upon a summer's day God's skies are not more blue than they. Her hair - you've seen a sunbeam bold

What we most need is men of worth, Men o' the forest mark, Of lofty height and mighty girth

Love met a worldling on the way, And softly crept into his breast. Straight Self and Greed refused to stay

The eastern sky grew all aglow, A tinted fleet sailed just below. The thick wood and the clinging mist

I heard you singing in the grove, My Lady Nightingale; The thirsty leaves were drinking dew,

O Radiance of life's morning! O gold without alloy! O love that lives through all the years! O full, O perfect joy! The hills of earth touch heaven, the heaven of blue and gold,

Who is it says May is the crown of the year? Who is it says June is the gladdest? Who is it says Autumn is withered and sere,

Day of battle and day of blood Found you steady and strong, I ween; Sons of the land of the Maple Leaf,

Unbroken peace, I ween, is sweeter far Than reconciliation. Love's red scar, Though salved with kiss of penitence, and tears,

Do you remember that June day among The hills, the high, far-reaching Sussex hills? Above, the straggling flocks of fleecy clouds

Quebec, the gray old city on the hill, Lies, with a golden glory on her head, Dreaming throughout this hour so fair, so still,

1837. The sunshine streaming through the stain'd glass Touched her with rosy colors as she stood,

"Once they were lovers," says the world, "with young hearts all aglow; They have forgotten," says the world, "forgotten long ago." Between ourselves - just whisper it - the old world does not know.

He does the devil's basest work, no less, Who deals in calumnies - who throws the mire On snowy robes whose hem he dare not press

I was the slyest boy at home, The slyest boy at school, I wanted all the world to know

They're praying for the soldier lads in grim old London town; Last night I went, myself, and heard a bishop in his gown Confiding to the Lord of Hosts his views of this affair.

Sing, ye ripening fields of wheat, Sing to the breezes passing by, Sing your jubilant song and sweet,

O the frozen valley and frozen hill make a coffin wide and deep, And the dead river lies, all its laughter stilled within it, fast asleep. The trees that have played with the merry thing, and freighted its breast with leaves,

Wha cares if skies be dull and gray? Wha heeds November weather? Let ilka Scot be glad to-day

There's an Isle, a green Isle, set in the sea, Here's to the Saint that blessed it! And here's to the billows wild and free

The girl's a slender thing and fair, With dimpled cheek and eyes ashine; The youth is tall, with bashful air.

Write on Life's tablet all things tender, great and good, Uncaring that full oft thou art misunderstood. Interpretation true is foreign to the throng

The river is a ribbon wide, The falls a snowy feather, And stretching far on ilka side

I thank Thee, Lord, For every joyous hour That has been mine!

"As friend," she said, "I will be kind, My sympathy will rarely fail, My eyes to many faults be blind -

The sunset has faded, there's but a tinge, Saffron pale, where a star of white Has tangled itself in the trailing fringe

The day she came we were planting corn, The west eighty-acre field, - These prairie farms are great for size,

O the gayest of musicians! O the gladdest thing on earth, With its piping and its chirping, is the cricket on the hearth! There is magic in the music that he flings us with such zest:

The great man came to the country place, To preach to farmers sturdy; He said: "I'm in my happiest vein,

Though long, long leagues of land and sea Stretch out between Braemar and me, I'll win home late or soon,

The harvest sun lay hot and strong On waving grain and grain in sheaf, On dusty highway stretched along,

When we were children, long ago, And crept to bed at close of day, With backward glance and footstep slow,

J. Thomas Gordon left home one day, Left home for good and all - A boy has a right to have his own way

O the hills of purple heather, And the skies so warm and gray! O the shimmer of the sea-mist

If but one spark of honest zeal Flashes to life within his breast - A feeble, flick'ring spark at best;

Did you send your song to the gates of gold In the days of long ago? A song of sweetness and gladness untold,

TO E. S. R. The new year coming to us with swift feet Is the King's gift,

He would go, they could not keep him, for he came of fighting stock; Though his widowed mother pleaded, he was firm as any rock. Well he loved the patient woman who had nursed him on her breast,

'Tis noon, the meadow stretches in the sun, And every little spear of grass uplifts its slimness to the glow To let the heavy-laden bees pass out.

It's the lonesomest house you ever saw, This big gray house where I stay. I don't call it living at all, at all,

O life has its seasons joyous and drear, Its summer sun and its winter snow, But the fairest of all, I tell you, dear,

My Marjorie doth hold in her white hands A spray of lilies plucked below the brook Where the old ruin of a chapel stands -

As "Peace on earth!" the glad world sings one glorious Christmas morn, "Peace, peace on earth! Good-will to men! Peace, peace! the Christ is born!" As through the courts, the wondrous courts, of heaven hosannas ring,

Down in the mullein meadow The lusty thistle springs, The butterflies go criss-cross,

There's a thing we love to think of when the summer days are long, And the summer winds are blowing, and the summer sun is strong, When the orchards and the meadows throw their fragrance on the air,

Joe lives on the farm, and Sam lives in the city, I haven't a daughter at all - more's the pity, For girls, to my mind, are much nicer and neater;

There's no garden like an orchard, Nature shows no fairer thing Than the apple trees in blossom

One summer's morning I heard a lark Singing to heaven, a sweet-throated bird; One winter's night I was glad in the dark

O soul on God's high seas! the way is strange and long, Yet fling your pennons out, and spread your canvas strong; For though to mortal eyes so small a craft you seem,

Friend, mark these muscles; mine's a frame Born, grown, and fitted for the toil. My father, tiller of the soil,

He was not especially handsome, he was not especially smart, A great big lumbering fellow with a soft and tender heart. His eyes were gray and honest, his smile a friendly one,

When Mary found fault with me that day the trouble was well begun. No man likes being found fault with, no man really thinks it fun To have a wisp of a woman, in a most obnoxious way,

The throng about her did not know, Her nearest friend could not surmise Whence came the brightness and the glow,

He frowned and shook his snowy head. "Those clanging bells! they deafen quite With their unmeaning song," he said.

Sweet and shrill the crickets hiding in the grasses brown and lean Pipe their gladness - sweeter, shriller - one would think the world was green. O the haze is on the hilltops, and the haze is on the lake!

The Wise Men came to the inn that night, "Now open to us," they cried, "We have journeyed far that we might kneel

Art going to do a kindly deed? 'Tis never too soon to begin; Make haste, make haste, for the moments speed,

I asked Aunt Persis yester-eve, as twilight fell, If she had things of value hidden safe away - Treasures that were her very own? And did she love

We steal the brawn, we steal the brain; The man beneath us in the fight Soon learns how helpless and how vain

The harvest moon in yellow haze Is steeping all the sea and land, Is kindling paths and shining ways

Fate says, and flaunts her stores of gold, "I'll loan you happiness untold. What is it you desire of me?"

With an angel flower-laden, every day a dimpled maiden Sails away from off my bosom on a radiant sea of bliss; I can see her drifting, drifting, hear the snowy wings uplifting

McLeod of Dare called his son to him. McLeod of Dare looked stern and grim, For he was sending on mission grave

A woman with a heart of gold I heard her called before I knew How noble was that heart and true,

You lifted eyes pain-filled to me, Sad, questioning eyes that did demand Why I should thrust back, childishly,

A red rose in my lady's hair, A white rose in her fingers, A wild bird singing low, somewhere,

Two men were born the self-same hour: The one was heir to untold wealth, To pride of birth and love of power;

"O last days of the year!" she whispered low, "You fly too swiftly past. Ah, you might stay A while, a little while. Do you not know

"Dawn!" laughs the bow, and we straight see the sky, Crimson, and golden, and gray, See the rosy cloudlets go drifting by,

Do you know what I will love best of all To do when I'm old? At the close of day When the dusk comes down and the shadows play,

Would you be glad of heart and good? Would you forget life's toil and care? Come, lose yourself in this old wood

The glad, glad days, and the pleasant ways - Ho! for the fields and the wildwood! The scents, the sights, and the dear delights -

Not faultless, for she was not fashioned so, A mingling of the bitter and the sweet; Lips that can laugh and sigh and whisper low

I was your lover long ago, sweet June, Ere life grew hard; I am your lover still, And follow gladly to the wondrous tune