noon?
When I hear your voice uplifting,
Like a breeze through branches sifting,
And your ripples softly drifting
To the August airs a-tune.
II
Lend me your happy laughter,
Ste. Marie, as you leap;
Your peace that follows after
Where through the isles you creep.
Give to me your splendid dashing,
Give your sparkles and your splashing,
Your uphurling waves down crashing,
Then, your aftermath of sleep.
HARVEST TIME
Pillowed and hushed on the silent plain,
Wrapped in her mantle of golden grain,
Wearied of pleasuring weeks away,
Summer is lying asleep to-day,--
Where winds come sweet from the wild-rose briers
And the smoke of the far-off prairie fires;
Yellow her hair as the goldenrod,
And brown her cheeks as the prairie sod;
Purple her eyes as the mists that dream
At the edge of some laggard sun-drowned stream;
But over their depths the lashes sweep,
For Summer is lying to-day asleep.
The north wind kisses her rosy mouth,
His rival frowns in the far-off south,
And comes caressing her sunburnt cheek,
And Summer awakes for one short week,--
Awakes and gathers her wealth of grain,
Then sleeps and dreams for a year again.
LADY LORGNETTE
I
Lady Lorgnette, of the lifted lash,
The curling lip and the dainty nose,
The shell-like ear where the jewels flash,
The arching brow and the languid pose,
The rare old lace and the subtle scents,
The slender foot and the fingers frail,--
I may act till the world grows wild and tense,
But never a flush on your features pale.
The footlights glimmer between us two,--
You in the box and I on the boards,--
I am only an actor, Madame, to you,
A mimic king 'mid his mimic lords,
For you are the belle of the smartest set,
Lady Lorgnette.
II
Little Babette, with your eyes of jet,
Your midnight hair and your piquant chin,
Your lips whose odours of violet
Drive men to madness and saints to sin,--
I see you over the footlights' glare
Down in the pit 'mid the common mob,--
Your throat is burning, and brown, and bare,
You lean, and listen, and pulse, and throb;
The viols are dreaming between us two,
And my gilded crown is no make-believe,
I am more than an actor, dear, to you,
For you called me your king but yester eve,
And your heart is my golden coronet,
Little Babette.
LOW TIDE AT ST. ANDREWS
(NEW BRUNSWICK)
The long red flats stretch open to the sky,
Breathing t
|