Younger Canadian Poets.

WILLIAM WILFRED CAMPBELL.

[Born 1860.]

KEZIA H.

"KEZIAH! Keziah!" the blue lake is rocking, Out over its bosom the white gulls are flocking, Far down in the west the dim islands are lying, While through the hushed vapours the shores are replying:

"Keziah! Keziah!"

A vine-clambered cabin with blue skies that bound it, Wild glamour of forest, lake, shoreland, around it, Far calling of birds, mists rising and falling,

While through the hushed silence a weird voice is calling:

"Keziah! Keziah!"

She went down the shore-path, her dark eyes were dreaming,

The sheen of her hair in the sunlight was gleaming, The snow of her neck like the lake's snowy foaming, And a man's promise met her down there in the gloaming:

"Keziah! Keziah!"

She went in her girlhood, her innocent sweetness,
She went in her trusting glad woman's completeness,
She went with a hope and returned with a sorrow,
A horrible dread of the coming to-morrow:
"Keziah! Keziah!"

The old woman moaneth, her meagre form swayeth, "God's curse of all curses on him who betrayeth," O poor foolish girl-heart, dead past our reproving, God's hate on the base heart that played with her loving.

"Keziah! Keziah!"

O never, O never, while human hearts falter,
Weak penitent prayers at the foot of God's altar,

Not man's choking creeds, nor heaven's dread thunder, Can wipe out the curse from the lives that sleep under. "Keziah! Keziah!"

The girl like a flower caught late in life's snowing,
Too full of love's summer for October's blowing,
Died quick in her shame, the mother her sadness
Wore out into bitterness, sorrow, then madness.
"Keziah! Keziah!"

Years after she'd sit by the hut door at even,
When vapours were soft over lake, shore and heaven,
And dream in her madness a girl-figure coming

With youth's dreamy beauty in out of the gloaming.
"Keziah! Keziah!"

Dead, gone, these long years by the hut-side she's sleeping,

Where over its dead walls the red vines are creeping,
But the fisher-folk say that at summer eves' falling,
In out of the stillness they hear a voice calling :
"Keziah! Keziah!"

And over the lake with its glamour of vapours,

Through which the faint stars soon will glimmer like

tapers,

From the dim islands lit with the purpled day's dying, Like a far, caverned echo a faint voice replying, "Keziah! Keziah!"

A LAKE MEMORY.

FROM THE CENTURY.

THE lake comes throbbing in with voice of pain
Across the flats, athwart the sunset's glow,
I see her face, I know her voice again,

Her lips, her breath, O God, as long ago.

To live the sweet past over I would fain,

As lives the day in the dead sunset's fire,

That all these wild, wan marshlands now would stain, With the dawn's memories, loves and flushed desire.

I call her back across the vanished years,

Nor vain-a white-armed phantom fills her place;
Its eyes the wind-blown sunset fires, its tears
This rain of spray that blows about my face.

THREE THINGS.

THREE things are strange to me;
-The kiss of the west-wind's breath,
-The wonder of life and death,
-And the thoughts that the future hath.

Three things are sad to me;

The earth on a new-made grave,
The sob of winds in a cave,

-And a heart that never gave.

Three things are sweet to me;
-The song of a bird that flies,
-The blue of the summer skies,

-And the light in a young wife's eyes.

MANITOU.

THE SACRED ISLAND OF THE INDIANS IN LAKE HURON.

GIRDLED by Huron's throbbing and thunder,
Out on the drift and lift of its blue;

Walled by mists from the world asunder,
Far from all hate and passion and wonder,
Lieth the isle of the Manitou.

Here where the surfs of the great lake trample,
Thundering time-worn caverns through,
Beating on rock-coasts aged and ample;
Reareth the Manitou's mist-walled temple,
Floored with forest and roofed with blue.

Grey crag-battlements, seared and broken,
Keep these passes for ages to come;

Never a watch-word here is spoken,

Never a single sign or token,

From hands that are motionless, lips that are dumb.

Only the Sun-god rideth over,

Marking the seasons with track of flame;

Only the wild fowl float and hover;

Flocks of clouds whose white wings cover

Spaces on spaces without a name.

Year by year the ages onward

Drift, but it lieth out here alone;

Earthward the mists and the earth mists sunward, Starward the days, and the nights blown downward Whisper the forests, the beaches make moan.