The
Green Book of the Bards
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THERE
is a book not written
By any human hand,
The prophets all have studied,
The priests have always banned.
I read it every morning,
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5 |
I
ponder it by night;
And Death shall overtake me
Trimming my humble light.
He’ll say, as did my father
When I was young and small
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10 |
“
My son, no time for reading!
The night awaits us all.”
He’ll smile, as did my father
When I was small and young,
That I should be so eager
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15 |
| Over
an unknown tongue.
Then I would leave my volume
And willingly obey,—
Get me a little slumber
Against another day.
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20 |
Content that he who taught me
Should bid me sleep awhile,
I would expect the morning
To bring his courtly smile;
New verses to decipher,
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25 |
New chapters to explore,
While loveliness and wisdom
Grow ever more and more!
For who could ever tire
Of that wild legendry,
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30 |
The
folklore of the mountains,
The drama of the sea?
I pore for days together
Over some lost refrain,—
The epic of the thunder,
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35 |
| The
lyric of the rain.
This was the creed and canon
Of Jeffries and Thoreau,
And all the free believers
Who worshipped long ago.
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40 |
Here Amiel in sadness,
And Burns in pure delight,
Sought for the hidden import
Of man’s eternal plight.
No Xenophon and Caesar
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45 |
This
master had for guides,
Yet here are well recorded
The marches of the tides.
Here are the marks of greatness
Accomplished without noise,
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50 |
The
Elizabethan vigour,
And the Landorian poise;
The sweet Cahaucerian temper,
Smiling at all defeats;
The gusty moods of Shelley,
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55 |
| The
Autumn calms of Keats.
Here were derived the gospels
Of Emerson and John;
‘T was with this revelation
The face of Moses shone.
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60 |
Here Blake and Job and Omar
The author’s meaning traced;
Here Virgil got his sweetness,
And Arnold his unhaste.
Here Horace learned to question,
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65 |
And
Browning to reply,
When soul stood up on trial
For her mortality.
And all these lovely spirits
Who read in the great book,
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70 |
Then
went away in silence
With their illumined look,
Left comment, as art furnished
A margin for their skill,—
Their guesses at the secret
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75 |
| Whose
gist eludes us still.
And still in that green volume,
With ardour and with youth
Undaunted, my companions
Are searching for the truth.
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80 |
One page, entitled Grand Pré,
Has the idyllic air
That Bion might have envied:
I set a footnote there.
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Link
to this volume on Early Canadiana Online |
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