OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS

1897

(Canadian Preferential Tariff, 1897)

A NATION spoke to a Nation,

A Queen sent word to a Throne: "Daughter am I in my mother's house, But mistress in my own.

The gates are mine to open,

As the gates are mine to close, And I set my house in order," Said our Lady of the Snows.

"Neither with laughter nor weeping,
Fear or the child's amaze

Soberly under the White Man's law
My white men go their ways.

Not for the Gentiles' clamour
Insult or threat of blows

Bow we the knee to Baal,"

Said our Lady of the Snows.

"My speech is clean and single,
I talk of common things -
Words of the wharf and the market-place
And the ware the merchant brings:

Favour to those I favour,

But a stumbling-block to my foes.

Many there be that hate us,"

Said our Lady of the Snows.

"I called my chiefs to council

In the din of a troubled year; For the sake of a sign ye would not see, And a word ye would not hear.

This is our message and answer;

This is the path we chose:

For we be also a people,"

Said our Lady of the Snows.

"Carry the word to my sisters

To the Queens of the East and the South.
I have proven faith in the Heritage

By more than the word of the mouth.
They that are wise may follow

Ere the world's war-trumpet blows,
But I - I am first in the battle,"
Said our Lady of the Snows.

A Nation spoke to a Nation,

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A Throne sent word to a Throne:
Daughter am I in my mother's house,
But mistress in my own.

The gates are mine to open,

As the gates are mine to close,
And I abide by my Mother's House,"
Said our Lady of the Snows.

AN AMERICAN

The American spirit speaks:

1894

"IF the Led Striker call it a strike,

Or the papers call it a war,
They know not much what I am like,
Nor what he is, my Avatar."

Through many roads, by me possessed,
He shambles forth in cosmic guise;
He is the Jester and the Jest,

And he the Text himself applies.

The Celt is in his heart and hand,
The Gaul is in his brain and nerve;
Where, cosmopolitanly planned,

He guards the Redskin's dry reserve

His easy unswept hearth he lends
From Labrador to Guadeloupe;
Till, elbowed out by sloven friends,

He camps, at sufferance, on the stoop.

Calm-eyed he scoffs at sword and crown,
Or panic-blinded stabs and slays:
Blatant he bids the world bow down,
Or cringing begs a crust of praise;

Or, sombre-drunk, at mine and mart,
He dubs his dreary brethren Kings.
His hands are black with blood. His heart
Leaps, as a babe's, at little things.

But, through the shift of mood and mood,
Mine ancient humour saves him whole
The cynic devil in his blood

That bids him mock his hurrying soul;

That bids him flout the Law he makes,
That bids him make the Law he flouts,

Till, dazed by many doubts, he wakes

The drumming guns that have no doubts;

That checks him foolish-hot and fond,
That chuckles through his deepest ire,
That gilds the slough of his despond
But dims the goal of his desire;

Inopportune, shrill-accented,
The acrid Asiatic mirth

That leaves him, careless 'mid his dead,
The scandal of the elder earth.

How shall he clear himself, how reach
Your bar or weighed defence prefer?
A brother hedged with alien speech
And lacking all interpreter.

Which knowledge vexes him a space;
But while Reproof around him rings,
He turns a keen untroubled face

Home, to the instant need of things.

Enslaved, illogical, elate,

He greets th' embarrassed Gods, nor fears To shake the iron hand of Fate

Or match with Destiny for beers.

Lo, imperturbable he rules,

Unkempt, disreputable, vast

And, in the teeth of all the schools,

I-I shall save him at the last!

THE YOUNG QUEEN

1900

(The Commonwealth of Australia, inaugurated New Year's Day, 1901)

HER hand was still on her sword-hilt, the spur was still on

her heel,

She had not cast her harness of grey war-dinted steel; High on her red-splashed charger, beautiful, bold, and browned,

Bright-eyed out of the battle, the Young Queen rode to be crowned.

She came to the Old Queen's presence, in the Hall of Our Thousand Years

In the Hall of the Five Free Nations that are peers among

their peers:

Royal she gave the greeting, loyal she bowed the head, Crying" Crown me, my Mother!" And the Old Queen stood and said:—

"How can I crown thee further? I know whose standard flies

Where the clean surge takes the Leeuwin or the coral barriers

rise.

Blood of our foes on thy bridle, and speech of our friends in thy mouth

How can I crown thee further, O Queen of the Sovereign South?

"Let the Five Free Nations witness!" But the Young Queen answered swift:

"It shall be crown of Our crowning to hold Our crown for a gift.