Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, MUSKOKA, by WILSON PUGSLEY MACDONALD


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

MUSKOKA, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Chide not the leisure of this drifting moon
Last Line: Her rugged grass and slow and hardy flowers.
Subject(s): Native Americans; Indians Of America; American Indians; Indians Of South America


CHIDE not the leisure of this drifting moon,
Nor blame the lazy loitering of stars
That pass above these isles of bearded stone;
Nor wonder should the slowly wheeling cars
Of Argol and Arcturus crave the boon
To ever here remain --
And Night pause like a nomad who has found,
In woodlands strung with moonlight whose pale rain
Descends to earth with neither scent nor tone,
The haven whither agelong she was bound.

Dark are these groping waters, dark as wine
From a wild cherry's heart; a light wind comes
With speed of fire around a wooded turn
Within whose drowsy haunts a partridge strums
In dreams, disturbing slumber of the pine.
Here the white poplars boil
Above the moon-fires kindled in a pool
Wherein the dying hemlock pours its oil
And where the brown, decaying fronds of fern
Lie in a dreamless slumber, sweet and cool.

Against the soft, gray ashes of a cloud
The red stars burn and fade like dying coals.
And, lured by them beyond the shore's deep shade,
My slim canoe draws near unguarded shoals
Where white waves dance about me in a crowd
Nor ever tire of song.
And on the burning beauty of this flood,
Around which quiet and dusky waters throng,
I pillow drifts of light against my blade;
And all the Redman's lust is in my blood.

No hue is on the canvas here outrolled
Save one frail touch of amber on the sky,
Spilled by the yellow moon in her slow flight.
The high, dark shore, where pine and hemlock sigh,
Seems like a drift of shadows, deep and cold,
Washed hither from the gloom
Of countless nights in ages passed away.
Brave is the task that brings once more the bloom
Of that wine-flower of morning, and delight
Of feathered choirs and furry hosts at play.

How rich is silver, fallen with sweet grace
Upon the ebon velvet of this lake!
How fair the throat of water bared to heaven!
This hour I long will keep for Beauty's sake
And store its memory like old, treasured lace.
And on December nights,
When it is hard to think of life as kind,
And when the frozen tempest coldly smites,
The fingering of this pattern fair shall leaven
The gray and frosty reaches of the wind.

In one forgotten cove on Tobin's shore
My frail canoe crawls up the crying sand;
And here I watch the lights of Windermere --
Strange lights the stars can never understand.
Here a forsaken dwelling evermore
Dreams of its kinder past,
While tides of moonbeams wash its broken doors;
And all its ancient order stands aghast
That any vagrant storm may enter here
Or any stranger wander on these floors.

Here once I came with one who softly leaned --
As softly as this moonlight -- on my arm,
And we, together, climbed the groaning stair
In this old wreck of wood, and felt alarm
When at our touch the slender flight careened;
And in the dark her hand
Came searching for my own, and I could feel
Her hair against my temples softly fanned.
And that was long ago: she still is fair,
But I am touched with wounds that cannot heal.

And yet to-night I have a lovely dream
Which in our lives too often is destroyed
When love is granted all her dear desires.
So long one phantom face have I enjoyed
That, should it bloom in flesh, the holy gleam
Might never shine again!
Her grace is ever with me in the wind,
Her hair is in the falling of the rain;
And Beauty that is absent never tires
The changeful fancy of the human mind.

Sweet is the mossy earth to wounded life
When in the heart regrets and griefs abound;
And so I rest and read the starry scrolls,
Until a loud thing comes like a frothing hound
And cuts the waters swiftly as a knife,
And clear above its roar
Swift, unharmonious music, mad, profane,
Blasphemes above the sobbing of the shore;
And they who sing are dull, demented souls
Whom Beauty calls for evermore in vain.

For them the hemlock vainly broods and sighs;
Nor do they ever heed the poplar's mirth
When it is roused by sudden wind; they care
For not one wistful wonder of the earth:
No lovely thing is lovely to their eyes.
When the white-surpliced choir
Of singing waters marches up the sand
Or when the wild rose with her tongue of fire
Laps the cool vintage of the northern air
They never dream, nor love, nor understand.

Muskoka! Who hath syllabled in tones
More lovely than this mellow Indian cry,
Born to the rhythm of fire and dancing feet
And copper silhouettes against the sky!
O land of lyric trees and epic stones!
To-day thy granite shores
Are presses making wine of all my dreams --
The purple wine that here in music pours.
Drink thou, O weary heart, the grapes are sweet,
And pure the flow as these cold, woodland streams.

Drink thou some winter night when the white moon
Tires for her couch of waters, and the air
Grieves for the dance of wind on laughing leaves;
Drink and forget the heavy heart's despair,
Knowing the joy of summer cometh soon --
And, having drunk my song,
Lie down and dream that paradise of hours
When the tired sun will once again be strong
And when this blessed haunt of Eden weaves
Her rugged grass and slow and hardy flowers.





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