Katherine Hale

My house is arrayed In its garlands of Christmas delight; A red rose is this house In its holly and soft candle light.

But my heart is as cold As the heart of a colourless rose, And I feel the dead weight Of your holiday blanket of snows.

I who cut patterns, As every soul must do, Fret myself with longing For themes that are new.

All these fashions Were moulded years gone by, And, like the mask of politics, Are coloured with a lie.

Even the treasured love motif, This thing of you and me, It must so carefully be cut To keep us bound, yet free.

And death, the sombre casket Of centuries of song, And war, and rivalries and creeds, These we have used too long.

To-day I found a charming thing Of silk and golden lace, And yet, beneath the filigree, What an old, wrinkled face!

Still, I believe in legends Of laughter and delight, And words all coloured with the sun And perfumed by the night.

And I've a mind to leave the shops And fashions old and new, And cut my pattern from a wind, And baste it up with dew.

I who cut patterns, As every soul must do, Fret myself with longing For themes that are new.

You who loved all lovely things And wrought in jewelled lines; You have gone your gracious ways That are patterned in dim stones Of perfumed, faint-hued words; You were a thing so feminine That even of war you sang in tender notes, But now another one has come, Who is herself at war. Her songs are keen and glittering, For she has felt the magic fire That you did long ago; But now the fire has burned clean through And forged a sword of steel. Swinging swords are women's songs That gleam as hard as diamonds do, And mean to cut tradition.

And yet those jewelled lines! Strangely the ancient magic works, Strangely the same fire lurks And burns imprisoned there In your dim, opaled words, That run like paths in heaven Paved in mosaic of sweet stones, And make a scented highway for our feet, Who wield these swinging swords.

Stony fields and lonely roads, Meagre hamlets, very lean, And most prosperous graveyards Lying all between.

Each few miles a graveyard, With its crouching column And its urns and headstones, Very dark and solemn.

But with what an accent! Yellow, purple, red, Lie the votive offerings To this public dead.

Close beside the railway, Where the smoke drifts high, These are decked in garlands For the passerby.

Even in the winter, Breaking through the snow Immortelles beguile us, When the train runs slow.

They are strangely cheerful, All these plots of ground That have lost the loneliness Of the living. Here abound

In a comradeship increasing Those who in their hour Reaped a dreary harvest, Missed a magic flower.

Over them the smoke-wreaths, Snow, and whispering grass, And the voice of neighbours, Sighing as they pass;

While the urns of iron And the barbarous vases Chant a willing ritual To forgotten faces.

So they sleep together, And their shades may say: "Wave to us, O restless traveller! We are glad to stay."

By southern seas I have seen purple stones Throw back the shadows of the waves and hills. On the Ægean, so the stories run, Greek youths, with many a saffron-coloured sail, Rode flame-like to the rhythm of the gale.

Again, on the bright shores of this small lake, Purple of hills and pink of northern rocks. To-day I met a sail-boat in the wind And at its mast a brown Canadian boy-- He was as splendid as his mate of Troy.

It might have been two hundred years ago, For all the difference in her way or mine, That her canoe, with paddle dipping slow, Just as the sunset ran to embers low, Stopped at my rocky door.

With fish and basketwork she plied her trade, And I, to help a little money last, Answered her barter with a coat I made Of coloured wool--oh, many seasons past! We were both satisfied!

Juniper ring on the granite rock, Deep and green and perfectly planned; Living with you I understand Circle-magic of old.

You had a sister in mystery-- Was it only an April ago That a crocus cup on a bed of snow Promised eternal things?

It will be longer, Juniper, Till earth declares you ready to break, And you fade of the havoc her brown hands make That are covered with mystic rings.

Who has come to that farthest island Beyond White Gull Bay? There is a little tent among the birches Since yesterday. Those birches are the palest things Even in the morning sun! Among them the tent has suddenly blossomed, As the white flower of a night-blooming cereus, Silently, deep in some forest of sleep, Might have done. Who are they? What dreams must be theirs, Who have found such a magical camp unawares?