Kate Seymour Maclean

Kate Seymour Maclean, born on January 6, 1829, was a Canadian poet who carved out a significant place for herself in the literary scene of her time. Her poetry often reflected the deep appreciation she had for nature, and she was renowned for her elegant and evocative style. Maclean's work was well-regarded by her contemporaries, and she maintained correspondence with others in the literary community, including famous poets like Bliss Carman and Charles G.D. Roberts. She passed away on March 23, 1914, but her contributions to Canadian literature have left a lasting legacy.

January 6, 1829

March 23, 1914

English

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A Baby's Death

A little white soul went up to God,
    Out of the mire of the city street;
It grew like a flower in the highway broad,
    Close to the trample of heedless feet.

It fell like a snow-flake over night,
    Into the ways by vile ones trod;
It sparkled--dissolved in the morning light,
    And the little white soul went up to God.

Dainty, flower-soft, waxen thing,
    Its clear eyes opened on this bad earth,
And the little shuddering soul took wing,
    By the gate of death, from the gate of birth.

Not for those innocent lips and eyes,
    The words and the ways of sin and strife;
The pure flower opened in paradise,
    Fast by the banks of the river of life.

Yea, little victors, who never fought;
    And crowned, though ye never ran t...

Kate Seymour Maclean

A Farewell

Down the steep west unrolled,
    I watch the river of the sunset flow,
With all its crimson lights, and gleaming gold,
    Into the dusk below.

And even as I gaze,
    The soft lights fade,-the pageant gay is o'er,
And all is grey and dark, like those lost days,
    The days that are no more.

No more through whispering pines,
    I shall behold, in the else silent even,
The first faint star-watch set along the lines
    Of the white tents of heaven.

Before the earliest buds
    Have softly opened, heralding the May
With tender light illuming the gray woods,
    I shall be gone away.

Ah! wood-walks winding sweet
    Through all the valleys sloping to the west,
Where glad brooks wander with melodious feet,
    In musical u...

Kate Seymour Maclean

A Madrigal

The lily-bells ring underground,
    Their music small I hear
When globes of dew that shine pearl round
    Hang in the cowslip's ear
And all the summer blooms and sprays
    Are sheathed from the sun,
And yet I feel in many ways
    Their living pulses run.

The crowning rose of summer time
    Lies folded on its stem,
Its bright urn holds no honey-wine,
    Its brow no diadem,
And yet my soul is inly thrilled,
    As if I stood anear
Some legal presence unrevealed,
    The queen of all the year.

Oh Rose, dear Rose! the mist and dew
    Uprising from the lake,
And sunshine glancing warmly through,
    Have kissed the flowers awake--
The orchard blooms are dropping balm,
    The tulip's gorgeous cup
More slender than a ...

Kate Seymour Maclean

A Monody

On the early and lamented death of George and Maggie Rosseaux, brother and sister, who died within one week of each other in the autumn of 1875. Young, beautiful and beloved, they were indeed lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided.


Pace slowly, black horses, step stately and solemn--
One by one--two by two--stretches out the long column;
Pass on with your burden, the sound of our tears
    Will not reach the deaf ears.

Beneath the black shadow of funeral arches,
Stepping slow to the rhythm of funeral marches;
Pass on down the street where their steps were so gay,
    And so light, yesterday.

Where it seems if we turn we shall clasp them and hold them,
Our hands shall embrace--and our eyes shall behold them,--
So near are th...

Kate Seymour Maclean

A November Wood-Walk.

Dead leaves are deep in all our forest walks;
    Their brightest tints not all extinguished yet,
    Shine redly glimmering through the dewy wet;
    And whereso'er thy musing foot is set,
The fragrant cool-wort lifts its emerald stalks.

How kindly nature wraps secure and warm,
    In the fallen mantle of her summer pride,
    These lovely tender things that peep and hide,
    Whom unawares thy curious eye hath spied,
For the long night of winter's frost and storm.

Still keeps the deer-berry its vivid green,
    Set in its glowing calyx like a gem;
    While hung above, a marvellous diadem
    Of tawny gold, the bittersweet's gray stem,
Strung with its globes of murky flame is seen.

The foot sinks ankle-deep in velvet moss,
    The shroud of...

Kate Seymour Maclean

A Prelude, And A Bird's Song.

The poet's song, and the bird's,
    And the waters' that chant as they run
And the waves' that kiss the beach,
    And the wind's--they are but one.
He who may read their words,
And the secret hid in each,
May know the solemn monochords
That breathe in vast still places;
And the voices of myriad races,
    Shy, and far-off from man,
That hide in shadow and sun,
    And are seen but of him who can
To him the awful face is shown
Swathed in a cloud wind-blown
Of Him, who from His secret throne,
In some void, shadowy, and unknown land
Comes forth to lay His mighty hand
On the sounding organ keys,
    That play deep thunder-marches,
Like the rush and the roar of seas,
    And fill the cavernous arches
Of antique wildernesses hoary,
  ...

Kate Seymour Maclean

A Valentine

At last, dear love, the day is gone,
    The doors are barred--the lamps are lit,
The couch beside the fire is drawn,
    The nook whore thou wert wont to sit;

The book is open at the place,
    And half its leaves are still uncut,
And yet without thy listening face,
    I cannot read, the book I shut,

And muse, and dream:--it is the day
    When lovers, silent all the year,
Find tongues in floral tokens gay,
    To whisper all they long to hear.

Ah, many a time, and many a time
    I saw the question in thine eyes,
Where is the silver-sounding rhyme,
    The simple household melodies,

The harp that trembled to thy touch;
    Hast thou forgot thine early lore?
And know'st not that I love so much,
    That song contents my...

Kate Seymour Maclean

An April Dawn.

            All night a slow soft rain,
A shadowy stranger from a cloudy land,
Sighing and sobbing, with unsteady hand
    Beat at the lattice, ceased, and beat again,
And fled like some wild startled thing pursued
By demons of the night and solitude,
    Returning ever--wistful--timid--fain--
            The intermittent rain.

            And still the sad hours crept
Within uncounted, the while hopes and fears
Swayed our full hearts, and overflowed in tears
    That fell in silence, as she waked or slept,
Still drawing nearer to that unknown shore
Whence foot of mortal cometh nevermore,
    And still the rain was as a pulse that kept
            Time as the slow hours crept.

            The plummet of the night
Sank through the hollow dark t...

Kate Seymour Maclean

An Idyl Of The May.

In the beautiful May weather,
        Lapsing soon into June;
    On a golden, golden day
    Of the green and golden May,
        When our hearts were beating tune
        To the coming feet of June,
Walked we in the woods together.

    Silver fine
        Gleamed the ash buds through the darkness
            of the pine,
And the waters of the stream
Glance and gleam,
Like a silver-footed dream--
    Beckoning, calling,
    Flashing, falling,
Into shadows dun and brown
    Slipping down,
Calling still--Oh hear! Oh follow!
    Follow--follow!
Down through glen and ferny hollow,
Lit with patches of the sky,
Shining through the trees so high,
Hand in hand we went together,
In the golden, golden weather
        Of the...

Kate Seymour Maclean

Ballad Of The Mad Ladye.

The rowan tree grows by the tower foot,
(Flotsam and jetsam from over the sea,
    Can the dead feel joy or pain?)
And the owls in the ivy blink and hoot,
And the sea-waves bubble around its root,
Where kelp and tangle and sea-shells be,
When the bat in the dark flies silently.
    (Hark to the wind and the rain.)

The ladye sits in the turret alone,
(Flotsam and jetsam from over the sea,
    The dead--can they complain?)
And her long hair down to her knee has grown,
And her hand is cold as a hand of stone,
And wan as a band of flesh may be,
While the bird in the bower sings merrily.
    (Hark to the wind and the rain.)

Sadly she leans by her casement side
(Flotsam and jetsam from over the sea,
    Can the de...

Kate Seymour Maclean

Beyond
Cloudy argosies are drifting down into the purple dark,
And the long low amber reaches, lying on the horizon's mark,
Shape themselves into the gateways, dim and wonderful unfurled,
Gateways leading through' the sunset, out into the underworld.

How my spirit vainly flutters, like a bird that beats the bars,
To be launched upon that ocean, with its tides of throbbing stars,
To be gone beyond the sunset, and the day's revolving zone,
Out into the primal darkness, and the world of the unknown!

Hints and guesses of its grandeur, broken shadows, sudden gleams,
Like a falling star shoot past me, quenched within a sea of dreams,--
But the unimagined glory lying in the dark beyond,
Is to these as morn to midnight, or as silence is to sound.

Sweeter than the trees of Eden...
Kate Seymour Maclean

Bird Song.
Art thou not sweet,
Oh world, and glad to the inmost heart of thee!
All creatures rejoice
With one rapturous voice.
As I, with the passionate beat
Of my over-full heart feel thee sweet,
And all things that live, and are part of thee!

Light, light as a cloud
Swimming, and trailing its shadow under me
I float in the deep
As a bird-dream in sleep,
And hear the wind murmuring loud,
Far down, where the tree-tops are bowed,--
And I see where the secret place of the thunders be

Oh! the sky free and wide,
With all the cloud-banners flung out in it
Its singing wind blows
As a grand river flows,
And I swim down its rhythmical tide,
Kate Seymour Maclean

By The Sea-Shore At Night.
Oh lapping waves!--oh gnawing waves!--
That rest not day nor night,--
I hear ye when the light
Is dim and awful in your hollow caves.--

All day the winds were out, and rode
Their steeds, your tossing crest,--
To-night the fierce winds rest,
And the moon walks above them her bright road.

Yet none the less ye lift your hands,
And your despairing cry
Up to the midnight sky,
And clutch, and trample on the shuddering sands,

That shrink and tremble even in sleep,
Out of your passionate reach,
Afraid of your dread speech,
And the more dreadful silence that ye keep

Oh sapping waves!--oh mining waves!--
Under the oak's gnarled feet,
And tower, and village street,
Scooping by stealth in darkn...
Kate Seymour Maclean

Christmas
The birth day of the Christ child dawneth slow
Out of the opal east in rosy flame,
As if a luminous picture in its frame--
A great cathedral window, toward the sun
Lifted a form divine, which still below
Stretched hands of benediction;--while the air
Swayed the bright aureole of the flowing hair
Which lit our upturned faces;--even so
Look on us from the heavens, divinest One
And let us hear through the slow moving years.
Long centuries of wrongs, and crimes, and tears,--
The echo of the angel's song again,
Peace and good will, good will and peace to men,
A little space make silence,--that our ears,
Filled with the din of toil and moil and pain
May catch the jubilant rapture of the skies,--
The glories of the choi...
Kate Seymour Maclean

Christmas Hymn.
Break over the waiting hill-tops,
White dawn of the Christmas morn!
For the angels have sung through the midnight,
That the wonderful Babe is born.

And still in the slumbering valleys,
The night's black tents are up,
And the young moon stands on the mountains,
Clear and fair as a silver cup.

Under the cottage rafters,
Silent and soft and deep,
On the swart low brow of the toiler,
Settles the dew of sleep.

And some that watch and waken,
Are dreaming of eyes whose ray
Was long ago quenched and hidden
Under the shroud away.

Oh, sing thy jubilant anthem
Over the frozen mould,
And tell that wonderful story
Again, that never grows old!

For under the year's broad shadow,
...
Kate Seymour Maclean

Easter Bells
Oh bells of Easter morn, oh solemn sounding bells,
Which fill the hollow cells
Of the blue April air with a most sweet refrain,
Ye fill my heart with pain.

For when, as from a thousand holy altar-fires,
A thousand resonant spires
Sent up the offering--the glad thanksgiving strain--
"The Lord is risen again!"

He went from us who shall return no more, no more!
I say the sad words o'er,
And they are mixed and blent with your triumphant psalm,
Like bitterness and balm,

We stood with him beside the black and silent river,
Cold, cold and soundless ever;
But there our feet were stayed--unloosed our clasping fond,
And he has passed beyond.

And still that solemn hymn, like smoke of sacrifice,
Clomb the bl...
Kate Seymour Maclean

Envoi
A little bird woke singing in the night,
Dreaming of coming day,
And piped, for very fulness of delight,
His little roundelay.

Dreaming he heard the wood-lark's carol loud,
Down calling to his mate,
Like silver rain out of a golden cloud,
At morning's radiant gate.

And all for joy of his embowering woods,
And dewy leaves he sung,--
The summer sunshine, and the summer floods
By forest flowers o'erhung.

Thou shalt not hear those wild and sylvan notes
When morn's full chorus pours
Rejoicing from a thousand feathered throats,
And the lark sings and soars,

Oh poet of our glorious land so fair,
Whose foot is at the door;
Even so my song shall melt into the air,
And die and be no more.
Kate Seymour Maclean

Euthanasia
"O Life, O Beyond,
Thou art strange, thou art sweet!"
--Mrs. Browning.

Dread phantom, with pale finger on thy lips,
Who dost unclose the awful doors for each,
That ope but once, and are unclosed no more,
Turn the key gently in the mystic ward,
And silently unloose the silver cord;
Lay thy chill seal of silence upon speech,
And mutely beckon through the soundless door
To endless night, and silence and eclipse.

Even now the soul unfettered may explore
On its swift wing beyond the gates of morn,
(Unravelled all the weary round of years)
And stand, unfenced of time and crowding space,
With love's fond instinct in that primal place,
The distant north...
Kate Seymour Maclean

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