Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

The Oxford Book of Canadian Verse

March

Isabella Valancy Crawford (1850–1887)

SHALL Thor with his hammer

Beat on the mountain,

As on an anvil,

A shackle and fetter?

Shall the lame Vulcan

Shout as he swingeth

God-like his hammer,

And forge thee a fetter?

Shall Jove, the Thunderer,

Twine his swift lightnings

With his loud thunders,

And forge thee a shackle?

‘No!’ shouts the Titan,

The young lion-throated;

‘Thor, Vulcan, or Jove

Cannot shackle and bind me.’

Tell what will bind thee,

Thou young world-shaker.

Up vault our oceans,

Down fall our forests.

Ship masts and pillars

Stagger and tremble,

Like reeds by the margins

Of swift running waters.

Men’s hearts at thy roaring

Quiver like harebells

Smitten by hailstones,

Smitten and shaken.

‘O sages and wise men!

O bird-hearted tremblers!

Come, I will show ye

A shackle to bind me.

I, the lion-throated,

The shaker of mountains!

I, the invincible,

Lasher of oceans!

Past the horizon,

Its ring of pale azure

Past the horizon,

Where scurry the white clouds,

There are buds and small flowers—

Flowers like snowflakes,

Blossoms like raindrops,

So small and tremulous.

These in a fetter

Shall shackle and bind me,

Shall weigh down my shouting

With their delicate perfume!’

But who this frail fetter

Shall forge on an anvil,

With hammer of feather

And anvil of velvet?

‘Past the horizon

In the palm of a valley,

Her feet in the grasses,

There is a maiden.

She smiles on the flowers,

They widen and redden;

She weeps on the flowers,

They grow up and kiss her.

She breathes in their bosoms,

They breathe back in odours;

Inarticulate homage,

Dumb adoration.

She shall wreathe them in shackles,

Shall weave them in fetters;

In chains shall she braid them,

And me shall she fetter.

I, the invincible;

March, the earth-shaker;

March, the sea-lifter;

March, the sky-render;

March, the lion-throated.

April, the weaver

Of delicate blossoms,

And moulder of red buds—

Shall at the horizon,

Its ring of pale azure,

Its scurry of white clouds,

Meet in the sunlight.’