Old Spookses’ Pass, Malcolm’s Katie and Other Poems

by Isabella Valancy Crawford

 

MARCH.

 
Shall Thor with his hammer
    Beat on the mountain,
As on an anvil,
    A shackle and fetter?

Shall the lame Vulcan
5
    Shout as he swingeth
God-like his hammer,
    And forge thee a fetter?

Shall Jove, the Thunderer,
    Twine his swift lightnings
10
With his loud thunders,
    And forge thee a shackle?

“No,” shouts the Titan,
    The young lion-throated;
“Thor, Vulcan, nor Jove
15
    Cannot shackle and bind me.”

Tell what will bind thee,
    Thou young world-shaker,
Up vault our oceans,
    Down fall our forests.
20

Ship-masts and pillars
    Stagger and tremble,
Like reeds by the margins
    Of swift running waters. [Page 207]

Men’s hearts at thy roaring
25
    Quiver like harebells
Smitten by hailstones,
    Smitten and shaken.

“O sages and wise men!
    O bird-hearted tremblers!
30
Come, I will show ye
    A shackle to bind me.

I, the lion-throated,
    The shaker of mountains!
I, the invincible,
35
    Lasher of oceans!

Past the horizon,
    Its ring of pale azure
Past the horizon,
    Where scurry the white clouds,
40

There are buds and small flowers—
    Flowers like snow-flakes,
Blossoms like rain-drops,
    So small and tremulous.

These in a fetter
45
    Shall shackle and bind me,
Shall weigh down my shouting
    With their delicate perfume!”

But who this frail fetter
    Shall forge on an anvil,
50
With hammer of feather
    And anvil of velvet? [Page 208]

“Past the horizon,
    In the palm of a valley,
Her feet in the grasses,
55
    There is a maiden.

She smiles on the flowers,
    They widen and redden;
She weeps on the flowers,
    They grow up and kiss her.
60

She breathes in their bosoms,
    They breathe back in odours;
Inarticulate homage,
    Dumb adoration.

She shall wreathe them in shackles,
65
    Shall weave them in fetters;
In chains shall she braid them,
    And me shall she fetter.

I, the invincible;
    March, the earth-shaker;
70
March, the sea-lifter;
    March, the sky-render;

March, the lion-throated.
    April the weaver
Of delicate blossoms,
75
    And moulder of red buds—

Shall, at the horizon,
    Its ring of pale azure,
Its scurry of white clouds,
    Meet in the sunlight.” [Page 209]
80