Orion, and Other Poems

by Charles G.D. Roberts

 

DEDICATION

 

  
These first-fruits, gathered by distant ways,
In brief, sweet moments of toilsome days,
    When the weary brain was a thought less weary,
And the heart found strength for delight and praise,—

I bring them and proffer them to thee, 
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All blown and beaten by winds of sea,
      Ripened beside the tide-vexed river,—
The broad, ship-laden Miramichi.

Even though on my lips no Theban bees
Alighted,—though harsh and ill-formed these,
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    Of alien matters in distant regions
Wrought in the youth of the centuries,—

Yet of some worth in thine eyes be they,
For bare mine innermost heart they lay;
    And the old, firm love that I bring thee with them
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Distance shall quench not, no time bewray.

FREDERICTON, July, 1880.