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PRESENTED BY THE
UNIVERSITY BOOK CLUB

M=GILL
UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY
ACC. NO. 30 I 0 I 2 DATE
 XII Poems
F. ELSIE lAURENCE
O F THIS EDITION OF XI/ POEMS,
BY F. ELSIE LAURENCE, T \V 0
HUNDRED AND FIFTY COPIES HAVE
BEEN PRINTED. THIS CHAP.BOOK IS
A PRODUCT OF THE RYERSON PRESS.
TORONTO, CANADA.

Copyriaht, Canada, 1929.

by The Ryenon Presa,

For permission to reprint poems which have appeared in their

columns grateful acknowledgment is made to the following: Children,
Boo~an (London, England), Occult Review, Vancouver Prooince.

PS8523 A868T83 McLennan

Laurence, )
XII poems 71771297

Mrs. F. Elsie Laurence was born in England. the daughter of a

Congregational minister. She was educated at Milton Mount College
in Kent and subsequently spent two years in Russia and Switzerland.
Coming to Canada in 1914, her marriage took place the following
year. Mrs. Laurence for about twelve years was a resident of
British Columbia. She is now living at Edson, Alberta.
 XII Poems
By F. Elsie Laurence

BIRTH OFFERING
WOULD gather the sky's best blues:
I The blue of the night
When the stars are bright,
And the blue of a summer morning;
All, from the deep to the dawning.

I would garner earth's every green:

Grass in the spring,
Pop\ar leaves dancing,
And the rich sweet green of pines,
Would store them like old wines.

I would drink all beauty down:

Sunrise and sunset hours,
Fragrant, fresh gathered flowers,
And the sky's immensity,
For you shall these things be.

All through my love distilled,

Held in my heart. Oh joy-
Whether of girl or boy,
Some soul is in the making,
This shall it drink on waking.
One

301012
 LYRIC

L OVE me in Springtime, if you will,

But then love lightly, merrily,
For then the buds burst and the ice breaks,
And I must, I must be free.
Can't you see I'm not for a man's fingers
When the sweet light evening lingers,
When one dreams away the hours,
When in green and mossy places
Shine the little fairy faces
Of the flowers.

Love me in Summer, if you must,

But then, my dear, love quietly,
For then the sun has drawn my fires a way
And all I long for is the green-and-gray
Of woods, the blue-green of the sea.
I would be cool as water. Keep your kisses:
Keep back your hands that clasp, your arms that bind.
Wait, oh wait, patiently, my would-be lover,
Till Summer's left behind.

Love me in Winter, if you can.

Ah, then love closely, tenderly;
For then the smoke goes still and white
Into the cold and starry night,
And we shall need a love that never tires
To keep alight and warm our own hearth fires,
To guide our children through the changing years,
To still those fears
Which the chill winter brings
Under her silent wings.

+ + +

SONG OF THE MINOR POETS

W E ARE the minor poets, each man bound to his trade.

We have our work and we need it. We bring no tale of
complaint,
But when we would hark to the music the morning stars have
made,
Our ears are dulled by our labor and even the echoes are faint.
Two
 The great may wander and dream; their word is worthy our
hire.
They are the leaders we live by; they hasten our lagging feet.
We need the sweep of their vision; we need the heat of their fire.
They must be left to their brooding until their songs are
complete.
But we are the minor poets and we must live as we may,
Piecing our bits of music, our scattered and broken bars,
Snatched from the glow of sunrise to the little things of the day,
Saved from the world's insistence by the everlasting stars.
There are heights we almost reach: there are visions we nearly
see.
We seem to stand on the threshold of something we dare not
name:
"The light that never was," as one said it, "on land or sea-"
It shines athwart and about us and we work on just the same.
Carry your wreaths of laurel; we do not envy your fame.
Travel your starry trails; we do not covet your powers.
We shall not go down the ages through the glory of a name,
But perhaps by a thought's chance echo in a spirit kin to ours.
For all who wonder at sun-light and the young moon's wistfulness,
The morning and the evening star, far hills by dawn impearled,
This is both prize and aim that our halting words express
The song that is hid in their hearts, our brothers throughout
the world.
+ + +
UNITY
H WIND, breathe thou through me
O That I may be
One with thyself, with universal breath.
Sun, shine through my soul;
Light up the whole,
Nor leave a place for life's close shadow, death.
Let me be part of this bright winter world,
of Upturned, unfurled;
One with each tiny seed safe sleeping in the sod;
ve One with each bird and tree,
A part of all to be;
One with the snowflake, one with the eternal God.
Three
 JUNE

W ERE you burdened with a song,

But no words come?
When June went by my windows
I was stone-dumb.
.I
But June upon the hillside,

I
F ull-throated sings:
"Ye who lie among the pots,
Ye shall have wings."

There are green and growing things

To the hill's brow.
Give us, June, our golden wings-
We need them now.

From the silent summer sky

One feather gleams.
To every man his working day:
To every man his dreams.

+ + +

THE CUP
AILURE I drank and knew that it was g>od;
F Despair I tasted nor withheld my lips;
But sweeter than the first wild honey in the ·vood
Which the first bee sips,

Warmer than sunlight, kindlier than oil,

Those dull wounds of defeat to bathe and )less-
A heady draught upon the dregs of toil,
The wine of first success.

Oh beauty, beauty, flashing through the yeaJS,

Now here, now there, we seize thy garments' hem.
That glittering fringe like mystic Grail appecrs,
Eternal quest and only diadem.

Four
 MY WINDOW

G [VE me a window that watches the sunset,

~ever a house between.
Autrmn and winter may pass me over-
Mr spirit shall stay green.

Giveme the strong young trunks of poplars,

Bnve in that mellow gleam,
So wnatever the day's long battle
Quiet shall be my dream.

Giveme the smallest strip of water

To catch that sunset light.
Wha:ever the day or night bring forth
Tte evening shall be bright.

+ + 4-

EARTHBOUND
O H, I nust walk a narrow way and never turn my head;
But galantly and steadily,
And quietly and readily,
Must sweeJ: my floors and tend my bairns and bake my daily
bread.

The young May moon came up last night behind the poplar
trees,
And jeered tt me and laughed at me,
And impudmtly scoffed at me.
That saucy little slip of moon, 'twas in her power to tease;

For she can sail the seas of sky and travel with the stars,
And set thegrey earth shimmering,
And the will water glimmering,
And hide agtin and ride again behind the bright cloud-bars.

I'll catch tlut yellow moon some night and tie her to a tree,
And while s1e hangs there rockingly,
I'll cry upor her mockingly,
And I will g> and she shall stay and mind my house for me.
Floe
 LINES TO A YOUNG MAN
LEAN from his mother
C And suddenly hurled
Into the rough
Thoroughfares of the world;
Young by his mother
And full of imaginings,
Fancies and other
Strange childish things.
Courage to grow in him,
Strength in his soul,
The hard-won armour
Of self-control.
Earth, treat him gently,
Yours as his mother's;
Guide him among all
His sisters and brothers.
Freed from his mother he
Swaggers and struts.
Lusty young manhood
Is scornful of ruts:
A cry in his heart and
A song on his lips,
Save him if ever he
Stumbles and slips.
Always a child to the
Woman who bore him;
Nothing at all to the
Wide world before him.
Though he should blunder
Never so blindly,
Our stern step-mother
Earth, treat him kindly.
+ + +
AUTUMN THOUGHT
HERE is a muffled whisper in the fading woods,
T And the warning hands of Winter tap lightly on the pane;
They say that youth with the golden summer has fled,
That life can never be quite so sweet again.
Six
Oh never tell me that youth is past and over.
Nor say that the eager joy of life is past,
For Spring comes up each year like an ardent lover,
And will. as long as ever the world shall last.

The strong south wind may blow the branches bare,

And the gay gold leaves lie heaped and sodden with rain ;
But the lips shall be lifted to laughter that hides no care,
And the heart beat high to the glory of Spring again.

+ + +

FAIRY WIFE

T HERE is no love like my love,

So winsome and so gay.
I dreamed her one May morning
Between the dawn and day;
But ere my eyes were open
She rose and ran away.

She would not know the world was,

Its pleasure or its smart,
The joys when lovers meet again,
The tears when lovers part,
And she'll be running home again
To shelter in my heart.

Her bridal veil I'll fashion

From fine September mist;
The fringe shall be of silver,
The fillet amethyst,
With seven amber sunbeams
In her bright hair to twist.

I'll steal the hills' own purple

To weave her wedding gown,
And make it bright with marigolds
And tassels hanging down;
So you shall say it is the Queen
Come tripping in to town.

Seoen
 IDEAL

E VER the thing that no man knows,

Ever the end one may not see,
And Truth sits high above the snows,
Her forehead veiled in mystery.

Is there no finer goal than Truth,

No surer aim, no kindlier height?
Only that dim, unconquered peak
To lead her votaries through the night?

Courage to light the fires of hope,

Pity for all of man's distress,
Wisdom to guide the hands that grope,
And love to cast out bitterness.

We who have bared our breasts to pain,

And fought with fear and borne with wrong,
We must have strength to fight again,
And in our hearts some marching song.

Eight
 THE RYERSON POETRY
~-----t: s· ----~------~

THE SWEET 0' THE YEAR Bv Charle1 G. D. Rohert1

COMPANIONSHIP AND THE CROWD Bv W. H. F. Tennv
FORFEIT AND OTHER POEMS Bv Kathryn Munro
*THE EAR TRUMPET By Annie C. Dalton
*A VALE IN LUXOR By W. V. Newson
*THE PROPHET'S MAN By Geojfrey B RiJJehouglr
SHEEP-FO' 811 lA> Cox
*THE SHEPHERD OF THE HILLS By A,. /oynu
BY COBEQUID BAY P· J ra1er
TWELVE POEMf- 'rown
SONGS FOR sw erls
ECSTASY ANii tley
*BITS 0' VEl ie
*DESTINY At n
FOWLS 0' TH.t
'e
THE BATTLE 01
SPENDTHRIFTS
THE TIDE OF
FRAGMENTS OF
XII POEMS
COSMIC ORATO~

*A POOL OF STA' 'IOn

*SPRING IN t;;;A\;1 IJtT
*THE CAPTI "0
THE LOST S'
*A BREATH
VAGRANT <
WHAT-N07
*TWENT'
THE CR\
THE POE
LATER PO

*SONGS 'yn
*OTHER SO~ •.m
COCKLE-SHE
1an
son

PAUL PERO • D. Cummilt8

One Dollar
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DATE DuE