By Quinte’s Side.
Dear comrades of a vanished past,
My childhood’s playmates, kind and true,
Who dwell on Quinte’s sunlit shore,
I give these songs to you.
Old Quinte sang them in my ears
Long years ago, when I was young,
I give them back in later years,
The songs that Quinte sung.
How often when a child I strayed
Dear Quinte’s peaceful shores along,
My heart and soul responding to
The music of her song.
The wild bird oft would hush its song
Whilst skimming by on outspread wing
And listen while old Quinte taught
Her poet child to sing.
And this the sum of all she taught,
As tranquilly she flowed along,
Through all these years I’ve not forgot,
“Live, suffer and be strong.”
Though but a child I understood,
Why Quinte sang that song to me,
And my young heart was hushed and soothed
By her sweet minstrelsy.
And some have chided me, because
The songs I love to write are sad,
They bid me sing in blither strains
And make the world more glad.
I heed them not, the harp responds
Unto my touch with plaintive ring
And, like the birds, I sing the songs
That God hath bid me sing.
If every bird sang as the lark
Their blithesome notes would mock the ear,
The thrush’s song is not less sweet,
Although we weep to hear.
And though we love the sunshine well
We would not have it always day,
Man soon would weary were his life
One ceaseless roundelay.
You will not chide my mournful songs
O kindly friends of bygone years!
Because you know my early days
Knew less of smiles than tears.
And whether critics praise or blame
I know that loving eyes will note
And kindly voices praise the songs
For love of her who wrote.
Let greater poets strive for bays,
My heart would throb with truer pride
At one kind word of honest praise
From friends by Quinte’s side.
O, friends and playmates of the past,
Who dwell on Quinte’s sunlit shore,
Across the gulf that time has wrought
I greet you all once more!
Though new-found friends have smiled on me
My heart has never swerved from you
The old-time friends must ever be
Far dearer than the new.
The joys that made your kind hearts glad
Have waked an answering chord in mine
And ye have wept when I was sad
My friends of “Auld Lang Syne.”
Through all these weary, waiting years
For your dear faces I have yearned
And oft through mists of blinding tears
My longing eyes have turned
Back to the well-loved childhood’s haunts,
Where dear old Quinte, calm and mild,
With sunny smiles of welcome waits
To greet her absent child.
I miss some faces that I loved
Their feet have sought a foreign shore.
May Heaven turn their wandering steps
To Quinte’s side once more.
And some, grown weary of this life,
Have folded their pale hands and died.
Dear hearts, their sleep is calm and sweet
By Quinte’s restful side.
And ye who stood above their graves,
Your saddened hearts with anguish torn,
And deemed the burden Heaven sent,
Too heavy to be borne
Have learned at last, as I once learned,
The burden of old Quinte’s song
That life’s great lesson is “to live,
To suffer, and be strong.”
O, friends of vanished childhood’s days
Who dwell on Quinte’s sunlit shore,
Across the intervening years
I greet you all once more
Whilst all my heart goes out in prayer,
May peace and joy with you abide
And God be with the friends who dwell
By pleasant Quinte’s side.
“Dear hearts, their sleep is calm and sweet
By Quinte’s restful side.”