Poem by Duncan Campbell Scott

Written in a Copy of Archibald Lampman’s Poems

    When April moved in maiden guise
    Hiding her sweet inviolate eyes,
    You saw about the hazel roots,
    Beyond the ruddy osier shoots,
            The violets rise.

    At even, in the lower woods,
    Amid the cedarn solitudes,
    You heard afar amid the hush
    The argent utterance of the thrush
            In slower interludes.

    When bees above in arboured rooms
    Were busy in the basswood blooms,
    You drowsed within the sombre drone,
    Dreaming, and deemed yourself alone,
            Harboured in glooms.

    The singing of the sentient bees
    Brought wisdom for perplexities;
    They taught you all the murmured lore
    Of seas around an ancient shore,
            Of streams and trees.

    You saw the web of life unrolled,
    Fold and inweave, weave and unfold,
    Crimson and azure strand on strand,
    From some great gulf in vision-land,
            Deep and untold.

    And as the soft clouds opal-gray
    Against the confines of the day
    Seem lighter for the depth of skies,
    So, lighter for your saddened eyes,
            Your fair thoughts stray.

    I pluck a bunch before the spring,
    Of field-flowers reflowering,
    Upon a fell that fancy weaves,
    A memory lingers in their leaves
            Of songs you sing.

    You must have rested here sometime,
    When thought was high and words in chime,
    Your seed thoughts left for sun and showers
    Have blossomed into pleasant flowers,
            Instead of rhyme.

    And so I bring them back to you,
    These pensile buds of tender hue,
    Of crimson, pink and purple sheen,
    Of yellow deep, and delicate green,
            Of white and blue.

1. The Sea by the Wood
2. Above St. Irénée
3. Dream Voyageurs
4. Meditation at Perugia
5. The Wood-Spring to the Poet

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