Susie Frances Harrison

Gatineau Point
A HALF-BREED, slim, and sallow of face,
Alphonse lies full length on his raft,
The hardy son of a hybrid race.
...

HERE on the wide waste lands,
Take– child–these trembling hands,
Though my life be as blank and waste,
My days as surely ungraced
...

FOR know, my girl, there is always the axe
Ready at hand in this latitude,
And how it stings and bites and hacks
...

With outstretched whirring wings of van-dyked jet,
Two crows one day o'er house and pavement pass'd.
...

FATHER Couture loves a fricassee,
Served with a sip of home-made wine,
He is the Curé, so jolly and free,
...

I
'TIS the day of the blessed St. Jean B'ptiste,
And the streets are full of the folk awaiting
The favourite French-Canadian feast.
...

LIKE the swarthy son of some tropic shore
He sleeps, with his olive bosom bared,
He sleeps–in his earrings of brassy ore.
...

Strange, that no idol hath been roughly wrought,
Or fairly carven, bearing on its base
A name so potent! Strange, no ancient race,
...

I
HALE, and though sixty, without a stoop,
What does old Benedict want with a wife?
Can he not make his own pea soup?
...

THIS grey-haired spinster, Catharine Plouffe–
Observe her, a contrast to convent chits,
At her spinning wheel, in the room in the roof.
...

WELL! Let him sleep! Time enough to awake
When sunset ushers a kind release,
When cooling shadows the raft overtake.
...