Poetry Archives

Merry Carlo, who runn’st at my heels
  Through the dense-crowded streets of the city,
In and out among hurrying wheels,
And whose run in the suburbs reveals
  Only scenes that are peaceful and pretty.

Raise to mine your intelligent face,
  Open wide your great brown eyes in wonder
While I tell how lived one of your race
Years ago in this now busy place—
  Ay, and ran at the heels of its founder.

Mistress Pilot, for that was her name,
  And you could not have called her a better,
Was a gallant and dutiful dame—
Since her breed is forgotten by Fame,
  For your sake I will call her a setter.

Pilot lived when Ville Marie was young,
  And the needs of its people were sorest;
When the rifle unceasing gave tongue,
And the savage lay hidden among
  The Cimmerian shades of the forest;

When the hearts of frail women were steeled
  Not to weep for the dead and the dying;
When by night the fierce battle-cry pealed
And by day all who worked in the field
  Kept their weapons in readiness lying;

When full oft at the nunnery gate,
  As the darkness fell over the village,
Would a swart savage crouch and await,
With the patience of devilish hate,
  A chance to kill women, and pillage.

Every one had his duty to do,
  And our Pilot had hers like another,
Which she did like a heroine true,
At the head of a juvenile crew
  Of the same stalwart stuff as their mother.

In a body these keen-scented spies
  Used to roam through the forests and meadows,
And protect Ville Marie from surprise,
Though its foes clustered round it like flies
  In a swamp, or like evening shadows.

Oftentimes in the heat of the day,
  Oftentimes through the mists of the morning,
Oftentimes to the sun’s dying ray
There was heard her reechoing bay
  Pealing forth its brave challenge and warning.

And so nobly she labored and well,
  It was fancied—so runneth the story—
She had come down from heaven to dwell
Upon earth, and make war upon hell,
  For the welfare of man and God’s glory.

“When her day’s work was over, what then?”
  Well, my boy, she had one of your habits;
She would roam through the forest again,
But instead of bold hunting for men,
  Would amuse herself hunting jack rabbits.