Works

On your brow, the steppes of Asia
are fetched by deep set eyes
A colouring distict with mystery
perceives the Polos greeting the Great Khan,
the golden isle of Ciphangu, the sultry east.
...

Is there any reward?
I'm beginning to doubt it.
I am broken and bored,
Is there any reward
Reassure me, Good Lord,
And inform me about it.
Is there any reward?
I'm beginning to doubt it.

Is there room for the poet, fair Canada's sons.
To live his strange life, and to warble his songs,
To follow each current of thought as it runs,
And to sing of your victories, glories and wrongs?
...

Whatever is a cruel wrong,
Whatever is unjust,
The honest years that speed along
Will trample in the dust.
In restless youth I railed at fate
With all my puny might,
But now I know if I but wait...

I think just how my shape will rise
When I shall be forgiven,
Till hair and eyes and timid head
Are out of sight, in heaven.

I think just how my lips will weigh
With shapeless, quivering prayer...

I watch, and long have watched, with calm regret
Yon slowly-sinking star, immortal Sire
(So might he seem) of all the glittering quire!
Blue ether still surrounds him, yet, and yet;...

I will take an egg out of the robin's nest in the orchard,
I will take a branch of gooseberries from the old bush in the garden, and go and preach to the world;...

How oft in public meetings past,
Where sense was not and talk was loud,
We caught a glimpse of long white hair
Upon the outskirts of the crowd;
And then the tide of talk ebbed back,...

Kept up by relays of generations young
Never dies at halyards the blithe chorus sung;
While in sands, sounds, and seas where the storm-petrels cry,
Dropped mute around the globe, these halyard singers lie....

He stood on the wood-crowned summit
Of our mountain's regal height,
And gazed on the scene before him,
By October's golden light,
And his dark eyes, earnest, thoughtful,
Lit up with a softer ray...

From purest wells of English undefiled
None deeper drank than he, the New World's child,
Who in the language of their farm-fields spoke
The wit and wisdom of New England folk,...

1819-1891

Thou shouldst have sung the swan-song for the choir
That filled our groves with music till the day
Lit the last hilltop with its reddening fire,
And evening listened for thy lingering lay....

(From a Westerner's Point of View.)

No matter what you call it,
Whether genius, or art,
He sings the simple songs that come
The closest to your heart.
Fur trim an' skillful phrases,...

The friends that are, and friends that were,
What shallow waves divide!
I miss the form for many a year
Still seated at my side.

I miss him, yet I feel him still
Amidst our faithful band,...

My God, how perfect are thy ways!
But mine polluted are;
Sin twines itself about my praise,
And slides into my prayer.


When I would speak what thou hast done,
To save me from my sin,...

Heal us, Emmanuel, here we are,
Waiting to feel thy touch:
Deep-wounded souls to thee repair,
And, Saviour, we are such.


Our faith is feeble, we confess,
We faintly trust thy word;...

"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."


I gave myself to Jesus
In my sunny childhood's years,
When on my young, unsullied cheek...

I'm told the Artist who aspires
To draw Forbes-Robertson requires
A Sargent's brush. Dear me! how sad!
I've lost the only one I had.

Joe Ramshottom rented a bit of a farm
From its owner, Squire Goslett his name;
And the Gosletts came over with William the First,
And found Ramsbottoms here when they came.
...

Few faces interest me less
Than Rockefeller's, I confess.
'Twould vastly better suit my whim
To draw his bank account, than him.