Sometimes my heart by cruel care opprest Faints from the weight of woe upon my breast, My soul embittered far beyond belief; - As damned one, drinking galling draughts of grief,...
Journeying through a desert, waste and drear, Exhausted and disheartened by his way, So hard and parched, unchanged from day to day, Saw the lone traveller an oasis near, In which a tender flower did appear,...
I was enveloped in black clouds of woe, Woven o'er my vision by dark-veiled Despair; I breathed the poison of the midnight air, And 'neath its dank oppression wasted low....
Stay of the church and pillar of the state! Who alway did'st to wrong thy voice oppose, And strong hast striven corruption to expose, And, jealous ever for thy country's fate,...
Divinely strong and beautiful in soul! With more than melody of mortal voice! The free thy spirit's majesty extol, When Liberty is made thy Muse's choice. And then how pure and pleasing is thy song,...
I cannot loiter on my way, The ice is drifting through Belle Isle, And far to seaward by Cape Ray Broad leagues of open water smile. Unheeded now, the inland barge Creeps heavily, the fisher dips...
'Tis true, in midst of all, there may arise For man's society a sudden thirst, A sense of hopeless vacancy which dries The spirit with a loneliness accurst, A longing irresistible to burst...
What is success? In mad soul-suicide The world's vain spoils rapaciously to seize, To pamper the base appetite of pride, And live a lord in luxury and ease? Is this success, whereof so many prate? -...
Loved by a host from Noah's days till now, Extolled by bards in many a glowing line, My purple rival of the mantling brow May laugh to scorn this swarthy face of mine. I care not: many a weary pain I cure;...
There is a valley where the wheat fields wave In autumn like a gold ymolten sea; There is a river whose cool waters lave Sweet-scented gardens, groves, and rolling lea, And homes of people worthy to be free;...
Now are the trees all ruefully bereft Of their brave liveries of green and gold, No shred of all their pleasant raiment left To shield them from the wind and nipping cold....
Is our renown'd Dominion then so small As not to hold this new inhabitant? Or are her means so pitiably scant As not to yield a livelihood to all? Or are we lesser men, foredoom'd to thrall?...
NOTE. - The following is an attempt to render in verse the passionate words of a young officer in the Indian service, who had fallen a prey to the ravages of the fever.
They come not from the sunny, sunny south, Nor from the Arctic region, Nor from the east, the busy, busy east, The where man's name is legion; But they come from the west, the rugged, rugged west,...
As one who finds his house no longer fit, Too narrow for his needs, in nothing right, Wanting in every homelike requisite, Devoid of beauty, barren of delight,...
It was back in Renfrew County, near the Opeongo line, Where the land's all hills and hollows and the hills are clothed with pine, And in the wooded valleys little lakes shine here and there...
From lands where old abuses sit entrenched And stern restriction thwarts aspiring merit, And by gaunt men a meagre dole is wrenched From the unkind conditions they inherit;...
How must have thrilled the great Creator's mind With radiant, glad and satisfying joy, Ever new self-expressive forms to find In those six days of rapturous employ! How must He have delighted when He made...