Canadian Battlefields, and Other Poems

What shall I sing, I prithee, O Muse? For song burns my bosom to-day; And it flows o’er me like a wave o’ the sea, A dream-wrought, subtle melody. Shall’t be of the wondrous pre...

Ah! Nature with a lavish hand Hath here her treasures strewn, All undisturbed by ruthless man That scathes and mars too soon. Back o’er the silent phantom past, Three hundred ye...

Awake! awake, Ojibways! To dream in peace no more, For there comes a bold invader From eastward by the shore. Rowing in swift, strong bateaux, With strokes both strong and long,...

The Ojibways from a distance Marked the slaughter of their game, And their untamed fiery spirits With revenge were all aflame. And Mitwaos, their brave leader, Summoned his chie...

Thus gain they the dark hillocks By the Carrying Place, And like phantoms take position The waiting foe to face. Aye, waiting were the Voyageurs, In silence, but prepared; Not a...

The stern victors, too, are mourning Over their dauntless slain; Full twoscore of death-stilled heroes, Relieved of life’s care and pain, After the battle was over, Lone Wolf an...

Near Belgium’s gay capital, the long night through, Paced the alert sentinel of Waterloo, And through the lonesome watches beat the dreary rain, While wandering winds sobbed o’e...

Dread moment! there waiting the burst of the storm; And the bravest of hearts are anxiously torn. Yet o’er the fierce grandeur of that famous scene Shone the peaceful June sunli...

Now far on the horizon the Prussians appear; The Emperor cries, “Grouchy is coming, is near.” This to reanimate his divisions once more, By repeated reverses grown doubtful and...

But La Haye Sainte to Donzelot’s infantry fell-- The heroic Frenchman fought there nobly and well-- Thus securing the Emperor a lodgment sought, A strategic point for a decisive...

“The field is won! Order the whole line to advance. Roll _en masse_ on the wavering legions of France.” Thus ordered the Duke, and a responsive cry Of joy and glad triumph peale...

Backward, backward, through time’s vast chambers, In a dreamful reverie go; Flitting down the vanishing ages, Fifty and two hundred years ago. Between Lake Simcoe and Lake Huron...

And thus it was with the proud Hurons In that far-off and happy time; Those strange children of the lone forest, Reared where nature reigns sublime. And thus it was the Jesuit f...

Thus commenced those dread incursions Of the relentless Iroquois; Unceasing in their deadly hatred, They burst with frightful cruelty, At hours or moments unexpected, On the des...

Life began in an old cottage, Near the margin of a stream, Close beside a grand old forest, Where I saw the sunlight gleam O’er the hills lit up with splendor By the radiance of...

’Tis well that childhood and youth should be bright, All sunny with bloom, and the golden light Of innocent days of love and fair hope, Gathering strength with life’s battles to...

We boys had hopefully crossed the Rubicon, And entered the arena, the battle of life; An ensanguined field, where millions of men Engage in the ruthless, pitiless strife. Glowin...

I’d sought the busy marts of men, The city’s fev’rish, ceaseless din, Where strife and vile rapaciousness Are steeped in crime and vaunted sin. The rage of commerce and the clas...

And I was saddened and subdued; No friendly smile would on me beam; I longed then for the olden days, And the old home beside the stream. But destiny had made decree That I shou...

Golden light of life’s glad morning, Oh, so long, so long ago, I am looking, looking backward From the hills all white with snow. And it is so bleak and dreary, Oh, this long an...

The flight of Time! how strange, aye, how strange thy story! Thou wast when vast creation’s wondrous glory Lighted up the weird inanimate universe, And bade the intense darkness...

Imperial Tanis in the setting sun did gleam, Reflected in the gliding Nile’s majestic stream, Egypt’s famed metropolis. In glory shone Her palaces, vast temples, minaret and dom...

Stern Time, thou wast at proud Belshazzar’s sumptuous feast, When the pomp and splendor of the sensuous East, Robed in gold and crimson, graced the banquet hall, And ’mid revelr...

And didst thou sing, then, with the mystic morning star That shone o’er Bethlehem from heaven’s gate ajar? And didst thy grateful praises like a river flow When Christ was born...

A night in old Rome! The sighing southwind blew Down from the purple vine-clad hills, and stealing through A thousand bowers, summer-laden and so fair, In odorous bloom it revel...

The attendants quickly remove the ghastly slain, And cover up with sand the gruesome crimson stain. Again the heralds with trumpets loud proclaim Permission to begin in cruel Cæ...

Thou beheldst the Cæsars in their sceptred power Dominate the known world; but their kingly dower Was vast Imperial Rome--the Romans’ love and pride; Her chivalric people were h...

Forgotten of Rome! Antony, thou true son of Mars! The invincible leader of so many wars; A loiterer at Alexandria on the Nile, Lost to the witchery of a fair woman’s guile. Cleo...

Let us retrace our steps along the phantom shore Of the dead centuries, two thousand years or more, And look upon a nation whose fame will never cease-- A learned and noble peop...

Insatiable Time! I grow weary in a vain attempt to follow thee, Or tell the past, so full of deepest mystery; I cannot cope with thee, for thou art everywhere, And knowest well...

Across a lessening void we mark a red glare Rising fierce above us, menacing everywhere; And we approach with fear and trembling, and the stars Grow dim, as bursts on us the wra...

Jupiter is before us! Stay, O Time, thy hand, That we may gaze on an orb superlatively grand! And we are rapt in astonishment and amaze At a form so colossal, wrapped in an outw...

Awake, Time! If ever thou sleepest. Draw out thy car once more, And cleave the outer realms of space, beyond the shore Of noble Jupiter. Out fearlessly! away! Trusting a power t...

Get our bearings, Time! Ballast well, and trim thy wondrous aerial car For another dread abyss, lying there afar Outward, bordering Uranus’s remote, lonely shore-- A shore of fr...

Now we seek a lone station far outward, alone, On the confines bordering on the vast unknown; An elliptical way of an orb that’s sublime-- The sentinel of our system, on the out...

Ho, comrade Time! Thy car! Let’s toward the constellations glimmering afar! Take Pegasus for thy guide; mount upward, away! Through the glory of the spheres fairer than the day....

Upward, Time! Outward and upward in desperate flight once more, Let’s peer into a region we dare not, cannot cross o’er. Ah! the light is fading fast on our right and rear, And...

Ho! Comrade, our planet! Behold thou the glorious and inspiring sight, Illumined thus in the solar orb’s grand light! And how his mighty seas and oceans gleam and glow, And the...

Inexorable and insatiate Time! Thou, too, shalt die, and dread annihilation meet! The soul shall happier be when thy ruin ’s complete. Listen, then, thou scourge! “And the angel...

I know not if ’twas in a vision, or a spirit dream. ’Twas at the noon of day, when fairest summer time serene Clothed all the world in loveliness; when dazzling light Streamed o...

Again I turned to the southward, thrilled by the glorious sight Of vast battle lines advancing all beautiful and bright; With flashing steel, like countless stars, bannered, bed...

Hist! what’s this horror stealing o’er the serenitude of heaven? A weird panoply of cold, metallic light had driven All the deep-toned azure of the summer skies away. A spectral...

And so the night fell redly down, Such a night as man ne’er hath seen-- One vast crimson glare through the universe, And weird phantoms flitting between The stars that glowed in...

The intrepid Germans have not made way, But like the rocks they firm abide, And the fiery Gauls dash swift upon them, Like the rise and sweep of ocean’s tide In frenzied fury hu...