Canadian Poetry from the Beginnings Through the First World War

This is the only anthology to present a full history of Canadian poetry from the early 1600s through the expansiveness of poetic activity during the 18th and 19th centuries and into the flourishing first decades of the 20th century. The editors have compiled works from over 50 poets, including the verse of Isabella Valancy Crawford, Bliss Carman, Archibald Lampman and Duncan Campbell Scott, and several long narrative poems, including Oliver Goldsmith'sThe Rising Villageand Crawford'sMalcolm's Katie.

CAROLE GERSON is a professor of English at Simon Fraser University.

GWENDOLYN DAVIES is Dean Emerita of Graduate Studies at the University of New Brunswick.

Part One: Foundations
Robert Hayman (1575–1629)
from Quodlibets
 
Henry Kelsey (1667?–1724)
rhymed prologue to his Journals
 
Donncha Rua Mac Conmara (c. 1716–1810)
Donncha Rua i dTalamh an Éisc
 
Anonymous (1745)
Nathaniel’s Tilt
 
Anonymous (1750)
Nova Scotia. A New Ballad
 
Joseph Stansbury (1740–1809)
To Cordelia
 
Deborah How Cottnam (“Portia”) (1728–1806)
On Being Asked What Recollection Was
A piece for a Sampler
 
Henry Alline (1748–1784)
from Hymns and Spiritual Songs
Book I, Hymn LII: The conduct of most sailors
Book III, Hymn VI: Sion comforted, or religion reviving
 
Jacob Bailey (1731–1808)
[Verse Against the New Lights]
 
Anne Hecht (fl. 1786)
Advice to Mrs. Mowat
 
Roger Viets (1738–1811)
Annapolis-Royal
 
Jonathan Odell (1737–1818)
Our thirty-ninth Wedding day
The Comet of 1811
The Battle of Queen’s Town, Upper Canada
 
Griselda Tonge (c. 1803–1825)
To My Dear Grandmother, on her 80th Birth Day
 
Oliver Goldsmith (1794–1861)
The Rising Village
 
Anonymous (1829)
Canadian Boat-Song
 
Anonymous (1838)
The Fight at Montgomery’s
 
M. Ethelind Sawtell (fl. 1840–1851)
Achievements of a Volunteer Corps
The Indian’s Refusal
 
Douglas Huyghue (“Eugene”) (1816–1891)
The Miner’s Tale
 
George William Gillespie (d. 1847)
The Canadian Dominie’s Lament
Lines on Canada
Canadian Woodsman’s Farewell to His Log House
 
George Copway (Kah-ge-ga-gah-bowh) (1818–1869)
[Once More I See My Fathers’ Land]
[War Song] (1847)
[War Song] (1850)
 
Charles Sangster (1822–1893)
On Queenston Heights
from Sonnets, Written in the Orillia Woods
Midnight Sonnet 1874–’75
 
Alexander Mclachlan (1818–1896)
We Live in a Rickety House
The Anglo-Saxon
Young Canada Or Jack’s as Good as His Master
The Man Who Rose From Nothing
Cartha Again
 
Pamelia Vining Yule (1826–1897)
The Beech-Nut Gatherer
The Drunkard’s Child
 
Rosanna Eleanor Mullins Leprohon (1829–1879)
Husband and Wife
Given and Taken
 
Charles Heavysege (1816–1876)
sonnets from Jephtha’s Daughter
 
James Anderson (1842–1923)
The Prospector’s Shanty
Song of the Mine
 
John Arthur Phillips (1842–1907)
The Factory Girl
 
Anonymous (1873)
A Popular Creed
 
James Mcintyre (1827–1906)
Ode on the Mammoth Cheese
 
Agnes Maule Machar (“Fidelis”) (1837–1927)
Quebec to Ontario: A Plea for the Life of Riel, September, 1885
Rondeau
Our Lads to the Front!
 
Charles Mair (1838–1927)
“The Song” from “The Last Bison”
 
 
Part Two: Continuations
Isabella Valancy Crawford (1850–1887)
“Love Me, Love My Dog”
March
Love’s Forget-Me-Not
The Dark Stag
The Canoe
The Hidden Room
Malcolm’s Katie: A Love Story
 
William Wilfred Campbell (1860?–1918)
Indian Summer
The Winter Lakes
August Evening on the Beach, Lake Huron
How Spring Came (To the Lake Region)
On the Ledge
The Dread Voyage
Morning on the Shore
At Even
The Lazarus of Empire
Bereavement of the Fields
 
Charles G.D. Roberts (1860–1943)
To Fredericton in May-Time
Tantramar Revisited
The Poet Is Bidden to Manhattan Island
An Ode for the Canadian Confederacy
The Potato Harvest
Severance
The Mowing
The Flight of the Geese
The Winter Fields
The Pea-Fields
The Salt Flats
Ave! (An Ode for the Shelley Centenary, 1892)
The Herring Weir
In an Old Barn
In a City Room
The Fear of Love
The Skater
Heat in the City
Philander’s Song
Going Over
The Iceberg
As Down the Woodland Ways
 
Bliss Carman (1861–1929)
Low Tide on Avon
Low Tide on Grand Pré
A Windflower
The Eavesdropper
A Sea Child
The Ships of St. John
Noons of Poppy
A Vagabond Song
The Lanterns of St. Eulalie
from Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics
Before the Snow
The Ghost-yard of the Goldenrod
Wild Geese
The Winter Scene
May in the Selkirks
 
Archibald Lampman (1862–1899)
Love Doubt [The Growth of Love I]
For my Darling [The Growth of Love II]
Among the Timothy
Morning on the Lièvre
The Railway Station
In November [sonnet]
Heat
A Night of Storm
Solitude
Winter Evening
A January Morning
Evening
In November
Across the Pea-Fields
A Sunset on the Lower St. Lawrence [A Sunset at Les Eboulements]
To a Millionaire
The City of the End of Things
White Pansies
On Lake Temiscamingue
from A Portrait in Six Sonnets
In the Wilds
Winter Uplands
 
Duncan Campbell Scott (1862–1947)
Ottawa
At the Cedars
The Onondaga Madonna
Watkwenies
Night Hymns on Lake Nipigon
The Forsaken
Dulse Gathering
The Wood Peewee
The Height of Land
The Closed Door
To a Canadian Aviator Who Died for His Country in France
En Route
At Gull Lake: August, 1810
Chiostro Verde
 
Sophia Almon Hensley (1866–1946)
Rondeau – When Summer Comes
Slack Tide
Triumph
Guiltless
Somewhere in France
 
Susan Frances Harrison (“Seranus”) (1859–1935)
March
Interim
Les Chantiers
September
Niagara in Winter
 
Pauline Johnson (1861–1913)
Re-Voyage
The Song My Paddle Sings
Ojistoh
Marshlands
The Idlers
The Corn Husker
Low Tide at St. Andrews
Lullaby of the Iroquois
Silhouette
The Train Dogs
 
Kate Simpson Hayes (1852–1943)
Riel
Prairie Verses
 
Agnes Ethelwyn Wetherald (1857–1940)
October
The Humming-bird
June Apples
The World Well Lost
A Winter Picture
Each to Her Own
Hester Prynne Speaks
 
Marie Joussaye (1864?–1949)
Only a Working Girl
Two Poets
 
Francis Sherman (1871–1926)
In Memorabilia Mortis
The Last Storm
The Watch
To Doctor John Donne
So, After All, When All Is Said and Done
 
F.G. Scott (1861–1944)
The Unnamed Lake
The Penalty
Call Back Our Dead
 
Frances Jones Bannerman (1855–1944)
Wolf-Head
Love Belated
I Would Not, Dear
 
May Austin Low (1863–1958)
The Coming of the Roslyn Castle
 
Marjorie Pickthall (1883–1922)
Persephone Returning to Hades
A Mother in Egypt
Père Lalemant
The Green Month
The Pool
Inheritance
The Wife
 
Robert Service (1874–1958)
The Shooting of Dan McGrew
The Stretcher-Bearer
My Cross
 
Chief K’hhalserten Sepass (1841?–1943)
The Beginning of the World
 
John Mccrae (1872–1918)
In Flanders Fields
 
Helena Coleman (1860–1953)
Oh, Not When April Wakes the Daffodils
Convocation Hall
When First He Put the Khaki On
 
Frank Prewett (1893–1962)
The Somme Valley, 1917
Card Game
Epigram
Burial Stones
The Soldier
 
 
Afterword
Copy-Texts
Index of Authors and Titles