At Sea

Three are emerald pools in the sea,
And wing-like flashes of light;
The sea is bound with the heavens
In a large delight.

Night comes out of the east
And rushes down on the sun;
The emerald pools and the light pools
Are darkened and done.

Our boat dips and cleaves onward,
Careless of night or of light,
Following the line of her compass
By her engines' might.

Through the desert of air and of water;
Like the lonely soul of man,
Following her fate to the ending,
Unaware of the hidden plan.

Sure only of battle and longing,
Of the pain and the quest,
And beyond in the darkness somewhere
Sure of her rest.

Duncan Campbell Scott

Duncan Campbell Scott was a Canadian poet, writer, and civil servant. He was born on August 2, 1862, in Ottawa, Ontario, and died on December 19, 1947. Scott is often associated with the Confederation Poets and is known for his contributions to Canadian literature. His poetic work often reflects themes of nature and the Canadian landscape, but he is also a controversial figure due to his role in the Canadian government's assimilation policies towards Indigenous peoples. Despite this, his literary works remain influential.

Duncan Campbell Scott

The Closed Door

Duncan Campbell Scott, Simple Poetry

Ecstasy

Duncan Campbell Scott, Simple Poetry

The Leaf

Duncan Campbell Scott, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

The Surf Sprite.

I.

In the far off sea there is many a sprite,
Who rests by day, but awakes at night.
In hidden caves where monsters creep,
When the sun is high, these spectres sleep:
From the glance of noon, they shrink with dread,
And hide 'mid the bones of the ghastly dead.
Where the surf is hushed, and the light is dull,
In the hollow tube and the whitened skull,
They crouch in fear or in whispers wail,
For the lingering night, and the coming gale.
But at even-tide, when the shore is dim,
And bubbling wreaths with the billows swim,
They rise on the wing of the freshened breeze,
And flit with the wind o'er the rolling seas.


II.

At summer eve, as I sat on the cliff,
I marked a shape like a dusky skiff,
That skimmed the brine, toward the rock...

Samuel Griswold Goodrich

Loch Torridon

To E. H.


The dawn of night more fair than morning rose,
Stars hurrying forth on stars, as snows on snows
Haste when the wind and winter bid them speed.
Vague miles of moorland road behind us lay
Scarce traversed ere the day
Sank, and the sun forsook us at our need,
Belated. Where we thought to have rested, rest
Was none; for soft Maree's dim quivering breast,
Bound round with gracious inland girth of green
And fearless of the wild wave-wandering West,
Shone shelterless for strangers; and unseen
The goal before us lay
Of all our blithe and strange and strenuous day.
For when the northering road faced westward, when
The dark sharp sudden gorge dropped seaward, then,
Beneath the stars, between the steeps, the track
We followed, lighted not...

Algernon Charles Swinburne

The Lover To His Lass

Crown her with stars, this angel of our planet,
Cover her with morning, this thing of pure delight,
Mantle her with midnight till a mortal cannot
See her for the garments of the light and the night.

How far I wandered, worlds away and far away,
Heard a voice but knew it not in the clear cold,
Many a wide circle and many a wan star away,
Dwelling in the chambers where the worlds were growing old.

Saw them growing old and heard them falling
Like ripe fruit when a tree is in the wind;
Saw the seraphs gather them, their clarion voices calling
In rounds of cheering labour till the orchard floor was thinned.

Saw a whole universe turn to its setting,
Old and cold and weary, gray and cold as death,
But before mine eyes were veiled in forgetting,
Something...

Duncan Campbell Scott

Dream Voyageurs

To ports of balm through isles of musk
The gentle airs are leading us;
To curtained calm and tents of dusk,
The wood-wild things unheeding us
Will share their hoards of hardihood,
Cool dew and roots of fern for food,
Frail berries full of the sun's blood.

To planets bland with dales of dream
A tranquil life is leading us,
We shall land from the languid stream,
The musing shades, unheeding us,
Will share their veils of angelhood,
Thoughts that are tranced with mystic food,
Still broodings tinct with a seraph's blood.

Duncan Campbell Scott

On Tweed River

I.
Merrily swim we, the moon shines bright,
Both current and ripple are dancing in light.
We have roused the night raven, I heard him croak
As we plashed along beneath the oak
That flings its broad branches so far and so wide,
Their shadows are dancing in the midst of the tide.
"Who wakens my nestlings," the raven he said,
"My beak shall ere morn in his blood be red,
For a blue-swollen corpse is a dainty meal,
And I'll have my share with the pike and the eel."

II.
Merrily swim we, the moon shines bright,
There's a golden gleam on the distant height;
There's a silver shadow on the alders dank,
And the drooping willows that wave on the bank.
I see the Abbey, both turret and tower,
It is all astir for the vesper hour;
The monks for the chapel are ...

Walter Scott

The Journey.

I.

Hark, the rain is on my roof!
Every murmur, through the dark,
Stings me with a dull reproof
Like a half-extinguished spark.
Me! ah me! how came I here,
Wide awake and wide alone!
Caught within a net of fear,
All my dreams undreamed and gone!

I will rise; I will go forth.
Better dare the hideous night,
Better face the freezing north
Than be still, where is no light!
Black wind rushing round me now,
Sown with arrowy points of rain!
Gone are there and then and now--
I am here, and so is pain!

Dead in dreams the gloomy street!
I will out on open roads.
Eager grow my aimless feet--
Onward, onward something goads!
I will take the mountain path,
Beard the storm within its den;
Know the worst of this dim wrath

George MacDonald