East Of Oswego

    Ticonderoga to Lake George,
    the classic invasion route
    up the Richelieu valley
    past Plattsburg,
    Verdun,
    à Montréal
    across the North Shore
    reroute again

    to savour Albany;
    last of the trading posts east of Oswego
    before New York
    protective sanctuary
    lodgings,
    free from the scalping knife
    barrens and
    the horrors Fenimore Cooper described.

    Apple crisp, fall damp the air
    with an unbroken stretch of forest
    and Adirondack mountains,
    there, delicate slip
    of fair womanhood
    bliss, she lies, gentle as the finger lakes
    clothed in autumn crimson.

Paul Cameron Brown

Paul Cameron Brown is a Canadian poet known for his extensive work in both poetry and art criticism. Born in western Canada, Brown has had a prolific career in writing, often intertwining themes of human experience and nature. His works have been showcased in various literary magazines and anthologies. With a style that is both reflective and evocative, he has gained recognition not only in Canada but also internationally.

Paul Cameron Brown

Trout Lake Hotel

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

Orange Lichens

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

Cuando-Cubango

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

Resignation

Paul Cameron Brown, 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.

Champlain's First Winter And Spring In Quebec.

(From the prose of Parkman.)

I. THE WINTER.

September bade the sail of Pontgravé
Godspeed, and smil'd upon the infant nation;
October deckt the shores and hills with "gay
Prognostics of approaching desolation."
Ere long the forest, steep'd in golden gloom,
Dropt rustling down its shrivel'd festal dress,
And chill November, sombre as the tomb,
Sank on the vast primeval wilderness.

Inexorable winter's iron vice
Gript hard the land, funereal with snow;
The stream was fill'd with grinding drifts of ice;
A fell disease laid twenty Frenchmen low
In death, and left the dauntless leader eight
With whom to hold the New World's fortress gate.


II. THE SPRING.

The purgatory pass'd - the stalactites
That fring'd the cliffs fell...

W. M. MacKeracher

The Coming Of Champlain.

(From the prose of Parkman.)

Up the St. Lawrence with well-weather'd sails
A lonely vessel clove its foaming track.
None hail'd its coming; the white floundering whales
Disported in the Bay of Tadoussac;
The wild duck div'd before its figured prow;
The painted savage spied it from the shore,
And dream'd not that his reign was ended now, -
That that strange ship a new Aeneas bore,

Whose pale-fac'd inconsiderable band
Were pioneers of an aggressive host
Of thousands, millions, filling all the land,
And 'stablishing therein from coast to coast
This civil state, with cities, temples, marts,
Schools, laws and peaceful industries and arts.

W. M. MacKeracher

Canadian Voyageurs On The Nile.

        The British soldiers on the Nile
        With gratitude did kindly smile,
        On the Canadian voyageurs
        Who skilfully did ply their oars.

        And they invoked their benison
        On boatsmen led by Denison,
        Neither the rapids nor the falls
        Along the Nile these braves appals.

        For in such toils they did partake,
        On each native stream and lake,
        Thoughts of their homes in visions throng,
        While singing Canadian boat song.

        And they all hoped again to see
        The glorious land of maple tree,
        From their memories they never
        Forgot the land of lake and river.

        While up the Nile they do advance
        They dream about their own St. La...

James McIntyre

The Green Mountain Boys.

I.

Here we halt our march, and pitch our tent
On the rugged forest ground,
And light our fire with the branches rent
By winds from the beeches round.
Wild storms have torn this ancient wood,
But a wilder is at hand,
With hail of iron and rain of blood,
To sweep and waste the land.

II.

How the dark wood rings with voices shrill,
That startle the sleeping bird;
To-morrow eve must the voice be still,
And the step must fall unheard.
The Briton lies by the blue Champlain,
In Ticonderoga's towers,
And ere the sun rise twice again,
The towers and the lake are ours.

III.

Fill up the bowl from the brook that glides
Where the fireflies light the brake;
A ruddier juice the Briton hides
In his fortress by the lak...

William Cullen Bryant

Entry Point

Ants colonized it
-    huge abodes littered with the dead
(leaves, sticks, the occasional granulated insect
piled high, totemic-fashion)
reaping a fortune in scenery,
though probably not food Ojibways were next    -
their tell-tale encampment by
pocket-sized waterfall,
inlets off a winding cataract
& moss, loam-thick with black soil
a future arboreal dream
inching over rock, darling crevice
for northern orchid, then kiss
of red death the hybrid trillium
& more sinister cousin,
jack-in-the-pulpit
for Indian foragers.

Animistic limestone shone hands,
poked thru the forest with stealth,
petroglyphic lava beds
-    a cougar pouncing    -
runic carvings the cold in the
Giant's stone nostrils billowing
off the lake li...

Paul Cameron Brown

The Battle Of Chateauguay.

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;
There is a name whose sound is like a song
On lips of its own maidens - Chateauguay;
Yet mighty as the combat of the strong,
And glorious as the march of Freedom over Wrong.

And here they fought; and each encountered ten,
With war-steed and artillery arrayed;
But righteous was their cause, and they were men, -
Dark plumes of Iroquois, and Scotia's plaid,
But most, the brothers of the arm which made
Napoleon terrible with triumphing.
Between the foe and heaven they knelt and prayed,
Then, rising, heard their leader's summons ring -
"Such is our d...

W. M. MacKeracher