The Ghost's Story

All my life long I heard the step
Of some one I would know,
Break softly in upon my days
And lightly come and go.

A foot so brisk I said must bear
A heart that's clean and clear;
If that companion blithe would come,
I should be happy here.

But though I waited long and well,
He never came at all,
I grew aweary of the void,
Even of the light foot-fall.

From loneliness to loneliness
I felt my spirit grope -
At last I knew the uttermost,
The loneliness of hope.

And just upon the border land,
Where flesh and spirit part,
I knew the secret foot-fall was
The beating of my heart.

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

Christmas Folk-Song

Duncan Campbell Scott, Simple Poetry

A Legend Of Christ's Nativity

Duncan Campbell Scott, Simple Poetry

The Apparition

Duncan Campbell Scott, Simple Poetry

Retrospect

Duncan Campbell Scott, Simple Poetry

English

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Night Burial In The Forest

Lay him down where the fern is thick and fair.
Fain was he for life, here lies he low:
With the blood washed clean from his brow and his beautiful hair,
Lay him here in the dell where the orchids grow.

Let the birch-bark torches roar in the gloom,
And the trees crowd up in a quiet startled ring
So lone is the land that in this lonely room
Never before has breathed a human thing.

Cover him well in his canvas shroud, and the moss
Part and heap again on his quiet breast,
What recks he now of gain, or love, or loss
Who for love gained rest?

While she who caused it all hides her insolent eyes
Or braids her hair with the ribbons of lust and of lies,
And he who did the deed fares out like a hunted beast
To lurk where the musk-ox tramples the barren groun...

Duncan Campbell Scott

The Apparition

Gentle angel with your mantle,
All of tender green,
I was yearning for a vision
Of the life unseen.

When you hovered in the sunset,
Just as rain was done;
Where the dropping from the poplars
Seemed like rain begun.

There you gathered forming slowly
Rounding into view:
All your vesture glowed like verdure
When the sap is new.

Then you mutely gave your warning
And I felt the stress
Of its passion and its presage
And its utterness.

There you swayed one tranquil moment,
Mystically fair,
Then you were not of the sunset,
Were not in the air.

Duncan Campbell Scott

The Half-Breed Girl

She is free of the trap and the paddle,
The portage and the trail,
But something behind her savage life
Shines like a fragile veil.

Her dreams are undiscovered,
Shadows trouble her breast,
When the time for resting cometh
Then least is she at rest.

Oft in the morns of winter,
When she visits the rabbit snares,
An appearance floats in the crystal air
Beyond the balsam firs.

Oft in the summer mornings
When she strips the nets of fish,
The smell of the dripping net-twine
Gives to her heart a wish.

But she cannot learn the meaning
Of the shadows in her soul,
The lights that break and gather,
The clouds that part and roll,

The reek of rock-built cities,
Where her fathers dwelt of yore,
The gleam of loch an...

Duncan Campbell Scott

By A Child's Bed

She breathèd deep,
And stepped from out life's stream
Upon the shore of sleep;
And parted from the earthly noise,
Leaving her world of toys,
To dwell a little in a dell of dream.

Then brooding on the love I hold so free,
My fond possessions come to be
Clouded with grief;
These fairy kisses,
This archness innocent,
Sting me with sorrow and disturbed content:
I think of what my portion might have been;
A dearth of blisses,
A famine of delights,
If I had never had what now I value most;
Till all I have seems something I have lost;
A desert underneath the garden shows,
And in a mound of cinders roots the rose.

Here then I linger by the little bed,
Till all my spirit's sphere,
Grows one half brightness and the other dead,
O...

Duncan Campbell Scott

Night

The night is old, and all the world
Is wearied out with strife;
A long gray mist lies heavy and wan
Above the house of life.

Four stars burn up and are unquelled
By the low, shrunken moon;
Her spirit draws her down and down -
She shall be buried soon.

There is a sound that is no sound,
Yet fine it falls and clear,
The whisper of the spinning earth
To the tranced atmosphere.

An odour lives where once was air,
A strange, unearthly scent,
From the burning of the four great stars
Within the firmament.

The universe, deathless and old,
Breathes, yet is void of breath:
As still as death that seems to move
And yet is still as death.

Duncan Campbell Scott

The Old Garden

I.

I stood in an ancient garden
With high red walls around;
Over them grey and green lichens
In shadowy arabesque wound.

The topmost climbing blossoms
On fields kine-haunted looked out;
But within were shelter and shadow,
With daintiest odours about.

There were alleys and lurking arbours,
Deep glooms into which to dive.
The lawns were as soft as fleeces,
Of daisies I counted but five.

The sun-dial was so aged
It had gathered a thoughtful grace;
'Twas the round-about of the shadow
That so had furrowed its face.

The flowers were all of the oldest
That ever in garden sprung;
Red, and blood-red, and dark purple
The rose-lamps flaming hung.

Along the borders fringed
With broad thick edges of box

George MacDonald