The Isles Of Huron

Bright are the countless isles which crest
With waving woods wide Huron's breast,--
Her countless isles, that love too well
The crystal waters whence they rise,
Far from her azure depths to swell,
Or wanton with the wooing skies;

Nor, jealous, soar to keep the Day
From laughing in each rippling bay,
But floating on the flood they love,
Soft whispering, kiss her breast, and seek
No passions of the air above,
No fires that burn the thunder-peak.

Algoma o'er Ontario throws
Fair forest heights and mountain snows;
Strong Erie shakes the orchard plain
At great Niagara's defiles,
And river-gods o'er Lawrence reign,
But Love is king in Huron's isles.

John Campbell

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John Campbell

Prologue. Government House, March 1879.

John Campbell, Simple Poetry

Legend Of The Canadian Robin

John Campbell, Simple Poetry

The Pool Of The Iron Shirt.

John Campbell, Simple Poetry

The Hard Strait Of The Feinne

John Campbell, Simple Poetry

English

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The Mystic Isle Of The "Land Of The North Wind."

(Keewatin.)

A land untamed, whose myriad isles
Are set in branching lakes that vein
Illimitable silent woods,
Voiceful in Fall, when their defiles,
Rich with the birch's golden rain,
See winging past the wildfowl broods.

Blue channels seem its dented rocks,
So steeply smoothed, but crusted o'er
With rounded mosses, green and grey,
That oft a Southern coral mocks
Upon this Northern fir-clad shore,
'Neath tufted copse on cape and bay.
Here sunshine from serener skies
Than Europe's ocean-islands know
Ripens the berry for the bear,
And pierces where the beaver plies
His water-forestry, or slow
The moose seeks out a breezy lair.

The blaze scarce spangles bush or ferns,
But lights the white pine's velvet fringe
And its dark...

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Quebec.

O fortress city, bathed by streams
Majestic as thy memories great,
Where mountains, floods, and forests mate
The grandeur of the glorious dreams,
Born of the hero hearts who died
In founding here an Empire's pride;
Prosperity attend thy fate,
And happiness in thee abide,
Pair Canada's strong tower and gate!

May Envy, that against thy might
Dashed hostile hosts to surge and break,
Bring Commerce, emulous to make
Thy people share her fruitful fight,
In filling argosies with store
Of grain and timber, and each ore,
And all a continent can shake
Into thy lap, till more and more
Thy praise in distant worlds awake.

Who hath not known delight whose feet
Have paced thy streets or terrace way;
From rampart sod or bastion grey
Hath m...

John Campbell

The Song Of The Six Sisters.

[Manitoba, Assiniboia, Saskatchewan, Athabasca, Alberta, and British Columbia.]

At a feast in the east of our central plains,
Girt with the sheaths of the wheaten grains,
Manitoba lay where the sunflowers blow,
And sang to the chime of the Red River's flow:
"I am child of the spirit whom all men own,
My prairie no longer is green and lone,
For the hosts of the settler have ringed me round,
And his bride am I with the harvest crowned."

On her steed at speed o'er her burning grass
We saw Assiniboia pass:
"The bison and antelope still are mine,
And the Indian wars on my boundary-line;
Where his knife is dyed I love to ride
By the cactus blooms or the marshes wide,
While the quivering columns of thunder fire
Give light to the darkened land's desire."

John Campbell

Province Of Ontario.

        In the land of woods and lakes,
        Pure happiness each one partakes,
        Who is sound in body and in mind,
        And to industry is inclined.

        Here in great lakes we do take pride,
        And them with Uncle Sam divide,
        Other lakes seem inferior
        In size to great Superior.

        And Canadians do take pride,
        In Huron's wide expanded tide,
        But it onward flows forever,
        Through St. Clair lake and river.

        But soon again it doth expand,
        Into Erie's lake so grand,
        Then behold its wondrous charms,
        When embraced in Niagara's arms.

        Then it more blessings doth bestow,
        On pure bosom of Ontario,
        Round it our towns and ...

James McIntyre

Niagara

A ceaseless, awful, falling sea, whose sound
Shakes earth and air, and whose resistless stroke
Shoots high the volleying foam like cannon smoke!
How dread and beautiful the floods, when, crowned
By moonbeams on their rushing ridge, they bound
Into the darkness and the veiling spray;
Or, jewel-hued and rainbow-dyed, when day
Lights the pale torture of the gulf profound!
So poured the avenging streams upon the world
When swung the ark upon the deluge wave,
And, o'er each precipice in grandeur hurled,
The endless torrents gave mankind a grave.
God's voice is mighty, on the water loud,
Here, as of old, in thunder, glory, cloud!

John Campbell

Canadian Rivers And Lakes.

        We have here a sight as fair
        As bonnie Doon or banks of Ayr,
        Like modest worth meandering slow
        The quiet waters gently flow,
        Rose, thistle, shamrock, all combine,
        Around the maple leaf to twine,
        Whose outstretched arms so gigantic
        Clasp Pacific and Atlantic,
        Embracing lakes like burnished gold,
        With joy a Shakespeare might behold,
        For either Poet Burns or Moore[B]
        Such scenery they would adore.

James McIntyre