Why Do Ye Call The Poet Lonely.

Why do ye call the poet lonely,
Because he dreams in lonely places?
He is not desolate, but only
Sees, where ye cannot, hidden faces.

Archibald Lampman

Canadian Confederation poet Archibald Lampman, born in 1861, is often regarded as one of Canada's finest late 19th-century poets. Known for his nature-themed works, Lampman contributed significantly to the country's literary heritage. He published several collections, with "Among the Millet" and "Lyrics of Earth" being notable examples. Lampman's poetry reflects a deep appreciation for the Canadian landscape, making him a seminal figure in Canadian literature.

Archibald Lampman

New Year's Eve.

Archibald Lampman, Simple Poetry

Aspiration.

Archibald Lampman, Simple Poetry

The City.

Archibald Lampman, Simple Poetry

A Night Of Storm.

Archibald Lampman, Simple Poetry

English

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The Poet

The Poet is the loneliest man that lives;
Ah me! God makes him so --
The sea hath its ebb and flow,
He sings his songs -- but yet he only gives
In the waves of the words of his art
Only the ~foam~ of his heart.

Its sea rolls on forever, evermore,
Beautiful, vast, and deep;
Only his ~shallowest~ thoughts touch the shore
Of Speech; his ~deepest~ sleep.

The foam that crests the wave is pure and white;
The ~foam~ is not the ~wave~;
The wave is not the sea -- ~it rolls~ forever on;
The winding shores will crave
A kiss from ev'ry wavelet on the deep;
~Some come~; some always ~sleep~.

Abram Joseph Ryan

The Loons.

Once ye were happy, once by many a shore,
Wherever Glooscap's gentle feet might stray,
Lulled by his presence like a dream, ye lay
Floating at rest; but that was long of yore.
He was too good for earthly men; he bore
Their bitter deeds for many a patient day,
And then at last he took his unseen way.
He was your friend, and ye might rest no more:

And now, though many hundred altering years
Have passed, among the desolate northern meres
Still must ye search and wander querulously,
Crying for Glooscap, still bemoan the light
With wierd entreaties, and in agony
With awful laughter pierce the lonely night.

Archibald Lampman

A Song.

Oh night and sleep,
Ye are so soft and deep,
I am so weary, come ye soon to me.
Oh hours that creep,
With so much time to weep,
I am so tired, can ye no swifter be?

Come, night, anear;
I'll whisper in thine ear
What makes me so unhappy, full of care;
Dear night, I die
For love that all men buy
With tears, and know not it is dark despair.

Dear night, I pray,
How is it that men say
That love is sweet? It is not sweet to me.
For one boy's sake
A poor girl's heart must break;
So sweet, so true, and yet it could not be!

Oh, I loved well,
Such love as none can tell:
It was so true, it could not make him know:
For he was blind,
All light and all unkind:
Oh, had he known, would he have hurt me so?

Oh nigh...

Archibald Lampman

The Poets.

Half god, half brute, within the self-same shell,
Changers with every hour from dawn till even,
Who dream with angels in the gate of heaven,
And skirt with curious eyes the brinks of hell,
Children of Pan, whom some, the few, love well,
But most draw back, and know not what to say,
Poor shining angels, whom the hoofs betray,
Whose pinions frighten with their goatish smell.

Half brutish, half divine, but all of earth,
Half-way 'twixt hell and heaven, near to man,
The whole world's tangle gathered in one span,
Full of this human torture and this mirth:
Life with its hope and error, toil and bliss,
Earth-born, earth-reared, ye know it as it is.

Archibald Lampman

Solitude.

How still it is here in the woods. The trees
Stand motionless, as if they did not dare
To stir, lest it should break the spell. The air
Hangs quiet as spaces in a marble frieze.
Even this little brook, that runs at ease,
Whispering and gurgling in its knotted bed,
Seems but to deepen with its curling thread
Of sound the shadowy sun-pierced silences.

Sometimes a hawk screams or a woodpecker
Startles the stillness from its fixèd mood
With his loud careless tap. Sometimes I hear
The dreamy white-throat from some far off tree
Pipe slowly on the listening solitude
His five pure notes succeeding pensively.

Archibald Lampman

Personality

O differing human heart,
Why is it that I tremble when thine eyes,
Thy human eyes and beautiful human speech,
Draw me, and stir within my soul
That subtle ineradicable longing
For tender comradeship?
It is because I cannot all at once,
Through the half-lights and phantom-haunted mists
That separate and enshroud us life from life,
Discern the nearness or the strangeness of thy paths
Nor plumb thy depths.
I am like one that comes alone at night
To a strange stream, and by an unknown ford
Stands, and for a moment yearns and shrinks,
Being ignorant of the water, though so quiet it is,
So softly murmurous,
So silvered by the familiar moon.

Archibald Lampman