Virna Sheard

Virna Sheard was a Canadian poet and novelist associated with the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She gained recognition for her poetry collections such as 'The Miracle, and Other Poems' and 'A Sea of Sunset'. Her work often explored themes of love, spirituality, and the natural world. Apart from poetry, she also wrote several novels that contributed significantly to Canadian literature of her time.

April 24, 1865

February 17, 1943

English

Virna Sheard

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A Love Song

Oh haste, my Sweet! Impatient now I wait,
The crescent moon swings low, it groweth late,
A night bird sings, of Life, and Love, and Fate!

Oh haste, my Sweet! Youth and its gladness goes,
Joy hath one summer time, like to the rose,
Love only lives through all the winter snows.

Then haste, my Sweet! These hours are all our own,
And see! A rose leaf on the night breeze blown!
For thee I wait - for thee I wait alone!

Virna Sheard

A Pagan Prayer

Lord of all Life! When my hours are done,
Take me and make me anew -
And give me back to the earth and the sun,
And the sky's unlimited blue.

The nightingale sings in an ecstasy
To the moonlit April night,
But my songs are locked in the heart of me,
Like birds that may not take flight.

The little purple-winged swallows that fly
Through waves of the upper air,
Have a sweeter liberty, Lord, than I,
Who may not follow them there.

Pavilions of sunshine - tents of the rain,
For these, the wild and the free;
And for us walled garden and window-pane,
And bolt and staple and key.

We are worn with wisdom that never brings
Peace to the world and its woe -
For a space with Thy joyous lesser things,
Teach me the faith I would know.

Virna Sheard

A Song

Love maketh its own summer time,
'Tis June, Love, when we are together,
And little I care for the frost in the air,
For the heart makes its own summer weather.

Love maketh its own winter time,
And though the hills blossom with heather,
If you are not near, 'tis December, my dear,
For the heart makes its own winter weather.

Virna Sheard

A Song

0 heart of mine - if I were but a swallow -
A thing so fearless, swift of flight, and free -
On wings unwearied I would find and follow
Some path that led to thee!

Were I a rose out in the garden growing
My sweetness I would give the vagrant breeze
For he, perchance, might meet thee all unknowing -
Yet bring thee memories.

Virna Sheard

A Song Of Love

Love reckons not by time - its May days of delight
Are swifter than the falling stars that pass beyond our sight.

Love reckons not by time - its moments of despair
Are years that march like prisoners, who drag the chains they wear.

Love counts not by the sun - it hath no night or day -
'Tis only light when love is near - 'tis dark with love away.

Love hath no measurements of height, or depth, or space,
But yet within a little grave it oft hath found a place.

Love is its own best law - its wrongs seek no redress;
Love is forgiveness - and it only knoweth how to bless.

Virna Sheard

A Song Of Poppies

I love red poppies! Imperial red poppies!
Sun-worshippers are they;
Gladly as trees live through a hundred summers
They live one little day.

I love red poppies! Impassioned scarlet poppies!
Ever their strange perfume
Seems like an essence brewed by fairy people
From an immortal bloom.

I love red poppies! Red, silken, swaying poppies!
Deep in their hearts they keep
A magic cure for woe - a draught of Lethe -
A lotus-gift of sleep.

I love red poppies! Soft silver-stemmed, red poppies,
That from the rain and sun
Gather a balm to heal some earth-born sorrow,
When their glad day is done.

Virna Sheard

A Song Of Roses

'Tis time to sing of roses: of roses all ablow,
To every vagrant passing breeze they dip a courtesy low,
'Tis time to sing of roses! for June is here, you know.

One song for true love's roses of sweetest deepest red,
Some heart will wear you faithfully when life itself hath fled,
And for the white rose sing a song - the white rose for the dead.

And ah! the yellow roses, of brightest, lightest gold,
King Midas must have touched their leaves in mystic days of old,
Or they were made of sunshine, and gilded, fold by fold.

And the roadside rose, sweet-briar, we would remember thee
And the cinnamon rose that evermore enthralls each passing bee,
You old, old-fashioned roses, a-growing wild and free.

'Tis time to sing of roses! of roses all ablow!
They come a...

Virna Sheard

A Song Of Summer Days

As pearls slip off a silken string and fall into the sea,
These rounded summer days fall back into eternity.

Into the deep from whence they came; into the mystery -
At set of sun each one slips back as pearls into the sea.

They are so sweet - so warm and sweet - Love fain would hold them fast:
He weeps when through his finger tips they slip away at last.

Virna Sheard

A Southern Lullaby

Little honey baby, shet yo' eyes up tight; -
(Shadow-man is comin' from de moon!) -
You's as sweet as roses if dey is so pink an white;
(Shadow-man '11 get here mighty soon.)

Little honey baby, keep yo' footses still! -
(Rocky-bye, oh, rocky, rocky-bye!)
Hush yo' now, an listen to dat lonesome whippo'-will;
Don't yo' fix yo' lip an start to cry.

Little honey baby, stop dat winkin' quick!;
(Hear de hoot-owl in de cotton-wood!)
Yess - I sees yo' eyes adoin' dat dere triflin' trick -
(He gets chillun if dey isn't good.)

Little honey baby, what yo' think yo' see? -
(Sister keep on climbin' to de sky - )
Dat's a June bug - it aint got no stinger, lak a bee -
(Reach de glory city by an by.)

Little honey baby, what yo' skeery at? -
(Go do...

Virna Sheard

April

April! April! April!
With a mist of green on the trees -
And a scent of the warm brown broken earth
On every wandering breeze;
What, though thou be changeful,
Though thy gold turns to grey again,
There's a robin out yonder singing,
Singing in the rain.

April! April! April!
'Tis the Northland hath longed for thee,
She hath gazed toward the South with aching eyes
Full long and patiently.
Come now - tell us, sweeting,
Thou laggard so lovely and late,
Dost know there's no joy like the joy that comes
When hearts have learned to wait?

Virna Sheard

At Dawn

Turn to thy window in the silver hour
That day comes stepping down the hills of night,
Infolded as the leaves infold a flower
By all her rose-leaf robes of misty light.

Then, like a joy born out of blackest sorrow,
The miracle of morning seems to say,
"There is no night without its dear to-morrow,
No lonely dark that does not find the day."

Virna Sheard

At Midnight

Turn Thou the key upon our thoughts, dear Lord,
And let us sleep;
Give us our portion of forgetfulness,
Silent and deep.

Lay Thou Thy quiet hand upon our eyes
To close their sight;
Shut out the shining of the moon and stars
And candle-light.

Keep back the phantoms and the visions sad,
The shades of grey,
The fancies that so haunt the little hours
Before the day.

Quiet the time-worn questions that are all
Unanswered yet,
Take from the spent and troubled souls of us
Their vain regret;

And lead us far into Thy silent land,
That we may go
Like children out across the field o' dreams
Where poppies blow.

So all Thy saints - and all Thy sinners too -
Wilt Thou not keep,
Since not alone unto Thy well-beloved<...

Virna Sheard

At The Play

Just above the boxes and where the high lights fall
Looketh down a carven face from out the gilded wall.

Van Dyke beard and broidered ruff silently confess
That he lived - and loved perchance - in days of Good Queen Bess.
(Laces fine and linen sheer, curled and perfumed hair
Well became those gentlemen of gay, insouciant air.)

See! He gazeth evermore at the stage below;
Noteth well the players as they quickly come and go;
Queens and kings and maidens fair, motley fools and friars,
Lords and ladies, stately dames, mounted knights and squires.

Well he knoweth all of them, all the grave and gay,
These are they he dreamt of in the far and far away;
Saints and sinners, see they come down the bygone years,
And the world still shares with them its laughter and its...

Virna Sheard

Christmas

With all the little children, far and near,
God wot! to-day we'll sing a song of cheer!
To rosy lips and eyes, that know not guile,
We one and all will give back smile for smile;
And for the sake of all the small and gay
We will be children also for to-day.

Holly we'll hang, with mistletoe above!
God wot! to-day we'll sing a song of love!
And we will trip on merry heel and toe
With all the fair who lightly come and go;
We will deny the years that lie behind
And say that age is only in the mind.

And to the needy, in whatever place,
God wot! to-day we'll lend a hand of grace;
For where is he who hath not need himself,
Although he dine on silver or on delf?
And we who pass and nod this Christmas Day
May never meet again on life's highway.

Virna Sheard

Common-Wealth

Give thanks, my soul, for the things that are free!
The blue of the sky, the shade of a tree,
And the unowned leagues of the shining sea.

Be grateful, my heart, for everyman's gold;
By road-way and river and hill unfold
Sun-coloured blossoms that never are sold.

For the little joys sometimes say a grace;
The scent of a rose, the frost's fairy lace,
Or the sound of the rain in a quiet place.

Be glad of what cannot be bought or beguiled;
The trust of the tameless, the fearless, the wild,
The song of a bird and the faith of a child.

For prairie and mountain, windswept and high,
For betiding beauty of earth and sky -
Say a benediction e'er you pass by.

Give thanks, my soul, for the things that are free!
The joy of life and the spring'...

Virna Sheard

Don Cupid

Oh! little pink and white god of love,
With your tender smiling mouth,
And eyes as blue as the blue above,
Afar in the sunny south.

No army e'er laid so many low
Or wounded so many hearts,
No mighty gunner e'er wrought such woe
As you with your feathered darts.

Virna Sheard

Gulls

When the mist drives past and the wind blows high,
And the harbour lights are dim -
See where they circle, and dip and fly,
The grey free-lances of wind and sky,
To the water's distant rim!

Like spirits possessed of a fierce delight,
A courage that cannot fail,
They face the breakers - they face the night -
The mad storm-horses are silvery white,
They ride through the bitter gale!

They seem like the souls of the long, long lost,
Who breasted the ocean-main -
Vikings whose vessels were tempest-tossed,
Voyagers who sailed, whatever the cost,
And never came home again.

Or stranger and wilder fancy - it seems
As I hear their wind-torn cry,
No birds fly there through the sun's last gleams,
But the wraiths of hopes - the ghosts of dreams<...

Virna Sheard

Hallowe'en

There is an old Italian legend which says that on the eve of the beloved festival of All Saints (Hallowe'en) the souls of the dead return to earth for a little while and go by on the wind. The feast of All Saints is followed by the feast of the dead, when for a day only the sound of the Miserere is heard throughout the cities of Italy.


Hark! Hark to the wind! 'Tis the night, they say,
When all souls come back from the far away -
The dead, forgotten this many a day!

And the dead remembered - ay! long and well -
And the little children whose spirits dwell
In God's green garden of asphodel.

Have you reached the country of all content,
0 souls we know, since the day you went
From this time-worn world, where your years were spent?

Would you come back to the ...

Virna Sheard

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