An October Evening

William Wilfred Campbell 1860 (Newmarket) – 1918 (Ottawa)



1     The woods are haggard and lonely,
2         The skies are hooded for snow,
3     The moon is cold in Heaven,
4         And the grasses are sere below.

5     The bearded swamps are breathing
6         A mist from meres afar,
7     And grimly the Great Bear circles
8         Under the pale Pole Star.

9     There is never a voice in Heaven,
10       Nor ever a sound on earth,
11   Where the spectres of winter are rising
12       Over the night's wan girth.

13   There is slumber and death in the silence,
14       There is hate in the winds so keen;
15   And the flash of the north's great sword-blade
16       Circles its cruel sheen.

17   The world grows agèd and wintry,
18       Love's face peakèd and white;
19   And death is kind to the tired ones
20       Who sleep in the north to-night.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

44 sec read
100

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABCB DEXE CFDF XGXG AHXH
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 805
Words 145
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4

William Wilfred Campbell

William Wilfred Campbell (1 June ca. 1860 – 1 January 1918) was a Canadian poet. He is often classed as one of the country's Confederation Poets, a group that included fellow Canadians Charles G. D. Roberts, Bliss Carman, Archibald Lampman, and Duncan Campbell Scott; he was a colleague of Lampman and Scott. By the end of the 19th century, he was considered the "unofficial poet laureate of Canada." Although not as well known as the other Confederation poets today, Campbell was a "versatile, interesting writer" who was influenced by Robert Burns, the English Romantics, Edgar Allan Poe, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Thomas Carlyle, and Alfred Tennyson. Inspired by these writers, Campbell expressed his own religious idealism in traditional forms and genres.  more…

All William Wilfred Campbell poems | William Wilfred Campbell Books

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1 Comment
  • Cassie Cooley
    Cassie Cooley
    Beautiful poem
    LikeReply8 years ago

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