Archibald Lampman

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Archibald Lampman
Archibald Lampman FRSC (17 November 1861 – 10 February 1899) was a Canadian poet. He was born at Morpeth, Ontario, a village near Chatham. Lampman attended Trinity College (now part of the University of Toronto). During his senior years at the college, he served as the scribe of Episkopon. In 1883, after a brief and unsuccessful attempt teaching high school in Orangeville, Ontario, Lampman took an appointment as a low-paid clerk in the Post Office Department, Ottawa, a position he held for the rest of his life. Lampman associated with Charles G. D. Roberts, Susanna Moodie, Catherine Parr Traill, Duncan Campbell Scott, and William Wilfred Campbell. He was one of the Confederation Poets and was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1895. He is widely regarded as Canada's finest 19th century English language poet. Lampman's poetry concerns Canada's rural life and the wonders of nature and can be compared to British romantic and nature poetry contemporary to his life. Lampman's ability to write detailed, meaningful poems that depict traditional Canadian and Native American life was one of his greatest triumphs as a poet, and probably one of the reasons why his work has had lasting impact in the Canadian canon. Lampman died in Ottawa at the age of 37, his weak heart an after-effect of his having suffered rheumatic fever as a child. He is buried, fittingly, at Beechwood Cemetery, in Ottawa, a landscape he wrote about in the poem "In Beechwood Cemetery," inscribed at the cemetery's entranceway. Unlike most plots there, marked by monuments, his grave marked by a natural stone. An annual literary prize, the Archibald Lampman Award, is named in Lampman's honour, as is the town of Lampman, Saskatchewan, a small community of approximately 730 people, situated near the City of Estevan. The Canadian singer/songwriter Loreena McKennitt adapted Lampman's poem "Snow" as a song, writing original music while keeping as the lyrics the poem verbatim. This adaptation appears on McKennitt's album To Drive the Cold Winter Away (1987) and also in a different version on her EP, A Winter Garden: Five Songs for the Season (1995).

at the long sault: may, 1660
Under the day-long sun there is life and mirth
In the working earth,
And the wonderful... [read poem]
rotten row
I hope I'm fond of much that's good,
As well as much that's gay;
I'd like the country ... [read poem]
to my grandmother
(Suggested by a Picture by Mr. Romney)

Under the elm a rustic seat
Was merries... [read poem]
thief
To the galleys, thief, and sweat your soul out
With strong tugging under the curled whips,... [read poem]
the cool web
Children are dumb to say how hot the day is,
How hot the scent is of the summer rose,
How ... [read poem]
like snow
She, then, like snow in a dark night,
Fell secretly. And the world waked
With dazzling of ... [read poem]
the persian version
Truth-loving Persians do not dwell upon
The trivial skirmish fought near Marathon.
As for ... [read poem]
welsh incident
'But that was nothing to what things came out
From the sea-caves of Criccieth yonder.'
'Wh... [read poem]
warning to children
Children, if you dare to think
Of the greatness, rareness, muchness
Fewness of this precio... [read poem]
a child's nightmare
Through long nursery nights he stood
By my bed unwearying,
Loomed gigantic, formless, quee... [read poem]
love without hope
Love without hope, as when the young bird-catcher
Swept off his tall hat to the Squire's own da... [read poem]
to a millionaire
The world in gloom and splendour passes by,
And thou in the midst of it with brows that gleam,... [read poem]
the travellers' curse after misdirection
(from the Welsh)

May they stumble, stage by stage
On an endless Pilgrimage
D... [read poem]
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