Perhaps the most perfect lyric of Charles G. D. Roberts, and one that, while in no sense an imitation, {249} yet suggests the _Break, Break, Break_ of Tennyson, is that entitled _Grey Rocks and Greyer Sea_: "Grey rocks, and greyer sea, And surf along the shore-- And in my heart a name My lips shall speak no more. "The high and lonely hills Endure the darkening year-- And in my heart endure A memory and a tear. "Across the tide a sail That tosses, and is gone-- And in my heart the kiss That longing dreams upon. "Grey rocks, and greyer sea, And surf along the shore-- And in my heart the face That I shall see no more." One of the stirring poems is that of _An Ode for the Canadian Confederacy_, in which occur the lines: "Awake, my country, the hour of dreams is done! Doubt not, nor dread the greatness of thy fate." The lyre of Charles G. D. Roberts is one of many strings, and the temptation is rather irresistible to quote from him at still greater length. Within the opening years of the decade of 1860-70 were born Charles G. D. Roberts, William Wilfred Campbell, Archibald Lampman, Bliss Carman, George Frederick Scott (now Canon Scott), and another who, though bearing the same name, is only related to the Reverend Canon by the ties of poetic brotherhood, Duncan Campbell Scott. William {250} Henry Drummond (known especially as "The Poet of the Habitant") and Isabella Valancy Crawford belonged to the preceding decade, and although ranked as Canadian poets, were born in Ireland, coming to the Dominion at an early age. William Wilfred Campbell is the poet both of Nature and of human interests. No adequate view of an art so many-veined and so fine as his can be presented within the limited space of these pages, but from his noble poem on _England_ this stanza is taken: "And if ever the smoke of an alien gun Should threaten her iron repose, Shoulder to shoulder against the world. Face to face with her foes, Scot and Celt and Saxon are one Where the Glory of England goes." And this from _The Hills and the Sea_: "Give me the uplands of purple, The sweep of the vast world's rim, Where the sun dips down, or the dawnings Over the earth's edge swim, With the days that are dead and the old earth-tales, Human, and haunting, and grim." A discerning critic says of Mr. Campbell that his poems are "something akin to the whisper of silence, the magic of moonlight, the sadness of art." Yet perhaps more than all one finds the tender human strain, as in _The Last Prayer_, of which these stanzas are representative: {251} "Master of life, the day is done; My sun of life is sinking low; I watch the hours slip one by one And hark the night-wind and the snow. * * * * * * "And must thou banish all the hope, The large horizon's eagle-swim, The splendour of the far-off slope That ran about the world's great rim,