William Wilfred Campbell poems

William Wilfred Campbell(1858 - 1918 / Ontario)

In My Study,

- by William Wilfred Campbell 65

Out over my study,
All ashen and ruddy,
Sinks the December sun;
And high up over
The chimney's soot cove,
The winter night wind has begun.

Here in the red embers
I dream old Decembers,
Until the low moan of the blast,
Like a voice out of Ghost-land,

Or memory's lost-land,
Seems to conjure up wraiths of the past.

Then into the room
Through the firelight and gloom,
Some one steals,—let the night-wind grow bleak,

And ever so coldly,—
Two white arms enfold me,
And a sweet face is close to my cheek

Not Unto Endless Dark

- by William Wilfred Campbell 60

Not unto endless dark do we go down,
Though all the wisdom of wide earth said yea,
Yet my fond heart would throb eternal nay.
Night, prophet of morning, wears her starry crown,
And jewels with hope her murkiest shades that frown.
Death's doubt is kernelled in each prayer we pray.
Eternity but night in some vast day
Of God's far-off red flame of love's renown.
Not unto endless dark. We may not know
The distant deeps to which our hopings go,
The tidal shores where ebbs our fleeting breath:
But over ill and dread and doubt's fell dart,
Sweet hope, eternal, holds the human heart,
And love laughs down the desolate dusks of death.