Poems by Emily Pauline Johnson

also known as: Tekahionwake
E. Pauline Johnson
Pauline Johnson

Sorted by title, showing title and first line

My forest brave, my Red-skin love, farewell;
My heart forgot its God for love of you,
There's wine in the cup, Vancouver,
(Tennyson)
Captive! Is there a hell to him like this?
At Crow's Nest Pass the mountains rend
You didn't know Billy, did you? Well, Bill was one of the boys,
At husking time the tassel fades
To-night the west o'er-brims with warmest dyes;
(INSCRIBED TO ONE BEYOND SEAS)
I
(ACROSTIC)
Because, dear Christ, your tender, wounded arm
Not of the seething cities with their swarming human hives,
(ACROSTIC)
We first saw light in Canada, the land beloved of God;
I may not go to-night to Bethlehem,
So near at hand (our eyes o'erlooked its nearness
There's a spirit on the river, there's a ghost upon the shore,
All yesterday the thought of you was resting in my soul,
April 1, 1888
A dash of yellow sand,
'Tis morning now, yet silently I stand,
And only where the forest fires have sped,
There was a man - a Jew of kingly blood,
A trail upwinds from Golden;
Sounds of the seas grow fainter,
Halifax sits on her hills by the sea
Pillowed and hushed on the silent plain,
Measures of oil for others,
I am sailing to the leeward,
A meadow brown; across the yonder edge
Little Lady Icicle is dreaming in the north-land
I
(NEW BRUNSWICK)
Little brown baby-bird, lapped in your nest,
A thin wet sky, that yellows at the rim,
Idles the night wind through the dreaming firs,
When each white moon, her lantern idly swinging,
Night of Mid-June, in heavy vapours dying,
I am Ojistoh, I am she, the wife
Sleep, with her tender balm, her touch so kind,
Soulless is all humanity to me
C.P.R. "NO. 1," WESTBOUND
From out the west, where darkling storm-clouds float,
What of the days when we two dreamed together?
MUSKOKA
The sky-line melts from russet into blue,
I
There is no song his colours cannot sing,
(A LEGEND OF THE PACIFIC COAST)
I
Night 'neath the northern skies, lone, black, and grim:
Up the dusk-enfolded prairie,
They were coming across the prairie, they were galloping hard and fast;
I
Hard by the Indian lodges, where the bush
The autumn afternoon is dying o'er
Into the rose gold westland, its yellow prairies roll,
You are belted with gold, little brother of mine,
The sun's red pulses beat,
He needs must leave the trapping and the chase,
I
I am the one who loved her as my life,
All the long day the vapours played
It is dusk on the Lost Lagoon,
WRITTEN FOR "THE SPECTATOR"
"Wreck and stray and castaway." - SWINBURNE.
"False," they said, "thy Pale-face lover, from the land of waking morn;
Plains, plains, and the prairie land which the sunlight floods and fills,
Who is it lacks the knowledge? Who are the curs that dare
(THUNDER BAY, LAKE SUPERIOR)
West wind, blow from your prairie nest,
Music, music with throb and swing,
Sob of fall, and song of forest, come you here on haunting quest,
Out of the night and the north;
What saw you in your flight to-day,
Like a grey shadow lurking in the light,
Beyond a ridge of pine with russet tips
Unknown to you, I walk the cheerless shore.
Lichens of green and grey on every side;
To-night I hunger so,
Cards, and swords, and a lady's love,
I
"Yes, sir, it's quite a story, though you won't believe it's true,
Across the street, an humble woman lives;
Methinks I see your mirror frame,