Canadian Folksong

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



The doors are shut, the windows fast;
Outside the gust is driving past,
Outside the shivering ivy clings,
While on the hob the kettle sings.
    Margery, Margery, make the tea,   
    Singeth the kettle merrily.

The streams are hushed up where they flowed,
The ponds are frozen along the road,
The cattle are housed in shed and byre,
While singeth the kettle on the fire.
    Margery, Margery, make the tea,
      Singeth the kettle merrily.

The fisherman on the bay in his boat
Shivers and buttons up his coat;
The traveler stops at the tavern door,
And the kettle answers the chimney’s roar.   
    Margery, Margery, make the tea,
    Singeth the kettle merrily.

The firelight dances upon the wall,
Footsteps are heard in the outer hall;
A kiss and a welcome that fill the room,
And the kettle sings in the glimmer and gloom.
    Margery, Margery, make the tea,
    Singeth the kettle merrily.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

45 sec read
50

Quick analysis:

Scheme aabbCC ddeeCC ffeeCC gghhCC
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 903
Words 152
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 6, 6, 6, 6

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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    What is the term for the continuation of a sentence without a pause beyond the end of a line, couplet, or stanza.
    A Dithyramb
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