George Frederick Cameron

Rating: 4.33
Rating: 4.33

George Frederick Cameron Poems

WHAT reck we of the creeds of men?–
We see them–we shall see again.
What reck we of the tempest's shock?
...

Ah, love is deathless! we do cheat
Ourselves who say that we forget
Old fancies: last love may be sweet,
First love is sweeter yet.
...

I AM young, and men
Who long ago have passed their prime
Would fain have what I have again,–
Youth, and it may be–time.
...

STANDING on tiptoe ever since my youth
Striving to grasp the future just above,
I hold at length the only future–Truth,
And Truth is Love.
...

WE sneer and we laugh with the lip–the most of us do it,
Whenever a brother goes down like a weed with the tide;
...

'CAN it be good to die?' you question, friend;
'Can it be good to die, and move along
Still circling round and round, unknowing end,
...

Wisdom immortal from immortal Jove
Shadows more beauty with her virgin brows
Than is between the virgin breasts of Love
...

WEST wind, come from the west land
Fair and far!
Come from the fields of the best land
Upon our star!
...

9.

O crimson-hearted, flower-producing June-
Dear month of love, and laughter, and light song!
Wherein our mother brings her choral throng
...

AND now I go with the departing sun:
My day is dead and all my work is done.
No more for me the pleasant moon shall rise
...

Anticipation is the oil that feeds
The flame of life. It is the Siren fair
That sings at twilight in the hollow reeds,
...

I WILL accomplish that and this,
And make myself a thorn to Things–
Lords, councillors and tyrant kings–
Who sit upon their thrones and kiss
...

George Frederick Cameron Biography

George Frederick Cameron ( 24 Sept. 1854 – 17 Sept. 1885) was a Canadian poet, lawyer, and journalist, best known for the libretto for the operetta Leo, the Royal Cadet. He was born 24 Sept. 1854 in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. His parents were James Grant Cameron and Jessie Sutherland. He was educated in New Glasgow. He moved to Boston in April 1869. He graduated from the Boston University School of Law in 1877. He worked for the law firm Dean, Butler and Abbot of Boston from 1877-1882. He contributed poetry to Boston periodicals, including the Courier and the Transcript. In fall 1882 he enrolled in Queen’s College in Kingston, Ontario where he won a poetry prize in 1883 for “Adelphi.” He was a member of the Confederation Poets who had a distinctive Canadian poetic style. He married Ella Amey on 22 Aug. 1883. He was the editor of the Daily News in Kingston, Ontario from March 1883 until his death of heart failure on 17 September 1885 at Millhaven, Ontario. The couple had had one daughter, Jessie Cameron Alison. George Frederick Cameron was a war poet since he was a poet writing in time of and on the subject of the Anglo-Zulu War. He wrote Leo, the Royal Cadet. The latter achieved over 1,700 performances between its premiere in 1889 and 1925 and has recently been revived in a revised version. In 1887 his brother, Charles L. Cameron, edited and published a selection of Cameron's poems under the title Lyrics on freedom, love and death (Kingston, 1887).)

The Best Poem Of George Frederick Cameron

What Matters It?

WHAT reck we of the creeds of men?–
We see them–we shall see again.
What reck we of the tempest's shock?
What reck we where our anchor lock?
On golden marl or mould–
In salt-sea flower or riven rock–
What matter–so it hold?

What matters it the spot we fill
On Earth's green sod when all is said?–
When feet and hands and heart are still
And all our pulses quieted?
When hate or love can kill nor thrill,–
When we are done with life and dead?

So we be haunted night nor day
By any sin that we have sinned,
What matter where we dream away
The ages?–In the isles of Ind,
In Tybee, Cuba, or Cathay,
Or in some world of winter wind?

It may be I would wish to sleep
Beneath the wan, white stars of June,
And hear the southern breezes creep
Between me and the mellow moon;
But so I do not wake to weep
At any night or any moon,

And so the generous gods allow
Repose and peace from evil dreams,
It matters little where or how
My couch is spread:–by moving streams,
Or on some eminent mountain's brow
Kist by the morn's or sunset's beams.

For we shall rest; the brain that planned,
That thought or wrought or well or ill,
At gaze like Joshua's moon shall stand,
Not working any work or will,
While eye and lip and heart and hand
Shall all be still–shall all be still!

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