À la fin du siècle dernier, de jeunes auteurs canadiens de langue anglaise cherchèrent à exprimer dans la poésie leur attachement à la nouvelle réalité canadienne. Leurs oeuvres marquent le point de départ d’une littérature proprement canadienne-anglaise, distincte de la littérature britannique. Parmi les auteurs les plus importants de cette époque figurent Bliss Carman, Archibald Lampman, Charles G.D. Roberts et Isabella Valancy Crawford.
BLISS CARMAN (1861-1929)
Low Tide on Grande Pré (1893):
The sun goes down, and over all
These barren reaches by the tide
Such unelusive glories fall,
I almost dream they yet will bide
Until the coming of the tide....
Malcolm’s Katie (1884):
Said the high hill, in the morning, ‘Look on me–
Behold, sweet earth, sweet sister sky, behold
The red flames on my peaks, and how my pines
Are cressets of pure gold; my quarried scars
Of black crevasse and shadow fill’d canyon
Are traced in silver mist; how on my breast
Hang the soft purple fringes of the night
These wild and rocking woods
Dotted with little homes of unbarked trees
Where dwell the fleers from waves of want...
ARCHIBALD LAMPMAN (1861-1899)
Heat (1888):
From plains that reel to southward, dim,
The road runs by me white and bare;
Up the steep hill it seems to swim
Beyond, and melt into the glare.
Upward half-way, or it may be
Nearer the summit, slowly steals
A hay-cart, moving dustily
With idly clacking wheels
CHARLES G.D. ROBERTS (1860-1943)
The Potato Harvest (1886)
A high bare field, brown from the plough, and borne
Aslant from sunset; amber wastes of sky
Washing the ridge; a clamour of crows that fly
In from the wide flats where the spent tides mourn
To yon their rocking roosts in pines wind-torn;
A line of grey snake-fence, that zigzags by
A pond, and cattle; from the homestead nigh
The long deep summonings of the supper horn.
Black on the ridge, against that lonely flush,
A cart, and stoop-necked oxen; ranged beside
Some barrels; and the day-worn harvest-folk,
Here emptying their baskets, jar the hush
With hollow thunders. Down the dusk hillside
Lumbers the wain; and day fades out like smoke.
Canada (1886)
O Child of Nations, giant-limbed,
Who stand'st among the nations now
Unheeded, unadorned, unhymned,
With unanointed brow, --
How long the ignoble sloth, how long
The trust in greatness not thine own?
Surely the lion's brood is strong
To front the world alone!
How long the invalids, ere thou dare
Achieve thy destiny, seize thy fame, --
Ere our proud eyes behold thee bear
A nation's franchise, nation's name?
