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.
As a poet of humane patriotism, which has regard for international or world relations, and which is not mere ‘drum and trumpet’ patriotism, Campbell stands in a class by himself. He had a Keltic love of place or home. It was a passion with him, but the passion embraced the Anglo-Saxon peoples. So that his patriotic poetry contains a large element of the ideal of Anglo-Saxon unity and of the imperialistic destiny of the British peoples. Thus we find him singing with equal warmth of Scotland, the homeland of his ancestors (as in The World-Mother), of England (as in his To England), of the United States (as in his To the United States), and of Canada, his homeland (as in Canada.)
A sincere and profound sense and love of brotherhood is the key-note of his patriotic poetry. There is no magniloquent bombast in it, whereas it must be admitted that Roberts’ Canada and his Ode to the Confederacy have at least an air of pomp of words which sound like mere magniloquence or bombast. But there is in Campbell’s Canada a sincere sense of history, of historical background and heroic origins, as well as of a people whom the vastness of their habitat should impel to a great and noble destiny. Besides, Campbell sings of the homeland in simple octameter couplets, the very simplicity of which impresses the spirit with a deep sense of truth and reality. The poem, with a slight change or two for choral singing would, if set to dignified and sonorous music, be fitted to be an inspiring and inspiriting National Hymn. It is a colorful, lyrical poem, a Song, suffused with the qualities of the Canadian spirit and the beauties of the Canadian habitat. We quote a few excerpts:—
O land, by every gift of God
Brave home of freedom, let thy sod