On the Companionship with Nature
On the Companionship with Nature
Original Text
The Poems of Archibald Lampman, ed. Duncan Campbell Scott (Toronto: George N. Morang, 1900): 258-59, as reprinted in The Poems of Archibald Lampman (including At the Long Sault), intro. by Margaret Coulby of Toronto Press, 1974).
1Let us be much with Nature; not as they
2That labour without seeing, that employ
3Her unloved forces, blindly without joy;
4Nor those whose hands and crude delights obey
5The old brute passion to hunt down and slay;
6But rather as children of one common birth,
7Discerning in each natural fruit of earth
8Kinship and bond with this diviner clay.
9Let us be with her wholly at all hours,
10With the fond lover's zest, who is content
11If his ear hears, and if his eye but sees;
12So shall we grow like her in mould and bent,
13Our bodies stately as her blessèd trees,
14Our thoughts as sweet and sumptuous as her flowers.
Publication Start Year
1900
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 1997.
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