{
 "id": "james-mcintyre/english-poets",
 "title": "English Poets",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "James McIntyre",
 "poet_slug": "james-mcintyre",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Musings on the Banks of Canadian Thames",
 "book_slug": "musings-on-the-banks-of-canadian-thames",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": "“Shakespeare requires no marble monument, / He lives forever in our wonder and astonishment.”",
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1884,
  "venue": "Musings on the Banks of Canadian Thames (1884)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/cihm_09542"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/james-mcintyre_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://archive.org/details/cihm_09542",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36068",
   "https://archive.org/details/cihm_11791"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 88,
  "n_stanzas": 16,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 44,
  "max_indent": 0
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 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Three centuries have passed away",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Since that most famous April day,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When the sweet, gentle Will was born,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whose name the age will e’re adorn.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "That great Elizabethan age",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Does not leave on history’s page,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A name so bright he stands like Saul,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A head and shoulders over all.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Delineator of mankind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who shows the workings of the mind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And in review in nature’s glass,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Portrays the thoughts of every class.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "That man is dull who will not laugh",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At the drolleries of Falstaff,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And few that could not shed a tear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At sorrows of poor old King Lear.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Or lament o’er King Duncan’s death",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stabbed by the dagger of McBeth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or gentle Desdemona pure,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Slain by the misled jealous Moor.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Or great Caesar mighty Roman",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who o’ercame his country’s foemen,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His high deeds are all in vain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For by his countrymen he’s slain.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The greatest of heroic tales",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is that of Harry, Prince of Wales,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who in combat fought so fiercely",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With the brave and gallant Percy.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Imagination’s grandest theme",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The tempest or midsummer’s dream,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And Hamlet’s philosophic blaze",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of shattered reason’s flickering rays.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And now in every land on earth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They commemorate Shakespeare’s birth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And there is met on Avon’s banks",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Men of all nations and all ranks.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And here upon Canadian Thames",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The gentle maids and comely dames",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Do meet and each does bring her scroll",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of laurel leaves from Ingersoll.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Like mightiest organ in full tone,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Melodious, grand, is great Milton,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He did in lofty measures tell",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How Satan, great archangel, fell,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When from heaven downward hurled;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And how he ruined this our world,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So full of guile he did deceive",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our simple hearted parent Eve.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He shows how pardon is obtained",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And paradise may be regained.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "England had triplets at a birth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Coleridge, Southey and Wordsworth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And these three are widely famed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the “Lake Poets” they were named.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With joy they did pursue their themes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Mong England’s lakes and hills and streams,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From there with gladness they could view",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The distant Scottish mountains blue.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We have scarcely time to tell thee",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the strange and gifted Shelly,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Kind hearted man but ill-fated,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So youthful, drowned and cremated.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Poets they do pursue each theme,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Under a gentle head of steam,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Save one who needed fierce fire on,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The brilliant, passionate Byron.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His child Harold’s pilgrimage,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Forever will the world engage;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He fought with glory to release",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From Turkish yoke the isles of Greece,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Its glories oft by him were sung,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This wondrous bard, alas, died young.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Of our Laureate we now do sing,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His youthful muse had daring wing,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He then despised Baronhood,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And sang ’twas noble to be good.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "None sang like him of knights of old,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He England’s glory did uphold;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In wondrous song he hath arrayed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Glorious charge of light brigade,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And he hath the people’s benison,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Greatest of living poets Tennyson.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Genius of Dryden and of Pope,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Both did take a mighty scope,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The first he Virgil did translate,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The second showed us Troys fate.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On English themes they oft did sing",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And high their muses flight did wing.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}