The Dusty Bookcase

Patriotic and personal verse for the day by William Mackay MacKeracher (1871-1913), the very same man who wrote that old favourite  'My ...

Laura Secord was born 250 years ago today. She was the very first figure in Canadian history I knew by name, though family lore has it that ...

Verse for the day, written for the country's very first day by champion of Confederation Peter Steven Hamilton under his poetry nom de p...

Say what you will about Satan, he's no dummy. I think I'm right about this, but am not sure. He had no place in my family's plac...

'Fair Canada' is the first of six patriotic pieces featured in poet/publisher John Imrie's Sacred Songs, Sonnets, and Miscellane...

These past few weeks have been remarkably busy, which explains how it is that I've read and reviewed just one old, forgotten book this m...

Verse for the day and month by son of Saint-François-de-Beauce William Chapman from Les fleurs de givre (Paris: Éditions de la Revue des p...

THE DYING YEAR                The old year dies! Of this be sure,                      The old leaves rot beneath the snow.                 ...

An old poem for the New Month by daughter of Toronto Susie Frances Harrison (née Riley; a/k/a Seranus). This version comes from her second c...

An old poem for the New Month by daughter of Woodstock, Ontario Isabel Ecclestone MacKay. This one comes from  Between the Lights , her 1904...

For the new month, 'October' by Poet Laureate of the Home Edna Jaques. This version is taken from her 1946 Thomas Allen collection B...

A celebration of September from Harold Campbell "Hal" Mason's Three Things Only... (Toronto: Thomas Nelson, 1953). Much cheer...

Ah, August, month of my birth. I've always found it too hot and too humid – rarely more so than this year. In "The Passing of Père ...

Son of Kingston, Charles Sangster was born two hundred years ago today. I can't claim to remember much of his verse, the following from ...

Verse for the day by Agnes Maule Machar from  Lays of the 'True North' and Other Canadian Poems (Toronto: Copp, Clark, 1899). No le...