Marjorie Pickthall

Marjorie Pickthall was a Canadian poet and writer of the early twentieth century. Her lyrical verse is known for its focus on nature, spirituality, and human longing. Biography ↓More ↓

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Marjorie Pickthall

The Sea Witch

Endlessly fell her chestnut flowers, Faint snow throughout the honeyed dark ; The myrtle spread his boughs to drink Deep draughts of salt from the sea's brink, And like a moon-dial swung her tower's Straight shadow o'er her warded park. From her calm coasts the galleons fled, The fisher steered him further west, No port was hailed, no keel came home Across that pale, enchanted foam, But by her roof the thrushes fed And wandering swallows found their rest. The shadows touched her tenderly, The red beam lingered on her dress; The white gull and the osprey knew Her tower across the leagues of blue.

Marjorie Pickthall

Serenade

Dark is the iris meadow, Dark is the ivory tower, And lightly the young moth's shadow Sleeps on the passion-flower. Gone are our day's red roses. So lovely and lost and few, But the first star uncloses A silver bud in the blue. Night, and a flame in the embers Where the seal of the years was set, — When the almond-bough remembers How shall my heart forget ?

Duna

Biography

Marjorie Pickthall was a Canadian poet and fiction writer born in England in 1883 and raised in Canada from childhood. Her poetry often blends vivid natural imagery with Christian mysticism and a melancholic sense of mortality, exploring themes of loss, faith, and the beauty of the Canadian landscape. She published two collections during her lifetime, The Drift of Pinions (1913) and The Lamp of Poor Souls (1916), and her work was widely anthologized. She died in 1922 at age thirty-nine, but her reputation as a significant voice in Canadian poetry of her time has endured.

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