1845–1926

Introduction

Born: Oc­to­ber 27, 1845, Zhou­shan Is­land (south of Shang­hai), Zhe­jiang, Chi­na.

Died: May 2, 1926, Hen­don, Mid­dle­sex, Eng­land.

Biography

Canton’s child­hood was spent most­ly in Ja­mai­ca.

He stu­died for the priest­hood at Dou­ai and lat­er in Pa­ris, but ev­en­tu­al­ly aban­doned the priest­hood to be­come a teach­er and writ­er. He lat­er left Ro­man Ca­tho­li­cism for Pro­test­an­tism.

He worked as a jour­nal­ist in Lon­don and Glas­gow, where he be­came ed­it­or of the Glas­gow Week­ly Her­ald and lat­er a lead­er-writ­er for the Glas­gow Her­ald.

In 1891, Can­ton moved to Lon­don, where he worked for the pub­lish­er Is­bis­ter, lat­er be­com­ing ed­it­or of the Sun­day Re­view and the Sun­day Ma­ga­zine. He al­so con­trib­ut­ed ar­ti­cles and po­ems to Good Words.

In 1901, Can­ton’s daugh­ter Wi­ni­fred died at age 10. He re­signed from Is­bis­ter and took up an of­fer to write the of­fi­cial his­to­ry of the Bi­ble So­cie­ty, which he hoped would com­fort him. The nine vol­ume work took five years to com­plete.

After com­plet­ing the his­to­ry in 1910, Camp­bell de­vot­ed him­self to child­ren’s li­te­ra­ture and his­to­ri­cal works.

Works

Poem

The Legend of the Ark

Part 4—The Waters

Around the globe one wave, from pole to pole,
Rolled on, and found no shore to break its roll.
One awful water mirrored everywhere
The silent, blue, illimitable air;
And glassed at one same hour the midnight moon,
Sunrise, and sunset, and the sun at noon.

Beneath the noontide sun ’twas still as death.
Within the dawn no living thing drew breath.
Beneath the cold white moon the cold blue wave
Sealed with an icy hush the old world’s grave.
But, hark! upon the sunset’s edge were heard,
Afar and faint, the cries of beast and bird.

Afar, between the sunset and the dark,
The lions had awakened in the Ark.
Across the great red splendor white wings flew,
Weary of wandering where no green leaf grew;
Weary of searching for that unfound shore
From which the raven had returned no more.

And as the white wings labored slowly back,
And down the huge orb sank, a speck of black
Stood fluttering in the circle of the sun—
While the long billows, passing one by one,
Lifted and lowered in the crimson blaze
A dead queen of the old and evil days.

One gold-clasped arm lay beautiful and bare;
The gold of power gleamed in her floating hair;
Her jewelled raiment in the glassy swell
Glittered; and ever as she rose and fell,
And o’er his reddened claws the ripple broke,
The raven fluttered with uneasy croak.

William Canton
A Lost Ep­ic and Other Po­ems, 1887

Sources

Lyrics

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