k of poems about her, took their toll on him. However, the poet's own personal attitude toward his art can be best summed up in his poem "The Poet's Possession" from The Poems of Archibald Lampman: Think not, O master of the well-tilled field, This earth is only thine: for after thee When all is sown and gathered and put by, Comes the grave poet with creative eye, And from these silent acres and clean plots, Bids with his wand the fancied after-yield A second tilth and second harvest be, The crop of images and curious thoughts. This poem depicts Lampman's method of creating his poems. He looks at the scene and then tries to give it a second life through poetry. Lampman's poetry is an introspective study of the individual in relation to nature. Lampman states "I feel and hear and with quiet eyes behold"(qtd. in Rashley 77). Lampman can feel Nature as it exists. The Canadian wilds hold a type of magic for him. He was drawn to nature because "in the energies of his own soul he is aware of a kinship to the forces of nature and feels with an eternal joy as if it were part of himself, the eternal movement of life"(Connor 128). To Lampman, man is part of Nature and Nature is an expression of the spirit. The conflict of science and religion has been replaced with a new concept of man and Nature. To be "in contact with Nature there is a heightening of sensitivity, a feeling of limitations having been lifted"(Rashley 91). This idea that we are somehow linked with Nature is an integral part of Lampman's poetry. It is here that a parallel can be drawn from Lampman's poetry to that of the Romantics. Although Lampman has been criticized for ‘copying' the style and content of the English Romanticists movement, it is evident that while he is influenced by this movement he is by no means duplicating it. Lampman and his contemporaries shared a respect for tradition. He sought from the English Romantics "instruction not in what to see or how to feel...
