Poetry Codex

American

James McIntyre

1827–1906

James McIntyre (1827–1906) was born in Scotland and emigrated to Upper Canada as a young man. He settled in Ingersoll, Ontario, where he kept a furniture shop and undertaking business. He is remembered as the "Cheese Poet" for his odes to the dairy industry of Oxford County.

His books Musings on the Banks of Canadian Thames (1884) and Poems of James McIntyre (1889) are filled with loyal verses on Canadian towns, rivers, hunting tales, patriotic occasions and the poets he admired. The lumbering rhymes and eccentric grammar, above all in the Ode on the Mammoth Cheese, have earned him a lasting reputation as one of the most charmingly awkward poets in English.

Poems (194)

  1. Canada's Future
  2. Birth of Canada as a Nation, July First, 1867
  3. Welcome to the Prince of Wales
  4. Canada's Resources
  5. North-West Rebellion, 1885
  6. Big Bear the Indian Chief
  7. Reminiscences
  8. Patriotic Ode
  9. Province of Ontario
  10. Canadian Rivers and Lakes
  11. Niagara Dry
  12. United by Steel Rails
  13. Lorne and Louise
  14. Canadian Sports and Games and Plays
  15. Niagara's Charms and Death of Webb
  16. Departed Statesmen
  17. The Old Snake Fence
  18. Canadian Voyageurs on the Nile
  19. Land Clearing
  20. Lines Read at a Maple Sugar Social, April, 1888
  21. Canadian Romance
  22. Lament of the Maple Tree
  23. Life in the Woods
  24. The Joys of Prairie Farmers 1884
  25. Lines on Violets
  26. Canadian Charms
  27. Donald Ross
  28. Patriot Fighting for His Home
  29. Fighting for Conquest
  30. Mrs. Moody
  31. T. D. McGee
  32. George Menzies' Poems, 1883
  33. Thomas Conant
  34. Robert Fleming Gourley
  35. A. McLaughlan
  36. Prologue to South Ontario Sketches
  37. Holland River and Its Tributaries
  38. St. Catharines
  39. Brantford
  40. Lines on Thorold
  41. St. Thomas, 1884
  42. Galt and Dunlop
  43. Tilsonburg
  44. Port Stanley
  45. Port Burwell
  46. English Names on Canadian Thames
  47. London Flood, July 11th, 1883
  48. Disaster to Steamer Victoria at London
  49. Lines on Woodstock
  50. Ingersoll
  51. Embro
  52. Beachville
  53. Stratford
  54. Lines on Thamesford
  55. The Vale of Thames
  56. Ranney, 1856, Dairy System
  57. Farrington, 1866, Factory System
  58. Father Ranney, the Cheese Pioneer
  59. Ode on the Mammoth Cheese
  60. Lines Read at a Dairymen's Supper
  61. Hints to Cheese Makers
  62. Ensilage
  63. Fertile Lands and Mammoth Cheese
  64. Lines Read at a Dairymaids' Social, 1887
  65. Lines Read at a Parsonage Opening
  66. Oxford Cheese Ode
  67. Windmills and Stone Stables
  68. Dairy Odes
  69. Cheese Curd for Bait
  70. Thanksgiving Ode, November 15th, 1888
  71. Agricultural Implements
  72. When to Sell Grain and Farm Produce
  73. Four Acre Farm
  74. Harvest Home Festival
  75. Corner Stone Laying
  76. Lines on Methodist Union, September, 1883
  77. Credit Valley Trip
  78. Eagle and Salmon
  79. Captain's Adventure
  80. Indian Romance
  81. Canadian Hunter
  82. Fight with a Bear in the Northwest
  83. Origin of the Toboggan
  84. Bear and Falls
  85. Broken Raft Adventure
  86. Fight of a Buffalo with Wolves
  87. Bear Hunt
  88. Coon Hunting
  89. Sailor's Yarn
  90. Hunters and Trappers
  91. Wild Goose Shot at Midnight, Nov., 1888
  92. Adventures with Bears
  93. Queen's Jubilee Ode, 1887
  94. Wars in Queen Victoria's Reign
  95. Crimean War
  96. Indian Mutiny
  97. Bear and Whale
  98. Gordon and Burnaby, 1885
  99. English Poets
  100. Milton
  101. Coleridge, Southey and Wordsworth
  102. Shelly
  103. Byron
  104. Tennyson
  105. Dryden and Pope
  106. Poets and Philosophers
  107. Irish Poets
  108. Oliver Goldsmith
  109. Scottish Poets
  110. Burns and Scott in Edinburgh
  111. Lines on South of Scotland
  112. Reply to the Toast of Scottish Poets
  113. James Hogg
  114. Highland Sketches
  115. The Shires on the Moray Frith
  116. Lines Read at a Scottish Anniversary at Embro
  117. Lines Read at St. Andrew's Anniversary, 1868
  118. Dick and Edward
  119. Castle Gordon
  120. Prince Charlie's Grandsons
  121. St. Andrew
  122. River Clyde
  123. Elf Shot
  124. Hallowe'en
  125. American Poets
  126. Poe
  127. Lowell
  128. Bryant
  129. Whittier
  130. Saxe
  131. Will Carleton
  132. Millar
  133. Holmes
  134. Walt Whitman
  135. Lofty Actors Withdraw
  136. United States
  137. Caledonia Springs, New York
  138. Local Sketches
  139. Great Fire in Ingersoll, May, 1872
  140. Masonic Lines Read at a Banquet, 1884
  141. Oddfellowship Lines Read at Concert, 1883
  142. Advice to a Little Girl
  143. In Memoriam
  144. Providential Escape
  145. Brain Engravings
  146. Survival of the Fittest
  147. Motto
  148. Things Should Be Judged by Merit
  149. Lines on a Fountain
  150. The Gates Ajar
  151. Child Made Happy
  152. Poetry
  153. Power of Love
  154. Her Lover's Step
  155. The Useful Weed
  156. Golden Egg
  157. Little Dora
  158. Lines on the Death of a Farmer's Wife
  159. Fighting for Home
  160. Lines Written in a Mental Album
  161. Every Rose Hath Its Thorn
  162. Danger of Fire Arms
  163. Bird Sent by Providence
  164. Help in Need
  165. O for a Lodge
  166. A Bird's Nest
  167. Lines on the Finding of a Young Man's Body in Toronto Bay
  168. Lines on a Lawn Party
  169. Lines Addressed to an Old Bachelor
  170. Lines Read at a Ladies' Aid
  171. Female Revenge
  172. Lines on a Typewriter
  173. All Men Are Brothers
  174. The Good Man
  175. Lay of the Spring
  176. High in Masonry
  177. Tramp and Fish
  178. Seal Fishing and Hunting
  179. Snake and Its Young
  180. Whale and Its Foes
  181. Tiger and Elephant
  182. Strange Life Preserver
  183. Virtues of a Diamond Ring
  184. Child Saved by Dog
  185. Leach the Engineer
  186. Jackal and Child
  187. Little Hero
  188. Gray Hairs
  189. Good Shot
  190. Lost Son Found
  191. Shoe Black
  192. Duck and Oyster
  193. Baby Darling
  194. Riding an Avalanche

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