Birth of E.J. Pratt Poet Prof 

Feb 4,1882, - Edwin John Pratt, poet, professor, critic (b at Western Bay; d at Toronto 26 Apr 1964). Son of a Methodist minister, Pratt grew up in a succession of Newfoundland outports......

The Ground Swell

by E.J.Pratt

Three times we heard it calling with a low,

Insistent note; at ebb-tide on the noon;

And at the hour of dusk, when the red moon

was rising and the tide was on the flow;

Then, at the hour of midnight once again,

Though we had entered in and shut the door

And drawn the blinds, it crept up from the shore

And smote upon a bedroom window-pane;

Then passed away as some dull pang that grew

Out of the void before Eternity

Had fashioned out an edge for human grief;

Before the winds of God had learned to strew

His harvest-sweepings on a winter sea

To feed the primal hungers of a reef.

Birth of E.J. Pratt Poet Prof 

February 4, 1882