CANADIAN POETS AND POETRY
"My guide is but the stir to song."
"But Love must kiss that mortal's eyes
Who hopes to see fair Arcady;
No gold can buy you entrance there,--
No wisdom won with weariness."
"''Tis strange you cannot sing,' quoth he,
'The folk all sing in Arcady.'"
Arcady, or Canada, are they one and the same? The pipes of Pan echo
throughout the entire Dominion. The Poet--
"Born and nourished in miracles,"
writes his scroll by every shining lake, in the deep, dim interior of
the forest, on every majestic mountain height. He renders constant
service to the inward law, and it is the poet who is the real
historian of his country. It is he who immortalises her heroic
deeds; who paints her landscapes in unfading colours; who
crystallises her greatness into song. One line of the poet's may
outweigh a volume of descriptive prose.
"His instant thought a Poet spoke
And filled the age his fame."
It would be a marvel if the Canadian colour and atmosphere did not
produce a choir of singers, if not, {246} indeed, a nation of poets.
Nor can national poetic feeling be measurably restricted to the
comparatively few greater poets in any land or literature; to the
supreme masters in the lyric art. The greatness of Wordsworth,
Landor, Shelley, Keats, Coleridge, of the Brownings, Tennyson, and of
Swinburne, does not detract from, even though it overshadows, the
charm of a score of the lesser poets, each of whom has his individual
place. Had the lives of Browning and Tennyson been of the
comparatively brief duration of Stephen Phillips, how much of their
noblest work would have been unwritten? Had not Wilfrid and Alice
Meynell, with angelic goodness, rescued Francis Thompson from
destitution, what might not the world of poetic literature have
missed? It is not alone by the standard of Dante, Shakespeare,
Goethe, or Petrarca that the art of poetry should be estimated. To
no inconsiderable degree the number as well as the quality of the
poets of a nation are typical of the national inspiration.
The fact that Canada, as a country that looks back to hardly more
than a century and a half of organised life and whose literary
expression has been almost entirely within the past half century,
should have produced a body of poetry that has just claims to being
considered national literature is as impressive as it is interesting.
"Has Canada a voice of her own in literature distinct from that of
England?" questions Thomas Guthrie Marquis. "In Poetry, at least,"
he adds, {247} "the Canadian note is clear and distinct, and of
permanent value." There was little Canadian verse produced until
well within the nineteenth century; and the first poem of real claim
to distinction was the "Saul" of Charles Heavysege, published in
1857, a poem written "in the grand manner," the author presenting his
ideas "with a dignity, austerity, and epic grandeur that are found in
few poetic compositions." It was, however, with the decade of
1880-90 that the era of the modern and artistic poetic literature of
Canada really opened, its keynote sounded by a poet, then hardly
twenty years of age--Charles George Douglas Roberts--whose name has
come to be widely known as that of one whose lips have been touched
with the divine fire. His initial volume, _Orion and Other Poems_,
revealed something in the quality that established his right to
poetic rank. His very crudities, faults of construction inevitable
to youthful ardour and inexperience, were still more suggestive of
promise than higher technical excellence that might be recognised
among contemporary verse. The classical tendency and temperamental
assimilation were very obvious; the young man was evidently a devotee
of Shelley and Tennyson; but he might easily have had worse masters.
Six years later came his second volume of verse, _In Divers Tones_,
that at once laid special claim on lovers of poetry; and when, in
1893, his _Songs of the Common Day_ appeared, with its exquisite
_Ave_, commemorating the centenary of Shelley, many people felt that
{248} a new star had arisen to shine with permanent splendour in the
poetic firmament. There are lines and stanzas in the _Ave_ that are
worthy to hold their immortality so long as the art of poetry lives
to bless and ennoble and inspire life. Shelley--
"the breathless child of change,
Urged ever by the soul's divine unrest."
And again:
"But all about the tumult of his heart
Stretched the great calm of his celestial art."
And this stanza:
"Thyself the lark melodious in mid-heaven;
Thyself the Protean shape of chainless cloud.
Pregnant with elemental fire, and driven
Through deeps of quivering light, and darkness loud
With tempest, yet beneficent as prayer. "
And the breathing line:
"And speechless ecstasy of growing June,"
condensing in itself all the rapture of summer hours; or the
beautiful stanza:
"O heart of fire, that fire might not consume!
Forever glad the world because of thee;
Because of thee forever eyes illume
A more enchanted earth, a lovelier sea!
O poignant voice of the desire of life,
Piercing our lethargy, because thy call
Aroused our spirits to a nobler strife
Where base and sordid fall,
Forever past the conflict and the pain
More clearly beams the goal we shall attain!"
Perhaps the most perfect lyric of Charles G. D. Roberts, and one
that, while in no sense an imitation, {249} yet suggests the _Break,
Break, Break_ of Tennyson, is that entitled _Grey Rocks and Greyer
Sea_:
"Grey rocks, and greyer sea,
And surf along the shore--
And in my heart a name
My lips shall speak no more.
"The high and lonely hills
Endure the darkening year--
And in my heart endure
A memory and a tear.
"Across the tide a sail
That tosses, and is gone--
And in my heart the kiss
That longing dreams upon.
"Grey rocks, and greyer sea,
And surf along the shore--
And in my heart the face
That I shall see no more."
One of the stirring poems is that of _An Ode for the Canadian
Confederacy_, in which occur the lines:
"Awake, my country, the hour of dreams is done!
Doubt not, nor dread the greatness of thy fate."
The lyre of Charles G. D. Roberts is one of many strings, and the
temptation is rather irresistible to quote from him at still greater
length.
Within the opening years of the decade of 1860-70 were born Charles
G. D. Roberts, William Wilfred Campbell, Archibald Lampman, Bliss
Carman, George Frederick Scott (now Canon Scott), and another who,
though bearing the same name, is only related to the Reverend Canon
by the ties of poetic brotherhood, Duncan Campbell Scott. William
{250} Henry Drummond (known especially as "The Poet of the Habitant")
and Isabella Valancy Crawford belonged to the preceding decade, and
although ranked as Canadian poets, were born in Ireland, coming to
the Dominion at an early age.
William Wilfred Campbell is the poet both of Nature and of human
interests. No adequate view of an art so many-veined and so fine as
his can be presented within the limited space of these pages, but
from his noble poem on _England_ this stanza is taken:
"And if ever the smoke of an alien gun
Should threaten her iron repose,
Shoulder to shoulder against the world.
Face to face with her foes,
Scot and Celt and Saxon are one
Where the Glory of England goes."
And this from _The Hills and the Sea_:
"Give me the uplands of purple,
The sweep of the vast world's rim,
Where the sun dips down, or the dawnings
Over the earth's edge swim,
With the days that are dead and the old earth-tales,
Human, and haunting, and grim."
A discerning critic says of Mr. Campbell that his poems are
"something akin to the whisper of silence, the magic of moonlight,
the sadness of art." Yet perhaps more than all one finds the tender
human strain, as in _The Last Prayer_, of which these stanzas are
representative:
{251}
"Master of life, the day is done;
My sun of life is sinking low;
I watch the hours slip one by one
And hark the night-wind and the snow.
* * * * * *
"And must thou banish all the hope,
The large horizon's eagle-swim,
The splendour of the far-off slope
That ran about the world's great rim,
"That rose with morning's crimson rays
And grew to noonday's gloried dome,
Melting to even's purple haze
When all the hopes of earth went home?
* * * * * *
"Yea, thou mayst quench the latest spark
Of life's weird day's expectancy,
Roll down the thunders of the dark
And close the light of life for me.
"Melt all the splendid blue above
And let these magic wonders die,
If thou wilt only leave me, Love,
And Love's heart-brother, Memory."
His _Canadian Folk Song_ has become a popular favourite. The last
stanza runs:
"The firelight dances upon the wall,
Footsteps are heard in the outer hall,
And a kiss and a welcome that fill the room,
And the kettle sings in the glimmer and gloom--
Margery, Margery, make the tea,
Singeth the kettle merrily."
It is in the setting of Canada's wonderland to music that much of the
best work of Mr. Campbell lies; in his _Manitou_, _The Legend of
Restless River_, _Dawn in the Island Camp_, and the musical _Vapour
and Blue_. He has made himself the interpreter of Nature in all her
moods, as has also Archibald {252} Lampman, of whom William Dean
Howells said that his pure spirit was electrical in every line; and
that "the stir of wing, of leaf, of foot; the drifting odours of wood
and field," thrilled his readers in his verse.
[Illustration: Canoeing on the Fraser River]
In his _Passing of Autumn_ Mr. Lampman gives this delicate picture:
"The wizard has woven his ancient scheme--
A day and a star-lit night;
And the world is a shadowy-pencilled dream
Of colour, and haze, and light."
And who would not turn to his _April in the Hills_ to greet the
springtime?
"I break the spirit's cloudy bands,
A wanderer in enchanted lands,
I feel the sun upon my hands;
And far from care and strife
The broad earth bids me forth. I rise
With lifted brow and upward eyes.
I bathe my spirit in blue skies,
And taste the springs of life.
"I feel the tumult of new birth;
I waken with the wakening earth;
I match the bluebird in her mirth;
And wild with wind and sun,
A treasurer of immortal days,
I roam the glorious world with praise,
The hillsides and the woodland ways,
Till earth and I are one."
Mr. Lampman was a master of the sonnet and one of these entitled
_Outlook_ touches a high note, while another, _The Railway Station_,
so interprets the poetic side of common experiences as to be rather
distinctive among all his work and so claims reproduction here:
{253}
"The darkness brings no quiet here, the light
No waking; ever on my blinded brain
The flare of lights, the rush, the cry, and strain,
The engines' scream, the hiss and thunder smite:
I see the hurrying crowds, the clasp, the flight.
Faces that touch, eyes that are dim with pain:
I see the hoarse wheels turn, and the great train
Move labouring out into the bourneless night.
So many souls within its deep recesses,
So many bright, so many mournful eyes:
Mine eyes that watch grow fixed with dreams and guesses;
What threads of life, what hidden histories,
What sweet or passionate dreams and dark distresses,
What unknown thoughts, what various agonies!"
Bliss Carman has long been recognised by the critical lover of poetic
art as a poet of unusual distinction and grace. When, in the days of
his early youth, his poem _Low Tide on Grand-Pré_ appeared in the
_Atlantic Monthly_, all connoisseurs in poet-lore felt the magical
touch. Over all the barren reaches on which the sun had gone down
the poet saw the "unelusive glories":
"Was it a year or lives ago
We took the grasses in our hands.
And caught the summer flying low
Over the waving meadow lands,
And held it there between our hands?
* * * * * *
"And that we took into our hands--
Spirit of life, or subtler thing--
Breathed on us there, and loosed the bands
Of death, and taught us, whispering,
The secret of some wonder thing."
That the poem is faintly, vaguely reminiscent of Swinburne's _Félise_
is only an added charm. Like a refrain of music lingers the last
stanza:
{254}
"The night has fallen, and the tide ...
Now and again comes drifting home,
Across these aching barrens wide,
A sigh like driven wind or foam:
In grief the flood is bursting home!"
Mr. Carman has kept faith with the poetic dreams of his youth. Could
there be found in the songs of any land a lyric more subtle, more
delicately exquisite in expression, than this which he calls _The
Unreturning_?
"The old, eternal spring once more
Comes back the sad, eternal way;
With tender, rosy light, before
The going out of day.
"The great white moon across my door
A shadow in the twilight stirs;
But now, forever, comes no more
That wondrous look of Hers!"
Master of many and varied orders of song, Mr. Carman has the rare art
of the ballad; and his blank verse, as his lyrical, is enticing. A
series of the daintiest lyrics, _Songs of the Sea Children_, call up
a very fairyland in which to wander. One of these (the lyrics form a
sequence) thus portrays the mysteries of spring:
"In the blue mystery of the April woods,
Thy spirit now
Makes musical the rainbow's interludes,
And pink the peach-tree bough.
"In the new birth of all things bright and fair,
'Tis only thou
Art very April, glory, light, and air,
And joy and ardour now."
{255}
Bliss Carman is a word-painter as well as a poet in his lyrical work.
With what fairy-like magic he pictures the landscape, the colouring,
the very breath of the summer wind, the rustle of leaves, and the
swaying of the flower on its stem.
From a multitude of examples, here is one poem, entitled _The Dance
of the Sunbeam_:
"When morning is high o'er the hilltops.
On river and stream and lake.
Whenever a young breeze whispers,
The sun-clad dancers wake.
"One after one upspringing,
They flash from their dim retreat,
Merry as running laughter
Is the news of their twinkling feet.
"Over the floors of azure
Whenever the wind flaws run,
Sparkling, leaping, and racing,
Their antics scatter the sun.
"As long as water ripples
And weather is clear and glad,
Day after day they are dancing,
Never a moment sad.
"But when through the field of heaven,
The wings of storm take flight,
At a touch of the flying shadows
They falter and slip from sight.
"Until, at the grey day's ending,
As the squadrons of cloud retire,
They pass in the triumph of sunset
With banners of crimson fire."
Mr. Carman is pre-eminently the poet of nature, as how else could he
be when, in _The Breath of the Reed_, he makes this appeal?
{256}
"Make me thy priest, O mother.
And prophet of thy mood,
With all the forest wonder
Enraptured and imbued";
or when he thus expresses himself in _The Great Return_?
"When I have lifted up my heart to thee,
Then hast thou ever hearkened and drawn near,
And bowed thy shining face close over me,
Till I could hear thee as the hill-flowers hear.
"When I have cried to thee in lonely need,
Being but a child of thine bereft and wrung,
Then all the rivers in the hills gave heed
And the great hill winds in thy holy tongue--
"That ancient incommunicable speech
The April stars and Autumn sunsets know--
Soothed me and calmed me with solace beyond reach
Of human ken, mysterious and low."
Mr. Carman is, however, more than a writer of exquisite lyrics, more
even than a painter and hymner of nature in its various aspects and
moods. He is more deeply concerned with the mystery which we call
life than with anything else, and again and again seeks to understand
and express his sense of that mystery. His _Behind the
Arras_--described by a recent writer as the most distinctive book of
poems issued in English in the past quarter of a century-- is a
record of such attempts. We quote here the opening verse of _The
Players_:
"We are the players of a play
As old as earth,
Between the wings of night and day,
With tears and mirth."
{257}
And here the first verse of _In the Wings_:
"The play is life; and this round earth
The narrow stage whereon
We act before an audience
Of actors dead and gone."
And here are some lines from _Beyond the Gamut_, which for
philosophic insight are surely hard to equal in modern poetry:
"As all sight is but a finer hearing,
And all colour but a finer sound,
Beauty, but the reach of lyric freedom,
Caught and quivering past all music's bound;
"Life, that faint sigh whispered from oblivion,
Harks and wonders if we may not be
Five small wits to carry one great rhythmus,
The vast theme of God's new symphony.
"As fine sand spread on a disc of silver,
At some chord which bids the notes combine,
Heeding the hidden and reverberant impulse,
Shifts and dances into curve and line,
"The round earth, too, haply, like a dust-mote,
Was set whirling her assigned sure way,
Round this little orb of her ecliptic
To some harmony she must obey."
The temptation to go on quoting from Mr. Carman's work (which is more
varied and touches more chords than most persons--even among those
who endeavour to keep in touch with the poetry produced in our
day--are aware) has to be resisted, but space must be found for a
portion of a recent poem, _A Mountain Gateway_, in which, in beauty
and clarity {258} of thought and expression, the poet reaches perhaps
his highest point:
"I know a vale where I would go one day,
When June comes back and all the world once more
Is glad with summer. Deep with shade it lies,
A mighty cleft in the green bosoming hills,
A cool dim gateway to the mountains' heart.
"On either side the wooded slopes come down,
Hemlock and beech and chestnut. Here and there
Through the deep forest laurel spreads and gleams,
Pink-white as Daphne in her loveliness--
That still perfection from the world withdrawn,
As if the wood gods had arrested there
Immortal beauty in her breathless flight.
* * * * * *
"And where the road runs in the valley's foot,
Through the dark woods a mountain stream comes down,
Singing and dancing all its youth away
Among the boulders and the shallow runs,
Where sunbeams pierce and mossy tree trunks hang
Drenched all day long with murmuring sound and spray.
"There, light of heart and foot-free, I would go
Up to my home among the lasting hills,
* * * * * *
And in my cabin doorway sit me down.
Companioned in that leafy solitude
By the wood ghosts of twilight and of peace,
While evening passes to absolve the day
And leave the tranquil mountains to the stars.
"And in that sweet seclusion I should hear,
Among the cool-leafed beeches in the dusk,
The calm-voiced thrushes at their evening hymn,
So undistraught, so rapturous, so pure,
It well might be, in wisdom and in joy,
The seraphs singing at the birth of time
The unworn ritual of eternal things."
In the Reverend George Frederic Scott, D.C.L., F.R.S.C., Canon of the
Cathedral in Quebec since {259} 1894, Canada has a poet of high
poetic seriousness of especial distinction, and with just claims to
more than a national recognition. A long poem entitled _Evolution_,
written by Canon Scott in 1887, stands as something unique in
English-speaking poetry, in its presenting a great scientific truth
with poetic expression. Of this some stanzas follow:
"Life out of death, death out of life,
In endless cycles rolling on,
And fire-gleams flashing from the strife
Of what will come and what has gone.
* * * * *
"But what art thou and what am I?
What place is ours in all this scheme?
What is it to be born and die?
Are we but phases in a dream?
* * * * *
"And we are present, future, past--
Shall live again, have lived before.
Like billows on the beaches cast
Of tides that flow for evermore.
* * * * *
"That may be so; but to mine eyes
A being of wondrous make thou art--
The point at which infinities
Converge, touch, and forever part.
"Thou canst not unmake what has been,
Nor hold back that which is to come;
We dwell upon the waste between
In the small 'now' which is our home.
* * * * *
"But in the ages thou shalt be
A link from unknown to unknown,
A bridge across a darkling sea,
A light on the world's pathway thrown.
* * * * *
"And we must pass--we shall not die;
Changed and transformed, but still the same.
To grander heights of mystery,
To fairer realms than whence we came.
{260}
"God will not let His work be lost;
Too wondrous is the mind of man,
Too many ages has it cost
The huge fulfilment of His plan.
"But on we pass, for ever on,
Through death to other deaths and life;
To brighter lights when these are gone,
To broader thought, more glorious strife,
"To vistas opening out of these;
To wonders shining from afar.
Above the surging of the seas,
Above the course of moon and star;
"To higher powers of will and deed,
All bounds, all limits left behind;
To truths undreamt in any creed;
To deeper love, more God-like mind.
* * * * *
"Great God! we move into the vast;
All questions vain--the shadows come!
We hear no answer from the past;
The years before us all are dumb.
"We trust Thy purpose and Thy will;
We see afar the shining goal;
Forgive us, if there linger still
Some human fear within the soul!
* * * * *
"But lo! the dawn of fuller days;
Horizon-glories fringe the sky!
Our feet would climb the shining ways
To meet man's widest destiny.
"Come, then, all sorrow's recompense!
The kindling sky is flaked with gold;
Above the shattered screen of sense,
A voice like thunder cries, 'Behold!'"
In Canon Scott's _Requiescat_, in memory of General Gordon, is one of
the thrilling lyrics of memorial verse:
{261}
"O thou twice hero,--hero in thy life
And in thy death!--we have no power to crown
Thy nobleness; we weep thine arm in strife;
We weep, but glory in thy life laid down.
* * * * * *
"Saint! hero! through the clouds of doubt that loom
O'er darkling skies, thy life hath power to bless;
We thank thee thou hast shown us in the gloom
Once more Christ's power and childlike manliness."
A quatrain on Darwin's tomb in Westminster Abbey is worthy to be held
in memory:
"The Muse, when asked what words alone
Were worthy tribute to his fame,
Took up her pen, and on the stone
Inscribed his name."
Full of tender and beautiful feeling is this little lyric of Canon
Scott's that he entitles _Beyond_:
"My heart it lies beyond, dear,
In the land of the setting day,
Where the whispers are soft and fond, dear,
Of the voices that pass away;
And oft, when the night is falling,
And a calm is on the sea,
I fancy I hear them calling
From that far-off land for me.
"It is only idle dreaming
But the dream is full of rest.
And up where that glory is streaming
From the gates of the golden west,
I wander away in spirit,
With a mingled joy and pain,
Till I almost seem to inherit
The sweet dead past again.
* * * * *
"Yes, my heart it lies beyond, dear,
Where that sun is burning low,
And were you not so fond, dear,
I might perhaps--but no!
{262}
Are you weary already with walking?
And tears! What tears, dear, too!
How selfish of me to be talking,
My darling, in this way to you!"
One of the most widely known and frequently quoted of the poems of
Canon Scott is the _Van Elsen_:
"God spake three times and saved Van Elsen's soul:
He spake by illness first, and made him whole;
Van Elsen heard Him not,
Or soon forgot.
"God spake to him by wealth; the world outpoured
Its treasures at his feet, and called him lord;
Van Elsen's heart grew fat
And proud thereat.
"God spake the third time when the great world smiled,
And in the sunshine slew his little child;
Van Elsen like a tree
Fell hopelessly.
"Then in the darkness came a Voice which said:
'As thy heart bleedeth, so My heart hath bled;
As I have need of thee
Thou needest Me.'
"That night Van Elsen kissed the baby feet,
And kneeling by the narrow winding-sheet,
Praised Him with fervent breath
Who conquered death."
Canon Scott, who may well be recognised as the most spiritual of
Canadian poets, has published five volumes of poems, _The Soul's
Quest_, _My Lattice and Other Poems_, _The Unnamed Lake_, _Poems Old
and New_, and _In the Battle Silences, Poems Written at the Front_.
There is a depth of thought, an {263} appealing grace and tenderness
of feeling in his work that insures his poems a treasured place in
Canadian life.
Duncan Campbell Scott has the fascination of the spontaneous singer,
and how all the entrancement of the Dominion is caught into these
lines:
"Oh, Land of the dusky balsam,
And the darling maple-tree,
Where the cedar buds and berries,
And the pine grows strong and free!
My heart is weary and weary
For my own country."
Something in this song recalls, like remembered music, Katherine
Tynan's (Mrs. Hinkson) haunting poem, _Homesick_, of which two lines
run:
"But my heart flies back to an Abbey gray
Where the dead sleep sweet, and the living pray."
The professional critic could find many poems of Mr. Scott's with
intrinsically greater claim than this lovely little chanson, _To B.
W. B._ (now Mrs. Duncan Campbell Scott), but something in the
lilting cadence enchains the reader:
"The world is spinning for change
And life has rapid wings;
Oh, one needs a steady heart
Not to falter while he sings.
"But this is made for my Dear One
When we are far apart,
That she may have, wherever she goes
A song of mine in her heart.
"A song that will serve as an anchor,
Compass, and pilot, and chart,
A song that will bid her remember
That Love is the crown of Art.
* * * * *
{264}
"With a star from her open window
When the cuckoo wakes with a start:
Oh, can she ever forget me
With a song of mine in her heart?"
In _The Voice and the Dusk_ what a play of colour:
"The slender moon and one pale star,
A rose leaf and a silver bee
From some god's garden blown afar,
Go down the gold deep tranquilly.
"Within the south there rolls and grows
A mighty town with tower and spire,
From a cloud bastion masked with rose
The lightning flashes diamond fire."
A poet's _nom de plume_ is that of "Katherine Hale," so well known in
private life as Mrs. John W. Garvin, who to her own charm as a poet
must add still another as the wife of a poet and a critic of
distinction as well. The gods endowed "Katherine Hale" with a
resplendent lyre, and her poems have flown to many lands. Perhaps no
poem of the war has more closely touched the universal heart than has
"Katherine Hale's" poem, so intense in its restrained power, entitled
_Grey Knitting_, so widely known that from it only these three
stanzas will be given:
"All through the country, in the autumn stillness,
A web of grey spreads strangely, rim to rim;
And you may hear the sound of knitting needles.
Incessant, gentle--dim.
"A tiny click of little wooden needles,
Elfin amid the gianthood of war;
Whispers of women, tireless and patient,
Who weave the web afar.
* * * * * *
{265}
"I like to think that soldiers, gayly dying
For the white Christ on fields with shame sown deep,
May hear the fairy click of women's needles
As they fall fast asleep."
What a spell of potent witchery she weaves in her song _I used to
Wear a Gown of Green_:
"I used to wear a gown of green
And sing a song to May,
When apple blossoms starred the stream
And Spring came up the way.
"I used to run along with Love
By lanes the world forgets,
To find in an enchanted wood
The first frail violets.
"And ever 'mid the fairy blooms
And murmur of the stream,
We used to hear the pipes of Pan
Call softly through our dream.
"But now, in outcry vast, that tune
Fades like some little star
Lost in an anguished judgment day
And scarlet flames of war.
"What can it mean that Spring returns
And purple violets bloom,
Save that some gypsy flower may stray
Beside his nameless tomb!
"To pagan Earth her gown of green,
Her elfin song to May--
_With all my soul I must go on
Into the scarlet day._"
The poets have been the celebrants of many of the historic epochs of
Canada and the recorders of her great names; and in this especial
line John Daniel Logan has rendered an interesting service in his
_Songs of the Makers of Canada_. In these Dr. Logan has celebrated
Cartier as the "dauntless {266} discoverer," Champlain as the "first
Canadian," Laval as "the high-priest of knowledge," Wolfe as the
"illustrious victor," Brock the "valiant leader," Drummond the
"indomitable soldier," Ryerson the "renowned educator," Howe the
"champion of self-government," Macdonald the "great
confederationist," Laurier the "prophetic imperialist." Such a
collection, in its vigour and vividness of personal characterisation,
is the very intellectual panorama of Canada. Of Macdonald, the
"great confederationist," the First Premier of the Dominion (1867),
we find Dr. Logan saying:
"Macdonald, though thy soul hath passed away
From wonted wolds in our Canadian land,
Where thou wast chiefest of the fervid band
That sought to give the people fullest sway
O'er their own destiny, thy spirit goes
Triumphant in this Canada of ours
Resplendent now before the elder Pow'rs
Who mark how virile our young nation grows!
"Thy wisdom was the vision of a seer
Who knew the meaning of the pregnant days
Which gen'rous Time should father into ways
For unity...."
In the memorial lyric to William Henry Drummond, whom Dr. Logan
enshrines as "Sovereign of Joy and Prince of Tears," the poet touches
perhaps his most musical note in the lines:
"O Lost Canadian Singer of the winsome lays,
How farest thou along the Elysium ways,--
Art thou companionless as we
And sorrowing?
* * * * * *
{267}
"O gentle heart, we wonder if thou farest happily
With Homer and the Attic strain,
With Milton and the Tragic train."
Among the younger Canadian poets are two sisters, Annie Campbell
Huestis and Ethel Huestis Butler, who have each won distinction. One
little lyric of Mrs. Butler's, _On Life's Highway_, is singularly
poetic in its motive, contrasting the experiences of walking as
companioned with Grief, or with Joy, and is expressed with much
tenderness of feeling. The work of Miss Huestis suggests that she
makes her pilgrimages to the "holy hill," and brings away with her
all the fragrance of the thyme. A poem of hers entitled _Aldaran,
the Singer_, has somewhat of that sustained sweetness and music that
so signally characterised Mrs. Browning's _Catarina to Camoens_.
From Miss Huestis's _Aldaran_ are these extracts:
"Aldaran, who loved to sing,
Here lieth dead.
All the glory of the spring,
All its birds and blossoming,
Near his still bed
Cannot waken him again.
Cannot lure to hill and plain,
Aldaran, the Singer,
Who is dead.
"Aldaran, who loved to sing,
Here lieth low;
Not again his heart shall spring
At the time of blossoming,
Ah, who can know?
Still at dusk or break of day,
{268}
Some can hear him on his way,
Aldaran, the vanished one,
Walking, hidden, in the sun;
Moving, mist-like, by the streams
When the early twilight dreams;
Speeding on his quiet way,
Never seen by night or day,
"But in pity drawing near
To the help of those who fear.
To the beds of those who die,
Singing low their lullaby,
Singing still, when they are far
Where the mist and silence are,
Singing softly still that they
May not fear the hidden way.
So, to those whose day is sped,
In the hour lone and dread,
Cometh Aldaran, the Singer,
Who is dead!"
For her _Magdalen_, whose beauty of phrasing attracted attention when
published in a leading critical review of New York, and in which
there is a haunting reminiscence of Christina Rossetti, room must
here be made, as it represents Miss Huestis in what is perhaps her
most artistic mood:
"'Where are you going, weary feet.
Feet that have failed in storm and flood?
'I go to find a flower sweet
I left, fresh growing, near a wood.
The winds blow pure from many a hill,
And hush to tender stillness there.
Shall not this restless heart be still,
And grow more innocent and fair?'
'_Not so; for sin and bitter pain
Can never find Youth's flower again!_'
"'Where are you going, wistful face,
Face with the mark of shame and tears?'
{269}
'I go to find a quiet place
Where no one sees and no one hears.
The beauty and the silence there
Shall thrill me through and still my pain.
Shall touch my hardness into prayer,
And give me back my dreams again.'
'_Not so; for Sin has closed the door
On Youth's fair dreams forevermore._'"
"'Where are you going, heart of woe.
Pitiful heart of fear and shame?'
'A strange and lonely way I go,
Where none shall pity, none shall blame.
Far with my sin and misery
I creep on doubtful feet, alone;
No human heart can follow me
To mark my tears or hear my moan.'
'_Nay; but the never-ceasing sting,
The clearness of remembering!_'
"'What do you see, O changing face,
Alight with strange and tender gleams?'
'I near the hushed and holy place
Of One who gives me back my dreams.'
'Where are you daring, eager feet,
Feet that so wild a way have trod?'
'O bitter world, no scorn I meet.
Sinful and hurt, I go to God!
_On my dark sin, forevermore,
A sinless Hand has closed the door._'"
Miss Huestis dons her singing-robes too infrequently; but who may
venture on any prediction regarding the poetic production of one who
is still on the threshold of achievement? For the poet, himself,
least of all, may foresee his own future, nor is it given to those
who love his songs to discern his future in the magic glass. The
poet is ever a subject in a kingdom of untraced laws and unmapped
territory.
{270}
"For voices pursue him by day
And haunt him by night;
And he listens, and needs must obey
When the Angel says 'Write!'"
Forever does he await the Voice and the Vision.
Louis Frechette is the French-Canadian Laureate, who was crowned by
the French Academy, in 1881, for the striking merit of his tragedy,
_Papineau_. Doctor Frechette (born in 1841) has contributed greatly
to the fame of his country. In his _La Decouverte du Mississippi_,
and in _Le Drapeau Anglais_, _Saint-Malo_, and others, is his real
distinction felt. His poems are so long and so closely woven as
hardly to lend themselves to extracts.
Thomas O'Hagan is one of the favourite poets of the Dominion, and
aside from his own notable contribution to poetry, he has done and is
doing a wonderful work in his scholarly and critical lectures on
poets. His published lectures interpretative of Shakespeare, of
Dante, and of Browning, Tennyson, Longfellow, and others, are in
constant demand. In _A Gate of Flowers_, _An Idyll of the Farm_,
_The Bugle Call_, and the timely production _I Take Off my Hat to
Albert_, are poems that inspire the popular favour; and in a lyric
entitled _Ripened Fruit_ these stanzas are especially calculated to
awaken response:
"I know not what my heart hath lost;
I cannot strike the chords of old:
The breath that charmed my morning life
Hath chilled each leaf within the wold.
{271}
"The swallows twitter in the sky,
But bare the nest within the eaves;
The fledglings of my care are gone,
And left me but the rustling leaves.
"And yet, I know my life hath strength,
And firmer hope and sweeter prayer,
For leaves that murmur on the ground
Have now for me a double care.
"The glory of the summer sky
May change to tints of autumn hue;
But faith that sheds its amber light
Will lend our heaven a tender blue.
"O altar of eternal youth!
O faith that beckons from afar.
Give to our lives a blossomed fruit--
Give to our morns an evening star!"
Very distinctive is the work of Doctor William Henry Drummond, the
poet of the "habitant" life. _De Nice Leetle Canadienne_ and _Leetle
Bateese_ have become household songs. In the former one stanza runs:
"O she's quick, an' she's smart, an' got plaintee heart,
If you know correc' way go about;
An' if you don' know, she soon tole you so.
Den tak' de firs' chance an' get out;
But if she love you, I spik it for true,
She will mak' it more beautiful den,
An' sun on de sky can't shine lak' de eye
Of dat nice leetle Canadienne."
_Leetle Bateese_ is a favourite with reciters who master the dialect,
and who frequently delight their audiences by the mingled humour and
tenderness of the picture:
{272}
"Too sleepy for sayin' de prayer to-night?
Never min', I s'pose it'll be all right;
Say dem to-morrow--ah! dere he go!
Fas' asleep in a minute or so--
An' he'll stay lak dat till de rooster crow,
Leetle Bateese!
* * * * * *
"But, leetle Bateese! please don' forget
We rader you're stayin' de small boy yet,
So chase de chicken an' mak' dem scare,
An' do w'at you lak wit' your old gran'pere
For we'n you're beeg feller he won't be dere--
Leetle Bateese!"
John W. Garvin, who has manifested his devotion to the muses by
compiling a notable anthology of Canadian poets (recently published),
is also a poet of recognition, and one of his productions, entitled
_Majesty_, is especially original in conception. Mr. Garvin's
devotion to the poetic literature of his country has rendered great
service in the way of making the poets known to the general reading
public and bringing together, within convenient limits, much that is
best in poetic art.
The names come to mind of Alfred Gordon, a young and gifted English
poet now a resident of Montreal; of Ethelyn Wetherald, Robert
Norwood, E. Pauline Johnson, the daughter of Chief Johnson of the
Mohawks; of Virna Sheard, Alma Frances McCollum, Albert D. Watson,
William McLennan, and William Douw Lighthall (whose recognition
extends far beyond his native country); of Charles Mair, whose
_Tecumseh_ contains much that is excellent in poetic lore. Marjorie
L. C. Pickthall has already {273} established a claim to the wide
recognition that opens before her, and her poem _The Lamp of Poor
Souls_ must be especially remembered. Jean Blewett is one of the
most thoughtful and beautiful of the present choir of singers. Mrs.
Blewett is Canadian born, and something of the high seriousness of
life that characterises the Reverend Canon Scott seems reflected in
the poems of Mrs. Blewett; as in the following, entitled _Discontent_:
"My soul spoke low to Discontent:
Long hast thou lodged with me,
Now, ere the strength of me is spent,
I would be quit of thee.
"Thy presence means revolt, unrest,
Means labour, longing, pain;
Go, leave me, thou unwelcome guest,
Nor trouble me again.
"Then something strong and sweet and fair
Rose up and made reply:
Who gave you the desire to dare
And do the right? 'Twas I.
"The coward soul craves pleasant things,
Soft joys and dear delights--
I scourged you till you spread your wings
And soared to nobler heights.
"You know me but imperfectly--
My surname is Divine;
God's own right hand did prison me
Within this soul of thine,
"Lest thou, forgetting work and strife,
By human longings prest,
Shouldst miss the grandest things of life,
Its battles and unrest."
[Illustration: Breaking Camp]
Helena Coleman has much of that spiritualisation {274} of vision
which was so evident in Adelaide Proctor, and which was exalted to
the supremest poetic art by Mrs. Browning. From Miss Coleman's
_Love's Higher Way_ these stanzas are taken:
"Constrain me not! Dost thou not know
That if I turn from thee my face
'Tis but to hide the overflow
"Of love? We need a little space
And solitude in which to kneel
And thank our God for this high grace
"That He hath set His holy seal
Upon our lives. My heart doth burn
With consciousness of all I feel
"And own to thee, and if I turn
For one brief moment from thy gaze,
'Tis but that I may better learn
"To bear the unaccustomed blaze
Of that white light that like a flame
Thy love has set amidst my days."
Of Isabella Valancy Crawford, who flashed like a glancing star across
Canadian skies, and whose death in 1887 (at the age of thirty-six)
was a signal loss to her adopted country, Mr. Garvin, at once her
biographer and the editor of the complete edition of her poems, well
says: "A great poet dwelt among us and we scarce knew her." William
Douw Lighthall pronounces Isabella Valancy Crawford the most
impressive Canadian poet next to Roberts. "This wonderful girl,
living in the 'Empire' Province of Ontario, early saw the
possibilities of the new field around her, and had she lived longer
might have made a really matchless name. It was {275} only in 1884
that her modest volume came out. The sad story of unrecognised
genius and death was re-enacted."
This volume of Miss Crawford's was handicapped by an infelicitous
title. _Old Spookses' Pass; Malcolm's Katie, and other Poems_, was
hardly a description to invite further investigation. The book
passed almost unnoticed, and within three years its author died. "She
was a high-spirited, passionate girl," says Mr. Lighthall, "and there
is little doubt that the neglect of her book was the cause of her
death. Afterward her verse was seen to be phenomenal.... It was
packed with fine stuff."
_Malcolm's Katie_ is the story of a man and a maid, the man going
forth in the woodlands to hew a home with his axe, and the maid
remaining in faith and devotion in her home. It is a long poem in
blank verse, strewn with occasional lyrics, of which one runs:
"O Love builds on the azure sea,
And Love builds on the golden sand,
And Love builds on the rose-winged cloud,
And sometimes Love builds on the land!
"O if Love build on sparkling sea,
And if Love build on golden strand,
And if Love build on rosy cloud,
To Love these are the solid land!
"O Love will build his lily walls,
And Love his pearly roof will rear
On cloud, or land, or mist, or sea--
Love's solid land is everywhere!"
Mr. Lighthall is himself a poet of distinction and {276} one of the
best translators of French poetry. Among his finest work is a poem
on Homer, breathing the very spirit of classic ages. Another is
entitled _Canada Not Last_, a sonnet series to Venice, Florence, and
Rome, the concluding sonnet, which follows, relating to Canada:
"Rome, Florence, Venice--noble, fair, and quaint,
They reign in robes of magic round me here;
But fading blotted, dim, a picture faint,
With spell more silent only pleads a tear.
Plead not! Thou hast my heart, O picture dim!
I see the fields, I see the autumn hand
Of God upon the maples! Answer Him
With weird, translucent glories, ye that stand
Like spirits in scarlet and in amethyst!
I see the sun break over you; the mist
On hills that lift from iron bases grand
Their heads superb!--the dream, it is my native land!"
Another genuine poet is Peter McArthur, one time editor of New York
_Truth_ and now farming at his old home in Ontario. Mr. McArthur has
published but one volume of verse, but that volume is enough to place
him securely well up among the truly authentic voices in the Canadian
choir. Everything he writes has a markedly individual quality.
There is nothing in him, as one writer has said, of the mere æsthetic
or dilettante; he is alive to his finger tips. Mr. McArthur has a
keen eye and ear for the common things of the life about him, as
witness _A Thaw_:
"The farmhouse fire is dull and black,
The trailing smoke rolls white and low
Along the fields till by the wood
It banks and floats unshaken, slow;
{277}
The scattering sounds seem near and loud,
The rising sun is clear and white.
And in the air a mystery stirs
Of wintry hosts in coward flight.
"Anon the south wind breathes across
The frozen earth its bonds to break,
Till at the call of life returned
It softly stirs but half awake.
The cattle clamour in their stalls,
The house-dog barks, he knows not why.
The cock crows by the stable door,
The snow-birds, sombre-hued, go by.
"The busy housewife on the snow
To bleach lays out her linen store,
And scolds because with careless feet
The children track the spotless floor.
With nightfall comes the slow warm rain,
The purl of waters fills the air,
And save where roll the gleaming drifts
The fields lie sullen, black, and bare."
But Mr. McArthur does not write simply of the life around him; the
life within is of greater import to him. Here, as evidence of this,
is a fine sonnet of his, entitled _Summum Bonum_. Mr. McArthur, it
might be noted in passing, is a real master of the sonnet for all his
few accomplishments in that form of verse:
"How blest is he that can but love and do,
And has no skill of speech nor trick of art
Wherewith to tell what faith approveth true
And show for fame the treasures of his heart.
When wisely weak upon the path of duty
Divine accord has made his footing sure
With humble deeds he builds his life to beauty,
Strong to achieve and patient to endure.
But they that in the market-place we meet,
Each with his trumpet and his noisy faction,
{278}
Are leaky vessels, pouring on the street
The truth they know ere it hath known its action:
Yet which, think ye, in His benign regard,
Or words or deeds shall merit the reward?
Agnes Maule Machar is another of the group of patriotic poets whose
theme is often that of the Empire. She discerns the imperial
conditions, and she is intensely in sympathy with the richness and
beauty of the land. In Miss Machar's _A Prayer for Dominion Day_
these fine lines occur:
"O God of nations, who hast set her place
Between the rising and the setting day,
Her part in this world's changeful course to play,
Soothe the conflicting passions that we trace
In her unrestful eyes--grant her the grace
To know the one true, perfect love, that may
Give noble impulse to her onward way--
God's love, that doth all other love embrace!"
Lloyd Roberts, one of the young poets of the Dominion, the eldest
living son of Charles G. D. Roberts, is true to his poetic
birthright, and is the author of an impressive war poem, _Come
Quietly, England_, which opens as follows:
"Come quietly, England, all together, come!
It is time!
We have waited, weighed, and blundered, wondered
Who had blundered;
Stared askance at one another
As our brother slew our brother,
And went about our business,
Saying, 'It will be all right--some day.
Let the soldiers do the killing--
If they're willing--
Let the sailors do the manning,
Let the cabinets do the planning.
{279}
Let the bankers do the paying
And the clergy do the praying.
The Empire is a fixture,
Walled and welded by five oceans,
And a little blood won't move it,
Nor a flood-tide of emotions.'
Well, now we know the truth
And the facts of all this fighting;
How 'tis not for England's glory
But for all a wide world's righting.
* * * * *
"What Washington starved and strove for
In the long winter night;
Lincoln wept for, died for,--
Do we doubt if he were right?
* * * * *
"And who would fear to follow
When Nelson sets the course?
And who would turn his eyes away
From Wellington's white horse?
Not one, I warrant, now--
Not one at home to-day;
In England? In Scotland?
In the Green Isle cross the way?
No, nor far away to Westward
Beyond the leagues of foam--
They are coming, they are coming,
Their feet are turning home.
In Canada they're singing,
And love lies like a flame
About their throats this morning
Their sea-winds cannot tame.
Africa? Australia?
Aye a million throats proclaim
That their Motherland is Mother still
In something more than name!
"It is time! Come, all together, come!
Not to the fife's call, not to the drum;
Right needs you; Truth claims you--
That's a call indeed
One must heed!
{280}
Not for the weeping
(God knows there is weeping!)
Not for the horrors
That are blotting out the page;
Not for our comrades
(How many now are sleeping!)
Nor for the pity nor the rage,
But for the sake of simple goodness
And His laws
We shall sacrifice our all
For the Cause!"
One of the most brilliant of Canadian poets is Arthur Stringer,
though he is more widely known as a novelist, his _Silver Poppy_ and
_Wire Tappers_ having been the successes of their day. Mr.
Stringer's poetic work is striking for its variety and range. He has
written lyrics and sonnets of almost Keats-like quality, and with as
ready facility has written poems in the most modern form of _vers
libre_. Then he has turned to the literature of ancient Greece and
given us such things of pure beauty in blank verse as _Hephæstus_ and
_Sappho in Leucadia_, which do not shrink in comparison with any
other modern work of their kind; and again has presented us with such
pitilessly realistic and convincing pictures as _The Woman in the
Rain_. He has also written verse of the Celtic order, his volume of
_Irish Poems_ being a well of true Irish humour and feeling. And
yet, withal, Stringer is Canadian in every nerve and fibre of him.
Listen to his _Going Home_:
"I tread each mountain waste austere,
I pass dark pinelands, hill by hill;
Each tardy sunrise brings me near,
Each lonely sunset nearer still.
{281}
"Sing low, my heart, of other lands
And suns we may have loved, or known:
This silent North, it understands,
And asks but little of its own!
"So where the homeland twilight broods
Above the slopes of dusky pine,
Teach me your silence, solitudes;
Your reticence, grey hills, be mine!
"Whether all loveliness it lies,
Or but a lone waste scarred and torn,
How shall I know? For 'neath these skies
And in this valley I was born."
Here is a characteristic poem of Stringer's entitled _War_, written
years ago, and yet reading as if the ink in which it was written were
still wet:
"From hill to hill he harried me;
He stalked me day and night.
He neither knew nor hated me;
Not his nor mine the fight.
"He killed the man who stood by me,
For such they made his law.
Then foot by foot I fought to him,
Who neither knew nor saw.
"I aimed my rifle at his heart;
He leapt up in the air.
My screaming ball tore through his breast,
And lay embedded there.
"Lay but embedded there, and yet
Hissed home o'er hill and sea,
Straight to the aching heart of one
Who'd wronged not mine nor me."
As a specimen of Stringer's skill in handling of blank verse, here is
a portion of the farewell between Sappho and Phaon in _Sappho in
Leucadia_:
{282}
_Sappho_. But you,--
You will forget me, Phaon; there the sting.
The sorrow of the grave is not its green
And the salt tear upon its violet;
But the long years that bring the grey neglect,
When the glad grasses smooth the little mound,--
When leaf by leaf the tree of sorrow wanes
And on the urn unseen the tarnish comes,
And tears are not so bitter as they were,
Time sings so low to our bereavèd ears,--
So softly breathes, that, bud by falling bud,
The garden of fond Grief all empty lies
And unregretted dip the languid oars
Of Charon thro' the gloom, and then are gone.
_Phaon_. Red-lipped and breathing woman, made for love,
How can this clamouring heart of mine forget?
_Sappho_. You will forget, e'en though you would or no,
And the long years shall leave you free again;
And in some other Spring when other lips
Let fall my name, you will remember not.
_Phaon_. Enough,--but let me kiss the heavy rose
Of your red mouth.
_Sappho_. Not until Death has kissed
It white as these white garments, and has robed
This body for its groom.
Another characteristic poem of Stringer's, entitled _A Prayer in
Defeat_, will bear comparison with William Ernest Henley's famous
_Unafraid_:
"Still hurl me back, God, if Thou must!
Thy wrath, see, I shall bear--
I have been taught to know the dust
Of battle and despair.
"Bend not to me this hour, O God,
Where I defeated stand;
I have been schooled to bear thy rod,
And still wait, not unmanned!
"But should some white hour of success
Sweep me where, vine-like, lead
The widening roads, the clamouring press--
Then I thy lash shall need!
{283}
"Then, in that hour of triumph keen,
For then I ask thine aid;
God of the weak, on whom I lean,
Keep me then unafraid!"
Space cannot be found for it here, but following are a few verses
from another beautiful poem, _St. Ives' Poor_. The idea of this poem
is found in the old saying that in the giving of alms the Christ is
revealed:
"For O, my Lord, the house-dove knows her nest
Above my window builded from the rain;
In the brown mere the heron finds her rest,
But these shall seek in vain.
"And O, my Lord, the thrush may fold his wing,
The curlew seek the long lift of the seas,
The wild swan sleep amid his journeying;
There is no place for these.
"Thy dead are sheltered; housed and warmed they wait
Under the golden fern, the falling foam;
But these Thy living wander desolate,
And have not any home."
And here is an exquisite poem, _The Immortal_, which is full of Miss
Pickthall's own music:
"Beauty is still immortal in our eyes,
When sways no more the spirit-haunted reed,
When the wild grape shall build
No more her canopies,
When blows no more the moon-grey thistle seed,
When the last bell has lulled the white flocks home,
When the last eve has stilled
The wandering wing, and touched the dying foam,
When the last moon burns low, and, spark by spark,
The little worlds die out along the dark--
"Beauty that rosed the moth-wing, touched the land
With clover-horns and delicate faint flowers;
{284}
Beauty that bade the showers
Beat on the violet's face,
Shall hold the eternal heavens within their place,
And hear new stars come singing from God's hand."
We cannot resist, before leaving Miss Pickthall, quoting a lovely
little lyric of hers called simply _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,
Lovely and lost and few,
But the first star uncloses
A silver bud in the blue.
"Night, and a flame in the embers
When the seal of the years was set;
When the almond bough remembers
How shall my heart forget?"
Passing mention has been made of the names of Ethelwyn Wetherald and
Pauline Johnson, but the work of these poets is too distinctive to
avoid some reference to it. Miss Wetherald has published some
half-dozen books of verse, all made up chiefly of short lyrics, and
all possessing an individual quality which may well be called unique.
Here is one of her strongest poems, entitled _Prodigal Yet_:
"Muck of the sty, reek of the trough,
Blackened my brow where all might see,
Yet while I was a great way off
My Father ran with compassion for me.
"He put on my hand a ring of gold
(There's no escape from a ring, they say);
He put on my neck a chain to hold
My passionate spirit from breaking away.
{285}
"He put on my feet the shoes that miss
No chance to tread in the narrow path;
He pressed on my lips the burning kiss
That scorches deeper than fires of wrath.
"He filled my body with meat and wine,
He flooded my heart with love's white light!
Yet deep in the mire, with sensuous swine,
I long--God help me!--to wallow to-night.
"Muck of the sty, reek of the trough,
Blacken my soul where none may see.
Father, I yet am a long way off--
Come quickly. Lord! Have compassion on me!"
It has been indicated that Pauline Johnson, whose death a few years
ago is still fresh in the memory of those who knew her and her work,
was Indian by birth and her poetry is marked by the vigour and
virility which such a fact would imply. _How Red Men Can Die_ and
_The Cry of an Indian Wife_ are perhaps her best-known poems, but
they are too long to quote here. Following, however, is a little
poem, _The Honey Bee_, which shows Miss Johnson's keen feeling for
colour, as well as her fine lyric quality:
"You are belted with gold, little brother of mine,
Yellow gold, like the sun
That spills in the west, as a chalice of wine
When feasting is done.
"You are gossamer-winged, little brother of mine,
Tissue winged, like the mist
That broods where the marshes melt into a line
Of vapour sun-kissed.
"You are laden with sweets, little brother of mine,
Flower sweets, like the touch
Of hands we have longed for, of arms that entwine,
Of lips that love much.
{286}
"You are better than I, little brother of mine,
Than I, human-souled,
For you bring from the blossoms and red summer shine,
For others, your gold."
The poet has no country save that of the kingdom of song, or rather,
all countries are his own, and while Canada cannot claim Robert W.
Service by birth, it is he who has so made himself the poet of her
scenic grandeur and her primitive human experiences in the deepest
emotions of life, love, death, sacrifice, revenge, that no sketch of
Canadian poetry could omit the name of one who has made the Dominion
known, in its grandeur and its mountain solitudes, the world over.
Mr. Service has inevitably been much quoted in these pages; no one
can travel in Canada, no one can write of Canada, without this
perpetual consciousness of the vivid way in which he has translated
her landscapes and her life. What a ring of the vitality that
conquers the wilderness is in his _Call of the Wild_!
"Have you suffered, starved, and triumphed, grovelled down,
yet grasped at glory,
Grown bigger in the bigness of the whole?
'Done things' just for the doing, letting babblers tell the story,
Seeing through the nice veneer the naked soul?
Have you seen God in His splendours, heard the text that
nature renders
(You'll never hear it in the family pew),
The simple things, the true things, the silent men who do
things?--
Then listen to the wild--it's calling you.
"They have cradled you in custom, they have primed you with
their preaching,
They have soaked you in convention through and through;
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They have put you in a showcase; you're a credit to their
teaching--
But can't you hear the wild?--it's calling you.
Let us probe the silent places, let us seek what luck betide us;
Let us journey to a lonely land I know.
There's a whisper on the night-wind, there's a star agleam to
guide us,
And the wild is calling, calling ... let us go."
In _The Law of the Yukon_ we find:
"This is the law of the Yukon, and ever she makes it plain;
'Send not your foolish and feeble; send me your strong and
your sane;
Strong for the red rage of battle; sane, for I harry them sore;
Send me men girt for the combat,--men who are grit to the core;
Send me the best of your breeding, lend me your chosen ones;
Them will I take to my bosom, them will I call my sons;
Them will I gild with my treasure, them will I glut with my meat;
But the others, the misfits, the failures,--I trample under my feet.
* * * * * * * *
"'I am the land that listens, I am the land that broods;
Steeped in eternal beauty, crystalline waters and woods.
Monstrous, moody, pathetic, the last of the lands and the first,
Visioning campfires at twilight, sad with a longing forlorn.'
* * * * * * * *
"This is the law of the Yukon, that only the Strong shall thrive;
That surely the Weak shall perish, and only the Fit survive;
Dissolute, damned, and despairful, crippled and palsied and slain,
This is the law of Will of the Yukon,--Lo, how she makes it plain!"
Robert Service has many moods, and in the tender little lyric
_Unforgotten_ he dramatises the way in which one's real life lies in
his consciousness rather than enchained with the bodily presence:
"I know a garden where the lilies gleam,
And one who lingers in the sunshine there;
She is than white-stoled lily far more fair.
And oh, her eyes are heaven-lit with dream.
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"I know a garret, cold and dark and drear,
And one who toils and toils with tireless pen,
Until his brave, sad eyes grow weary--then
He seeks the stars, pale, silent as a seer.
"And ah, it's strange, for desolate and dim
Between these two there rolls an ocean wide;
Yet he is in the garden by her side
And she is in the garret there with him."
One of the wonderful poems of Mr. Service is that of _My Madonna_.
The artist "haled" him "a woman from the street" for his model; he
painted her:
"I painted her as she might have been
If the Worst had been the Best,"
and she "laughed at the picture and went away," but a connoisseur
came and exclaimed:
"'Tis Mary, the Mother of God."
"So I painted a halo round her hair,
And I sold her, and took my fee,
And she hangs in the church of Saint Hilaire,
Where you and all may see."
[Illustration: Mount Robson, at a Distance of Ten Miles]
No attempt to transcribe any impressions of Canada could attain to
success that did not include some reference, even one so slight and
imperfect as this, to her poets. Any adequate comment on her poetic
literature would fill more than one volume of itself. They who make
the songs of a people are traditionally held to be not less in
influence than are they who make her laws; and that the future will
be still more enriched with the enthusiasms and the strange and
thrilling elements of the life of the Dominion is a foregone
conclusion.
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