[2 blank pages]
Canadian Singers and Their Songs
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[2 blank pages]
[unnumbered page, includes illustration: Charles Sangster. Author of “The Saint Lawrence and the Saguenay and Other Poems.” “Hesperus and Other Poems and Lyrics,” “Our Norland,” etc.]
Canadian Singers
and
Their Songs
A COLLECTION OF
PORTRAITS AND AUTOGRAPH POEMS
COMPILED BY
EDWARD S. CASWELL
McCLELLAND& STEWART
PUBLISHERS – TORONTO
[unnumbered page]
COPYRIGHT, CANADA, 1919
BY McCLELLAND & STEWART, LIMITED, TORONTO
PRINTED IN CANADA
[unnumbered page]
CONTENTS
EDITOR’S FOREWORD.
In presenting to the public this “portrait gallery” of Canadian poets—an enlargement of a brochure published some sixteen years ago—the Editor does not claim to have included in it all who might be considered entitled to admission. Criticism doubtless will be made in some cases, on the ground either of inclusion or exclusion, but it is believed that the collection will be recognized as fairly representative of this department of Canadian literature. In the decade and a half which has passed since the publication of the first edition many strong, clear voices have joined the national chorus, and the Editor deems himself fortunate in having secured contributions from so many of these new singers.
The reader will not be surprised to observe how largely the Great War is reflected in these pages. A special interest attaches to the poems of Liet.-Col. McCrae, Major Langstaff and Lieut. Trotter. The death of these gallant officers, while it has enriched the country’s honor-roll of achievement and sacrifice, has at the same time robbed our literature of the riper product of powers rich in promise.
No apology need be made for giving to Charles Sangster the distinctive place he holds in the book. He has been called the “Father of Canadian Poetry,” and there are few who will differ with the late Dr. Dewart in his estimate of Sangster’s genius as “more truly Canadian than that of any other poet of distinction in this Province.” For the photograph the Editor is indebted to Mr. Rod Sangster, of Montreal, a son of the poet; and for the poem to the late Mr. Charles H. Gould, M.A., Librarian of McGill University, to which institution the manuscript poems of Sangster, revised shortly before his death, were committed for keeping.
Through the kindness of Mrs. A. M. Tremaine, of this city, the Editor was permitted the use of a slight M.S. [page 9] book of poems of Joseph Scriven, author of “What a Friend we have in Jesus,” on the inside of the back cover of which the poet had inscribed what without doubt would seem to be the first draft of his famous hymn. This little paper-bound book, comprising ten pages of poems written by his own hand, was given by the author to Mrs. Tremaine’s father, the late John Charles Benett, of Brantford, in the early ‘50’s. Scriven was then living in that City, where for a time he conducted a private school for children, of which school Mrs. Tremaine in her early childhood was a pupil. The hymn as reproduced here (p. 129), it will be noticed, not only differs in some of the lines from the version in use to-day, but is lacking eight lines of the latter. There would seem to be no doubt that it is the hymn as originally composed by the author. As beyond question the best-known piece of Canadian literature, it is well worthy of a place in this collection.
Sincere thanks are due to the writers and to the friends of deceased writers whose generous co-operation has made this publication possible; also to the several publishers who have consented to the use of copyrighted poems. The kindly response from all quarters has made the task of collection, somewhat arduous in itself, a very real pleasure throughout. Acknowledgement also is gratefully made of the valuable assistance received from Mrs. Jean Blewett and Miss Helena Coleman. It is hoped that the taste here given may serve to whet the appetite of the reader for a closer acquaintance with the work of the writers represented in this little volume.
Lapooka.
The sounds roll over the pine trees,
Like waves that are charged with ire;
Golden and glory-hued, their crests,
Ablaze with a gorgeous fire.
The sun has gone down in splendour,
The heavens are wild with flame,
And all the horizon is burning
With colours that have no name.
And over the mighty forests
The mystical hues are spread
Calm as the smiles of the Angels,
Still as the peaceful dead.
And the lake, serene and thoughtful,
And the river, deep in dreams;
And the purple cliff, in the distance,
Are holes with the glory: gleams.
Cha Sangster. [page 11]
[page 12, includes illustration: William Talbot Allison, Author of “The Amber and Other Poems”]
Sir Transit Gloria.
For what of splendor or of fame
Can vaunt itself beneath the sun?
The race of myriads is sun,
But Nature’s face is e’er the same.
The secret craft of Memphian feast,
The grace of Athens, thews of Rome,
Simian triremes turning home,
The mellow wonder of the East,
Who shall see them restored again?
The memory of their pride and shame
Held by the learned few, their name
Strange is the maze of modern men!
Along the great white roads of Time,
In spite of pomp and sneering lust,
Life’s caravans are blown to dust,
And only Nature moves sublime.
William Talbot Allison. [page 13]
[page 14, includes illustration: John Wilson Bengough, Author of “Motley,” “In Many Keys,” etc,]
Sympathy
Beside the grave’s new-rounded sod
By some dear instinct close we come,
Heart draws to heart, tho’ we are dumb,
And dumbly seek to share the rod.
We do not know what is to be,
We cannot queen, we cannot see;
We can but stand and wait for God.
As when the winter tempests fall
With blinding snow-wreaths on the steep,
And clouds and darker dread appall,
What can they do, th’ unknowing sheep.
But gather close and silence keep,
And listen for thee Shepherd’s call.
J. w. Bengough [page 15]
[page 16, includes illustration: Mary Josephine Benson]
Noon-Day on Lake Ontario.
The Sun strode laughing through the unguarded Heavens.
His darts that dealt mortality but yesterday to the clouds,
Now idle, sportive, he shook at the fugitives herded on the horizon,
Fainting afar to the limbo of Forms Forgotten.
Oh, fiercely merry he rattled his half-full quiver
And into the sea-broad Lake, a sapphire fable,
He spilled ten thousand arrow-heads of glory!
So quenched he his ire and took his Victor’s pleasure.
I saw the Lake leap up like Love’s quick bosom,
At every barb’s keen point a mortal splendor—
A wound, a star, a diadem of rainbows!
Ten thousand pangs the ecstatic water suffered;
Ten thousand shafts rained down through panting ethers
So marched the Conqueror-Wanton through his zenith.
Mary Josephine Benson. [page 17]
[page 18, includes illustration: Jean Blewett, Author of “Heart Songs,” “The Cornflower and Other Poems,” etc, ]
LOVE’S LESSON.
—
Put self behind, turn tender eyes,
Keep back the words that hurt and sting,
We learn when sorrow makes us wise,
Forbearance is the grandest thing.
Be patient lest some day we turn
Our eyes on loved one fast asleep
In death, and whisper as we yearn:
“How often I have made you weep!
“Some loved you not, and words let fall
That must have pierced your gentle breast,
But I who loved you last of all—
Did hurt you more than all the rest!”
One lesson let us keep in mind,
To hold our dear ones close and fast—
Since loyal hearts are hard to find—
And Lips and Love so soon are past.
Jean Blewett. [page 19]
[page 20, includes illustration: Arthur S. Bourinot, Lieutenant Canadian Infantry, Attached to Royal Air Force, Author of “Laurentian Lyrics,”]
Immortality
They are not dead, the soldier and the sailor,
Fallen for Freedom’s sake;
They merely sleep, with faces that are paler
Until they wake.
________________________________________
They will not weep, the mothers, in the years
The future will decree;
For they have died that the battles and the tears
Should cease to be.
________________________________________
They will not die, the victorious and the slain,
Sleeping in foreign soil,
They gave their lives, but to the world in the gain
Of their sad toil.
________________________________________
They are not dead, the soldier and the sailor,
Fallen for Freedom’s sake
They merely sleep with faces that are paler
Until they wake.
________________________________________
Arthur S Bourinot. [page 21]
[page 22, includes illustration: Frank Oliver Call. Author of “In a Belgian Garden and Other Poems”]
Calvary
The women stood and watched while thick, black night
Enclosed the awful tragedy. Afar
Three crosses stood, against a single bar
Of crimson-glowing, black-encircled light.
No hint of Easter dawn. In all the height
Of that dark heaven, not a single star
To whisper;—Love and Life the victors are.
It seemed to them that wrong had conquered night.
O ye who watch and wait, The night is long,
A curtain of spun fire and woven gloom
Across the mighty tragedy is drawn.
But soon your ears shall hear a triumph song,
And golden light shall touch each sacred tomb,
And voices shout at last—The Damn! The Damn!
F. O. Call. [page 23]
[page 24, includes illustration: Wilfred Campbell, F.R.S.C. Author of “Lake Lyrics,” “The Dread Voyage,” “Beyond the Hills of Dream,” “Sagas of Vaster Britain,” etc. WILFRED CAMPBELL, F.R.S.C.]
Not Unto Endless Dark”
________________________________________
Not unto endless dark do we go down!
Though all the wisdom of wide earth said, yea,
Yet my fond heart would tear eternal nay.
Night, prophet of morning, wears her starry crown,
And jewels with hope her murkiest shades that frown;
Death’s doubt is kernelled in each prayer we pray,
Eternity but night in some vast day
Of God’s far-off, white flame of love’s renown.
Not unto endless dark! We may not know
The distant deeps to which our hopings go,
The tide shores where ebbs our fleeting breath:—
But over ill and dread and doubts fell dark,
Sweet hope eternal holds the human heart,
And love laughs down the desolate dusks of death
W. Wilfred Campbell [page 25]
[page 26, includes illustration: Bliss Carman. Author of “Low Tide on Grande Pré,” “Behind the Cross,” “Ballads of Lost Haven,” “By the Aurelian Wall,” etc.]
Roadside Flowers
We are the roadside flowers,
Straying from garden grounds,
Loves of idle harm,
Breakers of ordered bounds.
If only the earth will feed us,
If only the wind be kind,
We blossom for those who need us,
The stragglers left behind.
And lo, the Lord of the Garden,
He makes his Sun to rise,
And his rain to fall like pardon
On our dusty paradise.
On us he has laid the duty, —
The Task of the Wandering breed,—
To better The World with beauty,
Wherever the way may lead.
Who shall inquire of the season,
Or question the wind where it blows?
We blossom and ask no reason.
The Lord of the Garden knows.
Bliss Carman
FROM THE AUTOGRAPH COLLECTION OF MR. FREDERICK D. GOODCHILD. COPYRIGHT SMALL, MAYNARD & CO., BOSTON [page 27]
[page 28, includes illustration: Helena Coleman. Author of “Songs and Sonnets,” “Marching Men,” etc.]
The Living Dead.
My tears are less for the slain
In the battle of life,
Than for those that remain
Unroamed to the strife.
For those who near have known
The Warrior’s share;
Near frozen or flamed
With love and despair.
For hearts that know not to weep
Or kindle with scorn,
For souls still weary with sleep
That perish unborn.
Helena Coleman [page 29]
[page 30, includes illustration: Isabella Valancy Crawford. Author of “Old Spookses’ Pass, Malcolm’s Katie,” etc. and “Collected Poems.”]
Faith, Hope and Charity!!
—.1.—
A star lean’d down and laid a dour hand
On the pale brow of Death_
Before I roll’d bleak shadows from the land
The star was Faith
—.2.—
Across wild storms that hid the mountains far
In June sal cope;
Piercing the black there sail’d a throbbing star,
The red star Hope!
—.3.—
From God’s vast palm a large sun grandly roll’d
O’er land and sea
To care pure fire, its stretching hands of gold
Great Charity!
Isabella Valancy Crawford Aug 27th 83 [page 31]
[page 32, includes illustration: Edward Hartley Dewart, D.D. Editor of “Selections From the Canadian Poets,” Author of “Songs of Life,” etc.]
Divine Guidance.
Lead now me in. My path is steep;
Beset with foes I cannot see—
Father my child in safety keep,
My strength is all from Him.
When clouds and darkness around me close,
And fierce temptations surely press,
Hold Him my hand; repel my foes;
With calm endurance bless.
Forgive my timid, faithless fears;
Let trusting love my portion lie,
Till safe from conflicts, doubts, & tears,
I rest alone with thee.
E.H. Dewart. [page 33]
[page 34, includes illustration: James B. Dollard. Author of “Irish Mist and Sunshine,” “Collected Poems of Father Dollard,” “Irish Lyrics and Ballads,” etc.]
To The Aviators Of Leaside and Armour Heights
All summer long, your crowding planes
Shadowed the fields where droned the bee,
Or drowned the roar of rushing trains,
With engines purring stertorously.
________________________________________
Banked white against a mottled sky,
Or lifted to the noonday blaze;
Singly, or like wild geese on high,
All day ye met our marvelling gaze.
________________________________________
Airy as tinted dragon-flies,
One with the light and drifting wind;
So did your whirring shapes arise,
And leave the grovelling Earth behind.
________________________________________
Across deep lakes of molten gold
Where sunsets’ colours flushed and paled;—
Past purple peaks where angels fold
Their wings, your venturous pilots sailed!
________________________________________
And cried to us:— “Look up! Look up!
Ye blended moles that haunt the shade—
Gaze on the Heavens’ jewelled cup,
And praise the wonders God hath made!”
________________________________________
Cleavers of space, ye fear no foe,
The huge cloud-dragons ye out-race:
Or float serene o’er Earth below,
Like falcons parsed in pride of place.
________________________________________
Dismays of timed souls ye shame—
Your souls of fire no perils shun;
Lo! ye, like moths that dare the flame,
Would heard the Angel in the sun!
James B. Dollard [page 35]
[page 36, includes illustration: William Henry Drummond, M.D., F.R.S.C. Author of “The Habitant,” “The Voyageur,” “Johnny Coteau,” “The Great Fight,” etc.]
You, dat is de way Victorians firm us dis jubilee—
Somehow we mak’ fuss about noting, but it’s all on de familee—
An’ w’enever dares danger roun’ here no matter on sea or lan!
She’ll fin’ dat les Canayens can fight de sam as his Englishman!
An’ ouder de flag of Angleterre so long as dat flag was fly,
Wit’ dear English leader, led Canayens is satisfy leer an’ de’—
Dats de massage our fader gees’ us w’en dayre’ fallin’ on Chateaugay
An’ de flag was kipin’ dem safe den, dat’s de man we will kip alway!
William Henry Drummond
Montreal —— [page 37]
[page 38, includes illustration: Douglas Leader Durkin, Author of “The Fighting Men of Canada.”]
A Little Philosophy
What is a world, my boy?
A little rain, a little sun,
A little shore where ripples run,
A little green upon the hill,
A little glade, a little rill,
A little day with skies above,
A little night where shadows move,
A little work for men to do,
A little play for such as you;
A passing night, a coming morn,
A coming love, a passing scorn;
A blackest cloud a little bit,
With silver on the rim of it;
A little trouble, lots of joy—
And there you have a world, my boy
Douglas L. Durkin [page 39]
[page 40, includes illustration: Helen Merrill Egerton.]
Bluebirds.
O magic music of the spring,—
Across the mornings breezy meads
I hear the south wind in the reeds,
I hear the golden bluebirds sing.
O mellow music of the morn,—
Across the folding fields of Time
How many joyous songs are borne
From memory’s enchanting clime.
I see the grasses shine with dew,
The cornflowers gleaming in the grain,
And Oh! the bluebirds sing—and You?
We fare together once again.
O haunting music of the dusk,
When silent birds are on the wing
And sweet is scent of pine and musk—
Oh! As we wander hand in hand
Along the shadow-painted land,
I hear the golden bluebirds sing.
Helen Merrill Egerton [page 41]
[page 42, includes illustration: Alexander Louis Fraser. Author of “Sonnets and Other Verses,” “At Life’s Windows,” “Fugitives,” “The Indian Bride,” etc.]
“Kin Unknown.”
No mother wept when thou didst take thy leave,
No home hopes now in vain for thy return,
No saddened family for months shall grieve.
When from some messenger the fate they learn.
Still thou art not unclaimed, for Britain knows
That thou didst cross the world for sake of her,
And thou, brave boy, art brother to all those
Whom Freedom doth in these scarred fields inter.
What was it made thee quit thy customed task,
When War’s shrill bugle woke thy quiet vale?
Wouldst thou begin anew?—In vain we ask,
But now where worth is known they bid thee, ‘Hail’.
And what if to this old world thou wast strange,
Down storied fields with heroes how dost range.
Alexander Louis Fraser. [page 43]
[page 44, includes illustration: Alfred Gordon. Author of “Vimy Ridge and Other Poems.”]
Day after day no gun had spoken,
Night after night seemed peace unbroken:
But the roads in the faint star-light were black
With business for the great attack.
Night after night, with muffled clanks,
On their bellies crept & crept the tanks;
Stone-still, like Saurian monsters there,
For the silhouette of a sudden flare.
Though neither song nor cigarette
Cheered the regiments as they met,
They cursed so softly, a snapping branch
Seemed like a roaring avalanche.
Back in each forest, wood & spinney,
The trooper smothered the brown man’s whinny,
“Nuzzle your muzzle here, dear lass!
Patience! Patience! The time will pass!
“Soon, less, soon, we’ll ride & ride
With ringing hoofs through the countryside!
Hand on the heels of the flying foe,
As we dreamed we’d ride three years ago!”
Alfred Gordon
from “Ballad of The Forty Silent Men” in “Vimy Ridge & New Poems” [page 45]
[page 46, includes illustration: Katherine Hale (Mrs. John W. Garvin). Author of “Grey Knitting,” “The White Comrade,” “The New Joan and Other Poems,” etc.]
At Noon
Thou art my tower in the sun at noon,
The shaft of shade upon my golden may,
In painted space the healing note of gray,
The undertone in nature’s pagan rune;
And like a wave lashed to the dying moon,
When old desire is haunting its old prey,
Thy straight subdues the forces that would slay,
And soft withdrawal brings, all starry-strewn.
So doth the soul return to truth’s strong lover,
Pilgrim secure al last of it’s abode,
Hearing that voice as beautiful as morn:
Come to the heart of Silence, O my flower,
Out from the colored heat, the gleaming road,
Into the place where deathless light is born?
Katherine Hale. [page 47]
[page 46, includes illustration: S. Frances Harrison (Seranus). Author of “Pine-Rose and Fleur-de-Lis,” Editor of “The Canadian Birthday Book,” etc.]
O if were good, & it were sweet,
If we might keep our fill somewhere,
In other world, in purer air,
Perhaps in heaven’s golden street,
Perhaps—upon its crystal stair!
For “Power and leave to keep” shall be
The golden city’s legend dear
Tho’ wipe away be every tear,
First for a season must flow free
The floods that leave the vision clear.
S. Frances Harrison
Seranus. [page 49]
[page 50, includes illustration: Norah M. Holland. Author of “Spun Yarn and Spindrift.”]
The End of the Road.
There’s many a path your feet may take,
O’er hill or vale or plain,
By noisy streamlet or lonely lake
Where only the winds a murmur make,
And the silence falls like rain.
———
But wherever the foot of man may go,
Or shoulders bear their load,
In joy or sorrow, in mirth or woe,
There’s an end to every road, we know,
And God’s at the end of the road.
Norah M. Holland [page 51]
[page 52, includes illustration: Hilda Mary Hooke]
Inspiration.
A moment when the world is sunk in space,
And like a cloak Eternity is flung
Across the shoulders of the lifted soul,
That stands tip-toe, outstretched to meet the spheres
And, yearning upward, like a flower is caught
Against the bosom of the Infinite.
Hilda M. Hooke. [page 53]
[page 54, includes illustration: Annie Campbell Huestis]
Her Wish.
“Whatever else I wish,” she said,
“I shall nor ever wish me dead.
To lie so still—and not to know
When grasses stir and flowers blow!
Bright light and happy sound,” said she,
“And changeful winds to blow for me!”
x x x x
There fell, across her young heart’s rush,
A strange and sudden hush
——— ———
O Breezes, blow your charge fullest!
You cannot lure her from her rest.
O Flowers, spring! O Grasses, stir!
You shall not ever waken her.
Call, wild, and sweet, and wistfully,
She will not hear, O Bush and Tree!
For through the dark there stole along
A strange and quiet song.
Annie Campbell Huestis [page 55]
[page 56, includes illustration: E. Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake) Author of “Flint and Feathers: Collected Poems,” “Legends of Vancouver” (Prose), etc.]
The Indian Corn Planter.
He needs must leave the trapping and the chase
For mating game his arrows ne’er dispoil,
And from the hunters Heaven turn his face
To wring some promise from the dormant soil.
He needs must leave this lodge that wintered him
The embalming fires, the blanket bed.
The women’s distant voices for the grim
Reality of laboring for bread.
..
So goes he forth beneath the planters moon
With sack of seed that harbors large increase
His simple pagan faith knows night and noon
Heat, cold, seed time and harvest shall not cease
..
And yielding to his need—this honest sod
Brown as the hand that tills it; moist with rain
Teeming him with ripe fulfillment true as God.
With fostering richness mothers every grain.
E. Pauline Johnson Tekahionwake [page 57]
[page 58, includes illustration: Robert Kirkland Kerrighan
“The Khan.” Author of “The Khan’s Canticles.”]
Hear ye His Voice
—— —— ——
Behold I stand in the street without
Eager your priceless souls to win
I hear the laughter, the ring the shout
Open — open! and let me in
Oh! Let me in to my erring flock
Behold I stand at your door and knock,
≠ ≠ ≠
Behold I stand in the storm without
wand’ring hither from heathen lands
Ah! do not scorn me and do not doubt
Look on my feet—behold my hands!
A weary I cannot farther walk
Behold I stand at the door and knock!
≠ ≠ ≠
Cold, I have starved ’neath a broken thatch
While Anti-Christs by fireside basked
Im waiting here I will lift no latch
Nor enter in unless I’m asked
I’ll break no hinge—I will pick no lock
Behold, I stand at the door and knock!
≠ ≠ ≠
The foxes have holes the birds have nests
Each living creature hath his bed
Your cross of sin on my shoulder rests
While be no place to lay my head
Hear ye my summons and do not mock
Behold I stand at your door and knock!
The Khan
The Wigwam
Rushdale Farm
Xmas, 02 [page 59]
[page 60, includes illustration: William Kirby, F.R.S.C. Author of “The Golden Dog,” “Canadian Idylls,” etc.]
Sonnet—
~
“For the hairs of your head are all be numbered.”
~
God numbers them, His servants’ hoary hairs,
Blanched for eternity, no longer seen
In glory of a youthful Nazarene
Bare headed in the sun, but fraught with cares
And fewer, as each year our strength impairs,
And we are hit with arrows straight and keen
Of death’s strong Angel, shooting hard between
To have our sorrow how it holds and wears,
“But not a hair shall perish”, in the rage
Of wintry storms now near which without earth
Will cast our bank of life upon the shore
Of the immortal spirits, where old age
Drops from us, and the beauty of our youth
Returns, and we grow younger ever more.
W Kirby
Niagara
April 1889 [page 61]
[page 62, includes illustration: Archibald Lampman. Author of “Among the Millet,” “Lyrics of Earth,” etc.]
There is a beauty at the goal of life,
A beauty growing since the world began,
Through every age and race, through lapse and strife,
Till the fair human soul complete her span.
Beneath the waves of storms that lash and burn,
The currents of blind passion that appal, [sic]
So listen and keep watch till we discern
The hide of sovereign truth that guides it all.
So to address our spirits to the height
And so attune them to the valiant whole
That the great light be clearer for our light,
And the great soul the stronger for our soul,
To have done this is to have lived, though fame
Remember us with no familiar name.
Archibald Lampman. [page 63]
[page 64, includes illustration: James Miles Langstaff. Major 75th Batt. C.E.F. Killed in Action at Vimy Ridge, March 1st, 1917.]
I never thought that strange romantic WAR
Would shape my life and plan my destiny;
Though in my childhood’s dreams I’ve seen his car
And grisly steeds flash grimly twart the sky.
Yet now beholds a vaster, mightier strife
Than echoed on the plains of sounding Troy,
Defeats and triumphs, death, wounds, laughter, life
All mingled in a strange complex alloy.
I view the panorama in a trance
Of awe, yet coloured with a secret joy;
For I have breathed in epic and romance,
Have lived the dreams that thrilled me as a boy!
How sound the ancient saying is forsooth!
How weak is Fancy’s gloss of Fact’s stern truth!
J.M.L. [page 65]
[page 66, includes illustration: Lillian Leveridge. Author of “Over the Hills of Home and Other Poems.”]
From “Over The Hills of Home”
+ + + + + + + + + +
Laddie! Laddie! Laddie! “Somewhere in France” you sleep,
Somewhere ’neath alien flowers and alien winds that weep.
Bravely you marched to battle, nobly your life laid down.
You unto death were faithful, laddie, yours is the victor’s crown.
Laddie! Laddie! Laddie! How dim is the sunshine grown,
As mother and I together speak softly in tender tone!
And the lips that quiver and falter have ever a single theme,
As we lust for your dear, lost whistle, laddie, over the hills of dream.
Laddie, beloved laddie! How soon should we cease to weep
Could we glance through the golden gate-way whose keys the angels keep!
Yet love, our love that is deathless, can follow you where you roam,
Over the hills of God, laddie, the beautiful hills of Home.
— Lilian Leveridge. [page 67]
[page 68, includes illustration: William Douw Lighthall. Author of “Thoughts, Moods and Ideals,” Editor of “Songs of the Great Dominion,”]
Deathless
October 30, 1917.
-i-
The rugged limestone pasture
The old hard maple glows
With burning tone & glory
Like the sun in all its sunset
In the rich Laurentian autumn
The sunset of the year.
-ii-
At Passchendale I saw it
When my life stream stopped its flowing
As my life fell off in glory
In the sunset of the year.
-iii-
The old hard maple glowing
With dying fire and splendor,
Hid at her every leafstalk
The perfect end of spring
-iv-
At Passchendale I sleep not:
Only my leaves of autumn,
My autumn leaves, fell there
For the wondrous spring was in me,
And the life I gave at Passchendaele
Hid the life of morrow year.
W. D Lighthall [page 69]
[page 70, includes illustration: Florence Randall Livesay. Author of “Songs of Ukrainia,” etc.]
Pansy Royal
The Pansy, her brief summer spent and done
In veil of purple shrouds her vesper face
Her dreams unmarked by any starring sun,
She holds, in hidden keeping, her life’s grace.
So, dear one passing, where the days have wrought
The end, and gently beckon you apart,
Keep of us who so loved you one sweet thought,
Like Pansy, treasured in a brooding heart.
Florence Randall Livesay [page 71]
[page 72, includes illustration: Arthur John Lockhart. Author of “A Masque of Minstrels,” “Beside the Narraguagus,” etc.]
Service
They were not born in vain who live to bless
And solace others; who; while some may strive
Out of the spoils of men to grow and thrive,
Abjure the need of wrong and selfishness.
Nor doth he live in vain who maketh less
The sum of human sorrow; who inspires
Hope in man’s breast, and kindle’s love’s sweet fires;
Whose charity relieves a friend’s distress.
Long may he live! to whom is ever dear
A brother’s fame; whose eye can recognize,
Whose pen proclaim the merit that he sees;
Who with his books and friends holds gentle cheer;
And whom a poet’s song or waxen wise,
Can never fail to interest and please.
Arthur John Lockhart.
Pastor Felix. [page 73]
[page 74, includes illustration: John Daniel Logan, Ph.D. Sergeant in 85th Battalion Nova Scotia Highlanders, C.E.F. Author of “Insulters of Death and Other Poems of the Great Departure,” “The New Apocalypse and Other Poems of Days and Deeds in France,” etc.]
A Soldier’s Shrines
________________________________________
Two secret shrines there are for me:
The one a wayside calvary,
Low-canopied by fir and pine
And thither off I steel away,
Kneel penitent & pray
Christ grants gorgeousness, free, divine;
And Mary Virgin, grace benign;
And John his tender charity.
O welcome wayside calvary,
O calm, secluded shrine,
O sweet refresh of mine,
Whose holy peace brings blissful eucrasy!
________________________________________
And this shrine for me there is,
Recessed, inviolate, within,
The ruby chamber of my Love’s pure heart;
And duly I, her desire, I wis,
May only enter in,
And supplicate & worship there apart.
Before her dear remembered Image now,
Unworthy worshipper, I bow:
Her winsome graces are my Creed;
Her low, meek speech, my Litany:
Her tender thoughts, my Rosary
And her ‘Absolvo te,’ my strength for holier deed
O Heart of Mine, O Heart of Mine,
Whos [sic] secret chamber is my constant shrine!
France, Ap. 1917 J. D. Logan [page 75]
[page 76, includes illustration: Daniel Carman McArthur. Corporal 55th Battery, C.E.F.]
- Le Caporal – Tremble! ye signallers, every man, Under the glance of Corporal Dan! Brand new clothes from tip to toe. – – All dressed up, and no place to go – Looks like a scarecrow up the line But back in billets it’s polish and shine. – When the photographer turned his crank Dan struck an attitude – “beaucoup swank” Exposed his flags and stripes and knife, And the camera took him true to life! France, May, 1918 D.C. McARTHUR [page 77]
[page 78, includes illustration: Peter McArthur. Author of “The Prodigal Son and Other Poems,” etc.]
The Pioneers
Our fathers toiled, but in a glorious fight,
The God of nations led them by the hand;
With pillared smoked by day and fire by night
They wrought like heroes in their promised land;
The wilderness was conquered by their might,
They made for God the moral He had planned–
A land of homes where toil could make men free,
The final masterpiece of Destiny.
Peter McArthur. [page 79]
[page 80, includes illustration: Alma Frances McCollum. Author of “Flower Legends and Other Poems.]
Purple Violets.
Violets in purple, mourning
Bloomed as flakes of driven snow,
Calvarys [sic] rugged path adorning
Ere the Saviour knew its woe.
When the Virgin Mother, holy,
In her bitter anguish passed,
O’er the blossom white and lowly,
Was her sacred shadow cast;
And the aging of sorrow,
Falling like a purple pall,—
Unforgotten with the morrow—
Still doth linger over all.
Alma Frances McCollum [page 81]
[page 82, includes illustration: John McCrae. Author of “In Flanders Fields and Other Poems.” Surgeon First Brigade Field Artillery, C.E.F., 1914-15; Lieut.-Colonel Medical Division No. 3 Canadian General Hospital, 1915-18. Died 28th January, 1918. Buried at Wimereux, France.]
In Flanders Fields
—
In Flanders fields the poppies grow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place: and in the sky
The larks still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders Fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The Torch: be yours to hold it high!
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
John McCrae
Note—The word “Grow (instead of “blow,”
as in the original) in the first line is
evidently an inadvertent error of the
author in transcribing the poem for a
friend — Editor. [page 83]
[page 84, includes illustration: Alexander McLachlan. Author of “The Emigrant and Other Poems,” “Poems and Songs,” etc.]
Written Beneath A Portrait of Robert Burns
1.
Those of the wild impassioned brain
Who poured thy heart in bloody rain
And was by thine own passions slain
Oh who thy sorrow can compute
O’er all the bitter bitter fruit
Of instincts trampled underfoot
For there’s an angel sits above
Guarding the sanctities of love
That doth all levity improve
2
Cold natures never can compete
The terrible life long dispute
Souls such as thine wage with the brute
And thus it is we often see
Good men all void of charity
For souls tossed on a raging sea
For here we have had all along
One standard measure for the weak and strong
And surely surely we are wrong
Alexander M Lachlan. [page 85]
[page 86, includes illustration: Elizabeth Roberts MacDonald. Author of “Northland Lyrics” (in collaboration with William Carman Roberts and Theodore Goodridge Roberts) and “Dream Verses.”]
The Shepherd.
——
Among the hills of night my thoughts
Go wandering lost and lorn;
No rest they find, or gleam of light
To solace them till morn;
Stumbling they fare, and know not where
Safe pasturage to win:
Oh, Shepherd Sleep, across the steep
Go out and call them in!
An errant flock, they follow far
By bitter pools of tears,
Lured on by Memory’s lonely voice
And tracked by stealthy fears;
But wanderings cease, doubt sinks in peace,
If once the fold they win;
Oh, Shepherd Sleep, across the steep
Go out and call them in!
——
Elizabeth Roberts MacDonald. [page 87]
[page 88, includes illustration: L. M. Montgomery MacDonald. Author of “The Watchman and Other Poems,” “Anne of Green Gables,” “Rainbow Valley,” etc.]
Love’s Prayer.
Beloved, this, the heart I offer thee,
Is purified from old idolatry,
From outworn hopes and from the lingering stain
Of passion’s dregs by penitential pain.
Take thou it, then, and fill it up for me
With thy unstinted love and it shall be
An earthly chalice that is made divine
By its red draught of sacramental wine.
L. M. Montgomery [page 89]
[page 90, includes illustration: Wilson MacDonald. Author of “The Song of The Prairie Land and Other Poems”]
A Song to the Singers.
Should you descend the stairway of old Time,
And search the webbed wine cellars of the years,
The breaking of each vessel of sweet rhyme
Will make most merry music for thine ears.
No tune is dead that gave the world a song
The larger hours were wet with music’s flagon,
And half the garlands of the brave belong
To runes that calmed the courage of the dragon
•
The clouds that flowed o’er robust Rome have found
Another prop to lean on than her stone
But in the heart of music still abound
Sweet traces of her tragic poet’s tone
And yonder tower that crowds the ampler air
Shall dream in dust before my rhyming story.
Yet those who build arise where eagles dare
I’ll mount, on this white page, to surer glory.
•
What arrow ever pierced a traitors crown
That winged not out from some fair singer’s heart?
What courage on the ramparts of a town
But faced us vigor with our choric art?
Tomorrow one shall ride the steel-lipped way,
Or fold his arms when mast and helm are sinking,
Who wandered by the muses rill to-day
And rowsed his valor at my fountain drinking.
Vancouver, BC Wilson MacDonald.
Dec. 23rd 1913 [page 91]
[page 92, includes illustration: Agnes Maule Machar (Fidelis). Author of “Lays of the True North,” etc.]
The Warders of The Seas—Aug. 4-5 1914
In the solemn midnight watches, while the land lays fast asleep,
And silence broods o’er peaceful faith and farms,
The battleships of Britain ride forth upon the deep,
To meet the bristling Titans—the boast of Yeadon arms;—
—And Britain’s troth to keep!
They guard a nation’s honour, the Empire’s future hold
Millions of hearts are praying for their prowess and their power
With human hopes full-freighted for ages yet untold,
Of Peace and Freedom prested from Eagle’s fateful hoar
—They speed on—stern and bold!
“Lord of Nations! Who dids’t shatter a proud Armada’s might
Be their shield and unseen Vanguard”—with one voice a martyr cries
“God and the Right”—their war-cry—to warn them for the fight,
To win—for Man and Freedom, where’er this standard flies,
The triumph of the Right!
II
Oh mariners of Britain!—Four fateful years ago,
Ye heard the sudden summons to the strife
That sped you to the trackless seas to curb the haughty foe
To guard Britannia’s honour—and her life!
Your charge ye took whole-hearted;—one trust before you lay,
Great Dreadnought or small fishing-smack—the freedom of the sea!
To hearts of struggling nations ye strove for strength and stay,
Never failing as the bulwark of the prey!
On quarterdeck or masthead—fog—friend, or tempest tossed
While the mountain saves barged hissing o’er the deck,
Unhasting and unresting—your brave men held their past,
Or calmly wash down, singing, mid the wreck!
Through moonlight as though starlight your task was never alone,
Never-ending was your faithful watch and word;
From the flash of sky dawn. till sank the golden sun,
‘Neath the mighty waste of waters that ye guard,
For you there’s no Trafalgar to strike one fateful blow
For the flag that flew the battle and the breeze;
Best ye keep, undimmed, the glory of Britain’s Island story,
And—by God’s grace, —the freedom of the seas!
Agnes Maule Machar [page 93]
[page 94, includes illustration: Isabel Ecclestone MacKay. Author of “The shining Ship and Other Verse for Children,” “Up the Hill and Over,” “Mist of the Morning,” etc.]
Killed In Action
My father lived his three-score years; my son lived twenty-two;
One looked long back on work well done, and one had all to do—
Yet which is better served his world, I know not, nor do you!
To one, Life chattered all her lore, ’Till he grew wise and gray,
To one, she whispered only, ere she turned her face away —
Yet which her deeper secret held only they two might say.
Peace gave my father restful days, with love and fame for wage;
War gave my son an unmarked grave, and an unwritten page ——
Who we all dead are which gift conveyed The greater heritage?
Isabel Ecclestone MacKay
BY PERMISSION OF FORUM. [page 95]
[page 96, includes illustration: Charles Mair. Author of “Dreamland and Other Poems,” “Tecumseh: A Drama,” “Collected Poems,” etc.]
From Tecumseh Soliloquy at the Thames.
This is our summer—when the painted wilds,
Like pictures in a dream, enchant the sight.
The forest bursts in glory like a flame!
Its leaves are sparks, its mystic breath the haze
Which blends in purple means with the air
The point of the woods has decked his home,
And put his wonders like a garment on,
To flash, and glow, and dull, and fade, and die.
C. Mair [page 97]
[page 98, includes illustration: Jesse Edgar Middleton. Author of “Sea-dogs and Men-at-Arms.”]
Reality
These deathless wonders shame the Spanish blade:
Fury & mar, hate pastime maid,
Terror & Olaf at the Christian font,
Love & Leander in the Hellespont.
Men and maidens are but a winter breath,
Seen for a moment, then dissolved by death.
Passions & men, the visions men may see
Troop to the confines of Eternity.
—Jesse Edgar Middleton [page 99]
[page 100, includes illustration: J. Lewis Milligan.]
God’s Library
God has a library,
Wondrous and vast,
Where books are stored on the
Shelves of the past:
Tragedies, comedies,
Dramas of yore,
Dead worlds’ long histories—
Infinite lore!
God has His favorite
Volumes, and these
Bound are in vellum white—
Biographies.
J. Lewis Milligan [page 101]
[page 102, includes illustration: Susanna Moodie. Author of “Enthusiasm and Other Poems” and Much Fugitive Verse, “Roughing it in the Bush,” “Life in the Clearings,” etc.]
The Banner of England
The banner of old England flows
Triumphant on the breeze;
A sign of terror to our foes
The mother of the seas—
A thousand heroes bore it,
In the battle fields of old;
All nations quailed before it
Depended by the bold—
—
Brave Edward and his gallant sons,
Beneath its shadow bled;
And lion-hearted Britons
That flag to glory led
The sword of Kings defended,
When hostile foes were near;
The sheet whose colors blended
Memorials proud and dear —
—
The history of a nation
Is blazoned on its page;
A brief and bright relation
Sent down from age to age.
Bright banner of our native land
Bold hearts are knit to thee;
A fearless free determined band
Thy champions yet shall be! —
—
Susanna Moodie [page 103]
[page 104, includes illustration: Robert Norwood. Author of “His Lady of the Sonnnets,” “The Witch of Endor: A Tragedy,” “The Piper and the Reed,” and “The Modernists.”]
I have no temple and no creed,
I celebrate no mystic rite;
The human heart is all I need,
Wherein I worship day and night.
The human heart is all I need,
For I have friend God over there —
Love is the one sufficient creed
And comradeship the perfect prayer!
I bow not down to any book,
No written page holds me in awe;
For when on one friend’s face I look,
I read the Prophets and the law!
Robert Norwood
From “The Piper and the Reed.” [page 105]
[page 106, includes illustration: Thomas O’Hagan, Ph.D., LL.D. Author of “In Dreamland,” “Songs of the Settlement,” “In the Heart of the Meadow,” “Songs of Heroic Days,” etc.]
The Dreamer.
Men call me dreamer—what care I?
The cradle of my heart is rocked;
I dwell in realms beyond the earth.
The gold I mint is never locked!
Men call me dreamer—this forsooth
Because I spurn each thing of dross,
And count the step that leads not up
A useless toil a round of loss.
Men call me dreamer—nay, that word
Hath turned its way from age to age;
Its light shone o’er Judea’s hills
And thrilled the heart of seer and sage
Men call me dreamer—yet forget
The dreamer lives a thousand years,
While those whose hearts and hands knead clay
Love not beyond their dusty biers.
Thomas O’Hagan. [page 107]
[page 108, includes illustration: Amy Parkinson. Author of “Love Through All,” “In His Keeping,” “Best,” etc.]
Fragrance.
~
Falling asleep awhile, I dreamed of fragrance,
Then, waking, at my pillow found a bunch
Of roses sweet, brought by a loving friend;
Half flushed with glowing pink, and half were drest [sic]
All in pure white.
Oft through the night of earth
We dream of heaven, and many a token find
That our Best Friend Himself has been beside us.
Toronto. Amy Parkinson [page 109]
[page 110, includes illustration: Arthur L. Phelps.]
Apple Blossoms.
Shy, amorous,
The brown-haired dryads of the apple trees
I saw this day
Shy were they in among the blowing blossoms;
Their white knees
Hidden by blossom tapestries
The wind had woven, weaving cunningly.
Yet their arms and faces,
And shoulders bloomy pink, by swaying spray
I saw, and their long glances
In the sunny garden places
Where the sunlight dances,
Held me in sweet trances;
While they begged we come to play,
Bathe with them in blossoms,
On a white spring day!
Arthur L. Phelps. [page 111]
[page 112, includes illustration: Marjorie Pickthall. Author of “The Drift of Pinions and Other Poems,” etc.]
On a Violet Leaf
from Keats’ grave
~
After the sharp salt kiss,
Blossom and thorn of grief,
Time has no more than this, —
A leaf.
Out of the battled years,
The glory and the wrong,
Twice gives, for all our tears, —
A song.
Is it of fragrance made,
Woven and rhymed of light,
The voice that from some shade
Silvers the night?
When the last shadows slope
And day’s own rose is pale, —
O love, immortal hope, —
His nightingale!
Marjorie L.C. Pickthall [page 113]
[page 114, includes illustration: Theodore Harding Rand, D.C.L. Author of “At Minas Basin” and “Song-Waves.” Compiler of the anthology “A Treasury of Canadian Verse.”]
Spent of Song, life’s golden ray
That burned in this house of clay
Despite the stress of blast & tempest
To quench the flickering light & play;
Rapture of seraphs bright thru ash,
Yet Kindlest in the human heart
The fluid soul’s upbeathed emotion,
Whose light shines clear as a star apart,—
A fairer light of sweeter fame
Than science knows to praise or blame,
Wherein the soul has open vision,
And feels the glow of His holy flame.
Theodore H. Raud
~ [page 115]
[page 116, includes illustration: John Reade, F.R.S.C. Author of “The Prophecy of Merlin and Other Poems,” etc.]
The Wheat’s Reward.
Out of the ground I rose; the seed seemed dead,
But lo! a slim green arm pushed through the sod,
And by and by before my master, God,
I stood full ripe. A voice cried “Give us bread.”
The wind of God went by; showed my head,
And one approached who held a curved knife,
And for the life of men he took my life,
And ever since by me are millions fed.
And then God spake these words: “O blessed weed,
The lowly sister of the lily proud,
Be thou my chosen messenger to shroud
The mystery of my Son, the Woman’s seed.
Thou dreadest not the sacrificial knife:
Be thou to dying men the Bread of Life.
John Reade. [page 117]
[page 118, includes illustration: Charles G. D. Roberts. Major in Canadian Expeditionary Force. Appointed Official Eye-witness to Canadian Army. Author of “In Divers Tones,” “Songs of the Common Day,” “The Book of the Native,” “New York Nocturnes,” “Collected Poems,” etc., Novels and Nature Stories.]
Said Life to Art—I love thee best
Not when I find in thee
My very face and form expressed
With dull fidelity,
But when in thee my longing eyes
Behold continually
The mystery of my memories
And all I long to be.
~
Charles G.D. Roberts [page 119]
[page 120, includes illustration: Lloyd Roberts. Author of “England Overseas.”]
On the Marshes
Out on the marsh in the misty rain,
The air is full of the harsh refrain;
The long swamps echo the beat of wings,
The birds are back in the reeds again.
Down from the north they wing their way.
Out of the east they cross the bay.
From north and east they’re steering home
To the island lands at the close of day.
Hid in the sea of reeds we lie
And watch the wild geese driving by;
And listen to the plover’s piping,
The gray snipe’s thin and lonely cry.
All day over the tangled mass
The marsh-birds wheel and scream and pass;
The smoke hangs white in the broken rice;
The feathers drift in the water-grass
Lloyd Roberts [page 121]
[page 122, includes illustration: Theodore Goodrich Roberts. Author of Novels, Stories and Verse. Served in England and France, September, 1914, to December, 1918. Aide-de-camp to Sir Arthur Currie, June, 1917, to March, 1918.]
The Reckoning.
Ye who would reckon with England—
Ye who would sweep the seas
Of the flag that Rodney nailed aloft
And Nelson flung to the breeze—
Weigh well your metal and valour,
Count well your rifles and your guns,
For they who reckon with England
Must reckon with England’s sons.
Ye who would hurl to warfare
You Lords of bullies and slaves
To crush the pride of an empire
And sink its fame in the waves,
Count well your ships and battalions
Count well your horse and your gun,
For they who reckon with England
Must reckon with England’s sons.
Ye who would reckon with England!
Ye who would break the might
Of the little isle in the foggy sea
And the lion-heart in the fight! —
Weigh well your metal and valour,
Count well your ships and your guns,
For they who make war on England
Make war on a mother’s sons!
Theodore Goodrich Roberts. [page 123]
[page 124, includes illustration: Duncan Campbell Scott. Author of “The Magic House,” “Labor and the Angel,” “New World Lyrics and Ballads,” “Lundy’s Lane and Other Poems,” etc.]
The new moon a slender thing
In a suave of virgin light
She snood all shy on venturing
Into the vast night
~
Her own loud and folk were afar
She must have gone astray
But the gods had given a silver star
To be with her on the way
April 1818 Duncan C Scott [page 125]
[page 126, includes illustration: Frederick George Scott. Author of “The Soul’s Quest,” “My Lattice,” “The Unnamed Lake,” “Poems Old and New,” “Collected Poems,” etc.]
The Heaven of Love
I rose at midnight & beheld the sky
Sown thick with stars, like grains of golden sand
Which God had scattered loosely from his hand
Upon the floorways of his house on high;
And straight I pictured to my spirit’s eye
The giant worlds, their course by wisdom planned,
The weary waste, the gulfs us sight hath spanned,
And endless time for ever passing by.
Then, filled with wonder & a secret dread,
I crept to where my child lay fast asleep,
With chubby arm beneath his golden head.
What cared I then for all the stars above?
One little face shut out the boundless deep,
One little heart revealed the heaven of love.
Frederick George Scott. [page 127]
[page 128, includes illustration: A View (From a water-color made in 1849) of the log church and burying-ground on the Pengelly Farm, Rice Lake. Here Joseph Scriven preached for many years, and here he lies buried. No portrait of him is known to exist.]
“Gray without ceasing”
What a Friend we have in Jesus
All our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry
Everything to God in prayer!
—
Oh! What peace we often forfeit;
Oh what needless pain we bear!
All, because we do not carry
Everything to God in prayer.
—
Have we trials, and temptations?
Is there trouble everywhere?
We should never be discouraged:
Take it to the Lord in prayer.
—
Are we cold and unbelieving,
Limbered with a load of care?
Here the Lord is still our refuge:
Take it to the Lord in prayer.
————
Joseph Scriven. [page 129]
[page 130, includes illustration: Robert W. Service. Author of “Songs of a Sourdough,” “Ballads of a Cheechako,” “Rhymes of a Rolling Stone,” “Rhymes of a Red Cross Man,” etc.]
My Madonna.
I haled me a woman from off the street,
Shameless, but oh so fair!
I bade rent sit on the model’s seat,
And I painted her sitting there.
I hid all trace of her heart unclean;
I painted a babe at her breast;
I painted her as she might have been
If the Worst had been the Best.
She laughed at my picture and went away,
Then came with a knowing nod,
A connoisseur, and I heard him say
“’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.
Robert W. Service
Aug 18. [page 131]
[page 132, includes illustration: Virna Sheard. Author of “The Miracle and Other Poems.”]
Dreams
Keep thou thy dreams though faith should faint and fail,
And time should loose thy fingers from the creeds;
The vision of The Christ will still avail
To lead thee on to truth and tender deeds.
—— ——
Keep Thou thy dreams Through all The winters cold;
Where weeds are withered and the garden grey
Dream Thou of roses, with their hearts of gold, —
Beckon to summers that are on their way.
—— ——
Keep thou thy dreams,—the tissue of all wings.
Is woven first of Their; from dreams are made
The precious and imperishable things
Whose foolishness lives on—and does not fade.
—— ——
Virna Sheard [page 133]
[page 134, includes illustration: Goldwin Smith, D.C.L. Author of “Bay Leaves,” “Specimens of Greek Tragedy,” etc.]
Translated from the Greek of Bianor.
I wept Theonos lost; but one fair child
His father’s heart of half its woe beguiled.
And now, sole source of hope and comfort left
That one fair child by envious fate is reft.
Death, hear a fathers prayer and lay to rest
My little one on its lost mothers breast.
Goldwin Smith. [page 135]
[page 136, includes illustration: Albert E. S. Smythe]
Easter Eve.
Lives for Lehan’s Waltz Strain.
Golden rose the moon of march that still mild night
Silver white through purple pierced the star paints bright,
Not a whisper murmured in the pines above,
Silence lived like music in a dream of love.
Thirty years have vanished like The sunset gleam,
Life and death the shadows falling on a stream;
Good and all betrayed us—wrought us passing paws,
Peace the only perfect gift the soul attains
Birth has taught us yearning for Eternal Day;
Birth’s to come will set us far that Shining way;
Beauty clothes the pageant, Love preserves it whole;
All her might, magic serves thee sun led soul
Albert S. Smythe [page 137]
[page 138, includes illustration: Robert J. C. Stead. Author of “Songs of the Prairie,” “Empire Builders,” “Empire Born,” “Kitchener and Other Poems,” etc.]
Kitchener.
Weep, waves of England! Nobler clay
Was ne’er to nobler grave consigned;
The wild waves weep with us to-day
Who mourn a nation’s master-mind.
We hoped an honored age for him,
And ashes laid with England’s great;
And rapturous music, and the dives
Deep hush that veils our Tomb of State.
But this is Letter Set him sleep
Where sleep the man who made us face,
For England’s heart is in the deep,
And England’s glory is the sea.
Leap, waves of England! Bashful he,
And fling defiance in the blast;
For Earth is envious of the Sea
Which shelters England’s dead at last.
Robert J. C. Stead
COPYRIGHT, THE MUSSON BOOK CO., LIMITED [page 139]
[page 140, includes illustration: Arthur Stringer. Author of “The Woman in the Rain,” “Irish Poems,” “Open Water,” etc.]
On a Child’s Portrait
Deep in the fluted hollow of its shells
Dimly one echo of the ocean dwells.
Still in September’s fruitage, mellow-cored,
The filtered sweets of golden noons are stored.
And swimming on a blue-birds migrant wings
Some poignant touch of June’s lost azure clings.
Still in the rusting sheath today there gleams
The lingering gold of April’s vanished dreams
Still in the cell of the autumnal bee
I find last Summer in epitome.
And all that better life that I would lead,
Writ small in this, one childish face, I read.
Arthur Stringer [page 141]
[page 142, includes illustration: Alan Sullivan. Lieutenant in Royal Air Force. Author of “Blantyre Alien” and “The Inner Door.”]
To the Grave of an unknown British Soldier
Knit thyself close, memorial grass,
Green be and strong, O sacred sod
And, lest a careless traveller pass
Unmoved, let every hidden clod
Enriched by this once radiant-frame,
Beneath the ripple of a mound,
Pour out such echoes of his name
That they shall reach him—underground:
Unmarked—save on the deathless page —
He heard, he hastened, fought and fell
For a swift-perilled heritage
So late perceived but loved so well
That this mute clay, half man, half boy,
In some divine awakening caught;
Set it against all dreams and joy
And died in rapture at the thought:
Earth hath her dumb and poignant moods,
Her ancient passions of regret,
And with evasive pity broods,
Though man himself too soon forget:
No child oblivion enters where
Her slumbrous eyes for death alone,
Not solitary is he there —
Who nests with her rests not alone
Alan Sullivan [page 143]
[page 144, includes illustration: Eve Brodlique Summers.]
L’apres
~
There is no absence, though indeed it seems
That in a distant land you sometimes stray,
Shut far from me by mountains and by streams
I, nathless, feel your presence night and day
Your bulk next mine reals all through out my dreams!
~
There is no absence, through mile after mile
Stretches between your clinging hands and mine,
In my wan of light face your smile,
From my shadow watch your dark eyes shine
And feel one love oer-reaching all exile!
~
Death is but so-called absence long drawn out
Wherein your spirit sweeps to mine again,
Undimmed by distance, and unmarked by fear
Unfettered by the accident of pain
My own! Why dread the distance—There—or Here?
Eve Brodlique Summers [page 145]
[page 146, includes illustration: Hartley Munro Thomas. Lieutenant in Royal Air Force, B.E.F. Author of “Songs of an Airman and Other Poems.”]
“It——R.F.C., missing believed killed”
A rain drop on the leaf
of a rose is here—
The purest form of grief
is a sunbeam’s tear.
The airman who is slain
Has a petal shroud
And he feels the gentle rain
From the mourning cloud.
Where comrade sunbeams leap
In the open space
Where the hero fell asleep
With a smiling face.
12th S
RFC Hartley M. Thomas
29/6/17 [page 147]
[page 148, includes illustration: Edward William Thomson. Author of “The Many-Mansioned House and Other Poems,” “Old Man Savarin,” etc.]
From
The Willow Whistle.
A day when April willows fringed the pool
Of fifty years ago with freshening gold,
Myself came trudging from the country school
With my tall grandsire of the wars of old;
His peaceful pan-knife trimmed a ravished shoot,
Nicked deep the green and hollowed out the white,
To fashion for the child a willow flute,
His age exulting in the shrill delight;
“For so,” he said,” “my grandsire made
The sweetest whistle ever blew,
When I and he were you and me
And all the world was new.”
Now grandson “Billy” snuggles palm in mine,
“Over the hills,” he blows, “and far away.”
O pipe of brandy, how clear and fine
The single note salutes the yearning day!
His breeze in branches here, the whistling wing,
The subtle-bubbling frogs, the blue-birds call,
The quivering sounds of ever-piercing Spring,
That one thin willow note attunes them all:
And, far and near at once, I hear
The sweetest whistle ever blew,
Lilting again the olden strain,
And all the world is new.
———
E. W. Thomson [page 149]
[page 150, includes illustration: Bernard Freeman Trotter. Lieutenant in 11th Leicester Regiment, B.E.F. Killed in Action May 7th, 1917. Author of “A Canadian Twilight and Other Poems of War and of Peace.”]
The Poplars
O a lush green English meadow— its
there that I would lie—
O skylark singing overhead, scarce present
to the eye,
And a row of windblown poplars against
an English sky.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
When the wind goes through the poplars
and blow them silver white
The wonder of the universe is flashed
before my sight:
I ere immortal visions: I know a god’s
delight.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I catch the scant rhythm that steals
along the earth.
That swells the bud, and uplifts the
burr, and gives the oak its girth,
That makes the blight and earthen
with its eternal birth.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I ere with the clear vision of that
untainted prime,
Before the fool’s balls jangled in,
and Elfland ceased to shine,
That sun and pain and sorrow
are but a pantomime—
A dance of braves in ether, of leaves
threadbare and sore,
From whose decaying husks at last
what glory shall appear
When the white winter angel leads in
the happier year
And so I sing the poplars and when
I come to lie
I will not look for jaspar walls, but
cast about my eye
For a row of windblown poplars
against an English sky.
Bernard F. Trotter [page 151]
[page 152, includes illustration: John Frushard Waddington. Captain 2nd Canadian Pioneers, C.E.F. Author of “Canada and Other Poems,” etc.]
From: “The Little Things”
The little tender blades of grass,
The tiny buds of green,
The shoots, the ponds that in a mass
Beneath the moss are seen;
The delicate, untempered growth
That every forest bears,
As if the very Earth were loath
To advertise her wares,—
Are still as beautiful, as dear
To Him who gave them life
As any bloom that does not fear
The highway and the strife.
The hidden, gentle thoughts that rise
Like wind blown scent of flowers
Wafting their incense to the skies
Endowed with secret powers
To charm, to soothe, to drive away
The rough, uncouth veneer
Of unkind moods that try to slay
With barb or pointed spear,——
How we should welcome them. I know
From whence their sweetness springs—
To set the happy heart a glow,
To give the spirit wings.
Joshua Waddington. [page 153]
[page 154, includes illustration: Albert Durrant Watson. Author of “In the Heart of the Hills,” “The Wing of the Wild Bird,” “Love and the Universe,” “The Sovereignty of Character,” etc.]
From “The Aureole.” Heart of the Hills.
By Albert Durrant Watson.
———————————————
Friend of the Steadfast heart,
When day is done
And night falls westward,
After all these stern restraints of will,
In that glad hour
When kind, mysterious Death
Rides down the wind
And hurricanes of flame
Unloose our wings
To the great life,
Then crush me to your heart
And I will fold you
As a flower to mine
Before the face of God.
And we shall recount
In chariot of the blast
To heights of ecstasy and power,
The stern, dark beauty of the sky
Unveiled to open view
In one tremendous storm-betrothal
To Love’s immortal youth.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
In that new love-laud of our dream,
Where violet odours
With the wild thrush-music blend
Beside the singing streams,
I’ll lay Love’s Aureole upon your brow
And love you as I love you now.
———————————
Albert Durrant Watson [page 155]
[page 156, includes illustration: Ethelwyn Wetherald. Author of “The House of Trees,” “Tangled in Stars,” “The Radiant Road,” “The Last Robin,” etc.]
Legacies.
Unto my friends I give my thoughts,
Unto my God my soul,
Unto my foe I leave my love—
That is of life the whole.
Nay, there is something, a trifle, left:
Who shall receive this dower?
See, Earth Mother, a handful of dust,
Turn it into a flower
Ethelwyn Wetherald. [page 157]
Warwick Bro’s & Rutter, Limited, Printers and Bookbinders, Toronto, Canada. [unnumbered page]
[3 blank pages]
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