The Poetical
Review: A Brief Notice of Canadian Poets and Poetry
by A. C. Stewart
(Introduced by D. M. R. Bentley)
Under
the name of Alexander Charles Stewart (1867-1944) in the “Scholarship” section
of Watters’ Checklist of Canadian Literature and Background Materials, 1628-1960
(2nd. ed., 1972), there occurs the following entry: THE POETICAL REVIEW. A
Brief Notice of Canadian Poets and Poetry. Toronto, Anderson, 1896. 24p. But
this work, for which Watters lists only one location, the Toronto Public Library, is not a
work of “scholarship” in the usual meaning of that word; rather, it is a
satirical poem with some highly amusing, critical, and, occasionally, laudatory things to
say about many of the major and minor Canadian poets of the day: Roberts, Carman,
Campbell, Lampman, the two Scotts, Crawford, McLachlan, and several others. With its
waspish attacks on the poets whom Stewart considered to be mere “scribblers” and
“rhymers,” and its invocation of Pope as “no painter but a prophet,” The
Poetical Review might seem a likely candidate for the title ‘the Canadian Dunciad’
if it were not for the fact that Stewart is no Pope and his victims no dunces. The
Poetical Review deserves to be better known, however, and it is for this reason that
it is reprinted here in full.
One need
go no further than the “Poetry” and “Fiction” sections of
Watters’ Checklist to ascertain that Alexander Charles Stewart was himself the
author of several volumes of verse, all published between 1890 and the end of the First
World War, and of one work of fiction entitled The Discard, published in
Toronto in 1919. Neither is biographical information about him difficult to
find. W. Stewart Wallace’s Macmillan Dictionary of Canadian Biography (3rd.
ed., 1963) describes Stewart as a “contractor and poet” who was born on August
16, 1867 in County Down, Ireland — a fact which may explain his fulsome references to
the “little isle” and the “Irish race” in The Poetical Review.
Apparently Stewart “came to Canada when a small child, and was educated in
Pickering township, Ontario.” “He became a tunnel and bridge contractor at
Fort William, Ontario,” his biography continues, “and in the intervals of
contracting he wrote poetry. He died at Port Dover, Ontario, on June 12,
1944.” Since Stewart lived well into the 1940’s it is intriguing to wonder
whether he might have read the satirical poems of F.R. Scott and, indeed, to wonder
whether Scott, whose father was one of Stewart’s targets, might have read The
Poetical Review.
As
Stewart’s “Preface” states, The Poetical Review was occasioned by
the reissuing in 1892, of W.D. Lighthall’s Songs of the Great Dominion (1899)
under the title of Canadian Poems and Songs. This volume, in Stewart’s
view, “contains so much ridiculous and absurd jingle that the few bright pages it
contains are completely obscured.” To Stewart the jinglers and obscurers are
the major ‘Confederation’ poets and a host of minor ones. In the course of
his satirical Review he therefore roundly condemns, not only the “ranting
hardship” F.G. Scott and the “specious phrase” of D.C. Scott, but also the
“tantramarian nonsense” of Roberts, the “high-tidal verse” of Carman,
and the “Tennysonian rant” of Campbell, not to mention the verses of such as
Nicholas Flood Davin and Agnes Maule Machar. Less harshly treated is Lampman who,
Stewart opines, “shall outgrow his present rhyme, / And soar to stellar heights
sublime. . . .” Stewart reserves his most unmitigated praise, however, for
Crawford, MacLachlan, Pauline Johnson, and his fellow Irishman Thomas D’Arcy
McGee. His championship of these writers is interesting for revealing his tendency,
not just to inveigh against those poets whose reputations he considered to be inflated,
but to illuminate what he perceived to be the “bright pages” of Lighthall’s
anthology with the warm light of praise.
Poets
and poetry are not the only subjects of The Poetical Review, however;
towards the end of his satire Stewart moves away from a consideration of the writers in Canadian
Poems and Songs to attack the follies and vices of the Canadian literary and political
milieux. Two periodicals, The Week, which, not fortuitously,
was edited for a brief period at its inception by Roberts, and Grip, the Canadian
equivalent of Punch, are pilloried by Stewart, the former for allowing itself to be
perverted and debased by a variety of literary follies and the latter, less severely, for
failing to halt the progress of vice in the political arena. The vision offered by
Stewart towards the end of The Poetical Review is of a Canada which, following the
era of Mackenzie and MacDonald, has “fallen on evil days.” Against the
political cartoonist, Bengough, who stands on the side of Virtue and “bears a liberal
untarnished name” Stewart places “convicted Vice” with the “brazen
face” of Thomas McGreevy, the Quebec building contractor and Member of Parliament,
who was imprisoned in 1894 for his part in the McGreevy-Langevin scandal but was
re-elected to the House of Commons in 1895. “When such as this is borne
without rebuke,” says Stewart, “Dark may the patriot on the future look. . .
.” But Stewart’s vision of Canada’s future is not unrelievedly dark
for he looks forward to the time when “Justice at length will surely punish crime. .
. .” “Sacred Truth,” states Stewart, is “immortal still”
and “Time” — no doubt with the help of satirists such as himself —
will strip “the gilding from emblazoned ill.”
Like all
good satirists, Stewart’s aim in The Poetical Review is twofold: to
expose and deride folly and vice and to point the way to corrective action. Towards
the end of the poem Stewart is at pains to establish his satirists’s credentials
— to affirm that he is not seeking “a Government reward” for himself and to
point out, in the last of his many notes (all of which are integral to the poem), that,
while “nearly all our bards occupy positions where Government salaries prevent them
speaking,” he himself is “free and will so remain.” (Perhaps it was
Lampman’s ability to express his social and political disaffection in poems such as
“To a Millionaire” and “The Modern Politician,” published in The
Week in November, 1894 which pace his job in the Post Office, served partly
to redeem hid Stewart’s eyes.) Consistent with the second of the
satirist’s aims, to point the way towards corrective action, and consistent with his
own estimate of himself as the free servant of “truth and integrity.”
Stewart closes The Poetical Review with two paragraphs of constructive and
moralistic “advice” to Canada’s “bards,” advice to abandon
“mists and frogs. / Lakes, Loons, Injuns and Acadian bogs,” to leave
. . . these and kindred themes,
Your crude
philosophy and petty dreams:
Leave Southern critics
to their native songs
And homage yield
where loyalty belongs —
Content to win your
native land’s applause,
Toil for her glory
and support her laws.
It is advice with a curiously
modern flavour.
*
* *
For the
present reprinting, Stewart’s footnotes have been consecutively numbered, and
punctuation has occasionally been altered when required by the sense, and typographical
errors have been corrected.
THE POETICAL REVIEW;
A BRIEF NOTICE OF
CANADIAN POETS AND POETRY
by A. C. Stewart
“The Rhymers and the
Critics then
Leagued in one common cause,
Fell madly on the bard to prove,
How true his satire was.”
“The Critic drewe
his weapon keene,
And spurred right gallantlie,
And though I did not frighten him
He did not frighten me.”
*
* *
When bards unto their
noblest rise
And scorn the schemes which advertise;
Trust us, ye poets, we are true;
And in your noblest one with you.
To
That Languishing Cause,
The Regeneration of Canadian Poetry,
which
Canadian Bards
If they are True to Themselves and as Lucid in the Future
as they have been Tumid in the Past,
will take to be
the Reason of Existence of this Momento;
and
to the Reclamation of Those
Scribblers in the
Service of Folly;
This Book is
Dedicated.
— Lighthall’s, Dedication improved
Preface
The
objects in publishing this memorial are:
FIRST
— To show that the interest in Canadian Poetry is not (as some of our
scribblers complain) dead, but on the contrary, very much alive.
SECOND
— To prove to the self-elected synod of rhymers that their doctrine is a crude and
fallacious superstition believed in by no one save themselves.
THIRD
— To inform the said synod that the world fails to weep when its august head, Mr.
Roberts, succumbs to poetical hysterics at the sight of a pumpkin, which, if
calmly considered, can in nowise be asserted even by a Professor, to “Rival the Unrisen
Sun.”
FOURTH
— To notify all and sundry of that honorable body that this country utterly
refuses to endorse nonsense, even should the writers thereof carry into effect, the
harrowing threat, to leave their native land unless the people will read their rubbish.
FIFTH
— That no amount of newspaper controversy can make their productions sell.
SIXTH
AND LAST — That Poets and Poetry have not sunk as yet to that commercial basis above
which rhymers have never risen.
A few
explanations are now necessary — The authors immediately under review are those who
willingly, or unwillingly, contributed to Lighthall’s compilation, published under
the title of “Canadian Poems and Songs in 1892,” London, Walter Scott; Toronto,
W.J. Gage, & Co.
This
volume contains so much ridiculous and absurd jingle that the few bright pages it contains
are completely obscured. The general idea prevailing in the Editor’s mind was
evidently to draw his selections from those who occupied semi-eminent positions throughout
the country, he doubtless thought that the ability of his authors in other walks of life
would excuse the wretchedness of their rhyming capacities, while their many friends
combined with the excellent binding of the volume would make it a comparatively safe
financial speculation. Of course he used many of the old advertising catches such as
patriotism, national life, federation, etc., and the materials combined are in effect a
lilliputian tower of Babel. He arrogates to himself a kind of Divine right as to
what is, and what is not poetry; but nothing further is needed to prove the fallacy of his
judgment than the compilation that he made.
It may
be claimed that some of the authors mentioned are unjustly treated, but if they had placed
much value on their reputation they should have shunned such evil company.
Meantime
if any author satisfactorily proves a forced presence in Lighthall’s volume we will
omit him in the next edition in which also we will make addition of those disciples of
folly who may consider themselves un justly omitted in this.
Toronto, January 20th,
1896
The Poetical Review
Oh Shades of Genius in that hoary pile!1
The proud possession of our parent Isle,
Whose dust shall
sanctify that spot of earth
When time shall give new tongues and empires birth.
Oh Genius of the isle
that nursed our sires!
Ye who awakened those immortal lyres
Your son who doth
revere each hallow’d name,
Part of your fond impassion’d fire would claim.
Is it too much I ask, ye glorious dead?
Is all that godlike inspiration fled?
Must we your sons a
lower mean pursue
Nor hope to scale the heights our fathers knew?
Proud of our country,
lineage, and name, —
May we not hope to emulate your fame?
And following your
footsteps as we ought
Obey those precepts you yourselves have taught,
Yes we may write,
although our prosy age,
Show not the fire of your immortal page
Our Muse, alas! may not
such strength display,
Yet is she worthy this degenerate day.
Hail, Vice and Folly! you have flourish’d long
Twin monarchs of the realms of Law and Song
Before your throne
behold what subjects kneel
All anxious to applaud and show their zeal;
The honored Statesman,
Counsels, learned-profound,
The worship’d Judge immaculately gowned,
The trimming Editor,
Politic Bard,
Whose inspiration needs must claim reward.
And lo, Religion leaves
her high resource
To try conclusions in the realms of Force
The cassock’d
devotee with face severe
On this arena meets opposing peer;
In hate arrayed their
battle flag unfurl’d,
Themselves expose before the jeering world
But not for me in stem
relentless verse
To satirize the high religious farce2
Leave it to die with
all the woe it made
Guilt, crime and bloodshed, and men’s soul’s
betrayed.
A more immediate theme my muse is thine
The poetaster’s poem and scribbler’s line
The jingling lawyer
poetizing clerk
And self-applauded bard shall furnish work;
Here shall they find
that fame most justly due
Nor be the author of their own review.3
These Heliconian drunks
who vomit rhyme
And then applaud it as a thing sublime.
Attorney Lighthall,4
what a task was thine!
To print thy samples far across the brine,
Raked from each dusty,
long forgotten nook,
The precious verses swell and form a book;
A book ye gods! well
might old Europe stare,
At this collection of poetic ware.
Haply for babes and
sucklings formed to use
A glorious supplement to Mother Goose.
’Tis he, the author of the “Confused Dawn”
Sunk to the neck in literary spawn.
Compiler, rhymer,
author, advocate,
Writer of disquisitions on the State.
Analyist, sketcher, and
what not, — besides
Accoucher-general to the labouring scribes.
’Tis he inspired
by drunken folly’s “pluck”,
Who, like his pioneer “took the axe and struck”,
And hewed himself a
literary sty
Where he and his shall unlamented die.5
A traveller he in Venice, Florence, Rome,6
Yea raves of French fields mad with flowery foam.
And Mighty Blanc he
fears might homage pay,
In special robes persuading him to stay,
Fear not; that mountain
did not even pale,
When Coleridge sang in deep Chimouni’s vale;
And greater bards have
gazed in silent awe
While Blanc proved faithful to creation’s law;
Then deem not —
calm amid eternal snows —
A paltry lawyer shakes that deep repose.
Would he had travelled
to Parnassus height,
The Genii there had bid him cease to write,
Or haply shipped him to
the stygian shore,
Pluto had silenced him for evermore;
Poor legal limb, devoid of sentiment,
Your law demands a motive and intent,
These you possessed in
naked innocence,
All that your doggerel lacks is common sense.
Who first shall claim Attorney Lighthall’s praise?
Professor Roberts with his Grecian lays,
Famed manufacturer both
woof and warp
Of Mic Mac Hercules, the wond’rous Scarpe,7
Whose power fantastic
claimed no orphean lute
To fascinate and feed each savage brute;
Wolf, panther, bear and
rabbit, eagle all,
“In long row” marshalled at his magic call,
While big with fate the
prophet strides the shore,
As the inspired oft have done before;
Once dined, they list a
pro-ducalion speech
That evil utterly are all and each
That he, the commisary,
must depart
With other marvels of genetic art,
Then, lo! As Clote Scarpe sprites himself away
A second babel culminates the lay.8
Yet this is not the
mightiest of his strains
Nor lone abortion of his unclean9
brains
Confederation Ode10
and do Collect,
Shall teach us how to pray and what respect
While the dull humming
of his tinsel song
Shall cheat the fools of literature along,
If he must roam on
classic westermorland,
If he must write of that immortal strand,
And tantramarian
nonsense turn his head,
None will complain if he will not be read.
But his reserved the spoils of glory are,
The harnessed bards, draw his triumphal car,
A stranger pageant than
Rome ever knew
Here dazzling bursts on the astonished view, —
Dost ask why he
priority can claim;
Or exaltation of his unknown name,
Why every rhymster
poetaster bard;
Deem themselves honored thus to drag their lord,
It is because like old
imperial Rome,
Her second age of barbarism come
Sunken to savage depths, the gothic rod, —
Sways in the stead of the Olympian god;
He stands in Canada,
without a peer,
That is if we must credit all we hear,
If Roberts’ Jingle
is the best and first,
Shield us ye powers from the last and worst.
Famed, “intellectual race,” his sister too,
Has joined her efforts to the puling crew,
And babbles trashy
gush, at such a rate
As is but equalled by her brother’s prate.
Her verse had
“body” Lighthall says discreet,
But mentions nothing of its head or feet.
Up from the marshes swells a loon-like cry,11
And cousin Stratton answers “Here am I.”
He who untrammel’d
with his flimsy line,
Flings his defiance, to the outraged nine
And strong maintains,
despite of friends or foes,
That rhyme improves when it is mixed with prose.
Who read his
“Dream Fulfilled” with broken heart
Acknowledge poetry a vanished art,
His “silver
frost” whose “gems of fire” glow12
Omits no colors that the dyers know,
Yet not in vain, his
compilation made, —
Twill serve as hand-book to the dyeing trade.
A line for Carman, whose high-tidal verse,
Is slightly passionate to say no worse,
And something foolish
is his “long red swan,”13
That spectral bark which still keeps driving on,
Why, Carman, let it
serve its own behest,
It is not worthy of the wind you waste.
Ah; mystic mourner all your barren dreams,
Are but the dregs of passion’s vanished gleams.
How could you ever
smile; and know your light
Was starlike shooting into murky night.
All this abstract
philosophy ne’er may
Content the heart that burns itself away
Cease thy wild dreams
of this you may be sure
Tis folly all, perhaps she was
Yet Candor must confess thy rising strain
Shows power, thy cousins never shall attain,
Thou hast the secret of
the poet’s art
The first grand requisite, a human heart;
Nor needst to mock the
“In Memoriam” phrase
Though quite in line, these imitating days.
Yet sternly just the candid muse must speak
Of those who sink to write their own critique,14
This base resource,
must stamp the poet’s name
That so descends with an undying shame,
The mean attempt
o’erwhelms them with scorn,
And proves such bards were for the bathos born,
Who values such
critiques when authors may
Tell the reviewer what his line shall say?
And with a shameless
brow indite such gush
As from a stranger ought to make them blush;
Not all the applause of
a crude scheme like this,
Can ever save their name from the abyss.
Poor paltry souls yours
is an awful curse,
The wild attempt to float a leaden verse.
The monstrous toil
proportions does essay,
To which the task of Sisyphus was play.
Idle your efforts, all
your labor vain,
Down it shall sink forever to remain.
Hear sacred Campbell15
ranting as he takes
The churchman’s holiday upon the lakes,
Devoid of heart, of
soul, of common sense,
He makes at poetry a wild pretense,
Unconscious quite, he
loudly halts along
And deems his jingle constitutes a song.
For him undoubtedly his
“kettle sings”
Divinest music of divinest things,
For his profession woe
that such things be,
Limits the reverend gentleman to tea.16
“Smile with the
simple,” Garrick sang of yore,
And they obey him who read Campbell o’er.
The “Poet of the
Lakes” some wag once croaked
And Campbell wears nor deems the rascal joked;
A “brutal”
joke to use his favorite word,
Nothing in titles could be more absurd,
His “North and
Westward”17 ever shall remain
A cracked memento
of his doting strain,
A halting mimicked
Tennysonian rant,
Without his vigor, but with all his cant;
Behold his soldiers lie
with folded arms, —
False picture this of thundering wars alarms,
The leaden death leaves
no such as these
Where men die racked with mortal agonies,
Or fading swift the
vital flood escapes
The quivering form, which writhes in hideous shapes,
Here is no pause the
glassy eye to close,
The living think alone of living foes,
And rushing heed no
comrade’s dying groan
When, the next moment, death may be their own.
Next Scott,18 shall lay his dainty “Isabelle”
In sleep divine (perhaps hypnotic spell),
Let him beware, the law
is argus-eyed,
And specious phrase will save no rhymer’s hide
The sleeping lady (if
she ere awakes) —
May much resent the liberty he takes,
Observe decorum Scott,
what e’er you do,
And never stay beyond the hour of two.
How e’er his sleeping
“Isabelle” may pass,
If he will turn his pegasus to grass,
That spavin’d
jade, may well acquittance plead
And let him henceforth, mount the silent steed.
Oh Scott! if thou would’st rise thy place resign,
He knows no master, who would woo the nine,
No bond official should
hold Freedom’s Bard,
Enough for him posterity’s reward.
No poet ever lived, but
sank to prose,
Beneath the chains that governments impose;
Burns as exciseman,
lost that gifted strain
Which lit his soul when furrowing the plain,
And Wordsworth though
his heights he never knew,
Sank to the bathos of the laureate too;
Even Southey might have
lived (at least in prose)
If he had still preserved his youthful foes,
While Tennyson had
reaped, as much of fame
Without Lord Laureate, added to his name.
Enough of him behold the second Scott19
Another pearl of Lighthall’s sample lot,
Whose
“Wahonomin” makes the reader stare
To see the folly fondly garnered there,
Where “buds of
spring” their petals sweet disclose
Above the drift of “fifty winters” snows,20
Where empires wide
cause England’s throne to fly,
Above the clouded mountaintops so high,
His necromancy makes
the grasses wave,21
Despite of sense above the new-made
grave,
While presto change!
and lo his magic spell
Transforms each heart into a “tolling bell.”
He cannot plead the
specious plea of youth,
So must prepare himself to hear the truth,
By the Parnassian Nine
it is decreed,
If he must write that he alone shall read.
And never hence vend
mutilated verse
Lest it return to him a sevenfold curse.
How sweet to read Llewellyn’s22
holy verse,
To divers magazines it finds its course,
Like paraphrases do his
poems run,
Read backwards, forwards, and tis all as one,
His Easter effort, something novel shows
An ode quite innocent of rhyme or prose,
Yet let him rave his
soul may reach the sky,
But with his body shall his verses die.
Imrie23
and he shall hands seraphic join
And praise each other for a pious line;
This latter shall
produce his pasted24
praise,
And boast himself his fifteen hundred lays.
Long may he lay and
hatch them if he choose
They’ll ne’er produce him such another goose.
He who can sing
Toronto’s lovely bay
Ne’er shipped from Yonge St. in the month of May.
What devil tempted him
this theme to choose
Surely his ranting hardship has a nose,
Yet for the man has
nobly worked and striven
Depart in peace thy poems shall be forgiven.
Lo! from the vasty deep, what cloth appear?
Davin25
the author of the “Prairie Year,”
Whose verse is proof
for those who make the claim,
Genius and madness, are almost the same,
For none believe a man
possessed of wit,
Could e’er produce such verse as Davin writ.
Who print his trash
declare themselves his foes,
Adjure such folly sir, and stick to prose,
And should you find
this penance too severe,
We’ll pardon an oration once a year.
In Davin’s columns Simpson, shows her “Ben,”26
A pearl from unsophisticated men,
A man, “no orator
as Brutus” was,
Yet no conspirator against the laws,
Of folly. Heaven pardon
Lighthall’s crime,
He knew not what he did this ass sublime.
“Fidelis,” Empress of the Thousand Isles!27
Shall hold her court where nature ever smiles,
And listening to the
whip-poor-will complain,
Immortalize his fond and plaintive strain,
Or pensive dreaming,
through the autumn days,
Repaint the hackneyed Indian summer haze,
Yet when not otherwise
employed her time
She can translate chaste Ovid’s moral rhyme,
Quo Vadis,
Sappho, gentle maid refrain;
Not thine to gild the latin poet’s strain,
Grant though at times
he may be pure enough
The rascal’s author of much “perilous
stuff"”
Go study Carman,
native, young and pure,
Aught that’s amiss that poet leaves obscure
Beneath thy fulvid
fungus by the stream
Cull the sweet shadows of delusion’s dream.
And now survey Sir Daniel’s blundering “Scot,”
Another raving, versifying sot,
Who not content to
drink “auld Scotia’s” breeze
Swallows the landscape, in triumphant ease28
Immortal juggler,
Science could not save,
Thy titled head from the compiling slave.
Position, place,
example, nought availed
Before the world thy ragged line was hailed;
The vain compiler deems
his power divine
Can clothe with wisdom folly’s bloated line.
He speaks and darkness
from the void is hurled
From chaos called, behold the second world.
Where wild Niagara hurls his torrents down
A poet dwells who wears a sanguine crown;
There Kirby29
with his strong and graphic pen
Shall rouse the warring legions up again: —
English and French, and
Redmen, marshalled are.
And shake the plains, beneath the shock of war,
Yet not the recking
charge and bloody fray,
The lingering siege, or the victorious day,
Alone are his, he can
at list digress
To plant the thorn that symbol of distress.
And spin his little yarn of love betrayed
The wife and the seducing maid; —
Ah! fated concubine thy
wicked hand
Is doomed to slay thy lover “Bois-le-Grand”
Vain thy caresses, in
his mortal pain,
He knows thee not but calls his chatelaine,
Yet faithful still like
Conrad’s Kaled thou
Watched to the last and sharest his glory now.
Such is the story told
in time and rhyme
That makes ridiculous this antique crime;
Kirby no more thy
leisure hours abuse
Collect thy customs but tempt not the muse.
Oh! Ascher trifling in thy “Youthful prime”
And golden hours with a sickly rhyme;
Since Scott abandoned
law, how many more
Have deemed they might do what was done before,
And imitators still,
would mock the fame
That gilds the memory of that noble name.
Vain their attempt,
thou Ascher shall go down
To dark oblivion, nameless and unknown.
Oh hoary Smith, thou and thy dreadful verse
Dragged into prominence sans all remorse;
Thy sixty years could
not exemption plead
Lighthall decreed
that all the world should read;
Alas! poor Smith,
although thy crime was great,
A fearful punishment has been thy fate.30
Thy “reverence
even the head-lugged bear” had spared
But this fell Harpy nothing could retard,
A bloodless Nemesis to
punish those
Who dare to leave the sober realms of prose
The follies all of
youth or doting age,
All are concentrated on his damning page
And even the tomb is
rifled of its dust
To gorge his still insatiable lust:
Fair Crawford,31 she who in her youthful bloom
Unnoticed sank to the untimely tomb,
In mortal slumber on
her narrow bed,
Recks not how much or little she is read;
The thrill for glory,
the ambitious hope,
Are now confined in very little scope;
Denied in life what she
deserved of fame
What boots it idly to exhume her name?
Extol her genius, her
intrinsic worth;
She sleeps and soundly with her mother Earth,
Hers was a fate oft
paralleled before;
Genius neglected for some trifling boor.
Sad-eyed and listless
hidden in the crowd
While some vain ass is lauded long and loud;
Yet better far to never
breathe of fame,
Than rise to vanish into whence she came.
Happy our statesmen when as such they fail
Thank heaven they still can twist the muse’s tail,
And fleeing far from
the ignoble throng,
In lisping strain produce the sparrow’s song.32
Thrice happy mortals
roaming through the woods
Or haply boating on the foaming floods,
Or washing down the
miday dish of “fish”
With Adam’s ale as much as heart could wish;
Anon in slumber
stretched upon the sod.
Forget their plans for circumventing God33
Soft dreams elesyian on
thy beatitude
No cankering cares of empire can intrude
For while the moon
sheds her soft glories down
The monarch might forget his useless crown,
Thus Edgar may forget
forensic fray
And if he choose forget to draw his pay.
Turn from these triflers to the bright M’Gee
Sprung from that clime of genius o’er the sea,
That little isle which
sends its sons afar
To shine in council or to lead in war,
Faithful to that
strange destiny which sways
The Irish race through wild conflicting ways;
Weird lights of genius
flashing through the gloom
To light her heroes to the martyr’s tomb,
He followed, subject to
her fatal laws,
A willing sacrifice to honor’s cause.
Lo from his snug department Lampman34
strays
To rant of “Heat” and white and dusty ways,
And rapt observant with
sagacious art
Tells how the waggoner walks by his cart
Yet pause a moment and
the cart (how sad)
Becomes a wagon, Lampman you are mad.
Yet claims he some
blest power had brought him here
Because his thoughts have grown so “keen and clear,”
More blest his brooding soft midsummer seems
For there he sinks forgetful into dreams —
Official cares and the
conflicting deeps
Have no effect upon the bard who sleeps.
’Tis in his April that he rules a king
And pours “Libation” to awakening spring,
’Tis then he hears
— for him — the flute like frog
Trill “sweet voiced” tremulous up from the bog,
Poor innocents sans
heed of pain or ill
They watch the hours pass and trill and trill.
Yet truth comes sometimes from the suckling’s head
He saw his “soul was for the most part dead,”
Ingenious youth that
truth has long been known
Nor new that secret which thou thoughtst thine own.
Yet Lampman shall
outgrow his present rhyme,
And soar to stellar heights, alone sublime,
For even his frogs
display a mind that brings
Deep contemplation, even to meanest things,
While the soft cadence
of his verse can show
A depth these poetasters ne’er can know.
Lone daughter of the tribes35
to thee was given
A ray divine, by the all pitying heaven;
Fond Nature could not
see her children fade
Unmourned, unsung, to drear oblivion’s shade,
And thou wert gifted
with a task sublime
To make the redman’s last appeal to time;
Haply thy muse touched
by thy people’s doom
Will pause beside Thayandanega’s tomb,
Or view the bronze
memorial that wears
A native touch of the departed years.
Sad is thy lot thou
spirit formed for tears
To view the march of the advancing years;
Before whose tread like
foam upon the brine
Are swept the drifting wrecks of thee and thine;
Oh strange this scene,
the pale-faced sons of toil
Have swept away the monarchs of the soil,
And to possession like
stern masters come
And make the redmen aliens at home;
Not aliens long, fate
points the certain way
Unjust the doom but they must needs obey,
Yea sad thy lot thou
long ill-fated Grace
To sing the wild dirge of thy dying race.
From the dark realms of deep hysteric prose
Arises compassed with poetic woes,
A lady novelist36
whose polished pen
Can justly claim to rival Simpson’s “Ben,”
Yes, let King Roberts
heed his proud estate,
High though he is, fair Rothwell is as great,
Her verse transcendent,
and her style intense,
Her very fault like his the lack of sense,
Perhaps compromise
’twixt them may atone
And yield the king a consort to his throne.
Fond old McLachlin37
with the heart of fire,
Strong without fustian, caustic without ire,
Simple yet piercing,
honest without rant,
And nature-loving void of barren cant;
Sick of this strained
and artificial age
The reader turns to thy refreshing page,
And feels the shadow of
the solemn woods
And sees the sheen of the broad winding floods.
Thank Heaven thou art
no triton of the deep,
A birch bark shallop cannot make thee weep,
But thou canst smile at
him who wildly shrieks
A worship to the Neptune of the creeks,
Yes, laugh out-right at
those whose fancies rich,
See Naiads lave in each Acadian ditch.
But down, ye scribes
before the mighty Week,
Malicious vendor of the base critique,
Lean Egotist, that
claims the right divine
To whip the slavish scribblers into line,38
High in its cob-webbed
garret’ midst the dust
It famished, gnaws its literary crust,
And apes the journals
of a bygone age
To damn the poet, or exalt his page;
Oh! thou dictator’s heart without the brain,
On neutral ground I meet thee once again,
And in thy teeth my
gage of battle throw,
My one despised — and yes — meanest foe.
What! though you claim
a high ideal to give.
False the assertion, you but aim to live,
You teach no class, you
elevate no aim.
Your freedom and a slave’s are but the same;
Crazed vehicle of the
ruts your ancient ways
Are out of order these progressive days.
Your Latin’d
pedagogues and sages Greek,
Thunder, but ah! a foreign39
tongue they speak,
Athens and Rome, their
suns o’er ruins set
This last bequeathed what we would fain forget,
And for the first her
lauded tongue and arts
Are but a foil to show the scholar’s parts,
Their statesmen, true
we have them here to-day,
Can squander revenues as fast as they,
Oh! soaring journal, what a theme for rhyme
When once per year, you swell to the sublime,
And tales contestant
fill the laden air
With rhyme and prose sufficient and to spare,
Oh Pope, no painter but
a prophet thou —
Those scenes ludicrous are exacted now,
On Jordan Street the
sons of Folly throng,
Each with his story or competing song,
Mad with ambition, nay
a passion worse,
Mad with the hope
to clutch the promised purse,
Who shall succeed among
the motley crew?
Avaunt ye classics; it is not for you —
The daring hero of a
cattle boat,
Who slushed the scuppers in his home-spun coat,
And piloted the bulls,
across the wave,40
O’er glorious him the classic Week does rave
—
While lightly he
describes the hoary pile
Which holds the
honored of our parent isle,
The Week extends
the purse, with weeping eyes,
And the rude conqueror carries off the prize.
Ah, not forgotten, thou delightful Grip,
The boast of Canada, her moral whip,
Lo; with what humor all
thy pages teem
The idle jargon of an idiot’s dream.
Thou dull old crow with
soul and brain of straw,
That knowest no music save thy croaking caw.41
Doubtless your lash is
oft severe enough,
Were statesmen “made of penetrable stuff;”
But dull McGreevy,
Connelly, Caron,
Pay no attention to your croaking song,
Vice still progresses,
drop thy blunted sword
And yield the Week, thy task undone, abhorred.
Yet Bengough’s
genius shall make good his claim
To be remembered by recording fame,
While far above his
pencil’s ready art
He shall be valued for his generous heart;
Here is one public man
that truth can claim
Who bears a liberal untarnished name.
And thou my country, fallen on evil days,
Corruption, bribery, every vice that sways,
Till those who love
thee most their blush may hide,
Their shame too great to longer be denied.
Alas! must Virtue turn
with weeping eyes
Toward the tomb
where just Mackenzie lies;
Nor find amid the
ambitious living none,
In truth to rival her departed son,
Nay old Macdonald,
criticise who may,
Would scorn the puerile tactics of to-day,
What though his methods
strained at times the laws,
Still in the van he placed his country’s cause.
Dishonored land,
unhappy is thy fate
When even the Turk42
can sneer at thy estate,
When common gossip
passes thee and thine
For vice a byword far beyond the brine,
Oh sacred truth find
champion for her cause
To bring back prestige to her trampled laws,
Restore the nation to a
patriot’s hand,
And boodlers scourge from the polluted land.
Behold convicted Vice with brazen face
Transferred from jail to fill a stateman’s place
And hear the filthy
rabble’s senseless voice,
Shameless proclaim a criminal their choice,
A seat he takes among
the nation’s best,
And not a coward who would dare protest.
Jocond, he enters’ midst his old colleagues
Forgets his crime and prison life fatigues;
Degenerate age, stamped
with the brand of shame
When truth found none to vindicate her name,
Nay golden silence gave
consent to crime
And vilest precedent to coming time,
And such as this is
borne without rebuke
Dark may the patriot on the future look —
If he must judge that
future by the past
To what vile
depths will they descend at last?
Manipulated by each
party tool
Till blood-red anarchy at last must rule.
The country shall
assert her latent right,
And sweep these vampires to eternal night;
Vice oft bath
flourished ’twas but for a time,
Justice at length will surely punish crime,
Time strips the gilding
from emblazoned ill,
Alone is sacred Truth immortal still.
It may be asked why I should thus presume
To drag these shadows from their native gloom,
I do not seek a
Government reward,
Not to be branded Honored, Sir or Lord,
Nor threat to leave
this stupid country’s clime,43
Unless the people will peruse my rhyme;
Ye jostling bards,
“lay unction to your soul,”
Great minds have compassed no immediate goal.
The barren heights of
ultimate success
Yield the dark guerdon of a long distress,
For mountain summits in
their gorgeous glow
Know not the verdure of the plains below.
Yield me your thanks ye
parasites of fame,
Earth but for me had never known your name;
The fame so long denied
is yours at last
Broad as the sky and liberal as the blast —
Without exception,
graphic, terse, and true,
Nor first submitted to its subject’s view.
’Tis said advice is folly, still ye bards
Reform your verse if you would win rewards44
Fame is not bought, nor
is the critic’s pen
An open sesame to the hearts of men —
Assumption is not
genius, nor is rhyme
From known necessities perforce sublime,
Simplicity and truth
need not be great,
’Tis simply true that four and four make eight
’Tis oft indeed
the versifyers’ curse,
That they mistake impression for their verse,
But oftener far they
force th’ unwilling muse
Who yields no rapture when she would refuse;
Reform ye scribblers,
leave your mists and frogs,
Lakes, Loons and Injuns and Acadian bogs —
And hang the eternal
paddle up to dry;
Canoes good sooth; when Pegasus can fly,
To read our bards the
world might well mistake
Our wide Dominion for an endless lake,
Dotted with isles where
birch expressly grows
The raw material for bark canoes.
Ye trifling bards, leave these and kindred themes,
Your crude philosophy and petty dreams:
Leave Southern critics
to their native songs
And homage yield where loyalty belongs —
Content to win your
native land’s applause,
Toil for her glory45
and support her laws.
Notes
We might have appealed to
Parnassus but Westminster was prefered, which, although it contains not the dust of many
of our mighty dead, is rightly associated with all that is great and glorious in our
history.[back]
Recent developments have
proved that The People take but little interest in the religious panic which shakes
the Politicians.[back]
- This line will possess no obscurity for some
of our drivers of the quill.[back]
This gentleman compiled a
volume — chiefly rubbish — as indicative of Canadian ability in the art of
poetry for the edification of the world at large, as the dedication thereto signifies,
which were it not redeemed by selections from Mair, Sangster, McLachlan, and a few others,
would not be worth the binding.[back]
William Douw Lighthall,
alias Wilfred Cheateauclair, alias Alchemist — which last he had from Ben Johnson,
that he might appear learned — is, of all the scribblers mentioned in this book, most
to be reprehended, for if his compilation was made in good faith it proves him “an
arrant ass.” But there are some who shrewdly suspect that he basely holds up
many of those good people that they may be laughed at. Has written much, as he
himself in the aforesaid compilation modestly setteth forth — published works
numerous — but none of them were ever read except by the proofreader.[back]
- At Rome
“End of desire to stray I feel would come,
Though Italy were
all fair skies to me,
Though France’s
fields went mad with flowery foam,
And Blanc put on
a special majesty;
Not all could match
the growing thought of home.
Nor tempt to
exile. Look I not on Rome, —
This ancient
modern mediaeval queen. — ”
And three dozen additional lines
of equal beauty and lucidity.[back]
“The departing of
Clote Scarpe,” is another “thing of beauty and a lay forever,” which will
add to the reputation of our Professor of Folly, Mr. Roberts[back]
“And when the beam could see his form no more,
They still could hear
him singing as he sailed,
And still they listened,
hanging down their heads,
In long row, where the
thin wave washed and fled;
But when the sound of
singing died, and when
They lifted up their
voices in their grief,
Lo, on the mouth of
every beast, a strange
New tongue, then rose
they all and fled apart
Nor met again in
council from that day.”
— The Departing of Clote
Scarpe[back]
- Roberts to Carman —
“With influences serene
Our blood and brain washed
clean.”
But as Thersites saith,
“Would it were clear that I might water an ass at it.”[back]
- We quote from this ode that the world may see
how much it has lost by neglecting to read it.
“Under this gloom
A deep voice stirs vibrating
in men’s ears,
As if their own hearts
throbbed that thunder forth
A sound wherein who hearkens
wisely hears
The voice of the desire of
this strong North —
This north whose heart of
fire,
Yet knows not its desire.
Clearly, but dreams, and
murmurs in the dream
The hours of dreams is done;
lo, on the hills the gleam.”
Truly this is mere prose chopped
like the honorable Ross’s stump speeches into verse, or what these gentlemen please
to call verse for want of a better name.
The
foremost name in Canadian song at the present day is that of George Charles Douglas
Roberts, poet, canoeist and Professor of Literature — Lighthall in his introduction.[back]
"Through the darksome
splendor break the lonesome cry of loon,”
— from Stratton’s “Evening
on the Marshes”[back]
“Violet, orange, indigo, red,
Green, yellow and blue from
each dimond are shed,
More beautiful these
than the jewels of a throne,
For the forest is
nature’s glory and crown.”
— from Stratton’s “Hysterics
upon Frost”
There is no known law in poetry
which can make metre of this poem; if there is, Stratton has the secret.[back]
The “Red Swan”
is Carman’s favorite birch bark canoe, so named by him from the phenomenal rosiness
of its bark material.”
— Lighthall’s
Notes
Carman
has made it the subject of one hundred and fifty-four lines of ghostly verse, which
something resembles an Irish ballad.[back]
This is Campbells
accusation, and the bards concerned, Carman Scott, Lampman and Roberbts were credited with
correcting the Munsey reviewer’s proof. Several ludicrous letters on the
subject were published in the Toronto Globe.[back]
Wm. Wilfred Campbell,
prolific scribbler — He was mightily offended at and bitterly attacked the bards who
displayed so much genius in the conduct of their own review in Munsey’s
Magazine, but it turned out that the real cause of his resentment was his being
denied a similar liberty.[back]
“Marjory, Marjory, make the tea,
Singeth the kettle merrily.”
— Campbell’s
folk song[back]
“Only the rifles crack
And answer of rifle back.
Heavy each haversack,
Dreary the prairie’s
track,
Far to the North and the
Westward.”
Although these haversacks are so
heavy, Campbell has his soldiers starving; probably our reverend friend being a man of
peace imagines that the soldier carry their kit in them.[back]
Duncan Campbell Scott,
Government official, Indian Department, Ottawa, selfsatisfied writer and aspirant of
literary fame.[back]
Frederick George Scott,
Reverend, whose sermons must be more orthodox than his verse, else he had long since been
convicted of heresy and false doctrine.[back]
“Great Mother they have told us that the snows
Of fifty winters sleep
around thy throne,
And buds of spring now
blossom with sweet breath,
Beneath thy tread.”
— Scott’s
“Wahonomin”[back]
“Wild the prairie grasses wave,
O’er each hero’s
new-made grave.”
— Scott’s
“In Memoriam”[back]
Llewellyn Morrison,
scribbler of Toronto, who, though not incorporated in Lighthall’s compilation, is as
a disciple of folly worthy of that honor.[back]
Imrie is not included in
Lighthall’s galaxy, and instead of giving thanks to the gods he was insulted.[back]
Imrie has a modest little
hobby of collecting all the press notices of himself, and these he has printed in a neat
pamphlet and presents without a blush to whoever will read them. He claims to be a
patriot, too, but is an excellent trimmer.[back]
Nicholas Flood Davin —
This gentleman’s weak point seems to be his attempts at poetry; the fact of his being
an M.P., can in nowise excuse the stupendous nonsense of The Prairie Year,
Lighthall calls it Prairie Transcript, presumedly from the fact that it is
similarly monotonous.[back]
It would be hard to decide
which was the greater criminal, the author who wrote Rough Ben, or the editor who
permitted it to appear; perhaps the Week could tell us.[back]
Fidelis poetically, or
Agnes Maule Machar in the vulgar — Novelist, Disputant for the Canadian Poetess’
Palm, inclined to Latin translations.[back]
Lighthall tells us that Sir
Daniel Wilson is a reputed scientist, but mathematics alone would teach Sir Daniel that it
is impossible to drink a landscape.[back]
Mr. Kirby is a bright star
in William Douw’s Heaven, he will live longer probably, than Lighthall himself,
Government official, author of Canadian Idylls, writer of some very good verse, and
much rubbish.[back]
- William Wye Smith, Reverend, who is a man more
sinned against than sinning.[back]
The story of this talented
lady is but the repetition of that of many proceeding lights and is therefore too old to
attract attention. Her talents were original, and certainly surpass in depth and
finish any of our living imitators of Tennyson.[back]
Mr. Edgar, M.P., has felt
it his duty to translate the song of that imported nuisance, the English sparrow. [back]
- Hamlet — “One who could circumvent
God, might it not?” [back]
Archibald Lampman, Civil
Service, Ottawa, would assuredly pass for a poet if the human interest was more strongly
developed in his verse. But Maud and In Memonam seem to be the only
criterions of poetry with our imitating bards. What will become of the imitations
when the originals are already on the wane.[back]
Pauline Johnson, who
occupies poetically the most unique position in history.[back]
Annie Rothwell, whose
poetry we hope to see properly appreciated, in point of “poetical Afflatus,” as
the professor saith, she is assuredly equal to the Singer of Tantramar, and no doubt Mr.
Roberts being a gentleman and a scholar, as well as a “canoeist,” will be ready
to acknowledge the extraordinary capabilities of this lady as rivalling his own.[back]
Alexander McLachlin, Poet,
requires no introduction to make him known; his honest verses are like the man who writes
them vigorous and plain; he does not produce froth, but ideas unaffected and beautifully
clothed. He is the first poet in Canada.[back]
The Independent Week desires
a prohibitory tax imposed upon the dime novel. Surely that most pretentious journal
has no ambition to shine in the realm of fiction.[back]
The Week instead
of dominating public sentiment has succumbed to that power, and was forced to repudiate
its former oracle that egregious Theorist, Dr. Goldwin Smith, who, has joined — in
the support of the Olney doctrine — that Triumvirate, of which Michael Davitt, John
Redmond and himself are the members. But we take this opportunity to tell this Dr.
of The Depths that there are instincts in the human breast with which even his philosophy
is unable to cope.
“No children are we to be flattered or fear’d
But bold independence
we love and adore,
And we’ll stand by
the column that victory rear’d
Till the last son of
freedom sucumbs in his gore.”
Meantime we can laugh at him and
laugh also at Principal Grant who calls it an infringement of British liberty to tell the
Dr. of Annexation to shut his mouth.[back]
This was the class of
literature that carried the laurel away from all competitors a few years ago, and the
award of the Week was the subject of much mirth at the time. One gentleman, of our
acquaintance, supposed that the victor’s prize of $50 probably cost him a
hundred. He had been in the newspaper business himself and “spoke as one having
authority and not as the Scribes and ‘envious’ Pharisees.”[back]
The lately deceased Grip
may justly deigned this record, that it died in defence of its principles.[back]
A writer, some time since,
in Saturday Night, who had travelled in the Balkans is authority for this
statement.[back]
One of our bards threatened
to voluntarily exile himself because Canadians refused to be charmed with his rhyme; he,
however, reconsidered his intention although he is as deep in oblivion as ever.[back]
One of the most ancient
perogatives of poetry was to correct, or at least punish, the vices to which it is
traditionally opposed; but our gentleman prefer to paddle a canoe, address pumpkins,
frogs, or some similar subject to striking those degraded, vicious, and mercenary boodlers
who are a blot upon this age and country.[back]
Nearly all our bards occupy
positions where Government salaries prevent them speaking; but the author of this poem
congratulates himself upon the fact that he is free and will so remain; at the same time
he considers it but just to himself to state that truth and integrity are to him of much
greater importance than the frown or condemnation of the baset slave or the most
illustrious criminal.[back]
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