More Victoria Day Disaster Verse

The Toronto Daily Mail
25 May 1881

John Wilson Bengough's poem on the wreck of the Victoria on Victoria Day, 1881, off the banks of the Canadian Thames. Published in his Motley: Verses Grave and Gay – most certainly an example of the former –  it joins Ingersoll Cheese Poet James McIntyre's succinct "Disaster to Steamer Victoria at London" as verse inspired by the disaster. I honestly can't say which I prefer.

Motley: Verses Grave and GayJ.W. Bengough
Toronto: William Briggs, 1895

Related posts:

Victoria Day Poetry Disaster

 Cheery Victoria Day Verse from the Cheese Poet

A Civil Servant's Awful Victoria Day Poem

Queen Victoria and He

Verse for Victoria Day by the Master of All Poets

'Away to Canada' – A Song for Victoria Day
Victoria Day Verse from Victoria
Victoria Day Verse from the Second World War

A Cartoonist Remembers Sir John A. Macdonald

On the day we're being encouraged to celebrate the bicentenary of our first prime minister's birth, something from the other end. This unusual piece of memorial verse, penned by Grit Grip cartoonist John Wilson Bengough is found in Motley: Verses Grave and Gay (Toronto: William Briggs, 1895).

SIR JOHN A. MACDONALD

                              Dead! Dead! And now before
                  The threshold of bereavèd Earnscliffe stand,
                  In spirit, all who dwell within our land,
                              From shore to shore! 

                              Before that black-draped gate
                  Men, women, children mourn the Premier gone,
                  For many loved and worshipped old Sir John,
                              And none could hate. 

                              And he is dead, they say!
                 The words confuse and mock the general ear—
                 What! can there yet be House and Members here,
                              And no John A.? 

                              So long all hearts he swayed,
                Like merry monarch of some olden line,
                Whose subjects questioned not his right divine,
                             But just obeyed 

                             His will's e'en faintest breath,
               We had forgotten, 'midst affairs of State,
               'Midst Hansard, Second Readings and Debate,
                             Such things as death! 

                             Swift came the dread eclipse
               Of faculty, and limb, and life at last,
               Ere to the Judge of all the earth he passed,
                             With silent lips, 

                             But not insensate heart!
               He was no harsh, self-righteous Pharisee—
               The tender Christ compassioned such as he,
                             And took their part 

                             As for his Statesman-fame,
               Let History calm his wondrous record read,
               And write the truth, and give him honest meed
                             Of praise or blame!