Thanksgiving Verse by J.K. Foran

Poetry for this Thanksgiving Day by J.K. Foran, KC, Lit D, LL D., from the posthumously published collection A Garland: Lectures and Poems (Montreal: Gazette, [1931]).

THANKSGIVING 

      For the sound of waters rushing

            In bubbling beads of light;

      For the fleets of snow-white lilies

            Firm anchored out of sight;

      For the reeds among the eddies,

            The crystals on the clod;

      For the flowing of the rivers,

            I thank Thee, O my God!

      For the rosebud’s break of beauty,

            Along the toiler’s way;

      For the violet’s eye that opens

            To bless the new born day;

      For the bare twigs that in summer

            Bloom like the prophet’s rod;

      For the blossomings of flowers,

            I thank Thee, O my God!

      For the lifting up of mountains

            In brightness and in dread;

      For the peaks where snow and sunshine

            Alone have dared to tread;

      For the dark and silent gorges

            Whence mighty cedars nod;

      For the majesty of mountains,

            I thank Thee, O my God!

      For the splendor of the sunsets,

            Vast mirrored on the sea;

      For the gold-fringed clouds that curtain

            Heaven’s inner majesty;
      For the molten bars of twilight,

            Where thought leans glad, yet awed;

      For the glory of the sunlight,

            I thank Thee, O my God!

      For the earth and all its beauty,

            The sky and all its light;

      For the dim and soothing shadows

            That rest the dazzling sight;

      For unfading fields and prairies,

            Where sense in vain has trod;

      For the world’s exhaustless beauty,

            I thank Thee, O my God!

      For an eye of inward seeing,

            A soul to know and love;

      For these common aspirations

            That our high heirship prove;

      For the hearts that bless each other

            Beneath Thy smile, Thy rod;

      For the amaranth saved from Eden,

            I thank Thee, O my God!

      For the hidden scroll, o’erwritten

            With one dear name adored;

      For the heavenly in the human,

            The Spirit in the Word;

      For the tokens of Thy presence

            Within, above, abroad;

      For Thine own great gift of being,

            I thank Thee, O my God.

Sadly, I don't own a copy of A Garland. Happily, it can be read online at Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec through this link. Their copy was a gift to the Bibliothèque de la ville de Montréal from Dusty Bookcase favourite Ethel Ursula Foran, Dr Foran's daughter.

Related posts:

Dr  Logan's Ode for Thanksgiving Day
An Old Thanksgiving Ode by James McIntyre

Jean Blewett's 'Thanksgiving Song'

Jean Blewett's 'Thanksgiving Prayer'

Edna Jaques' Award-Winning Thanksgiving Verse

Thanksgiving in the Midst of War
'October in War Time'

A Thanksgiving Hymn

Thanksgiving Day Advice

'Thanksgiving Morn'

An Expatriate Canadian Poet's New England Thanksgiving

for Canadian Thanksgiving

Easter Verse by Ethel Ursula Foran

Mature juvenilia by Ethel Ursula Foran, from her first volume, Poems: A Few Blossoms from the Garden of My Dreams (Montreal: Beauchemin, 1922):  

EASTER 

                     The holy Lenten season
                     At last has passed away.
                     And to-day we celebrate
                     Our glorions Easter Day.
                     "Reserrexit sicut dixit"
                     The Angels sweetly sing,
                     And in humble adoration
                     Pay homage to their King.
                     "He is risen," Yes, we knew it;
                     He had but the word to say
                     And His glorious, sacred Body
                     Rose from out the tomb that day.
                     Christ has risen," Alleluia,
                     Let us all our treasures bring
                     To the feet of our sweet Savior,
                     To our dear triumphant King.
                     Only one sweet tiny treasure
                     Jesus asks with love divine,
                     'Tis your heart — then won't you give it
                     To your risen Lord and mine?

Related posts:

'The Easter Parade, 1915' by Robert Stanley Weir

Uncollected Easter Verse by Arthur Stringer

'Communion Pascale' de Émile Nelligan
The Angels of Mons at 100

The Angels of Mons at 100

The Angels of Mons, R. Crowhurst, c.1920

This day marks the centenary of perhaps the most extraordinary event in the Great War. The setting was Mons, Belgium, site of the first major struggle between British and German forces. The latter outnumbered the former by a factor of two to one, yet all the King's men proved victorious. They did so with the aid of angels. Or were they veterans of the Battle of Agincourt called down from heaven? Did St George lead the charge? Joan of Arc? Maybe it was the archangel Michael.

Gothic master Arthur Machen argued against all of the above, citing his supernatural fantasy "The Bowmen", not divine intervention, as the source the legend. His convincing and highly entertaining Introduction to The Angels of Mons: The Bowmen and Other Legends of the War (1915) should have prevented things like this piece of reportage from the 10 August 1915 Globe:

Got that? An unnamed man received a letter from his unidentified sister recounting a conversation with a certain Miss M, who had told the man's sister that an undisclosed friend told her about seeing angels. Later, another anonymous man told her that he too had seen angels.

Now, before you and Jan Harold Brunvand discount this story, I point out that the man who received the letter was "one of the most prominent citizens in Toronto", and that Miss M. was "daughter of the canon". The canon? Which canon? Why, Reverend Canon M., of course.

Lest you doubt an anonymous man's word about something written to his sister by a woman who was told something by someone and someone else, allow me to present this article about an unnamed preacher, who on alluded to the words of an unidentified soldier as reported by an unknown nurse. Ye of little faith are advised to consider that this featured in a sermon that was delivered somewhere at some point:

The Globe, 11 April 1916

A year and a half later, on 2 October 1917, the newspaper reported on another sermon. This time the clergyman was named:

Reverend Gustave Adolf Kuhring was several thousand of kilometres from the scene of battle, so relied on his powers of oratory in delivering a chilling account of the British advance as led by St George, his horsemen and his archers:

A German officer later taken prisoner asked:—
       "Who were those men with the bows and arrows? We tried to get their leader, the one on the white horse, but couldn't hit him."
       "It is sworn by numerous witnesses," said Mr. Kuhring, "that when the British came to examine the bodies of the dead, by far the larger number of them had no wounds on their bodies."

A century later, we're still looking for those testimonies, and that of the "nurse who had been brought into contact with one of the soldiers from the battle [sic] of Mons." In their absence, I recommend "The Angel of Mons" by Ethel Ursula Foran.

The Battle of Mons, 23 August 1914

Like Rev Kuhring, Montreal poet Ethel Ursula Foran was a believer; unlike Rev Kuhring, her faith was not blind. "The Angel of Mons" is the longest poems in her debut collection, Poems: A Few Blossoms from the Garden of My Dreams (Beauchemin, 1922). A piece of juvenilia, the date of composition is unknown. The poet was thirteen years old on the day of the battle.

THE ANGEL OF MONS

(A legend of the Great War of 1914-1918.) 

The Great War that Napoleon in exile foretold
O'er the nations of Europe like a tidal-wave roll'd—
Crumbling Crowns into dust, snapping Sceptres in twain,
Shaking Thrones to earth to ne'er rise again,
Scattering armies of might, burning humbler homes,
Laying low in the dust spires, temples and domes,
Bringing death and grim ruin in its terrible wake
Until half of all Europe was a blood-crimsoned lake.
The fires of destruction blazed fierce on each shore,
All sounds were drowned out in the thundering roar
Of cannon, of rifle, of bomb and of shell,
Turning heavenly peace into furious hell.
While Death in all forms stalked over the world,
And its blood-stained banners were fiercely unfurled.
There were terrors untold in the Teutons' advance
Which rallied the forces of Britain and France.
It was thus in the midst of that world-shaking strife,
A struggle intense to save Liberty's life,
That the darkness of night was lit into a glow,
In the heavens above, in the valleys below,
When the flashing of shells, as they rushed through the sky,
To the thundering guns of the trench made reply,
When the "curtain of fire" cast its blaze o'er the plain,
And the soil was deep-drenched with torrents of rain,
When the signals of death rushed over the sky
And the hovering aeros inter circled on high,
When each trench was at once a shelter and tomb,
As the spirits of life and death met in the gloom,
Whence eager eyes watched for a move or a sign
To reveal the fate of their much-harassed line;
The sentinels on duty gazed anxious afar
For a hint of the fight in the trenches of war.
All through the long night as the Germans advance,
Sharp vigils are kept by both Britain and France.
Not a man at the front has a moment's repose.
No watcher dare sleep though his aching eyes close.
'Twas thus, 'midst the shreaks of a furious night,
A vision appeared over Mons' naming height, —
A something that seem'd supernatural to all —
A something that thousands of soldiers recall.
Was it a spirit of Hope or a spirit of Doom
That arose on their sight amidst stygean gloom?
What is it that the watcher with night-glass there cons?
They call it, who saw it, "The Angel of Mons." 

The soldiers of France, looking out of the dark,
Thought they saw on the hills Saint Joan of Arc,
Clad in armour of silver, with a sabre of gold,
Advancing to lead them as she did of old
 They claimed that the vision so wondrous to see
Was a heavenly sign of a grand victory;
And strong grew each heart that was growing faint,
As they thought they were fighting 'neath the eye of their Saint 

The soldiers of Britain saw the vision as well;
That wonderful tale these brave fellows tell
Just as ghost-stories are told with lowering breath,
For they feared such a vision far more than death.
Then one whispered the word, in a moment of awe,
It was England's Saint George that the whole army saw.
The courage at once revived in each breast,
Of victory's wave they were now on the crest —
They declared that the War was now rightly begun —
And would end with the crush of the barbaric Hun. 

The Belgians beheld Saint Michael the Great
In the vision of Mons, like a signal of Fate,
As he drove the dark legions from Heaven above.
So his power and his justice again he will prove
By leading the ranks that are fighting for Right.
By commanding once more against soldiers of Might.
It could not be other than the Archangel there
That appeared like a spectre, in the sulphurous air;
His invincible sword he unsheathes as of yore,
He will fight for God as he once fought before,
And the hosts of dark evil will again be hurl'd
From the face of the earth clear out of the world:
Such the Belgians thought was that vision so bright
That appeared above Mons in the depths of the night.
Be Michael, or George or Joan the Saint
That appeared over Mons amidst glimmering faint,
Like a spectre let loose from the region of ghosts,
Sent to cheer on to glory fair Liberty's hosts,
The Angel of Mons was a harbinger true
Of the victory the Allies eventually knew.
It may be a legend, or it may be a fact —
With the spirits of Power it may be a pact —
Or it may be a phantom of some horrible dream —
Or it may be of God a forerunning gleam;
But the Angel of Mons was the polar star
Of many a hero in that terrible war. 

It is said that soldiers, like sailors, are all
Superstitious and fear the supernatural;
They see spirits in trees and ghosts on the waves,
The dead in shrouds coming out of their graves,
They shudder to think of the spirits that walk,
And the beasts that like human beings oft talk.
It is likely that all the things that they dread —
Be they the living or be they the dead —
Arose to their fancy as on Mons' grim height
They witnessed the vision upon that dread night.
But one thing is certain and all question defies,
That Angel brought victory to the Allies.

Patriotic Verse from the Garden of a Girl's Dreams

For this day, the 147th anniversary of the birth of the Dominion of Canada, patriotic verse by the ever-charming Ethel Ursula Foran. A piece of juvenilia, it leads off Poems: A Few Blossoms from the Garden of My Dreams, her debut collection of "immature verses", published in 1922 by Librarie Beauchemin. "With all their imperfections they must remain just as they were composed", Miss Foran writes in the Preface. In accordance with her wishes, the poem is presented here with typos and misspellings intact.

CANADA 

I love this fair Dominion; my natvie land, all hail!
Its wondrous proportions are on the grandest scale;
Its endless virgin forests, its mighty inland seas,
Its Rockies and its Selkirks, like Alps and Pyranees;
Its vast expanse of prairies, where vision seeks in vain
The limits of the billowy fields of undulating grain;
Its rivers with their volumes, in their majestic sweep,
Through miles of fertile country down to Atlantic's deep;
Its cascades and the thunders of Niagara's giant fall;
The echoes of its vastness that from sea to mountains call;
Its Liberties as precious as the features that we trace,
Its blending of all elements of province, creed and race;
Its every noble aspect that God has pronounced "good,"
'Tis a marvellous mosaic of Canadian nationhood.
Yes, I love this fair Dominion, the grandest land on earth,
'Tis the land of a bright future, and the dear land of my birth.

Related posts:

A 123-Year-Old Poem for Canada Day

Two Hurrahs for the New Dominion

Charles G.D. Roberts' Dominion Day Collect

Of Old Books and (possibly) Mummy Paper

Delightfully charming, unconventionally sentimental schoolgirl verse from Ethel Ursula Foran, whose "New Year's Day" has proven to be by far the most popular poem posted on this blog. Here a very young Miss Foran turns her attention towards favourite things material:

The dead, the embalmed, the mausoleumed... I'm certain that this is the first verse I've read to feature the word "sarcophagi".

            You chat and live with dead men of thought
            As you sit and pursue the words they wrought.
            They are peaceful companions that never betray,
            Nor dispute, nor quarrel, for silent are they.

'Tis lovely, though one cannot escape the sad thought that Miss Foran is herself now a peaceful companion.

What I find most intriguing comes in the poet likening aging books to "Egyptian mummies of old." Might this be a clever allusion to the oft-repeated myth – or is it? – that linen wrappings of mummies were used by nineteenth-century New England papermakers?

I suppose we'll never know.

Never mind.

As we nurse our respective Dominion Day hangovers, I present the six oldest Canadian books in my collection.

The Poems of Thomas D'Arcy McGee

Thomas D'Arcy McGee

Montreal: D. & J. Sadlier, 1870

Purchased four years ago – US$8.00 – at an antique store in Point Pleasant, New Jersey. At my aunt's 88th birthday dinner the previous evening I'd bragged that only one Canadian politician had ever been assassinated: McGee. I am a joy at parties. No invitations declined.

Endymion

The Right Hon. Earl of Beaconsfield

Montreal: Dawson Brothers, 1880

Not by a Canadian, but it was published in Canada, I picked up Endymion three years ago for $1.99 at our local Salvation Army Thrift Store. The Dawson Brothers – Samuel and William – were once Montreal's preeminent publishers and booksellers; I came along a century later. A bookish lad raised in the oldish suburb of Beaconsfield, I knew Benjamin Disraeli's name before those of Messrs Wilson and Heath.

Tecumseh: A Drama

Charles Mair

Toronto: Hunter, Rose, 1883

A first edition of the Confederation Poet's epic about the great man, this was a gift from a friend who had rescued it from a box of rejected donations to the McGill Library Book Sale. Most generous, I think you'll agree.

A Popular History of the Dominion of Canada

Rev. William H. Withrow, D.D. F.R.S.C.

Toronto: William Briggs, 1885

How popular? Well, my copy ranks amongst the sixth thousand. Purchased in 2000 for forty dollars – I paid too much. Though I've never taken so much as a glance beyond the title page, I'll bet that it's a more interesting work than Neville Trueman: Pioneer Preacher, Rev Withrow's preachy War of 1812 novel.

The Other Side of the "Story"

[John King]

Toronto: James Murray, 1886

A new acquisition, found just last week at a bookstall in London, Ontario. Storm clouds were gathering. In his "INTRODUCTORY", Mr King describes this publication as a "brochure", but at 150 bound pages I'm going to say it's a book. I've not yet had a chance to properly investigate its contents, so know only that it is a critique of John Charles Dent's The Story of the Upper Canadian Rebellion (Toronto: C. Blackett Robinson, 1885). Price: 50¢.

Sam Slick, The Clockmaker

Thomas Chandler Haliburton

New York: John B. Alden, 1887

Purchased thirteen years ago for US$8.00 from a Yankee bookseller, this is surely the skinniest edition of the CanLit classic. Thin, pulpy and grey/brown in colour, the paper is typical of the publish and crumble era. I can write, with great certainty, that no mummies were destroyed in it's making.

Immature Verse for a New Year

Twenty-two lines of celebration from Poems (Beauchemin, 1922), the first volume by young Ethel Ursula Foran (1900-1988). The daughter of True Witness editor Joseph Kearney Foran, himself a poet, she subtitled her collection of "immature verses" A Few Blossoms from the Garden of My Dreams.

Related posts:

A New Year

An Old Poem for the New Year by Arthur Stringer

Temperance Verse for New Year's Day