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

Immoral Music for a Monday Morning

Pure filth condemned by John Wesley's White in Re-entry (1970), his forty-four-year-old book on Christ's imminent return. Writes Dr White:

Tops of the pops like, "Have you [sic] Got Cheating on Your Mind," "Second Time Around," "Strangers in the Night," and the Rolling Stones' "Let's Spent the Night Together" are deliberately written and sung to promote immorality.

The Oxford PhD has never been very good with titles. I'm sure that by "Have you Got Cheating on Your Mind" he means "Woman, Woman", the Jim Glaser/Jimmy Payne song, which was a hit for Gary Puckett and the Union Gap. But isn't the song about being faithful? Was it really "written and sung to promote immorality"? You tell me.

A #1 single in Canada, "Woman, Woman" did indeed top the pops, but what about "Second Time Around"? Sure, the song was nominated for an Academy Award, but in the words of Frank Sinatra it "never got off the ground". Old Blue Eyes thought it should be a standard and recorded it a number of times, but it was first sung by depraved Bing Crosby in High Times (1960).

The words and music were written by the debauched duo of Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen, who are best remembered for obscenities like "High Hopes", "Come Fly with Me" and, of course, "Love and Marriage".

Sinatra bears much of the blame for "Strangers in the Night", which on 2 July 1966 topped the Billboard Hot 100 by bumping off "Paperback Writer". This video captures the singer sixteen years later in performance before an audience of reprobates:

And finally we have the Rolling Stones. Once the most licentious and lewd of all rock and roll combos, they redeemed themselves with this famous performance on The Ed Sullivan Show:

Dr White should recognize.

Related posts:

The Oxford PhD Rambles On

Songs for Sunday Suggested by John Wesley White

Mackenzie King Attends the Funeral of Peregine Acland's Mother & Visits Wilfred Campbell's Grave

I had a half hour's rest after luncheon before going into the city to attend Mrs. Acland's funeral. Went in with Hendy by station car, changed to large car before Rideau Club. At the house on Bronson Ave. was shown to a seat on a couch by Mr. Acland. He looked & was very frail – is 88 (his wife was over 90). He held on to my arm during the service & afterwards I sat with him a short time, while the flowers were taken out, then went with Mary & Peregrine to the cemetery. There was only one other car with some relatives. It was a beautiful afternoon & the scene at the cemetery was quite peaceful. Kind words were spoken by those who had come down. Later Lay and I sought out Wilfrid [sic] Campbell's grave & spent a few moments there. — a beautiful restful spot.

An entry in Mackenzie King's diary, dated sixty-five years ago today, gives evidence of a more civilized Ottawa. The former prime minister was in the eighth month of his retirement from politics when "Mrs. Acland", wife of Frederick Albert Acland and mother of Peregrine Acland, died. The entry gives little sense of the high regard and warmth with which King held the Acland family. Their paths first crossed in 1895 when "Mr. Acland" hired a twenty-year-old Mackenzie King to write for the Globe. Other aspects of their working relationship can be seen in Mrs Acland's Ottawa Citizen obituary (27 June 1949):

During the Second World War, King hired Peregrine, author of All Else is Folly, to act as advisor, press officer and secretary. The younger Acland held the positions until the prime minister's retirement, oversaw the transition to successor Louis St Laurent, then became a manager at a Toronto advertising firm. It's likely that it was he who placed this obituary in the Globe & Mail (27 June 1949):

The prime minister's friendship with William Wilfred Campbell began in 1902 when the poet wrote "H.A. Harper" in memory of King's friend Bert Harper, who had drowned in the Ottawa River whilst trying to save a young woman who had fallen through the ice.

Curiously, throughout King's diaries Wilfred Campbell is referred to invariably as "Wilfrid Campbell"; the influence of that other great Liberal prime minister Wilfrid Laurier, perhaps.

Related posts:

The Great Canadian Great War Novel

Alec Falcon, c'est moi

Remembering Peregrine Acland

Canada's Great War Novelists: Peregrine Acland

A Neglected Novelist's Neglected Grave

Peregrine Acland: Fifty Years

Mystery at Beechwood Cemetery

Mistake at Beechwood Cemetery?