Agnes Maule Machar's Perfect August Day

Ah, August, month of my birth. I've always found it too hot and too humid – rarely more so than this year. In "The Passing of Père La Brosse," Agnes Maule Machar notes: 

...August nights are cool

In these north regions. Summer goes so soon!

I shouldn't complain.

"The Passing of Père La Brosse" is one of the longer poems in Miss Machar's Lays of the 'True North' and Other Canadian Poems (Toronto: Copp, Clark, 1899). "An August Morning," more typical in length, was read Saturday morning during a visit to Agnes Maule Machar Park in Gananoque, Ontario.

AN AUGUST MORNING

      In gleam of pale translucent amber woke

          The perfect August day;

      Through rose-flushed bars of pearl and amber broke

          The sunset's golden way. 

      The river seemed transfigured in its flow

          To tide of amethyst,

      Save where it rippled o'er the sands below,

          And granite boulders kissed. 

      The clouds of billowy woodland hung unstirred

          In languorous slumber deep,

      While, from its green recesses, one small bird

          Piped to its brood asleep. 

      The clustering lichens wore a tenderer tint,

          The rocks a warmer glow;

      The emerald dewdrops, in the sunbeam's glint,

          Gemmed the rich moss below. 

      Our birchen shallop idly stranded lay

          Half mirrored in the stream,

      Wild roses drooped, glassed in the tiny bay,

          Ethereal as a dream! 

      You sat upon your rock, enthroned a queen,

          As on a granite throne,

      And all that world of loveliness serene

         Held but us twain alone. 

      Nay! but we felt another presence there,

          Around, below, above;
      It breathed a poem through the fragrant air
          Its name was LOVE!

Related posts:

The Dustiest Bookcase: M is for Machar
Agnes Maule Machar's New Year's Wish (& mine)
'Easter Lilies' by Agnes Maule Machar
Atypical Easter Verse by Agnes Maule Machar

A 123-Year-Old Poem for Dominion Day

Verse by the First of Dominion Poetesses

A Thanksgiving Hymn
Miss Machar's 'The Call of Christmas - 1914'

What Is a Canadian Fiction?

Several months ago, The Dorchester Review asked me to review David Staines' A History of Canadian Fiction.

Who am I to turn down an invitation.

Professor Staines' book was read at great sacrifice. Going through its 304 pages I ignored Stephen Henighan, a favourite critic, who shared his opinion of A History of Canadian Fiction in the pages of the Times Literary Supplement. A blind eye was turned to Stephen W. Beattie, another favourite, who reviewed the book for the Quill & Quire.

After submitting my review I read the two Stephens, sat back, and watched for more. I was more than rewarded with John Metcalf's newly published The Worst Truth: Regarding A History of Canadian Fiction by David Staines (Windsor: Biblioasis, 2022).

The Worst Truth quotes Henighan's TLS review, in which he makes this criticism of Staines:

He provides a useful introduction to Inuit literary culture, paying the 39,000 native speakers of Inuktituk an attention he denies to Canada's 7.3 million native speakers of French.

Well, the Spring/Summer Dorchester Review has now landed, bringing with it my review of Professor Staines' history, some of which adds to Henighan's observation:

How is it that a book titled A History of Canadian Fiction would exclude work written in French? Remarkably, Staines does not address this issue. In fact, he doesn’t so much as recognize the existence of Canadian fiction written in French. Of the hundreds of writers of fiction named in this book, we find two French names: Roger Lemelin and Gabrielle Roy. They first feature in a short list of “important people” who were once interviewed by Mavis Gallant and reappear as in another list of writers whose fiction Mordecai Richler had read. Roy’s name is in a third list, this of writers with whom Sandra Birdsell corresponded. 
     And that’s it. 
     The only mention of a work written in French appears in a nine-page "Chronology of historical, cultural, and literary events" that precedes the text itself. Next to the year 1632, we find: “Jesuit Relations, an annual, begins and continues until 1673.” But of course, they weren’t the “Jesuit Relations,” they were the Relations des jésuites.

More in The Dorchester Review.

And I have even more to say.

Invitations accepted.

Charles Sangster's Birthday Poem

Son of Kingston, Charles Sangster was born two hundred years ago today. I can't claim to remember much of his verse, the following from The Saint Lawrence and the Saguenay, and Other Poems (Kingston: Creighton & Duff, 1856) excepted. It's thought to have been written in 1855 for Mary Kilborn, whom the poet married in 1856... and who died in 1858. 

MARY'S TWENTIETH BIRTHDAY

                         One of the Fourscore years, Mary,

                            Has passed like a dream away,

                         A dream of laughter and tears, Mary,

                            Like a showery summer's day,

                                 With its rainbow bright,

                                 In the warm twilight,

                            Fair pledge of a happier day, Mary,

                            God's pledge of a happier day.

                        Swiftly the seasons roll, Mary,

                           Like the waves o'er a mighty sea,

                        Searching the depths of the soul, Mary,

                           With their power and mystery.

                                Every hour that flies,

                                Tells in distant skies

                           The words that it heard from thee, Mary,

                           The deeds that are done by thee.

                       See that the tale be pure, Mary,

                          That the Hours may have to tell;

                       Goodness and Truth, we are sure, Mary,

                          Heav'n loveth exceeding well;

                               And the beauteous mind

                               Where Truth is shrined,

                          Glows bright as a sunny dell, Mary,

                          Glows bright as a sunny dell.

                       More of the Fourscore years, Mary,

                          Must pass like the first away,

                       Each, as its turn appears, Mary,

                          May not be a summer's day;

                               But Hope's rainbow bright,

                               With its smile, will light

                          The close of a happier day, Mary,

                          The dawn of Eternal Day.