Shorter Shelley

Poems of James McIntyre (Ingersoll, ON: Chronicle, 1889)

Bit of an Edward Gorey feel to it, don't you think?

James McIntyre had such a hard time with names. For instance, there's that tribute to Susanna Moodie, in which he not only messes up her surname, but refers to William Lyon Mackenzie as "McKenzie". Here, of course, "Shelly" is Shelley. Perhaps a good thing that McIntyre didn't include the full name – Percy seems safe, but Bysshe is tricky.

Wildly Wayward Walt Whitman

To Toronto this evening for the launch of my friend George Fetherling's third novel, Walt Whitman's Secret, at Ben McNally Books.

So... in anticipation of this joyous event, James McIntyre's verse about the Good Gray Poet:

Poems of James McIntyre (Ingersoll, ON: Chronicle, 1889)

D'Arcy McGee, All Compliment to Thee

James McIntyre's warm tribute to the great Thomas D'Arcy McGee, assassinated 142 years ago this morning.

Poems of James McIntyre (Ingersoll, ON: Chronicle, 1889)

T.D. MCGEE.

Having been kindly invited as a member of the Mechanics' Institute some 25 years ago by the late Jeremiah O'Neill, Esq., to meet that gentleman in company of a number of our townsmen, when Mr. McGee was rising from the table the chair being new stuck to him and it being near a general election he very wittily remarked that he hoped the people of Montreal would be anxious to retain him in his seat as the people here are. We wrote the following lines at the time, the last verse was added afterwards.

D'Arcy McGee,

All compliment to thee,

The hope of the land

On your lecture so grand.

Though that is your forte,

Oh give us the sport

Of an hour of your chat,

Then we'll laugh and grow fat.

For none but the vile

Could 'ere cease to smile,

When near to thee

So brilliant and free.

Plant of green Erin's isle,

Long in Canadian soil,

May you take deep root

And bear much noble fruit.

Our hopes were in vain,

Alas he is slain,

By a crankish hand

The flower of the land.

Related posts:

'O Martyr'd McGee!'

D'Arcy McGee's Query (with a response)

A St. Patrick's Day Fragment

'IN MEMORIAM! The Hon. T.D. McGee'

A Poet's Angry Word With the Fenian Brotherhood

Funny He Never Married

Ingersoll's 1897 Fireman and Police Banquet. Hardly a woman in sight.

Today's James McIntyre poem is "Lines Addressed to an Old Bachelor". Here the twice married poet does his best to flog the idea of matrimony to one who does not care for female company.

Why not?

Do I read too much into the use of the word "wingle" – slang for penis?

Poems of James McIntyre (Ingersoll, ON: Chronicle, 1889)