Is This the Dominion's Only Goose Girl Poem?

Now that National Poetry Month is over, a poem for May by Virna Sheard, pride of Cobourg, Ontario, from Candle Flame (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1926).

It follows verse in which she rightly praises postmen.

ALL ON A MAY MORNING

I saw a lovely lady walk along a leafy lane,

When primroses were blowing and the cuckoo sang again;

She wore a ruffled gown of pink, a hat of rosy hues,

And twinkling silver buckles on her little high-heeled shoes;

     Most daintily she carried a tall tasselled cane,

     While a small beribboned poodle came following in her train.

Then said I to the morning sun: "O do not let her pass!

A more bewitching, beauteous maid ne'er owned a looking-glass!

And if she turns in any gate, and goes I know not where,

It's probable I'll never see another maid as fair!

     Without the faintest knowledge of her charming name, alas!

     I sallied forth to meet her across the young green grass.

My hand upon my fluttering heart, I bowed extremely low,

And said: "A thousand pardons, but my way I do not know,

For since I chanced to see you from yon blossoming orchard tree,

The West is East, the South is North,—and all the same to me!

     And I have not any notion which way the four winds blow,

     Or on what highroad, up or down, t'would be the best to go!

"Of your kindness pray direct me to the left—or to the right;—

(You really should—because 'tis you have put my wits to flight,)

And I'd be quite madly joyful, and grateful this sweet day

If it should hap, by any luck, that your way was my way.

     There surely never was a morn more gay and golden-bright,

     And I have not a thing to do, but walk about till night."

Alack! That shining lady in that green primrosy lane,

Turned first to whitest marble—and then turned back again!

Her cheeks flamed red with fury—and her eyes flamed black with rage,

And she looked at me as might a queen at a good-for-nothing page!

     She tossed her head, and firmly, set down the tasselled cane,

     "I do not know you Sir!" she said,—and walked on with disdain.

"Beauty altogether perfect, cannot possibly be rude,"

Said I, and went the other way—but in a chastened mood;

Nor did I start a-whistling—as on such a day one should—

Till I reached the village common where a little goose-girl stood,

     Egad! The prettiest goose-girl that I have ever viewed!

     (Her flock was one grey gosling, by a frantic dog pursued.)

But tears were falling from her eyes, her eyes of blue-bell blue;

So I said: "Come! Come! Now what's amiss? Why all of this ado?"

And she cried: "O Sir! My darling geese! Of them I am bereft!

Of all the lovely twenty-five, there's only this one left!

     What shall I do! What shall I do! Whatever shall I do!

     The huntsmen came a-riding by—and all my geese just flew!"

I could not bear to see a little maiden so forlorn,

(I noticed that her curls were just the color of ripe corn;)

"Why go along with me!" said I, "tame geese will not fly far, 

And you and I together will discover where they are!"

     So hand in hand we hunted geese that mellow May-day morn,

     And I found that little goose-girl was a rose without a thorn.

Related posts:

May Day and the Promise of May

A Poem for May Day by Gay Page

Happy May Day!

'When April Comes' by Virna Sheard

Now That April's Here, Virna Sheard's 'April'

Virna Sheard Sees November as a Hooded Friar

Ten Poems for National Poetry Month, Number 10: 'April' by Mary Morgan

For the month, the last of ten poems

I find interesting, amusing, and/or infuriating.

A final poem for National Poetry Month, 'April' comes from the pen of Mary Morgan, daughter of James and Catherine Morgan, niece of Montreal merchant king Henry Morgan of the Henry Morgan Company. The brief biography included in Types of Canadian Women by Henry James Morgan (no relation, I believe) suggests a life of both privilege and constraint.

cliquez pour agrandir

'April' is found in Poems and Translations (Montreal: J Theo Robinson, 1887), her first volume of verse.

APRIL

                         Thou balmy April evening,

                              I love thy beauty rare;

                         The clouds obscure the heavens,

                              A star shines here and there.

                         The breath of love is filling

                              The zephyrs as they blow;

                         The fragrance of the violet

                              Is wafted from below.

                         O for a strain of music

                              To suit the pensive hour

                         Some cadence low and tender

                              To lell its soothing power!

The poet identifies 'April' as a translation "from the German of Geibel." I'm unfamiliar with the language, but believe the original to be 'Im April' by Emanuel von Geibel:

                        Du feuchter Fruehlingsabend,

                        Wie hab' ich dich so gern!

                        Der Himmel wolkenverhangen,

                        Nur hie und da ein Stern.

                        Wie leiser Liebesodem

                        Hauchet so lau die Luft,

                        Es steiget aus allen

                        Talen Ein warmer Veilchenduft.

                        Ich moecht' ein Lied ersinnen,

                        Das diesem Abend gleich,

                        Und kann den Klang nicht finden,

                        So dunkel, mild und weich.

Am I right?

My conclusion is based on a translation provided by Google:

                         You damp spring evening,

                         How I like you so much!

                         the sky overcast,

                         Just a star here and there.

                         Like a gentle breath of love

                         breathe so lukewarm the air,

                         It rises from all valleys

                         A warm violet scent.

                         I want to think up a song

                         The same this evening

                         And can't find the sound

                         So dark, mild and soft.

Assuming I am correct, I much prefer Mary Morgan's.

How 'bout you?

Ten Poems for National Poetry Month, Number 9: 'My Own Canadian Girl' by W.M. MacKeracher

For the month, the ninth of ten poems

I find interesting, amusing, and/or infuriating.

What could be considered romantic verse from W.M. (William MacKay) MacKeracher's Canada, My Land and Other Compositions in Verse (Toronto: William Briggs, 1908).

MY OWN CANADIAN GIRL

                    The demoiselles of sunny France

                         Have gaiety and grace;

                    Britannia's maids a tender glance,

                         A sweet and gentle face;

                    Columbia's virgins bring to knee

                         Full many a duke and earl;

                    But there is none can equal thee,

                         My own Canadian girl.

                    Thy hair is finer than the floss

                         That tufts the ears of corn;

                    Its tresses have a silken gloss,

                         A glory like the morn;

                    I prize the rich, luxuriant mass,

                         And each endearing curl

                    A special grace and beauty has,

                         My own Canadian girl.

                   Thy brow is like the silver moon

                        That sails in summer skies.

                   The mirror of a mind immune

                        From care, serene and wise.

                   Thy nose is sculptured ivory;

                        Thine ears are lobes of pearl;

                   Thy lips are corals from the sea,

                        My own Canadian girl.

                   Thine eyes are limpid pools of light,

                        The windows of thy soul;

                   The stars are not so clear and bright

                        That shine around the pole.

                   The crimson banners of thy cheeks

                        To sun and wind unfurl;

                   Thy tongue makes music when it speaks,

                        My own Canadian girl.

                   God keep thee fair and bright and good

                        As in thy morning hour,

                   And make thy gracious womanhood

                        A still unfolding fiow'r.

                   And stay thy thoughts from trifles vain,

                        Thy feet from folly's whirl,

                   And guard thy life from every stain,

                        My own Canadian girl!

 

Ten Poems for National Poetry Month, Number 8: 'Mended' by Edith Lelean Groves

For the month, the eighth of ten poems

I find interesting, amusing, and/or infuriating.

Verse from Edith Lelean Groves' Everyday Children (Toronto: The Committee in Charge of the Edith L. Groves Memorial Fund for Underprivileged Children, 1932)

MENDED

          "You've mended my dolly, now please mend me."

               And the sapphire eyes they were dim

          As she showed me her poor bent twisted foot,

               And her queer little mis-shaped limb.

          "My dolly was hurled worse than me,

               For her stuffing came out, and then

          Her foot it came off, Oh, she was a sight!

               But they've made her over again.

          "I think I'm most as important as she,

               Dad calls me his own precious pearl,

          And mummy she cries, for I'm all that they've got,

               That one little onliest girl.

          "I'm awfully tired of braces and things,

               And crutches that weight most a ton,

          I want to run round on my own two feet,

               Like the others and have some fun."

          So early one day they carried her off,

               With never a sigh or a frown,

          To a wonderful children's hospital,

               In the heart of her own home town.

          "Why I think," she said, "this is fairyland!"

               And then she was sure it was Heaven,

          The nurses were kind and the doctors good,

               To this dear little girl just seven.

          And they straightened her mis-shaped twisted foot,

               Though the time it seemed very long,

          She never grumbled but cheered the rest up

               Right bravely with chatter and song.

          And this all has a fairy tale ending,

               For gladness and joy and laughter

          Came into the life of the little girl,

               Happy she lived ever after.

Related posts:

Hurray for the Crippled Children's Bus!

What About the Children?

Ten Poems for National Poetry Month, Number 7: 'Dat's Laurier' by William Wilber MacCuaig

For the month, the seventh of ten poems

I find interesting, amusing, and/or infuriating.

The second of two poems praising Wilfrid Laurier in William Wilber MacCuaig's Songs of a Shanty-Man and other "Dialect Poems" of French-Canadian Life (Toronto: Musson, 1913). The poet's only book, it's also dedicated to the great statesman.

"DAT'S LAURIER"

                    Who's dat raise h'all de row 'e can,

                    When 'e's small boy, h'also beeg man,

                    An' gets dere firs' mos' h'every tam?

                          Dat's Laurier.

                    Who's dat, when 'e's young lad at school,

                    Was at de top 'es class, no fool.

                    Can fight lak' mischief an' keep cool ?

                          Dat's Laurier.

                    Who's dat when partee Liberal

                    Was all bus' up on N.P. wall

                    'E save dat ship safe trou' it all?

                          Dat's Laurier.

                    When partee Conservateur was run,

                    An' on 'es side got all de fun,

                    Who's dat was firin' off 'es gun?

                          Dat's Laurier.

                    Who's dat, when Boer in h'Africa,

                    Raise beeg hurrah about some law,

                    'E feex 'im wid sodger from Canada?

                          Dat's Laurier.

                    Who's dat, when our good Queen she die,

                    Advise dem people fer to try,

                    Dat young fella—de Prince, so shy?

                          Dat's Laurier.

                    Who's dat, when in politique dey fight.

                    An' knock h'each oder out of sight,

                    Was settle h'everything all right ?

                          Dat's Laurier.

                    Who's dat, when 'e's gone far away,

                    De people's lonesome every day,

                    De crop 's bad, and dere's no hay?

                          Dat's Laurier.

                    Who's dat dey blame for h'everyting.

                    When dere's damp wedder and cole spring,

                    But 'e jus' smiles an' says, "By jing!"—

                          Dat's Laurier.

Related posts:

Wilfrid Laurier: 100 Years

Further Along The Lane That Had No Turning

Ten Poems for National Poetry Month, Number 6: 'Easter, 1942' by H.C. Mason

For the month, the sixth of ten poems

I find interesting, amusing, and/or infuriating.

Unconventional Easter verse, eight decades old this year, by son of Staffordville, Ontario Harold Campbell Mason (1895-1976). The poet served as gunner in the First World War, surviving a leg wound that took him out of the fighting two months before the Armistice. After his return to Canada, he studied at the Ontario Agriculture College, turned to dairy farming, served as farming editor for the London Advertiser, and worked on adverts for Purina.

Mason wrote two books, the first, Bits o' Brass (Toronto: Thomas Allen, c.1921), being a collection of short stories and verse inspired largely by the war in which he'd fought. His second and last book, Three Things Only... (Toronto: Thomas Nelson, 1953) collects verse from the first, adding others, some of which were inspired by the Second World War.

This is one.

Mason's enlistment papers record his religion as Methodist.  

EASTER, 1942

        

Ring out, O happy Easter bells
For Christ is risen, is risen indeed!
Proclaim to priest and people from every chiming steeple
That Christ is risen, is risen indeed!

Let your clamor, let your clanger, let your chime

     Beating time

     Praise the Lord!

Praise the risen Victor-Victim by all the saints adored.

     Praise the Lord!

For Christ is risen, is risen, is risen

For Christ is risen, is risen indeed

For Christ the Lord is risen, is risen indeed!

        Young Jimmy Geantley, fresh-faced fighter pilot,

        Just ten months out of college

        Still grilled by his commission,

        His uniform and badges,

        His cunning and his courage,

        The thunder of his engine and the power of his guns,

        Sees the tracers smoking past him,

             Dives her,

             Spins her,

        Sees the blue and orange flame-spout

        Spurt across the dizzy cockpit,

        Tries to beat the horror down with bare hands,

        Burned and helpless hopeless hands,

        While he plummets flaring, flaming

             To the earth.

        There's a girl in far Toronto who will never know her mate

        But such is human nature, such is fate.

        Every Sunday, through the years,

        Through a haze of prideful tears

             She will see his name enshrined

        "To the glory of our God and in loving memory"

        While the boy fades out of mind

        And legend grows instead,

             Warrior-hero, warrior-dead,

             Happy hero, happy dead,

        Smiling hero, dead to save us

             In the war.

Ring out, O happy Easter bells
For Christ is risen, is risen indeed!

He is risen, He is risen, He escapes this earthly prison,

He prepares us many mansions

     For believers

     In the skies!

        "Ah lovely and blue is the sky above Naples

             And lovely and blue is the sea,

        And lovely and blue are the eyes of Giana

        The bright one, the fair one, from fair Lombardy!"

        So humming to comfort him, heartsick and lonely

             To bolster his courage, alone in the night,

             Antonio Rillio hears not the rustle, the only

        Faint warning of peril, of heart-clutching fright-

        Of the rush, of the yell, of the knives, and the Night.

Ring out, O happy Easter bells
For Christ is risen, is risen indeed!

Proclaim to every nation glad tidings of salvation

For Christ the Lord is risen, is risen, is risen, is risen,

For Christ the Lord is risen, is risen indeed!

        Soldier Ivan Volushenko hangs groaning on the wire.

             Hangs tangled in the wire,

        Holding hard his belly where the Fascist bullet got him

        As if almost he hoped to stop that steady bleeding, that inward fatal bleeding,

             But he knows— 

        He knows the thing will kill him

        Here so far from far Kazan.

        Little Ivan, and Katushka, and the others,

        They will never know their father,

        They will think of him as a hero, not as a man,

        They will tell the tale with pride,

        How he fought and how he died,

        How he died to save his comrades

             In the war.

Ring out, O happy Easter bells— 

Intone, O priest, and chant, O choir!

     Let your voices, soaring higher,

Join a tale of jubilation, tell the story of salvation,

Spread the story far and wide

How the Victor-Victim died,

How he died and how he rose

With a mighty, mighty triumph o'er his foes,

     O'er his foes— 

Alleluia, praise the Lord,

For Christ the Lord is risen, is risen indeed!

        Little Gretchen Kinderkin lies dying in the rubble,

        Lies dying in the rubbish where the British bomb exploded,

        Twisted, torn, and flung to die

        Pinned beneath the bone brickwork.

             She is lucky, she is dying

        Free from pain and freeform terror

        After that first shrieking instant,

        That brief shrieking instant,

        Not again too hear the bombers, not again to bear the bombings,

        Not again to shrink and shiver

        And hear the children cry.

             She is dying,

        Luckier far than brother Hansel whom she sheltered as they fell

        In the centre of the howling and the thunder-blast of hell—

        He must live out his life with his arm torn off.

        They will tell him, when he's older,

        How his sister sought to save him,

        How his sister died to save him

             In the war.

Ring out, O Easter bells, ring out,

For Christ is risen, is risen indeed,

And Mrs. John Jones has a new spring hat.

Let your calmer, let your clanger, let your chime

     Beating time

     Praise the Lord!

Doesn't Mrs. Smith look ghastly in that ghastly green creation,

I wonder what it is he sees in her?

Do you think the tartan tie is really regulation,

And the collar of that tunic—do you think it's really fur?

Proclaim to every nation glad tidings of salvation,

     Tell a tale of jubilation

To the booming and clanging of the bells—

     Praise the Lord,

For Christ is risen, is risen indeed!

        For Christ is risen, is risen indeed?

        Ah no. He hangs upon his cross

        Bewildered by defeat and loss— 

        Worshipped. A god. A thing apart.

        The nails still tearing at his tortured hands,

        The doubt still tearing at his tortured heart.

Related posts:

'Easter Lilies' by Agnes Maule Machar

'The Eastern Winds' by Liliian Leveridge

Dorothy Dumbrille's Easter Prayer

Easter Verse by Ethel Ursula Foran
'Easter Dawn' by Jean Blewett
'The Easter Parade, 1915' by Robert Stanley Weir

Uncollected Easter Verse by Arthur Stringer

'Communion Pascale' de Émile Nelligan

Ten Poems for National Poetry Month, Number 5: 'Sad End of a Noted Politician' by James MacRae

For the month, the fifth of ten poems

I find interesting, amusing, and/or infuriating.

To think I once worked to celebrate this horrible man.

I first learned of John J. MacDonald – "James MacRae" – a few months after moving to St Marys, the small Ontario town he adopted as his home. That introduction came through The Four James, William Arthur Deacon's 1927 study of MacRae and fellow poets James McIntyre, James Gay and James D. Gillis.

The four are forever united by that book. Indeed, their very legacies are crafted by that book and its subsequent reissues, the last of which was published forty-eight years ago by Macmillan.

"Canada's Four Worst- And Funniest-Poets."

They're not the four worst, nor are they the four funniest.

It's all too easy to see the Four Jameses as being similar (Paper Lace), when in fact they were actually very different from one another (The Beatles). McIntyre, the most prolific, was the most grounded. Like so much of his verse, 'Ode on the Mammoth Cheese,' his greatest hit, was intended to raise a smile at country fairs. Deacon encourages us to laugh at it, when we should be laughing with it. Gay, a loving and loveable loon who thought himself Tennyson's rival, is the most fun to read. Gillis wasn't so much a poet as a prose writer. He's included for no other reason than to make for a great title.

The differences between these four men is most evident in their respective reactions to the 1880 murder of politician and Globe publisher George Brown.

Unsurprisingly, the tragedy inspired no verse from prose-writer James Gillis. James McIntyre writes of his sorrow in a poem titled 'Departed Statesman.' James Gay expresses great affection for the fallen man with 'The Honourable G. Brown.' James MacRae's 'Sad End of a Noted Politician' is something else entirely.

A different kind of loon than Gay, much of MacRae's poetry is taken up by hate thrown on women, strangers, Protestants, and Liberals. 

'Sad End of a Noted Politician' comes from The Poems and Essays of John J. MacDonald, (Ottawa: Ru-Mi-Lou, 1928), the poet's third and final book.

MacDonald's nom de plume is misspelled on the cover.

SAD END OF A NOTED POLITICIAN

On a cold winter night, cruel death in its might,
Deprives Mr. Brown of his senses;

Now the joys that attend all his honours must end,

And his long night of sorrow commences.

As he hears the decree, he determines to flee

To the gate of the dwelling of glory,

But that gate he finds closed, and his entrance opposed,

Although sad to his party the story.

Thus insultingly used, thus disowned and refused,

He goes on in another direction;

At that medium place, where the Papists have grace,

He asks humbly for rest and protection.

But in vain as before for thgat rest to implore—

He must follow his downward gradation;

With the devil despite he soon meets at the gate,

And there follows this sort of conversation:—

 

     G.B.—Disappointed and grieved, of mu comforts bereaved,

                 And my relatives all at a distance,

                 I have come to request of you leave her to rest,

                 And to ask your paternal assistance.

     DEV.—Oh! my corpulent friend, I your case apprehend,

                 And will grant you coveted pittance;

                 If you tell me the claim that you have on the same

                 You will gain to my dwelling admittance.

     G.B.—It is little you know in these regions below;

                You must think I'm a Papist or Paddy;

                As a Child if you prize the retailer of lies,

                I can certainly claim you for daddy.

     DEV.—You must still keep aloof till you give me some proof

                 On your noble and worthy exertions;

                 For I oft shall mistake if I venture to take

                 Every wandering stranger's assertions.

     G.B.—In my nethermost robes I have brought you some globes,

                You will find them a recommendation;

                     They will prove beyond doubt that I laboured throughout

                 In extending your own dominion.

     DEV.—By the stories they tell now I know you too well,

                 And to have one more prudent would rather,

                 For, exposing my plan by the course which you ran,

                 You have brought disgrace on your father.

                 For to win the applause some men for my cause

                 Some discretion and caution are needed;

                 But, regardless of this, you have acted amiss,

                 And my wise inspirations unheeded.

                 But your failings I feel have resulted from zeal

                 To encourage your partners in evil;

                 So forgetting your sin, you may quietly come in

                 But you must be exceedingly civil.

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