“Night on Grouse Mountain,” by Lois H. Gilpin

Gilpin, Lois H. “Night on Grouse Mountain.” The Arbutus Tree. Vancouver, BC: Clarke & Stuart, [1926]. 10-11.

Last weekend, our friend Sarah was snowshoeing up on Grouse Mountain; the week before, we were doing the same on Mount Seymour. The views were spectacular, but far more sparkly with city lights than this painting by the poet, Lois Gilpin. Regardless of the season, our mountains inspire.

Night on Grouse Mountain

“My Own,” by Annie Alley

Alley, Anne. “My Own,” Evening Patriot (Charlottetown) 10 March 1925.

We are currently rewriting our old entries to conform with our new, expanded, database. I was reading through the old files on Anne Alley, and came across this poem, included in a tribute in the Charlottetown Evening Patriot, where she published a number of poems during her lifetime. Annie Alley, as she is called in her obituary, died on 9 March 1925 in her residence at the Sea Breeze Hotel in Georgetown, Prince Edward Island.

My Own

They dwell with me at eventide;
     I feel their arms around me thrown;
Space cannot keep them from my side;
     I hold them close—my own, my own.
 
‘Mid glittering stars in Moonbeams’ light,
     When summer’s softest breezes blow,
They bide with me from morn till night;
     They are my own—I know, I know.
 
Their spirits guide my wayward will
     Through years of wandering life alone;
Each breath a thought, each thought a thrill
     Of joy that brings me back my own!
 
And in the twilight of my days
     While shadows deepen as they grow,
The mist that clouds my visioned gaze
     Shall lifted be—I know, I know!

“Morrow Land,” by E. Pauline Johnson

“Johnson, E. Pauline. “Morrow Land.” The Mohawk Princess (Tekahion/Wake). By Mrs. W. Garland Foster. Vancouver, BC: Lions’ Gate, 1931. 103-4.

Strangely, this poem does not appear to be readily available online, as so many of Johnson’s poems are. Written at Easter in 1900, it was first published in 1931, in Annie Garland Foster’s early biography of Johnson, The Mohawk Princess (Tekahion/Wake). As the Early American Native Literature website calls it one of “Johnson’s finest lyrics,” it is only right that it be shared here in its entirety.

Morrow Land

In morrow land there lies a day,
With shadows clad and garments grey,
When sunless days will come my dear,
And skies will lose their lustre clear,
Because you will be miles away.

“Has Fate no other kindlier way,
No gentler hand on me to lay,
Than I to go, than you stay,
In Morrow Land?

“But oh, these days will be so dear
Through all the bleak and coming year,
This passion week of gold and grey,
Will haunt my life and bless my way
In Morrow Land.”

“The North-Land,” by Martha Craig

I am not intentionally posting poems this week with First Nations themes, but my current various investigations tend to lead me this direction unexpectedly. We had Martha Craig listed as the author of The Gardens of Canada, a description of homes in the Burlington, Ontario, area. There was mention of Legends of the North Land, but I had not previously located a copy. It was uploaded to archives.org this past February, so now we can see what an interesting little chapbook it is… In it, Martha Craig calls herself “Princess Ye-Wa-Ga-No-Nee”; I would truly love to know more of her biography…

Craig, Martha (“Princess Ye-Wa-Ga-No-Nee”). “The North-Land.” Legends of the North Land. [1910?]. 21-23.

 

The North-Land

“Only an Indian Squaw,” by Alice Ardagh

Espérance [Alice Maud Ardagh]. “Only an Indian Squaw.” The Week (Toronto) 31 March 1887.

This little piece of First Nations exoticising appeared as a “book” by Alice Ardagh when we were re-verifying her list of texts for our database entry. Further probing determined that it is, in fact, only a poem.

Only an Indian Squaw

Only an Indian squaw!
Brown as a berry,
Each eye an ebon star,
Each lip a cherry.
Light as the mountain-deer,
Active and agile,
Voice deep, yet sweet and clear,
Form slight and fragile.
Back from the sunburnt brow,
Thick and entwinèd,
Tresses of raven hue,
Float unconfinèd.
And though a savage belle,
Wit is not wanting—
Wondrously beautiful!
Darkly enchanting!

“Napoleon,” by Emily Beavan… solved?

Here again is the acrostic by Emily Beavan that I posted a while back… we have come to something like a consensus about what the beautiful but hard-to-decipher hand writing says. See if you agree with us.

Napoleon

Nurs’d in the lap of war and strife
Amid the camp he pass’d his life
Proud France, from you the Hero came
O‘er all the earth to raise a name
Like the fierce eagle thus begun
Earth saw him soar to Victory’s sun
Oh too as living man of Fame,
Now what’s thy glory’s end — a name.

“La Crosse,” a third acrostic by E. Pauline Johnson

Johnson, E. Pauline. “La Crosse.” E. Pauline Johnson, Tekahionwake: Collected Poems and Selected Prose. Ed. Carole Gerson and Veronica Strong-Boag. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2002. 158.

As promised, here is the longer acrostic, “La Crosse,” included in Gerson and Strong-Boag’s collection of Johnson’s work.

La Crosse

Crown Prince born of the forest courts —
A child of the stealthy Redskin Race,
Now you are throned as the King of Sports —
Acclaimed as ruler, while yet the race
Dark and savage, of Indian blood,
Arrows its way with a tiger’s grace —
Surging your veins with its headlong flood.

Nature has made you a virile thing —
Agile and lithe, that no time can tame,
Tawny your sire, but your mothering
Indian and Paleface, both may claim,
Owing your birth to the wilds remote —
National game of the roust North,
A panther, wrapped in a racehorse coat —
Live with its blood you are forging forth.

Sinew of deer in your woven net,
Pulse of the ash in your curving frame,
Obeying the master-hand firm set
Renews the birth you cannot forget
That crowns you Canada’s kingly game.

“Canada,” another acrostic by E. Pauline Johnson

Johnson, E. Pauline. “Canada.” E. Pauline Johnson, Tekahionwake: Collected Poems and Selected Prose. Ed. Carole Gerson and Veronica Strong-Boag. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2002. 154.

Johnson wrote a few of these, it appears.  Here is the short acrostic, “Canada.” Tomorrow I will post “La Crosse” for you, as I am sure many followers are now curious.

Canada

Crown of her, young Vancouver; crest of her, old Quebec;
Atlantic and far Pacific weeping her, keel to deck.
North of her, ice and arctics; southward a rival’s stealth;
Aloft, her Empire’s pendant; below, her nation’s wealth.
Daughter of men and markets, bearing within her hold,
Appraised at highest value, cargoes of grain and gold.

“Brandon,” an acrostic by E. Pauline Johnson

Johnson, E. Pauline. “Brandon.” E. Pauline Johnson, Tekahionwake: Collected Poems and Selected Prose. Ed. Carole Gerson and Veronica Strong-Boag. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2002. 159-60.

To join with the other acrostics I have recently posted, here is one by E. Pauline Johnson. It was tempting to include instead Johnson’s “La Crosse,” which reads down the lines “Canadas National Sport” (found in Gerson and Strong-Boag’s edited collection on page 158), but this selection better parallels May Judge’s acrostic of Vancouver.

BRANDON

Born on the breast of the prairie, she smiles to her sire—the sun,
Robed in the wealth of her wheat-lands, gift of her mothering soil,
Affluence knocks at her gateways, opulence waits to be won.
Nuggets of gold are her acres, yielding and yellow with spoil,
Dream of the hungry millions, dawn of the food-filled age,
Over the starving tale of want her fingers have turned the page;
Nations will nurse at her storehouse, and God give her grain for wage.

“A Chant Out of Doors,” by Marguerite Wilkinson

Wilkinson, Marguerite. “A Chant Out of Doors.” Farmer’s Advocate and Home Journal (23 June 1920).

I get a little thrill of satisfaction when an author or poet’s name pops unexpectedly out of a magazine I am reading through. Today, I was looking at a few pages in the Winnipeg-based Farmer’s Advocate and Home Journal for information about, or writings by, Jessie Turnbull McEwen. Not only did I discover that in 1927 Lillian Beynon Thomas had written an article about McEwen’s contributions to pioneering life, but that one of our authors yet to be included—Marguerite Ogden Wilkinson—had a poem published next to McEwen’s 1920 obituary. Here is that poem.