“Lipsett Indian Museum,” by Blanche E. Holt Murison

Murison, Blanche E. Holt. “Lipsett Indian Museum.” The Native Voice 15.7 (July 1961): 15.

Blanche E. Holt Murison (1880-1968) was a periodical poet who contributed work to journals beginning in the early 1900s. She published a poem, “In Memorium,” in the McGill University Magazine in 1913, and “The Mothering Heart” was anthologized in Canadian Poets of the Great War in 1918. She contributed the following poem to the 1961 Special Pauline Johnson Centenary Edition of The Native Voice, in honour of Edward and Mary Lipsett, who amassed “an impressive collection of Indian arts and crafts, [which was] known the world over as the Edward and Mary Lipsett Indian Museum.” She was born in England and immigrated to Canada in 1904, marrying Captain William Holt Murison of the Canadian Expeditionary Forces. They lived in Saskatoon for a while, then moved to Vancouver. It is hard to find out more about her at the moment, as we do not know her maiden name.

 

Lipsett Indian Museum

The patterned patience of the centuries,
The warp and woof of bark and rush and reed—
The art of carven wood and woven bead,
Here dramatise ancestral effigies.
Totems of immemorial heraldries
Attest the ritual of the tribal creed—
Tootooch and Quil-tum-tum of mythic breed,
Tell tales of peace and war and pedigrees.

Splendid perfection—’broidered caribou,
Mastodon ivory—a warrior’s spear—
The fighting prow of an old war canoe—
A chieftain’s brave regalia—and here
Touched tenderly with transcendental grace,
The portrait of a Mother of her Race.

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“Who Has Not Paddled By Moonlight?” by Mona Gould

This undated poem by Mona Gould is found in her archived papers at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Room at the University of Toronto, box 6.10.

Who Has Not Paddled by Moonlight?

Who has not paddled by moonlight
Into the light, white
Heart of silence…
Who has not followed the penciled line of a dark shore
Where a grey veil… thin as a nun’s veil
Comes down to touch the water…
Where pines stand holding their tense dark green-ness
Against the darker night,
Must search forever for the silver core
Of Beauty!—

Harsh are the shoulders of the lowering rocks
That lean their gnarled ungainly shapes
Above the shivering waters

Here is an island, peopled with ghosts
Both grave and gay;
A rickety wharf, where sailboats tied their slimness up
In other days;
Now lost forever all the echo of voices,
Moth-light, the stillness.

There is a silence where the souls kneels down
Oh very close to Beauty;
Brush shoulders with her
Paddling in the moonlight.

An acrostic by Jane Arkley

Arkley, Mrs. Geo. [Jane Arkley]. “An Acrostic.” A Book of Verse. Sherbrooke, QC: Page Printing and Binding, 1912. 10-11.

“Dom Pedro of Brazil,” by Jane Arkley

Arkley, Mrs. Geo. [Jane Arkley]. “Dom Pedro of Brazil.” A Book of Verse. Sherbrooke, QC: Page Printing and Binding, 1912. 10-11.

Perusing Jane Arkley’s lovely little book of poems, I saw this title and had to post it, given a family connection with Brazil.  Dom Pedro II, last Emperor of the Empire of Brazil (there were only 2, Dom Pedro I having separated from Portugal in 1822), was deposed in 1889, at the age of 63, despite his outstanding record of governing and his popularity with the people. The coup d’état was instigated by military leaders who wanted a republic instead of a monarchy, however successfully Pedro II had ruled.

Within Arkley’s volume, this poem is not alone in its political theme: other poems include (among others) two with General Gordon as the subject; “Michilimacinac”; “The British Valor,” about Trafalgar; “The Rouge and the Bleu,” about Canadian politics in the late 1800s; “The Ratepayer has a Word to Say,” not surprisingly about excessive taxation; and the obviously named “Elections”.

The volume ends with an acrostic, which I will post tomorrow, and a number of “autographs” to named individuals, none of whom are famous or can even be recognized as other obscure authors.

“His Valentine,” by Vera V. Robertson

Yesterday, I posted a poem by Irene Chapman Benson, dedicated to Vera V. Robertson, whom we didn’t even have on our list. A little poking about the internet revealed her as a Winnipeg poet contemporary with Benson, who also lived in Winnipeg. Here is a poem I found easily: as with most of our authors, more and deeper digging is required…

Robertson, Vera V. “His Valentine.” Winnipeg Free Press 14 Feb. 1939: 8.

His Valentine

“To Bliss Carman,” by Irene Chapman Benson

Benson, Irene Chapman. “To Bliss Carman.” The Crucible 4.1 (Autumn 1936): 2.

We all know Bliss Carman, of course, but who is Vera V. Robertson, and why has Irene Chapman Benson dedicated this poem to her? All we know at the moment is that she published poetry in the Winnipeg Free Press in the late 1930s, wrote the lyrics to a song, “Mary: A Christmas Carol for Ladies’ Voices,” in 1935, and won an award for her humorous verse in 1943.

To Bliss Carman
(Dedicated to Vera V. Robertson)

He made to live again the sunset hour
Long after shadows lengthened in the West;
And ‘twixt immortal pages he has pressed
The lilt of birds–the glory of the flower.
He brings again the throb of April shower
To hearts grown old. The weary and oppressed
Shall hear once more the pipes of Pan and rest
Midst dreams of youth in some cool woodland bower.
The thundering sea he loved–the soft south wind,
The northland far beyond the haunts of men;
All beauty that is Canada enshrined,
Sweet prisoners of the witchery of his pen,
In deathless verse his spirit dwells behind,
And in eternal music lives again.

 

“Search,” by Anne Marriott

Marriott, Anne. “Search.” Masterpieces of Religious Verse. Ed. James Dalton Morrison. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1948. 345.

“Hidden Beauty,” by Dorothy Sproule

Sproule, Dorothy. “Hidden Beauty.” The Crucible 4.1 (Autumn 1936): 10.

Hidden Beauty

We all wear masks to hide our deeper selves,
Our fear of failure and our hope delayed,
Until the call comes to unmask, and then
A rare and hidden beauty is displayed.

Our eager searching for the gold of life
Is but the spirit struggling to be free,
But when the earthly Carnival shall end
Then Beauty pledges Immortality.
 

“The Sea Gull,” by Margaret Furness MacLeod

MacLeod, Margaret Furness. “The Sea Gull.” The Crucible 4.1 (Autumn 1936): 9.

“And the Waters Rose…” by Mona Gould

This undated poem by Mona Gould is found in her archived papers at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Room at the University of Toronto. Its subject matter suggests that it was written at the onset of the Second World War.

And the Waters Rose…

And the water rose
And covered the fields:
Houses floated like chips on the raging flood.
Lives were lost…
Innumerable lives.
The desolation was unspeakable.

“Read your Bible, child” said the old woman,
“Flood… and fire and pestilence…
We’ve had them all,
And if the river rises like I think she’s going to
We’ll see the Judgment Day”!

And the waters rose
And saf[sic] in anther country
High and dry on solid ground
Certain altogether conscience-less gentlemen
Plotted busily on how to pull another war
“Pfut”… like that out of a cocked hat.

“Well… Once before the Lord was driven to desperate lengths
But he had Noah, then…” said the old woman.
And the waters rose
And covered the fields!—