Collected Verse\u00a0By E. Pauline Johnson<\/p>\r\n
To his Royal Highness<\/p>\r\nThe Duke of Connaught\r\n\r\nWho is Head Chief of the Six Nations Indians\r\n\r\nI inscribe this book by his own gracious permission\r\n
I cannot say how deeply it touched me to learn that Pauline Johnson\u00a0expressed a wish on her death-bed that I, living here in the mother\u00a0country all these miles away, should write something about her.\u00a0I was not altogether surprised, however, for her letters to me\u00a0had long ago shed a golden light upon her peculiar character. She\u00a0had made herself believe, quite erroneously, that she was largely\u00a0indebted to me for her success in the literary world. The letters I\u00a0had from her glowed with this noble passion: the delusion about her\u00a0indebtedness to me, in spite of all I could say, never left her. She\u00a0continued to foster and cherish this delusion. Gratitude indeed was\u00a0with her not a sentiment merely, as with most of us, but a veritable\u00a0passion. And when we consider how rare a human trait true gratitude\u00a0is\u2014the one particular characteristic in which the lower animals\u00a0put us to shame\u2014it can easily be imagined how I was touched to find\u00a0that this beautiful and grand Canadian girl remained down to the\u00a0very last moment of her life the impersonation of that most precious\u00a0of all virtues. I have seen much of my fellow men and women, and\u00a0I never knew but two other people who displayed gratitude as a\u00a0passion\u2014indulged in it, I might say, as a luxury\u2014and they were\u00a0both poets. I can give no higher praise to the \"irritable genus.\"\u00a0On this account Pauline Johnson will always figure in my memory as\u00a0one of the noblest minded of the human race.<\/p>\r\n
Circumstances made my personal knowledge of her all too slight. Our\u00a0spiritual intimacy, however, was very strong, and I hope I shall be\u00a0pardoned for saying a few words as to how our friendship began. It\u00a0was at the time of Vancouver's infancy, when the population of the\u00a0beautiful town of her final adoption was less than a twelfth of what\u00a0it now is, and less than a fiftieth part of what it is soon going\u00a0to be.<\/p>\r\n
In 1906 I met her during one of her tours. How well I remember it!\u00a0She was visiting London in company with Mr. McRaye\u2014making a tour of\u00a0England\u2014reciting Canadian poetry. And on this occasion Mr. McRaye\u00a0added to the interest of the entertainment by rendering in a\u00a0perfectly marvellous way Dr. Drummond's Habitant poems. It was in\u00a0the Steinway Hall, and the audience was enthusiastic. When, after\u00a0the performance, my wife and I went into the room behind the\u00a0stage to congratulate her, I was quite affected by the warm and\u00a0affectionate greeting that I got from her. With moist eyes she\u00a0told her friends that she owed her literary success mainly to me.<\/p>\r\n
And now what does the reader suppose that I had done to win all\u00a0these signs of gratitude? I had simply alluded\u2014briefly alluded\u2014in\u00a0the London \"Athenaeum\" some years before, to her genius and her\u00a0work. Never surely was a reviewer so royally overpaid. Her allusion\u00a0was to a certain article of mine on Canadian poetry which was\u00a0written in 1889, and which she had read so assiduously that she\u00a0might be said to know it by heart: she seemed to remember every\u00a0word of it.<\/p>\r\n
Now that I shall never see her face again it is with real emotion\u00a0that I recur to this article and to the occasion of it. Many years\u00a0ago\u2014nearly a quarter of a century\u2014a beloved friend whom I still\u00a0mourn, Norman Maccoll, editor of the \"Athenaeum,\" sent me a book\u00a0called \"Songs of the Great Dominion,\" selected and edited by the\u00a0poet, William Douw Lighthall. Maccoll knew the deep interest I\u00a0have always taken in matters relating to Greater Britain, and\u00a0especially in everything relating to Canada. Even at that time\u00a0I ventured to prophesy that the great romance of the twentieth\u00a0century would be the growth of the mighty world-power of Canada,\u00a0just as the great romance of the nineteenth century had been the\u00a0inauguration of the nascent power that sprang up among Britain's\u00a0antipodes. He told me that a leading article for the journal upon\u00a0some weighty subject was wanted, and asked me whether the book was\u00a0important enough to be worth a leader. I turned over its pages and\u00a0soon satisfied myself as to that point. I found the book rich in\u00a0poetry\u2014true poetry\u2014by poets some of whom have since then come to\u00a0great and world-wide distinction, all of it breathing, more or less,\u00a0the atmosphere of Canada: that is to say Anglo-Saxon Canada. But\u00a0in the writings of one poet alone I came upon a new note\u2014the note\u00a0of the Red Man's Canada. This was the poet that most interested\u00a0me\u2014Pauline Johnson. I quoted her lovely canoe song \"In the Shadows,\"\u00a0which will be found in this volume. I at once sat down and wrote\u00a0a long article, which could have been ten times as long, upon a\u00a0subject so suggestive as that of Canadian poetry.<\/p>\r\n
As it was this article of mine which drew this noble woman to me,\u00a0it has, since her death, assumed an importance in my eyes which it\u00a0intrinsically does not merit. I might almost say that it has become\u00a0sacred to me among my fugitive writings: this is why I cannot resist\u00a0the temptation of making a few extracts from it. It seems to bring\u00a0the dead poet very close to me. Moreover, it gives me an opportunity\u00a0of re-saying what I then said of the great place Canadian poetry is\u00a0destined to hold in the literature of the English-speaking race. I\u00a0had often before said in the \"Athenaeum,\" and in the \"Encyclopaedia\u00a0Britannica\" and elsewhere, that all true poetry\u2014perhaps all true\u00a0literature\u2014must be a faithful reflex either of the life of man or\u00a0of the life of Nature.<\/p>\r\n
Well, this article began by remarking that the subject of Colonial\u00a0verse, and the immense future before the English-speaking poets,\u00a0is allied to a question that is very great, the adequacy or\u00a0inadequacy of English poetry\u2014British, American, and Colonial\u2014to\u00a0the destiny of the race that produces it. The article enunciated\u00a0the thesis that if the English language should not in the near\u00a0future contain the finest body of poetry in the world, the time\u00a0is now upon us when it ought to do so; for no other literature has\u00a0had that variety of poetic material which is now at the command of\u00a0English-speaking poets. It pointed out that at the present moment\u00a0this material comprises much of the riches peculiar to the Old World\r\nand all the riches peculiar to the New. It pointed out that in\u00a0reflecting the life of man the English muse enters into competition\u00a0with the muse of every other European nation, classic and modern;\u00a0and that, rich as England undoubtedly is in her own historic\u00a0associations, she is not so rich as are certain other European\u00a0countries, where almost every square yard of soil is so suggestive\u00a0of human associations that it might be made the subject of a\u00a0poem. To wander alone, through scenes that Homer knew, or through\u00a0the streets that were hallowed by the footsteps of Dante, is an\u00a0experience that sends a poetic thrill through the blood. For it is\u00a0on classic ground only that the Spirit of Antiquity walks. And it\u00a0went on to ask the question, \"If even England, with all her riches\u00a0of historic and legendary associations, is not so rich in this\u00a0kind of poetic material as some parts of the European Continent,\u00a0what shall be said of the new English worlds\u2014Canada, the United\u00a0States, the Australias, the South African Settlements, etc.?\"\u00a0Histories they have, these new countries\u2014in the development of\u00a0the human race, in the growth of the great man, Mankind\u2014histories\u00a0as important, no doubt, as those of Greece, Italy, and Great\u00a0Britain. Inasmuch, however, as the sweet Spirit of Antiquity knows\u00a0them not, where is the poet with wings so strong that he can carry\u00a0them off into the \"ampler ether,\" the \"diviner air\" where history\u00a0itself is poetry?<\/p>\r\n
Let me repeat here, at the risk of seeming garrulous, a few sentences\u00a0in that article which especially appealed to Pauline Johnson, as she\u00a0told me:<\/p>\r\n
\"Part and parcel of the very life of man is the sentiment about\u00a0antiquity. Irrational it may be, if you will, but never will it be\u00a0stifled. Physical science strengthens rather than weakens it. Social\u00a0science, hate it as it may, cannot touch it. In the socialist,\u00a0William Morris, it is stronger than in the most conservative poet\u00a0that has ever lived. Those who express wonderment that in these days\u00a0there should be the old human playthings as bright and captivating\u00a0as ever\u2014those who express wonderment at the survival of all the\u00a0delightful features of the European raree-show\u2014have not realised\u00a0the power of the Spirit of Antiquity, and the power of the sentiment\u00a0about him\u2014that sentiment which gives birth to the great human\u00a0dream about hereditary merit and demerit upon which society\u2014royalist\u00a0or republican\u2014is built. What is the use of telling us that even in\u00a0Grecian annals there is no kind of heroism recorded which you cannot\u00a0match in the histories of the United States and Canada? What is the\u00a0use of telling us that the travels of Ulysses and of Jason are as\u00a0nothing in point of real romance compared with Captain Phillip's\u00a0voyage to the other side of the world, when he led his little\u00a0convict-laden fleet to Botany Bay\u2014a bay as unknown almost as any\u00a0bay in Laputa\u2014that voyage which resulted in the founding of a\u00a0cluster of great nations any one of whose mammoth millionaires could now\u00a0buy up Ilium and the Golden Fleece combined if offered in the\u00a0auction mart? The Spirit of Antiquity knows not that captain. In\u00a0a thousand years' time, no doubt, these things may be as ripe for\u00a0poetic treatment as the voyage of the Argonauts; but on a planet\u00a0like this a good many changes may occur before an epic poet shall\u00a0arise to sing them. Mr. Lighthall would remind us, did we in England\u00a0need reminding, that Canada owes her very existence at this moment\u00a0to a splendid act of patriotism\u2014the withdrawal out of the rebel\u00a0colonies of the British loyalists after the war of the revolution.\u00a0It is 'the noblest epic migration the world has ever seen,' says\u00a0Mr. Lighthall, 'more loftily epic than the retirement of Pius\u00a0AEneas from Ilion.' Perhaps so, but at present the dreamy spirit\u00a0of Antiquity knows not one word of the story. In a thousand years'\u00a0time he will have heard of it, possibly, and then he will carefully\u00a0consider those two 'retirements' as subjects for epic poetry.\"<\/p>\r\n
The article went on to remark that until the Spirit of Antiquity\u00a0hears of this latter retirement and takes it into his consideration,\u00a0it must, as poetic material, give way to another struggle which he\u00a0persists in considering to be greater still\u2014the investment by a\u00a0handful of Achaians of a little town held by a handful of Trojans.\u00a0It is the power of this Spirit of Antiquity that tells against\u00a0English poetry as a reflex of the life of man. In Europe, in which,\u00a0as Pericles said, \"The whole earth is the tomb of illustrious men,\"\u00a0the Spirit of Antiquity is omnipotent.<\/p>\r\n
The article then discussed the main subject of the argument, saying\u00a0how very different it is when we come to consider poetic art as the\u00a0reflex of the life of Nature. Here the muse of Canada ought to be,\u00a0and is, so great and strong. It is not in the old countries, it is\u00a0in the new, that the poet can adequately reflect the life of Nature.\u00a0It is in them alone that he can confront Nature's face as it is,\u00a0uncoloured by associations of history and tradition. What Wordsworth\u00a0tried all his life to do, the poets of Canada, of the Australias,\u00a0of the Cape, have the opportunity of doing. How many a home-bounded\u00a0Englishman must yearn for the opportunity now offered by the\u00a0Canadian Pacific Railway of seeing the great virgin forests and\u00a0prairies before settlement has made much progress\u2014of seeing them as\u00a0they existed before even the foot of the Red Man trod them\u2014of seeing\u00a0them without that physical toil which only a few hardy explorers can\u00a0undergo. It is hard to realise that he who has not seen the vast\u00a0unsettled tracts of the British Empire knows Nature only under the\u00a0same aspect as she has been known by all the poets from Homer to our\u00a0own day. And when I made the allusion to Pauline Johnson's poems\u00a0which brought me such reward, I quoted \"In the Shadows.\" The poem\u00a0fascinated me\u2014it fairly haunted me. I could not get it out of my\u00a0head; and I remember that I was rather severe on Mr. Lighthall for\u00a0only giving us two examples of a poet so rare\u2014so full of the spirit\u00a0of the open air.<\/p>\r\n
Naturally I turned to his introductory remarks to see who Pauline\u00a0Johnson was. I was not at all surprised to find that she had Indian\u00a0blood in her veins, but I was surprised and delighted to find that\u00a0she belonged to a famous Indian family\u2014the Mohawks of Brantford.\u00a0The Mohawks of Brantford! that splendid race to whose unswerving\u00a0loyalty during two centuries not only Canada, but the entire\u00a0British Empire owes a debt that can never be repaid.<\/p>\r\n
After the appearance of my article I got a beautiful letter from\u00a0Pauline Johnson, and I found that I had been fortunate enough to\u00a0enrich my life with a new friendship.<\/p>\r\n
And now as to the genius of Pauline Johnson: it was being recognised\u00a0not only in Canada, but all over the great Continent of the\u00a0West. Since 1889 I have been following her career with a glow of\u00a0admiration and sympathy. I have been delighted to find that this\u00a0success of hers had no damaging effect upon the grand simplicity of\u00a0her nature. Up to the day of her death her passionate sympathy with\u00a0the aborigines of Canada never flagged, as shown by such poems as\u00a0\"The Cattle Thief\", \"The Pilot of the Plains\", \"As Red Men Die\",\u00a0and many another. During all this time, however, she was cultivating\u00a0herself in a thousand ways\u2014taking interest in the fine arts, as\u00a0witness her poem \"The Art of Alma-Tadema\". Her native power of\u00a0satire is shown in the lines written after Dreyfus was exiled,\u00a0called \"'Give us Barabbas'\". She had also a pretty gift of vers de\u00a0societe, as seen in her lines \"Your Mirror Frame\".<\/p>\r\n
Her death is not only a great loss to those who knew and loved her:\u00a0it is a great loss to Canadian literature and to the Canadian\u00a0nation. I must think that she will hold a memorable place among\u00a0poets in virtue of her descent and also in virtue of the work she\u00a0has left behind, small as the quantity of that work is. I believe\u00a0that Canada will, in future times, cherish her memory more and more,\u00a0for of all Canadian poets she was the most distinctly a daughter of\u00a0the soil, inasmuch as she inherited the blood of the great primeval\u00a0race now so rapidly vanishing, and of the greater race that has\u00a0supplanted it.<\/p>\r\n
In reading the description of the funeral in the \"News-Advertiser,\"\u00a0I was specially touched by the picture of the large crowd of silent\u00a0Red Men who lined Georgia Street, and who stood as motionless as\u00a0statues all through the service, and until the funeral cortege had\u00a0passed on the way to the cemetery. This must have rendered the\u00a0funeral the most impressive and picturesque one of any poet that\u00a0has ever lived.<\/p>\r\nTheodore Watts-Dunton.\r\n
The Pines,\u00a0Putney Hill.<\/p>\r\n
20th August, 1913.<\/p>","rendered":"
Collected Verse\u00a0By E. Pauline Johnson<\/p>\n
To his Royal Highness<\/p>\n
The Duke of Connaught<\/p>\n
Who is Head Chief of the Six Nations Indians<\/p>\n
I inscribe this book by his own gracious permission<\/p>\n
In Memoriam: Pauline Johnson<\/p>\n
I cannot say how deeply it touched me to learn that Pauline Johnson\u00a0expressed a wish on her death-bed that I, living here in the mother\u00a0country all these miles away, should write something about her.\u00a0I was not altogether surprised, however, for her letters to me\u00a0had long ago shed a golden light upon her peculiar character. She\u00a0had made herself believe, quite erroneously, that she was largely\u00a0indebted to me for her success in the literary world. The letters I\u00a0had from her glowed with this noble passion: the delusion about her\u00a0indebtedness to me, in spite of all I could say, never left her. She\u00a0continued to foster and cherish this delusion. Gratitude indeed was\u00a0with her not a sentiment merely, as with most of us, but a veritable\u00a0passion. And when we consider how rare a human trait true gratitude\u00a0is\u2014the one particular characteristic in which the lower animals\u00a0put us to shame\u2014it can easily be imagined how I was touched to find\u00a0that this beautiful and grand Canadian girl remained down to the\u00a0very last moment of her life the impersonation of that most precious\u00a0of all virtues. I have seen much of my fellow men and women, and\u00a0I never knew but two other people who displayed gratitude as a\u00a0passion\u2014indulged in it, I might say, as a luxury\u2014and they were\u00a0both poets. I can give no higher praise to the “irritable genus.”\u00a0On this account Pauline Johnson will always figure in my memory as\u00a0one of the noblest minded of the human race.<\/p>\n
Circumstances made my personal knowledge of her all too slight. Our\u00a0spiritual intimacy, however, was very strong, and I hope I shall be\u00a0pardoned for saying a few words as to how our friendship began. It\u00a0was at the time of Vancouver’s infancy, when the population of the\u00a0beautiful town of her final adoption was less than a twelfth of what\u00a0it now is, and less than a fiftieth part of what it is soon going\u00a0to be.<\/p>\n
In 1906 I met her during one of her tours. How well I remember it!\u00a0She was visiting London in company with Mr. McRaye\u2014making a tour of\u00a0England\u2014reciting Canadian poetry. And on this occasion Mr. McRaye\u00a0added to the interest of the entertainment by rendering in a\u00a0perfectly marvellous way Dr. Drummond’s Habitant poems. It was in\u00a0the Steinway Hall, and the audience was enthusiastic. When, after\u00a0the performance, my wife and I went into the room behind the\u00a0stage to congratulate her, I was quite affected by the warm and\u00a0affectionate greeting that I got from her. With moist eyes she\u00a0told her friends that she owed her literary success mainly to me.<\/p>\n
And now what does the reader suppose that I had done to win all\u00a0these signs of gratitude? I had simply alluded\u2014briefly alluded\u2014in\u00a0the London “Athenaeum” some years before, to her genius and her\u00a0work. Never surely was a reviewer so royally overpaid. Her allusion\u00a0was to a certain article of mine on Canadian poetry which was\u00a0written in 1889, and which she had read so assiduously that she\u00a0might be said to know it by heart: she seemed to remember every\u00a0word of it.<\/p>\n
Now that I shall never see her face again it is with real emotion\u00a0that I recur to this article and to the occasion of it. Many years\u00a0ago\u2014nearly a quarter of a century\u2014a beloved friend whom I still\u00a0mourn, Norman Maccoll, editor of the “Athenaeum,” sent me a book\u00a0called “Songs of the Great Dominion,” selected and edited by the\u00a0poet, William Douw Lighthall. Maccoll knew the deep interest I\u00a0have always taken in matters relating to Greater Britain, and\u00a0especially in everything relating to Canada. Even at that time\u00a0I ventured to prophesy that the great romance of the twentieth\u00a0century would be the growth of the mighty world-power of Canada,\u00a0just as the great romance of the nineteenth century had been the\u00a0inauguration of the nascent power that sprang up among Britain’s\u00a0antipodes. He told me that a leading article for the journal upon\u00a0some weighty subject was wanted, and asked me whether the book was\u00a0important enough to be worth a leader. I turned over its pages and\u00a0soon satisfied myself as to that point. I found the book rich in\u00a0poetry\u2014true poetry\u2014by poets some of whom have since then come to\u00a0great and world-wide distinction, all of it breathing, more or less,\u00a0the atmosphere of Canada: that is to say Anglo-Saxon Canada. But\u00a0in the writings of one poet alone I came upon a new note\u2014the note\u00a0of the Red Man’s Canada. This was the poet that most interested\u00a0me\u2014Pauline Johnson. I quoted her lovely canoe song “In the Shadows,”\u00a0which will be found in this volume. I at once sat down and wrote\u00a0a long article, which could have been ten times as long, upon a\u00a0subject so suggestive as that of Canadian poetry.<\/p>\n
As it was this article of mine which drew this noble woman to me,\u00a0it has, since her death, assumed an importance in my eyes which it\u00a0intrinsically does not merit. I might almost say that it has become\u00a0sacred to me among my fugitive writings: this is why I cannot resist\u00a0the temptation of making a few extracts from it. It seems to bring\u00a0the dead poet very close to me. Moreover, it gives me an opportunity\u00a0of re-saying what I then said of the great place Canadian poetry is\u00a0destined to hold in the literature of the English-speaking race. I\u00a0had often before said in the “Athenaeum,” and in the “Encyclopaedia\u00a0Britannica” and elsewhere, that all true poetry\u2014perhaps all true\u00a0literature\u2014must be a faithful reflex either of the life of man or\u00a0of the life of Nature.<\/p>\n
Well, this article began by remarking that the subject of Colonial\u00a0verse, and the immense future before the English-speaking poets,\u00a0is allied to a question that is very great, the adequacy or\u00a0inadequacy of English poetry\u2014British, American, and Colonial\u2014to\u00a0the destiny of the race that produces it. The article enunciated\u00a0the thesis that if the English language should not in the near\u00a0future contain the finest body of poetry in the world, the time\u00a0is now upon us when it ought to do so; for no other literature has\u00a0had that variety of poetic material which is now at the command of\u00a0English-speaking poets. It pointed out that at the present moment\u00a0this material comprises much of the riches peculiar to the Old World
\nand all the riches peculiar to the New. It pointed out that in\u00a0reflecting the life of man the English muse enters into competition\u00a0with the muse of every other European nation, classic and modern;\u00a0and that, rich as England undoubtedly is in her own historic\u00a0associations, she is not so rich as are certain other European\u00a0countries, where almost every square yard of soil is so suggestive\u00a0of human associations that it might be made the subject of a\u00a0poem. To wander alone, through scenes that Homer knew, or through\u00a0the streets that were hallowed by the footsteps of Dante, is an\u00a0experience that sends a poetic thrill through the blood. For it is\u00a0on classic ground only that the Spirit of Antiquity walks. And it\u00a0went on to ask the question, “If even England, with all her riches\u00a0of historic and legendary associations, is not so rich in this\u00a0kind of poetic material as some parts of the European Continent,\u00a0what shall be said of the new English worlds\u2014Canada, the United\u00a0States, the Australias, the South African Settlements, etc.?”\u00a0Histories they have, these new countries\u2014in the development of\u00a0the human race, in the growth of the great man, Mankind\u2014histories\u00a0as important, no doubt, as those of Greece, Italy, and Great\u00a0Britain. Inasmuch, however, as the sweet Spirit of Antiquity knows\u00a0them not, where is the poet with wings so strong that he can carry\u00a0them off into the “ampler ether,” the “diviner air” where history\u00a0itself is poetry?<\/p>\n
Let me repeat here, at the risk of seeming garrulous, a few sentences\u00a0in that article which especially appealed to Pauline Johnson, as she\u00a0told me:<\/p>\n
“Part and parcel of the very life of man is the sentiment about\u00a0antiquity. Irrational it may be, if you will, but never will it be\u00a0stifled. Physical science strengthens rather than weakens it. Social\u00a0science, hate it as it may, cannot touch it. In the socialist,\u00a0William Morris, it is stronger than in the most conservative poet\u00a0that has ever lived. Those who express wonderment that in these days\u00a0there should be the old human playthings as bright and captivating\u00a0as ever\u2014those who express wonderment at the survival of all the\u00a0delightful features of the European raree-show\u2014have not realised\u00a0the power of the Spirit of Antiquity, and the power of the sentiment\u00a0about him\u2014that sentiment which gives birth to the great human\u00a0dream about hereditary merit and demerit upon which society\u2014royalist\u00a0or republican\u2014is built. What is the use of telling us that even in\u00a0Grecian annals there is no kind of heroism recorded which you cannot\u00a0match in the histories of the United States and Canada? What is the\u00a0use of telling us that the travels of Ulysses and of Jason are as\u00a0nothing in point of real romance compared with Captain Phillip’s\u00a0voyage to the other side of the world, when he led his little\u00a0convict-laden fleet to Botany Bay\u2014a bay as unknown almost as any\u00a0bay in Laputa\u2014that voyage which resulted in the founding of a\u00a0cluster of great nations any one of whose mammoth millionaires could now\u00a0buy up Ilium and the Golden Fleece combined if offered in the\u00a0auction mart? The Spirit of Antiquity knows not that captain. In\u00a0a thousand years’ time, no doubt, these things may be as ripe for\u00a0poetic treatment as the voyage of the Argonauts; but on a planet\u00a0like this a good many changes may occur before an epic poet shall\u00a0arise to sing them. Mr. Lighthall would remind us, did we in England\u00a0need reminding, that Canada owes her very existence at this moment\u00a0to a splendid act of patriotism\u2014the withdrawal out of the rebel\u00a0colonies of the British loyalists after the war of the revolution.\u00a0It is ‘the noblest epic migration the world has ever seen,’ says\u00a0Mr. Lighthall, ‘more loftily epic than the retirement of Pius\u00a0AEneas from Ilion.’ Perhaps so, but at present the dreamy spirit\u00a0of Antiquity knows not one word of the story. In a thousand years’\u00a0time he will have heard of it, possibly, and then he will carefully\u00a0consider those two ‘retirements’ as subjects for epic poetry.”<\/p>\n
The article went on to remark that until the Spirit of Antiquity\u00a0hears of this latter retirement and takes it into his consideration,\u00a0it must, as poetic material, give way to another struggle which he\u00a0persists in considering to be greater still\u2014the investment by a\u00a0handful of Achaians of a little town held by a handful of Trojans.\u00a0It is the power of this Spirit of Antiquity that tells against\u00a0English poetry as a reflex of the life of man. In Europe, in which,\u00a0as Pericles said, “The whole earth is the tomb of illustrious men,”\u00a0the Spirit of Antiquity is omnipotent.<\/p>\n
The article then discussed the main subject of the argument, saying\u00a0how very different it is when we come to consider poetic art as the\u00a0reflex of the life of Nature. Here the muse of Canada ought to be,\u00a0and is, so great and strong. It is not in the old countries, it is\u00a0in the new, that the poet can adequately reflect the life of Nature.\u00a0It is in them alone that he can confront Nature’s face as it is,\u00a0uncoloured by associations of history and tradition. What Wordsworth\u00a0tried all his life to do, the poets of Canada, of the Australias,\u00a0of the Cape, have the opportunity of doing. How many a home-bounded\u00a0Englishman must yearn for the opportunity now offered by the\u00a0Canadian Pacific Railway of seeing the great virgin forests and\u00a0prairies before settlement has made much progress\u2014of seeing them as\u00a0they existed before even the foot of the Red Man trod them\u2014of seeing\u00a0them without that physical toil which only a few hardy explorers can\u00a0undergo. It is hard to realise that he who has not seen the vast\u00a0unsettled tracts of the British Empire knows Nature only under the\u00a0same aspect as she has been known by all the poets from Homer to our\u00a0own day. And when I made the allusion to Pauline Johnson’s poems\u00a0which brought me such reward, I quoted “In the Shadows.” The poem\u00a0fascinated me\u2014it fairly haunted me. I could not get it out of my\u00a0head; and I remember that I was rather severe on Mr. Lighthall for\u00a0only giving us two examples of a poet so rare\u2014so full of the spirit\u00a0of the open air.<\/p>\n
Naturally I turned to his introductory remarks to see who Pauline\u00a0Johnson was. I was not at all surprised to find that she had Indian\u00a0blood in her veins, but I was surprised and delighted to find that\u00a0she belonged to a famous Indian family\u2014the Mohawks of Brantford.\u00a0The Mohawks of Brantford! that splendid race to whose unswerving\u00a0loyalty during two centuries not only Canada, but the entire\u00a0British Empire owes a debt that can never be repaid.<\/p>\n
After the appearance of my article I got a beautiful letter from\u00a0Pauline Johnson, and I found that I had been fortunate enough to\u00a0enrich my life with a new friendship.<\/p>\n
And now as to the genius of Pauline Johnson: it was being recognised\u00a0not only in Canada, but all over the great Continent of the\u00a0West. Since 1889 I have been following her career with a glow of\u00a0admiration and sympathy. I have been delighted to find that this\u00a0success of hers had no damaging effect upon the grand simplicity of\u00a0her nature. Up to the day of her death her passionate sympathy with\u00a0the aborigines of Canada never flagged, as shown by such poems as\u00a0“The Cattle Thief”, “The Pilot of the Plains”, “As Red Men Die”,\u00a0and many another. During all this time, however, she was cultivating\u00a0herself in a thousand ways\u2014taking interest in the fine arts, as\u00a0witness her poem “The Art of Alma-Tadema”. Her native power of\u00a0satire is shown in the lines written after Dreyfus was exiled,\u00a0called “‘Give us Barabbas'”. She had also a pretty gift of vers de\u00a0societe, as seen in her lines “Your Mirror Frame”.<\/p>\n
Her death is not only a great loss to those who knew and loved her:\u00a0it is a great loss to Canadian literature and to the Canadian\u00a0nation. I must think that she will hold a memorable place among\u00a0poets in virtue of her descent and also in virtue of the work she\u00a0has left behind, small as the quantity of that work is. I believe\u00a0that Canada will, in future times, cherish her memory more and more,\u00a0for of all Canadian poets she was the most distinctly a daughter of\u00a0the soil, inasmuch as she inherited the blood of the great primeval\u00a0race now so rapidly vanishing, and of the greater race that has\u00a0supplanted it.<\/p>\n
In reading the description of the funeral in the “News-Advertiser,”\u00a0I was specially touched by the picture of the large crowd of silent\u00a0Red Men who lined Georgia Street, and who stood as motionless as\u00a0statues all through the service, and until the funeral cortege had\u00a0passed on the way to the cemetery. This must have rendered the\u00a0funeral the most impressive and picturesque one of any poet that\u00a0has ever lived.<\/p>\n
Theodore Watts-Dunton.<\/p>\n
The Pines,\u00a0Putney Hill.<\/p>\n
20th August, 1913.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":251,"menu_order":37,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[48],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-275","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry","chapter-type-numberless"],"part":273,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/flintandfeather\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/flintandfeather\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/flintandfeather\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/flintandfeather\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/251"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/flintandfeather\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/275\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":335,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/flintandfeather\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/275\/revisions\/335"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/flintandfeather\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/273"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/flintandfeather\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/275\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/flintandfeather\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/flintandfeather\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=275"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/flintandfeather\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=275"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/flintandfeather\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}