Showing posts with label Laurier. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Laurier. Show all posts

19 April 2022

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


For the month, the seventh of ten poems
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:

17 February 2019

Wilfrid Laurier: 100 Years



The great Wilfrid Laurier died one hundred years ago today. Our seventh prime minister, he held the office for more than fifteen consecutive years. Laurier led his party for over three decades, and served in the House of Commons for 44 years, 10 months and 17 days until February 17, 1919 brought all that to an end. At age seventy-seven, his death shouldn't have come as a shock, but contemporary press suggests otherwise. Tribute was paid by George V, but my favourite comes from a commoner who remembered the widow Laurier. It was published in Right Honourable Sir Wilfrid Laurier: A Tribute (Ottawa: Modern Press, 1919).


WILFRID LAURIER

Elegy Written on the Day of Sir Wilfrid Laurier's Death
by Mr. T.A. Brown, Ottawa
     He'll pass no more, nor shall we backward glance
          To note again that loved, commanding form,
     Like some fine figure of chivalrous France
          Round which men rallied in old times of storm. 
     A Bayard, ever gallant in the fray;
          Lute voiced, a man of magic utterance rare,
     What was the spell, the secret of his sway—
          The noble life, the silver of his hair? 
     Unaging and majestic as the pine,
          The evergreen of youth within his soul,
     Tilting young-hearted with that soul ashine,
          He onward bore unto his purposed goal. 
     With her he loved through shadowed hours and gay.
          In rare companionship the sunset road
     He walked in such felicity; the way
          Seemed rose hung, and the years a lightsome load. 
     With malice unto none, e'en in defeat;
          With charity in triumph, he has stood,
     Broad gauge Canadian, after battle's heat,
          Speaking the language of wide brotherhood. 
     The inspiration of his service yet.
          The charity, the brotherhood he taught,
     Shall light our pathway though his sun be set,
          And may we build as nobly as he wrought. 
     New tasks begin, new duties, new resolves,
          For Canada, his land and ours, we take;
     And since such partings come as time evolves,
          His spirit watching, we new pledges make. 
     Though mute his lips, the seal of death thereon,
          While men remember how he loved this land,
     His voice will sound a trumpet leading on—
          Great Heart, adieu—bowed at thy bier we stand. 
*   *   * 
     Dear Lady, in the sadness of this hour
          For him we honor as our noblest son,
     If our affection and our love had power
          To save thee grief, we'd bear it, everyone.




Related posts:

27 April 2018

Further Along The Lane That Had No Turning



The Lane That Had No Turning
     and Other Tales Concerning the People of Pontiac;
     Together with Certain 'Parables of Provinces'
Gilbert Parker
New York: A.L. Burt, [n.d]
359 pages

In his six-page – six-page – dedication to Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Gilbert Parker writes that he'd first intended to title this collection Born With a Golden Spoon. He gives no reason for the change of heart, but I think it may have something to do with knowing where its strength lies. The title story, with its mix of madness, murder, deformity, and suicide, is so fantastic, so entertaining, that that I felt it warranted its own review. I wrote that review in 2012, posted it here, then pulled it down and rewrote it for inclusion in The Dusty Bookcase book, published last fall by Biblioasis.

What I didn't do is continue on. The twenty-five other tales and parables remained unread. There was little point. The two Parkers I'd bothered with – The March of the White Guard and Tarboe – had me convinced that nothing would be nearly as good as "The Lane That Had No Turning." Picking up this volume six years later, I see that I was spot on, which is not to say that the rest of the volume doesn't offer anything worth your time. These are my three favourite tales:

'The Little Bell of Honour'
Voyageur Luc Pomfrette curses his baptism – "Sacré baptême!" – bringing hushed shock to the people of Pontiac. The Curé demands Pomfrette repent, but he refuses. The little bell of honour worn around the his leg, conferred out of respect by the other voyageurs, comes to serve as a signal of his approach. Restauranteurs will not serve him and shopkeepers will not sell to him. Though Pomfrette learns to be resourceful, milling his own flour and fashioning clothes from rags, he wastes away. Why will he not repent? And what caused him to blaspheme in the first place?

'The Tragic Comedy of Annette'
Log driver Bénoit, the most attractive and charismatic man in all of Pontiac, avoids the girl to whom has promised marriage. The shortest story in the collection, it would spoil everything to describe much more.

'An Upset Price'
As a tale of drug addiction, "An Upset Price" is uncommon for its day. Secord, its main character, left Pontiac to serve as a physician in the American Army. His delicate, indicate operations were praised in the Lancet, and he could've practiced anywhere, but chose to return to his small Quebec hometown. Coincidentally, I saw the doctor's downfall reflected last night in an episode of the German period drama Charité.

This is not to suggest that the other stories aren't without interest, rather that that interest will depend on the individual. For example, "Uncle Jim," concerning a hardworking farming couple who accept the return of their son, now married to a "designing milliner," will appeal to modern readers who wring their hands over boomerang children. The gothic "Parpon the Dwarf" is recommended to readers of the genre and anyone studying dwarfism in literature. Parpon features throughout much of the book and, it should be noted, is the sole person to stay loyal to the damned Luc Pomfrette.

Parker concludes his dedication to Laurier by announcing that the volume contains his last tales of Quebec. I can't say that they're the last I'll read. This volume may be a mixed bag, but I am curious about The Seats of the Mighty, Parker's historical romance of the Conquest. In 1896 it followed Francis Hopkinson Smith's Tom Grogan and A Lady of Quality by Frances Hodgson Burnett as the third biggest selling novel in the the United States.

Though we're loath to admit it, Canadians love it when Americans pay us notice.

Fun fact: In 1899, Doubleday & McClure published a volume of Gilbert's tales of the Pontiac and parables of the provinces – sans "The Lane That Had No Turning" – under the title Born With a Golden Spoon.


Object: A remarkably attractive cloth-bound hardcover featuring four plates by Frank E. Schooner. To think it came from a budget publisher. I bought my copy in 1998 at a Toronto Goodwill store. Price: $1.50. If the scrawl on frontispiece is to be believed, it once belonged to J.P. Butler of Walden, Massachusetts.

Access: The complete collection (see: Fun Fact above!) was first published in 1900 by Morang in Canada, Doubleday, Page in the United States, and Heinemann in Great Britain. Other editions followed, most notably as Volume 11 in the Imperial Edition of the Collected Works of Gilbert Parker (New York: Scribner's, 1913).

Online listings begin at US$2.99 and extend all the way to €86.00. The collection can be read online – gratis – through this handy link to the Internet Archive.

As always, print on demand vultures are to be ignored.


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06 October 2011

A Record That Speaks for Itself




Election day in Ontario. If the pollsters are correct, the Liberals may just hold onto power – a near impossibility mere months ago.

I don't write much about politics here, but things do creep in from time to time: the fabulations of Preston Manning, the oeuvres of senators Wallin and Frum and our prime minister's non-existent, yet much-hyped hockey book. There's been more, of course, but those who know me will agree that I've demonstrated considerable restraint.

Returning from the polls today with politics on my mind, thoughts turned to Wilfrid Laurier. I remembered that 1911 was the year in which the great statesman finally stepped down as prime minister. Had I missed the centenary?

As it turns out, the sad event took place 100 years ago this very day.


The Globe, 6 October 1911

A result of this:


The Globe, 22 September 1911

Not exactly a dark day in Canadian history, but most certainly one on which things dimmed.