Showing posts with label Sadlier. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sadlier. Show all posts

07 April 2018

Thomas D'Arcy McGee: 150 Years



He has gone from us, and it will be long ere we find such a happy mixture of eloquence and wisdom, wit and earnestness. His was no artificial or meretricious eloquence, every word of his was as he believed, and every belief, every thought of his, was in the direction of what was good and true.
— Sir John A. Macdonald, 7 April 1868
The great Thomas D'Arcy McGee was murdered 150 years ago today, nine months after Confederation. His remains the only assassination of a federal politician in our history. Is it unseemly that I take some pride in this?

McGee became my hero at Allancroft Elementary School. He was never mentioned in class; I first learned about him through a book, Pierre Berton's Historic Headlines (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1967), borrowed from the school library.

These past nine years I've marked the anniversary of McGee's death with verse written as news of the tragedy swept across the Dominion he'd brought into being. This year, a unfinished poem composed by McGee himself. Appropriate, I think.

The Poems of Thomas D'Arcy McGee
New York: Sadlier, 1869
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01 February 2016

McGee's Lines on a Once Famous Festival Day



Verse written by son of Erin and Father of Confederation Thomas D'Arcy McGee in celebration of Saint Bridget of Kildare (a/k/a Saint Brigid, Saint Brigit), patron of poets, printing presses and scholars.

The Poems of Thomas D'Arcy McGee
Montreal: D & J Sadlier, 1870
Good Catholics and Anglicans will recognize the first of February as St Brigid's Feast Day; bad Anglicans like myself will not, which is why I reach for Sean Kelly and Rosemary Rogers' Saints Preserve Us! First published in 1993 and in print to this day, it has long served as a spiritual guide.


The story of this chaste result of unholy union between a pagan chieftain and a slave girl shows itself to be both fantastical and a touch titillating:
She hated her own beauty, for it attracted numerous lusty suitors, despite her well-known vow of perpetual chastity. Finally, her constant prayers to become ugly were answered – miraculously, one of her eyes became grotesquely huge, while the other disappeared – so her father consented to her becoming a nun. It is said that, during the ceremony, Angels shoved aside the attending priest and presented her with the veil, the wooden steps of the altar burst into leaf, and her good looks were instantly restored.
You can't make that stuff up. Not always, anyway. Later in the entry, Kelly and Rogers inform:
Since she was born sixty-six years after the death of Saint Patrick, reports of their intimate friendship are doubtless exaggerated. Nor is it necessarily true that the holy but drunken Saint Mel consecrated her a full-fledged bishop. Some facts we may be sure of, though. Her bath water was sometimes transformed into beer for the sake of thirsty clerics…
There's much more, but the image of a naked virgin turning bathwater into beer should be inspiration enough for today's poets.

Need more?

She also taught a fox to dance.

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07 April 2014

Remembering Edith Eaton and D'Arcy McGee



It's become something of a tradition here to acknowledge Thomas D'Arcy McGee on this day, the anniversary of his assassination. And I will. But it would be wrong to let this seventh of April pass without paying homage to Edith Eaton, who died one hundred years ago today.

Writing as "Sui Sin Far", Eaton has been described variously as "the first Chinese-American fictionist", "the first Chinese-American woman writer" and "the mother of Chinese-American literature", but these descriptions come from our cousins to the south. Pay them no mind.

The eldest daughter of Englishman Edward Eaton and his Chinese wife Lotus Blossom, she was born in 15 March 1865 in Prestbury, Cheshire, emigrating to Montreal seven or eight years later.

Eaton's earliest writing appeared in The Dominion Illustrated, The Montreal Daily Star and The Montreal Daily Witness. Both fiction and non-fiction, all show a great sensitivity toward the Chinese communities of Canada and the United States, as reflected in her modest memoir, "Leaves from the Mental Portfolio of an Eurasian", published in the Independent (21 January 1890):
I have come from a race on my mother’s side which is said to be the most stolid and insensible to feeling of all races, yet I look back over the years and see myself so keenly alive to every shade of sorrow and suffering that it is almost a pain to live.
Never a healthy woman, in her mid-thirties she left Quebec for more temperate California. The writer spent roughly a decade on the American west coast and lived briefly in Boston before returning to Montreal. A monument stands in her honour at Mount Royal Cemetery, in which D'Arcy McGee is also interred.

This year, a poem to the politician by Joliette's Louis-Thomas Groulx, written six days after the assassination.


Assasinat de l'honorable Thomas D'Arcy McGee — 7 avril 1868

I

O mon Dieu!… c'est horrible!… une assassine
     A tranché le fil de ses jours….
Mais son âme set allée à ta bonté divine
     Qui sourit aux martyrs – toujours.

     Il meurt ennemi du désordre
Et de ces hommes vile qu'on nomme Feniens.
     Prions pour ce martyr de l'Ordre,
Nous tous qu'il a servis, ô mes concitoyens.

Dieu veuille que son sang répandu par ses frères,
Ne tombe – encore tout chaud – sur leurs fils et sur eux.
Appraise, O doux Jésus, la haine et les colères
Qui vont semant le meurtre et font le deuil affreux.

II

Il ne reverra plus sa femme ni sa fille,
Ni son fils qu'il aimait d'un amour infini.
Tous vont pleurer, hélas! – Console la famille
Seigneur, et dis: enfants, votre père est béni.

La Nation prend soin de l'épouse chérie,
De la famille et du fils – tendre orphelin qui prie,
Il est pour chaque vie, une heure de douleur
Que je ne saurais pendre et qui bris le cœur.

Alors, heureux qui meurt: mais malheur à qui tue.
Des vivants et des morts, Dieu seul se constitue
Juge. Aussi, seul il a droit de vie et de mort
Sur tous. Caïn, – tuer d'Abel – en vain se tord.

De désespoir. Son crime est avec lui, sans cesse.
Et suivra, partout, soit qu'il coure ou bien cesse
D'Aller. Qu'il veille ou dorme, Abel agonisant
Sera, devant sa face, à toute heure, présent.

Caïn voudrait mourir de remords qui l'oppresse,
Mais son crime est si grand qu'il lui faudra longtemps
Encore, ouïr la voix douce mais vengeresse
Qui dit toujours: "Caïn, que te faisais-je, aux champs."

Il ne dormira plus le cruel fratricide;
Et le bon Dieu, pourtant, l'a pris sous son égide,
Disant: en quelque lieu qu'il aille – ce vilain –
Chacun reconnaîtra mon signe sur Caïn.

III

Que l'assassin se nome Eagleson ou White,
Ou de tout autre nom qu'on entend prononcer,
Son forfait odieux rend mon âme interdite,
Et c'est presque mourir, mon dieu! que d'y penser.

Le ciel saura punir une action si noire.
………………………………………………….
Maintenant que McGee a vu Dieu dans sa gloire,
Et que sa voix se mêle au séraphique chanr,
Regrette-t-il la terre où l'hommes est si méchant?

IV

A quoi me servirait de biaiser ou de feindre?
La pauvre humanité, certes! est bien à plaindre
L'homme détruit, Dieu crée, et la gouffre béant
Dévore ce que Dieu fait sortir du Néant.

Qui sondera, Seigneur, ce mystère insondable?
Je vois, partout, l'énigme écrite par ton doigt.
Toujours, ce que tu fais me parait admirable
Ce que tu laisses faire est indigne de toi.

Tu ne réponds jamais, quand l'homme t'interroge
Pourquoi m'as-tu donné l'entendement, la voix
Et la cœur, si ce n'est pour faire ton éloge?
Mais le ferai-je…. après le meurtre que je vois?

Ou donc regardais-tu, quand fut ourdi ce crime?
Quand tombait, sous le coup, l'innocente victime?
Comment as-tu souffert – toi si juste et si bon –
Que D'Arcy fût atteint par balle de plomb?

Je ne veux pas, Seigneur, que mon âme murmure,
Mais je dis: ton enfant trouve cette morte dure!…
………………………………………………….
………………………………………………….
Merci. --Dieu parle enfin. Vici ce que j'entends:
"J'ai pris votre martyr." – Et le bourreau? – j'attends.

"L'ivraie est dans le blé, la rose a son épine,
"Je fais une Merveille avec une ruine.
"J'appelle à moi le bon et j'attends le méchant
"Mais que le juge humain sévisse et attendant.

"Que vos lois aient leur cours. Mais que votre sentence
"Ne fasse pas périr la timide innocence.
"Faites que la justice atteigne l'assassin.
"Ce qu'il doit, qu'il le paie à son fatal destin.

V

"Meurtrier, tue encor, tue encore et te hâte.
"Toi, martyr, souffre encore, souffre comme Socrate
"Sans te plaindre et pardonne. Ils viennent les temps dûis
"Ou ma faux abattra comme des épis mûrs

"Les hommes – cœurs pervers – qui font de la malice
"Et leur unique étude et leur plus cher délice.
"Je sais qui fait le mal, et sais qui fait le bien
"Je vois l'être maudit qui fait le Fenien.

"Il est tout près de moi; je le sens, je le touche
"Peu s'en faut que son nom ne sorte de ma bouche
"Et si je n'avais pas horreur de ce gueux-là,
"Mettant le pied dessus, je dirais – le voilà.

"On dirait que le peuple – aveugle volontaire –
"Ne voit pas le serpent, avec sa tête altière,
"Qui se plie et s'allonge, et se promène et va
"Jusqu'aux pieds de son Roi qu'il enlace déjà."

Quoi, donc, est le serpent? Est-ce le Royalisme,
Ou la démocratie, ou le saint-Simonisme,
Ou l'Athéisme encore? – Dis, seigneur, qu'est-ce enfin?
" – Aucun de ces mots-là ne convient au Matin.

"Vous le verrez bientôt. Son ardente prunelle
"Vous illumine avec sa brillante étincelle.
"Il s'en vient du Midi, sinon de l'Orient
"Qu'il souilla comme il veut souiller tout l'Occident.

"Si je n'étais pas là, quand paraîtra la Bête,
"Le combat serait court, et sûre le Défaite.
"Mais je veille sur vous et sur le Trône, aussi,
"Et garde auprès de moi mon fidèle D'Arcy."

Joliette, 13 avril 1868

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02 July 2013

Of Old Books and (possibly) Mummy Paper



Delightfully charming, unconventionally sentimental schoolgirl verse from Ethel Ursula Foran, whose "New Year's Day" has proven to be by far the most popular poem posted on this blog. Here a very young Miss Foran turns her attention towards favourite things material:


The dead, the embalmed, the mausoleumed... I'm certain that this is the first verse I've read to feature the word "sarcophagi".
            You chat and live with dead men of thought
            As you sit and pursue the words they wrought.
            They are peaceful companions that never betray,
            Nor dispute, nor quarrel, for silent are they.
'Tis lovely, though one cannot escape the sad thought that Miss Foran is herself now a peaceful companion.

What I find most intriguing comes in the poet likening aging books to "Egyptian mummies of old." Might this be a clever allusion to the oft-repeated myth – or is it? – that linen wrappings of mummies were used by nineteenth-century New England papermakers?

I suppose we'll never know.

Never mind.

As we nurse our respective Dominion Day hangovers, I present the six oldest Canadian books in my collection.

The Poems of Thomas D'Arcy McGee
Thomas D'Arcy McGee
Montreal: D. & J. Sadlier, 1870

Purchased four years ago – US$8.00 – at an antique store in Point Pleasant, New Jersey. At my aunt's 88th birthday dinner the previous evening I'd bragged that only one Canadian politician had ever been assassinated: McGee. I am a joy at parties. No invitations declined.

Endymion
The Right Hon. Earl of Beaconsfield
Montreal: Dawson Brothers, 1880

Not by a Canadian, but it was published in Canada, I picked up Endymion three years ago for $1.99 at our local Salvation Army Thrift Store. The Dawson Brothers – Samuel and William – were once Montreal's preeminent publishers and booksellers; I came along a century later. A bookish lad raised in the oldish suburb of Beaconsfield, I knew Benjamin Disraeli's name before those of Messrs Wilson and Heath.

Tecumseh: A Drama
Charles Mair
Toronto: Hunter, Rose, 1883

A first edition of the Confederation Poet's epic about the great man, this was a gift from a friend who had rescued it from a box of rejected donations to the McGill Library Book Sale. Most generous, I think you'll agree.

A Popular History of the Dominion of Canada
Rev. William H. Withrow, D.D. F.R.S.C.
Toronto: William Briggs, 1885

How popular? Well, my copy ranks amongst the sixth thousand. Purchased in 2000 for forty dollars – I paid too much. Though I've never taken so much as a glance beyond the title page, I'll bet that it's a more interesting work than Neville Trueman: Pioneer Preacher, Rev Withrow's preachy War of 1812 novel.

The Other Side of the "Story"
[John King]
Toronto: James Murray, 1886

A new acquisition, found just last week at a bookstall in London, Ontario. Storm clouds were gathering. In his "INTRODUCTORY", Mr King describes this publication as a "brochure", but at 150 bound pages I'm going to say it's a book. I've not yet had a chance to properly investigate its contents, so know only that it is a critique of John Charles Dent's The Story of the Upper Canadian Rebellion (Toronto: C. Blackett Robinson, 1885). Price: 50¢.

Sam Slick, The Clockmaker
Thomas Chandler Haliburton
New York: John B. Alden, 1887

Purchased thirteen years ago for US$8.00 from a Yankee bookseller, this is surely the skinniest edition of the CanLit classic. Thin, pulpy and grey/brown in colour, the paper is typical of the publish and crumble era. I can write, with great certainty, that no mummies were destroyed in it's making.

07 April 2011

'O martyr'd McGee!'


Thomas D'Arcy McGee
13 April 1825 - 7 April 1868

A stray tribute "from the pen of an accomplished Catholic priest of Pennsylvania", collected in The Poems of Thomas D'Arcy McGee (Sadlier, 1870).

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17 March 2011

D'Arcy McGee's Query (with a response)



The Poems of Thomas D'Arcy McGee
Montreal: D & J Sadlier, 1870

A response from 'Thomasine' (Miss Olivia Knight), originally published in a 1860 edition of The Nation (Dublin).
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17 March 2009

A Saint Patrick's Day Fragment



It's no insult to describe Thomas D'Arcy McGee as a better politician than poet; he was, after all, one of our great statesmen. Still, I find this verse from The Poems of Thomas D'Arcy McGee (Montreal: D. & J. Sadlier, 1869) has stayed with me longer than any of his speeches. That the poet was cut down by an assassin's bullet on an April evening lends weight.

Funeral procession of the Late Hon. Thomas D'Arcy McGee
St. James Street, Montreal, 13 April 1868
Photograph by James Inglis (LAC C-083423)

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