CHAPTER XXV
The War Poetry of Canada
MRS. MOODIE—ANNIE ROTHWELL CHRISTIE—ISABELLA VALANCY CRAWFORD—JOHN MCCRAE—CANADIAN POEMS OF THE GREAT WAR.
I. THE POETRY OF THE CIVIL REBELLION
AND THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR
It is a literary phenomenon by itself that the best or most popular of the inspirational and the commemorative war verse by permanently resident émigrés or native-born Canadians was the work of the country’s women poets. No samples of martial verse inspired by the War of 1812-14 seem to be extant. The records of martial verse produced in Canada begin with the Civil War of 1837-38 and the inspirational war lyrics of Mrs. Susanna Moodie.
Fifteen years after the war opened, Mrs. Moodie’s martial lyrics were published in her Roughing It In The Bush (1852, two vols.). In ‘The Advertisement’ (which is a sort of publisher’s Preface) to this work, the publisher recounts the origin and effect of Mrs. Moodie’s inspirational war verse. ‘During the rebellion,’ he says, ‘her loyal lyrics, prompted by strong affection for her native country [England], were circulated and sung throughout the colony [Ontario], and produced a great effect in rousing an enthusiastic feeling in favor of public order.’ But Mrs. Moodie herself modestly remarks (op. cit. sup., Vol. 2):—
I must own that my British spirit was fairly aroused, and as I could not aid in subduing the enemies of my beloved country with my arm, I did what little I could to serve the good cause with my pen. It may probably amuse my readers, to give them a few specimens of these loyal staves, which were widely circulated through the colony at the time.
It will suffice to quote the first and last stanzas of her Address to the Freemen of Canada (op. cit. sup., p. 191) in order to show that Mrs. Moodie wrote no mediocre martial verse of the inspirational type:—
Canadians, will you see the flag
Beneath whose folds your fathers bled,