* * * * * *
"And where the road runs in the valley's foot,
Through the dark woods a mountain stream comes down,
Singing and dancing all its youth away
Among the boulders and the shallow runs,
Where sunbeams pierce and mossy tree trunks hang
Drenched all day long with murmuring sound and spray.
"There, light of heart and foot-free, I would go
Up to my home among the lasting hills,
* * * * * *
And in my cabin doorway sit me down.
Companioned in that leafy solitude
By the wood ghosts of twilight and of peace,
While evening passes to absolve the day
And leave the tranquil mountains to the stars.
"And in that sweet seclusion I should hear,
Among the cool-leafed beeches in the dusk,
The calm-voiced thrushes at their evening hymn,
So undistraught, so rapturous, so pure,
It well might be, in wisdom and in joy,
The seraphs singing at the birth of time
The unworn ritual of eternal things."
In the Reverend George Frederic Scott, D.C.L., F.R.S.C., Canon of the Cathedral in Quebec since 1894, Canada has a poet of high poetic seriousness of especial distinction, and with just claims to more than a national recognition. A long poem entitled Evolution, written by Canon Scott in 1887, stands as something unique in English-speaking poetry, in its presenting a great scientific truth with poetic expression. Of this some stanzas follow:
"Life out of death, death out of life,
In endless cycles rolling on,
And fire-gleams flashing from the strife
Of what will come and what has gone.
* * * * *
"But what art thou and what am I?
What place is ours in all this scheme?
What is it to be born and die?
Are we but phases in a dream?