This volume of Miss Crawford's was handicapped by an infelicitous title. Old Spookses' Pass; Malcolm's Katie, and other Poems, was hardly a description to invite further investigation. The book passed almost unnoticed, and within three years its author died. "She was a high-spirited, passionate girl," says Mr. Lighthall, "and there is little doubt that the neglect of her book was the cause of her death. Afterward her verse was seen to be phenomenal.... It was packed with fine stuff."
Malcolm's Katie is the story of a man and a maid, the man going forth in the woodlands to hew a home with his axe, and the maid remaining in faith and devotion in her home. It is a long poem in blank verse, strewn with occasional lyrics, of which one runs:
"O Love builds on the azure sea,
And Love builds on the golden sand,
And Love builds on the rose-winged cloud,
And sometimes Love builds on the land!
"O if Love build on sparkling sea,
And if Love build on golden strand,
And if Love build on rosy cloud,
To Love these are the solid land!
"O Love will build his lily walls,
And Love his pearly roof will rear
On cloud, or land, or mist, or sea—
Love's solid land is everywhere!"
Mr. Lighthall is himself a poet of distinction and one of the best translators of French poetry. Among his finest work is a poem on Homer, breathing the very spirit of classic ages. Another is entitled Canada Not Last, a sonnet series to Venice, Florence, and Rome, the concluding sonnet, which follows, relating to Canada:
"Rome, Florence, Venice—noble, fair, and quaint,
They reign in robes of magic round me here;
But fading blotted, dim, a picture faint,
With spell more silent only pleads a tear.
Plead not! Thou hast my heart, O picture dim!
I see the fields, I see the autumn hand
Of God upon the maples! Answer Him
With weird, translucent glories, ye that stand
Like spirits in scarlet and in amethyst!
I see the sun break over you; the mist
On hills that lift from iron bases grand
Their heads superb!—the dream, it is my native land!"
Another genuine poet is Peter McArthur, one time editor of New York Truth and now farming at his old home in Ontario. Mr. McArthur has published but one volume of verse, but that volume is enough to place him securely well up among the truly authentic voices in the Canadian choir. Everything he writes has a markedly individual quality. There is nothing in him, as one writer has said, of the mere æsthetic or dilettante; he is alive to his finger tips. Mr. McArthur has a keen eye and ear for the common things of the life about him, as witness A Thaw:
"The farmhouse fire is dull and black,
The trailing smoke rolls white and low
Along the fields till by the wood
It banks and floats unshaken, slow;
The scattering sounds seem near and loud,
The rising sun is clear and white.
And in the air a mystery stirs
Of wintry hosts in coward flight.
"Anon the south wind breathes across
The frozen earth its bonds to break,
Till at the call of life returned
It softly stirs but half awake.
The cattle clamour in their stalls,
The house-dog barks, he knows not why.
The cock crows by the stable door,
The snow-birds, sombre-hued, go by.