Poems in Honour of St Patrick’s Day, Montreal, 1911

Montreal Daily Star, 17 March 1911, page 8

 

Poems in Honour of St Patrick’s Day

 

 

THE EXILE OF ERIN

 

There came to the beach a poor exile of Erin

The day on his thin robe was heavy and chill,

For his country he sigh’d when at twilight repairing

To wander alone by the wind-beaten hill;

But the day-star attracted his eyes sad devotion,

For it rose o’er his own native Isle of the ocean,

Where soon, in the fire of his youthful emotion,

He sang the bold anthem of Erin go bragh

 

Oh, said is my fate! Said the heart-broken stranger,

The wild deer and wolf to a covert may flee;

But I have no refuge from famine and danger,

A home and a country remain not to me:

Ah! Never again in the green shady bowers

Where my forefathers liv’d shall I spend the sweet hours,

Or cover my harp with the wild-woven flowers,

And strike the sweet numbers of Erin go bragh.

 

Oh! Erin, my country, tho’ sad and forsaken,

In dreams I revisit thy sea-beaten shore,

But, alas! In a far foreign land I awaken

And sigh for the friends who can meet me no more

Ah! Cruel fate! Wil though never replace me

In a mansion of peace where perils can chase me?

Ah! Never again shall my brothers embrace me!

They died to defend me or live to deplore!

 

Oh! Where is my cabin door, fast by the wild wood?

Sisters and sirs, did you weep for its fall?

Oh! Where is the mother that look’d on my childhood?

And where is the bosom friend, dearer than all?

Ah! My sad heart long abandon’d by pleasure,

Why didst though doat on a fast-fading treasure?

Tears like the rain-drop play fall without measure,

But recapture and beauty they cannot recall!

 

But yet, all its sad recollections, suppressing,

One dying wish my lone bosom shall draw,

Oh! Erin! An exile bequeaths his blessing!

Dear land of my forefathers, Erin go bragh!

Oh! Buried and cold, when heart stills its motion

Green be thy fields, sweetest isle of the ocean,

And thy harp-striking bards sing aloud with devotion

Oh! Erin, mavoureen! Erin go bragh!

 

                        Thos Campbell

 

LOYALTY

 

Whatever fate has stored for me,

I hold no greater pride on earth,

Than I bear an Irish name

And know I am of Irish birth!

 

                                    Annie Alley

                                    (Charlottetown, PEI)

 

BACK TO IRELAND

 

Oh, tell me, will I ever win to Ireland again,

Ashore from the far North-West?

Have we given al the rainbows, and green woods an’ rain

For the sun an; the snows of the West?

Them that goes to Ireland must travel night an’ day,

An’ them that goes to Ireland must sail across the say,

For the len’th of here to Ireland is half for the world away-

An’ you’ll lave your heart behind you in the West

Set your face for Ireland,

Kiss your friends in Ireland,

But lave your heart behind you in the West.

 

On a dim an’ shiny mornin’ the ship she comes to land,

Early on, early in the mornin’,

The silver wathers o’ the Foyle go slidin’ to the strand,\

Whisperin’ ye’re welcome in the mornin’

There’s darkness on the holy hills I know are close aroun’

But the stars are shinin’ up the sky, the stars are shinin’ down

They make a golden cross abouve, they make a golden crown,

An’ meself could tell ye why- in the mornin’

Sure an’ this is Ireland,

Thank God for Ireland

I’m coming back to Ireland the mornin’

                                    Moira O’Neill

 

Oh for a Day and Nicht in Scotland, Montreal, 1911

Montreal Daily Star,

7 January 1911, page 13

Oh! For a Day and a Nicht in Scotland

At least one thousand Scots from the United States and Canada will make a pilgrimage together to the land of the heather hills next summer, at the time of the Glasgow Exhibition, according to plans that have already been made. They will sail from Montreal, the Allan liners Heaperian and Grampian having been chartered. It is this return to the home land that has suggested the poem of Mr John MacFarlane of Montreal here given:

“Oh! For a Day and a Nicht in Scotland”

Oh! For a day and a nicht in Scotland,

Far’mung the hills that I kent lang syne,

Wi’ the clear Clyde water at near-han’ glintin’

An’ a cronie or twa that since were mine;

Oh! For a day and a nicht in Scotlnad

Whaur mem’ry lingers an’ fond loves twine.

Oh! For a day and a nicht in Scotland,

To con lik scene o’ my childhood’s play,

To roam since mair I’ the simmer gloaming’

To list the lark I’ the daw’in grey;

Oh! For a day and a nicht in Scotland

Free frae the cark o’ the follsome fray.

Oh! For a day and a nicht in Scotland,

To wander licht owre the bent sae broon,

To pu’ the gowan an’ the yorlin’

An’ hear in the loanin the burnie’s croon;

Oh! For a day and a nicht in Scotland

Wi’ cheery faces ap’ dwallin’s roun!

Oh! For a day and a nicht in Scotland

The hert cries oot like a bairn distrest

For the times gane by I’ the caller mornin’

Wi’ youth’s sweet joy at its blithesome best

Oh! For a day and a nicht in Scotland,

Or life dees doon I’ the waitin’ West.

John MacFarlane

Ere, before.

Election poem, Montreal, 1853

In honour of the municipal election which takes place in Montreal tomorrow I am presenting this poem published in 1853, describing the power of the voter.  Though the words are  a wee bit flowery they are actually quite apropos.  For those in Montreal- Vote!!!!

 

Montreal Witness, 12 January 1853, page 19

 

The poor voter on election day

 

The proudest now is but my peer,

The highest not more high;

To-day, of all the weary year,

A king of men am I!

To-day alike are great and small,

The nameless and the known;

My palace is the people’s hall

The ballot box my throne.

 

Who serves to-day upon the list

Beside the served shall stand;

Alike the brown and wrinkled fist,

The gloved and dainty hand.

The rich are level with the poor,

The weak are strong to-day;

And sleekest broad-cloth counts no more

Than homespun frock of gray.

 

To-day let pomp and vain pretence

My stubborn right abide;

I set a plain man’s common sense

Against the pedant’s pride!

To day shall simple manhood try

The strength of gold and land;

The wide world has not wealth to buy

The power in my right hand.

 

While there’s a grief to need redress,

Or balance to adjust,

Where weighs our loving manhood less,

Than Mammon’s vilest dust,

While there’s a right to claim my vote,

Or wrong to sweep away,

Up! Clouted knee and ragged coat!

A man’s a man to-day!

Robert Burns’ son’s poetry, 1850

This poem, written by Robert Burns’ son, in 1850, was published by the Montreal Gazette the next year, two days after Burn’s anniversary.  It is not a very good poem, but it was published because of the father, not the content.  On the whole, of the poems published in the papers in the period, it is of the same quality. 

Montreal Gazette,

27 January 1851, page 1

 

Pretty Meg, My Dearie

By Robert Burns, elder son of the Bard

 

As I good up the side o’ Nith,

Ae simmer morning early,

Wi’ gowden locks up dewy lees,

The broom was waving fairly;

Alert, unseen in cloudless sky,

The lark was singing clearly,

When wadin’ through the broom I spied

My pretty Meg, my dearie;

Like dawin’ light free stormy night,

To sailor sad and weary,

Sae sweet to me the glint to see,

O’ Pretty Meg, my dearie.

 

Her lips were like a half-seen road,

Whom day is breaking poly;

Her een, beneath her snowy brow,

Like raindrops frae a lily-

Like twa young bluebells fill’d with dew,

They glann’d baith bright and clearly;

Aboon them shone o’ bonnie brown,

The locks o’ Meg, my dearie,

Of a’ the flowers in sunny bowers,

That bloom’d that morn saie cheerie,

The fairest flower that happy hour,

Was pretty Meg, my dearie!

 

I took her by the sum’a white hand,

My heart sprang in my bosom-

Upon her face and maiden grace,

Like sunshine n a blossom.

How lovely seem’d the morning hymn,

Of like birdie near me;

But sweater far the angel voice,

O’ pretty Meg, my dearie.

While summer fight shall bless my sight,

Or bonnie broom shall cheer me;

I’ll never forget the morn I met

My pretty Meg, my dearie!

 

Dumfries, 1850.

Bad ethnic poetry, 19C encore

Today I again regale all with some examples of the poetry I have found in my travels through the newspapers of the nineteenth century.  I have added a 20C image, but the text is all golden prose!!!

Farewell on Quitting England, Montreal Gazette, 3 July 1822

Farewell to the land that received my first breath,

and where I had hoped to resign it in death,

Farewell to the spot where in infancy say,

The opening morn of my life wore away.

Farewell to the friends that once smiled on my youth,

Ah! dear were those smiles that were sanction’d by truth.

Farewell to them all, till life’s vision be past,

In fondest remembrance thy virtues shall last.

I go to the land, whence the Indian recedes,

To prowl over wilds where the deer feeds,

Be-moaning the loss of the numerous brave,

Whom luxury cradled to sleep in the grave.

I go, sod ere long the Canadian shore.

Shall bear to mine ear the loud cataract’s roar,

Where the bounteous Ontario wings sweets on the breeze,

And the soft winds of health whispers thro’ the tall trees.

No phantom I follow, but freely I roam,

To secure Independency and Liberty’s home

But till I shall throw off this frail mortal coil,

My heart shall beat true to my own native isle.

TK

 

Montreal Daily Star, 3 July 1924, page 4.

 

The following poem was published following St. Andrew’s Day, 1822.  That year the Scots in Montreal failed to celebrate the saint publicly.  Horrors!

Montreal Gazette, 4 December 1822

Weep! Ye sons of Scotia, Weep!

Thy lovely daughters too,

The kindest father’s gane to sleep,

His prayers were aye for you,

In time of need:

He’s numbered with the chosen few,

St Andrew’s Dead.

The festive board and social bowl

His natal day was wont to cheer,

St George may bark, and Pat may howl,

They too must follow Andrew’s bier

To his lang hame;

Die! Tak me if another year

I be to blame.

I’ll have a Haggis on the board,

Sheep’s head, and Trotters too

And Farintosh, tho’ times are hard

and d….. mem I’ll get fou

Just out of spite

No envious cit, or chosen few!

Invite that night.

A Scotsman.

 

And lastly, for this instalment, a poem to Britain, published 20 January 1830 in the Canadian Courant.

To Britain,

I Love thee, o my native isle!

Dear as my mother’s earliest smile;

sweet as my father’s voice to me

is all I hear, and all I see.

When glancing o’er thy beauteous land

in view thy public virtues stand

the guardian angels of thy coast,

who watch the dear domestic host,

the heart’s affections pleas’d to roam

around the quiet heaven of home.

I love thee when I contemplate

the full orb’d guardian of thy state

thy laws and liberties, that rise

man’s noblest works beneath the skies

to which they pyramids were tame,

and Grecian temples bow their fame,

these, thine immortal sages wrought,

out of the deepest mines of thought,

those, on the scaffold, in the field,

thy warriors won, thy patriots sealed

these at the paricidal pyre,

thy martyrs sanctified in fire

And with the generous brood they split,

wash’d from thy soil their murderer’s guilt

cancell’d thy curse with vengence spec

and left a blessing in its stead.

Bad ethnic poetry, early 19C Montreal

I just love reading the poetry published in the newspapers in the early nineteenth-century.  They are rich in symbolism, but they are really quite bad poems in the scheme of things.  I have chosen a few gems which talk about ethnic identity.  Gold!

1838, Montreal Gazette.

Victoria! Queen of the oaken-girt isles

Fair flower of the land of the free!

Lov’d daughter of Britain, we greet thee afar-

All hail to thee, Queen of the sea!

Hurra for the flower of our own father-land!

Each rose-bud will blossom today,

That grows in a sod where no traitor has stood-

A bumper for her- hurra!

Tho’ far, far away from the homes of our sires,

The Red Cross burns brightly for thee,

And sons of the Thistle and ever-green Isle

Are ready “to do or to die;”

Hurra for the Thistle, the Shamrock, and Rose,

Entwine them still closer today;

For their friends they have flowers, and thorns for their foes-

A bumper for them- hurra!

1835, Montreal Gazette

England Great and Free.

Old England’s praise thro’ all the world,

Shall fame this day resound;

St George’s banner floats unfurl’d,

O’er Britons gather’d round.

And may her King fore’er command

Our gratitude and praise;

Our distant friends and native land

Excite our warmest lays.

Then let this pray’r to Heav’n ascend,

That Britons long may be

To ev’ry nation, foe or friend

The great and envied Free!

And, oh, may charity abound

At this our festive board;

Nor let amongst us e’er be found,

The direful fiend- discord.

May friendship, love, and harmony

Inspire our hearts to sing,

To great St George, our patron Saint;

Our country and our King!

Then let this pray’r to Heav’n ascend,

For England great and Free!

That Britain’s sons in ev’ry land,

May e’er united be.

1811

An Emigrant’s adieu to Scotland

our native land, our native vale,

a long and last adieu!

Farewell to bonny Teviotdale,

and Cheviot mountains blue!

Farewell, the hills of glorious deeds,

and streams renown’d in song!

Farewell ye blithesome braes and meads

our hearts have loved so long!

Farewell, ye broomy elfin knowes

where thyme and harebells grow!

Farewell, ye hoary haunted howes

o’erhung with birk and sloe!

The battle mound, the border tower,

that Scotia’s annals tell–

the martyr’s grave, the lover’s bower,

to each, to all, farewell!

Home of our hearts! Our fathers’ home!

Land of the brave and free!

The sail is flapping on the foam

that hears us far from thee!

We seek a wild and distant shore

beyond the Atlantic main;

we leave thee, to return no more,

nor view thy cliffs again!