epub:type="title">English Poets
We had the honour of delivering in 1864 the principal address at the tercentennial anniversary of Shakespeare in the Town Hall, Ingersoll, before a large audience, and we read the following ode on the occasion:
Three centuries have passed away
Since that most famous April day,
When the sweet, gentle Will was born,
Whose name the age will e’re adorn.
That great Elizabethan age
Does not leave on history’s page,
A name so bright he stands like Saul,
A head and shoulders over all.
Delineator of mankind,
Who shows the workings of the mind,
And in review in nature’s glass,
Portrays the thoughts of every class.
That man is dull who will not laugh
At the drolleries of Falstaff,
And few that could not shed a tear
At sorrows of poor old King Lear.
Or lament o’er King Duncan’s death
Stabbed by the dagger of McBeth,
Or gentle Desdemona pure,
Slain by the misled jealous Moor.
Or great Caesar mighty Roman
Who o’ercame his country’s foemen,
His high deeds are all in vain,
For by his countrymen he’s slain.
The greatest of heroic tales
Is that of Harry, Prince of Wales,
Who in combat fought so fiercely
With the brave and gallant Percy.
Imagination’s grandest theme
The tempest or midsummer’s dream,
And Hamlet’s philosophic blaze
Of shattered reason’s flickering rays.
And now in every land on earth
They commemorate Shakespeare’s birth,
And there is met on Avon’s banks
Men of all nations and all ranks.
And here upon Canadian Thames
The gentle maids and comely dames
Do meet and each does bring her scroll
Of laurel leaves from Ingersoll.
Milton
Like mightiest organ in full tone,
Melodious, grand, is great Milton,
He did in lofty measures tell
How Satan, great archangel, fell,
When from heaven downward hurled;
And how he ruined this our world,
So full of guile he did deceive
Our simple hearted parent Eve.
He shows how pardon is obtained
And paradise may be regained.
Coleridge, Southey and Wordsworth
England had triplets at a birth,
Coleridge, Southey and Wordsworth,
And these three are widely famed,
And the “Lake Poets” they were named.
With joy they did pursue their themes,
’Mong England’s lakes and hills and streams,
From there with gladness they could view
The distant Scottish mountains blue.
Shelly
We have scarcely time to tell thee
Of the strange and gifted Shelly,
Kind hearted man but ill-fated,
So youthful, drowned and cremated.
Byron
Poets they do pursue each theme,
Under a gentle head of steam,
Save one who needed fierce fire on,
The brilliant, passionate Byron.
His child Harold’s pilgrimage,
Forever will the world engage;
He fought with glory to release
From Turkish yoke the isles of Greece,
Its glories oft by him were sung,
This wondrous bard, alas, died young.
Tennyson
Of our Laureate we now do sing,
His youthful muse had daring wing,
He then despised Baronhood,
And sang ’twas noble to be good.
None sang like him of knights of old,
He England’s glory did uphold;
In wondrous song he hath arrayed
Glorious charge of light brigade,
And he hath the people’s benison,
Greatest of living poets Tennyson.
Dryden and Pope
Genius of Dryden and of Pope,
Both did take a mighty scope,
The first he Virgil did translate,
The second showed us Troys fate.
On English themes they oft did sing
And high their muses flight did wing.
Irish Poets
Tim Moore
Moore found the ballads of Green Isle
Were oft obscured beneath the soil,
As miner digging in a mine
Finds rubbish ’mong the gold so fine,
So Moore placed dross in the waste basket
And enshrined jewels in casket,
Where all may view each charming gem
In Ireland’s grand old diadem.
In eastern lands his fame prevails
In wondrous oriental tales,
So full of gems his Lala Rookh,
Hindus and Brahmins read his book,
And dark eyed Persian girls admire
The beauty of his magic lyre,
Glowing like pearls of great price
Those distant gleams of paradise.
He sang of Bryan Borohm’s glory,
Renowned in ancient Irish story,
And shows the wide expanded walls
Which once encircled Tara’s Halls,
When joyous harp did there resound
And Ireland’s greatest king was crowned,
All wars and tumults then did cease,
Ireland did prosper great in peace.
He sung of meeting of the waters
And of Ireland’s charming daughters,
Great minstrel from his harp both flows,
Ireland’s triumphs and her woes,
Canada doth his fame prolong
While she doth sing his great boat song,
And his own countrymen adore
The genial, witty, bright Tom Moore.
T. D. McKee
While referring to past glories of Ireland, perhaps we might refer to that great Irish Historian, the late Honourable T. D. McKee, of whom we have written a poem in the earlier portion of this work, and we will give you an anecdote of him while here, showing his ready wit while he was rising from the supper table around which was a number of guests assembled, all eyes being naturally turned on him as the great centre of attraction, but the chair, being new, stuck to him; he instantly exclaimed, I wish the Montreal people were as anxious to retain me in my seat as you are in Ingersoll. He being a member for Montreal, wrote a fine poem on the St. Lawrence, where in Cartier describes to the King, on his return to Europe, the great river.
“He told them of a river whose mighty torrent gave
A freshness for a hundred leagues to ocean’s briney wave.”
Oliver Goldsmith
Goldsmith wrote of deserted village,
Now again reduced to tillage,
Once happiest village of the plain,
The place you look for it in vain,
There but one man he doth make rich,
“I’ll fare the land to many ills a prey
Where wealth accumulates but men decay.”
While hundreds struggle in the ditch,
His honest vicar of Wakefield,
Forever he will pleasure yield.
American Poets
Longfellow
Like fruit that’s large and ripe and mellow,
Sweet and luscious is Longfellow,17
Melodious songs he oft did pour
And high was his Excelsior.
He shows in his Psalm of Life
The folly of our selfish strife,
With Hiawatha we bewail
His suffering in great Indian tale.
Indian nation was forlorn
Till great spirit planted corn;
His story of Evangeline
It is a tale of love divine.
Poe
A great enchanter too is Poe,
His bells do so harmonious flow,
Wondrous mystery of his raven
On our minds is ’ere engraven,
His weird, wonderful romances
Imagination oft entrances.
Lowell
With pleasure we would love to dwell
On the charming themes of Lowell.
Bryant
Some in front rank
