Chapter D: M. Matheson

EX-PRINCIPAL

ALEXANDER MCKAY SCHOOL

HALIFAX, N. S.

CONTENTS

Indian Summer 3-4

Mother Love 4

Petoobok 5-6

Langemarc 7

Edith Cavell 8

Cardinal Mercier 8

The Bard of Ayr 9

The Soul of Flanders 10

The Gardens 11

Keep the Gardens Growing 12

An Elegy Written in Richmond 13-17

The Cottage School 18-21

December Sixth 1917 22-23

Life Is But One Darn Thing After Another 24

Courcellette 25-26

Vimy Ridge 27-28

God Save Our Empire 29

The Veteran 30

INDIAN SUMMER

Fair are fleets of white winged prows
Swiftly sailing o’er the sea;
Fair are herds of homing cows,
Winding slowly o’er the lea;
Fair are orchards, when replete
With rich blossoms pink and white;
Fair are fields of ripening wheat
Shining in the morning light;
Fair is any mountain sheet
Burnishing in colors bright;

Fair are all Acadia’s lands;
All its streams and wooded lakes,
Headlands high and pebbly strands,
When the early morning breaks,
Fair its scented flowers and trees,
And its many landlocked bays,
Rippling in the summer breeze;
Themes for minstrel muses’ lays--
But far fairer than all these
Are Acadia’s autumn days.

Made from heavenly design
By some unseen Artisan;
Gift of Architect divine,
To Acadia’s Weather man.
Fairest season of the year,
When boon Nature’s at her height
Robed in all her beauty sere,
And fair Luna sheds her light
With a more bewitching cheer
Through the watches of the night.

And God’s lowly creatures all,
Who the freeman’s burden bore,
Having heeded labor’s call
Now have plentitude in store,
And from every household hearth
Nightly offered up the “word”.
As a sacrifice of worth
To a kind and gracious Lord
For the riches of the earth,
Filling thus the family board.

And a thrill of peaceful joy
Permeates the human breast
And the starry vaulted sky
Seemingly is at its best,
For old Sol in all his pride
Scorpion doth then adorn,
Midway in his yearly ride
’Twixt the Line and Capricorn.
In this lovely Autumntide
Was Waegwoltic’s wedding morn.

MOTHER LOVE

Mother! All that’s blest and good,
Centres round that treasured word,
Mother-love and motherhood!
Sweetest sounds man ever heard,
Mother! blest and sweetest name,
Spoken by the human tongue,
Age and youth do thee acclaim,
Angels have thy praises sung,
And the greatness of thy fame,
Hath through all the ages rung.

Mother-love! whose fountain flow,
Feedeth man the living breath,
And which burns with tenser glow,
Even when he’s cold in death;
Blest and wondrous gift divine
Of the master Artisan
In fair Eden’s holy shrine
To the fallen creature man,
When fell Satan did design
To destroy Creation’s plan.

PETOOBOK

Of Petoobok and of its golden sea,
The fairest gem of Nature’s fashioning
The beauty spot of beauteous Acadie,
Its summer and its winter scenes I sing:
Here in primeval days great Neptune wise
Conspired with Fora, bounteous and free,
To make a masterpiece, a paradise,
Where Nymphs and Naiad’s might forever woo;
And now by night and day it ever lies
Reflecting in its waters, deep and blue
The heavenly wonders of the vaulted skies.

In splendour, wild and picturesque and grand,
Beneath its sentinel hills like crystal set
With rarest taste by God and Nature’s hand.
It mirrors in its depth the silhouette
Of mountains, which, like heroes of romance,
Along its lovely shores forever stand,
To guard the waters of its vast expanse,
And holds to-day the same bewitching charm
Of loveliness divine, you to entrance,
As on the morn the cry of Golden Arm,
Burst from the lips of sons of sunny France.

Lake Petoobok, on summer afternoon
Looks fair and lovely to the mortal gaze,
And lovely too, what time the hunter’s moon
Illuminates it with her bewitching rays,
As it lies sleeping ’neath its guardian hills
By Flora robed in beauty, rare and boon,
With foliage of variegated frills
On which the dancing beams like fairies glint
And from Dame Nature’s ample store distils
Those dyes of one and thousand autumn tints
Wrought by some magic hand in fairy mills.

But Petoobok is fairest to behold
On Autumn morn, when orient Sunlight breaks
In radiant glory on its arm of gold,
And gentle noosuk[A] into the ripples shakes,
The placid surface of its crystal sea,
And to the eye a vista doth unfold,
A wondrous scene of heavenly alchemy,
Like that told us by John in Holy Writ,
Which fills the soul with perfect ecstasy,
And which once seen, though time be preterit
In after life in dreams you’ll ever see.

[A] West wind.s

LANGEMARC

(1915)

Sleep on ye brave Canadians,
In Langemarc’s blood-stained mead,
Your glorious act will ever rank
A truly golden deed,
Sleep on with France and Briton
And Belgian, side by side,
Sleep ye and they your last long sleep,
The last roll call to bide.

And mother nature, gentlest nurse,
Will ever nightly lave
Your lowly grave with kindly dews
While weeping willows wave;
And kindly zephyrs every day,
And every night will sigh,
A sweet memoriam for aye,
Your tomb to sanctify.

And Belgian maids and matrons, too
Will often leave the loom
To gather wilding flowers,
To beautify your tomb;
And peasants when they pass your way,
Oft to their sons will say:
“’Twas here the brave Canadians
The fierce Huns held at bay.”

And when the Angel Gabriel,
Shall sound the trumpet blast,
Then you shall all awaken
From your seeming death at last,
And, standing at attention,
While angel voices sing,
In unison you will salute,
The universal King.

EDITH CAVELL

(1916)

Dear martyred maid, thy cruel death hath thrilled
With loathing deep the whole of human kind
Against the Hun who thy death sentence signed;
Thy barb’rous death all manly hearts hath filled
With feelings such as never can be stilled;
In every home thy name is hence enshrined,
Thy death scene pictured clear in every mind
In thy life’s blood, the murd’rous Hun hath spilled
Angelic maid, could we but lift the veil
Which hides from mortal eyes God’s holy land
With Joan of Arc and Florence Nightingale,
Thy wounded temple with a filet bound,
With harp in hand, thy head with glory crowned,
Amidst the heavenly choir we’d see thee stand.

TO CARDINAL MERCIER

(1916)

Illustrious shepherd of the Prince of Peace,
With priestly zeal you watched thy Belgian fold,
Any aye performed its duties manifold,
That love and virtue did therein increase,
And want and sorrow all the while surcease,
While Christian culture her rich page enrolled
Heroic men and women chaste to mould;
The cross, thy sceptre, and the crook, thy creese:
But when the robber Hun assailed thy flock,
Then stood you forth, the patriot and priest,
With clarion call to champion the right,
And met the onset of the Prussian beast
And all the hosts of his embattled might,
Firm and immovable, as Zion’s Rock.

THE BARD OF AYR

(1915)

Oh come sweet muse, with well tuned lyre,
On this our Robbie’s natal day,
A rustic poet’s mind inspire
That he may sing a homely lay.

Of all the warblers ever born,
I dearly love the bard of Ayr,
Whose lovely songs both night and morn,
Have freed my wearied mind from care.

If fault he had, ’twas Nature’s fault,
And man, beware that you have none,
Before you do yourself exalt,
To cast at Robbie Burns a stone.

I wish he was with us tonight,
To pass a pleasant hour or two,
And fill all hearts with rare delight,
As he was ever wont to do.

Methinks e’en now I see him sit
The centre of an eager throng,
And hear his ceaseless flow of wit,
Or words of some soul stirring song.

His lovely songs will e’er be sung,
And greener grow his memory,
’Mong people whether old or young,
Till father Time has ceased to be.

THE SOUL OF FLANDERS

(1916)

The chimes that oft from old Malines,
Rang out their sacred strain,
At morning, noon and eventide,
Shall never ring again;
That voice that called the living,
Or sadly mourned the dead,
Is still and silent now for aye:
The soul of Flanders’ fled.

The peasant at his daily toil,
Shall listen now in vain,
From early morn till evening,
To hear those chimes again;
But never shall such silver sounds
By harmony inbred,
Fall on his ever listening ears;
The soul of Flanders’ fled.

Those lovely chimes, which e’er were wont
To sound with morn’s first beams,
And ’wake the tourist from his sleep,
Will haunt his waking dreams;
But never more those dulcet sounds
Will rouse him from his bed,
And fill his soul with ecstasy:
The soul of Flanders’ fled.

’Tis strangely sad such chimes as those,
Which seemed a heavenly dow’r,
Should fall a prey to tyranny,
And war’s barbaric pow’r,
A city new will rise again
Up from its ashen bed,
But those old chimes shall ring no more:
The soul of Flanders’ fled.

THE GARDENS

(1914)

Lovely Gardens, Eden’s bower,
Lovely in sunshine and shower.
Winding walks and shaded seats,
Babbling streams and cool retreats,
Flowing fountains throwing spray,
O’er the fishes at their play,
Geese and ducklings in the pond,
By the white swan chaperoned,
Grassy plots well trimmed and neat,
Decked with flowers, gay and sweet,
Trees and shrubs so sweetly blending
All its beauties never ending;
Fit place for the aged to talk
And for babes to learn to walk;
Wandering swains and straying madams,
Modern Eves and modern Adams;
Place where friend a friend may meet;
Lovers here each other greet,
And a groom and summer bride
On their honeymoon abide.

KEEP THE GARDENS GROWING

(1918)

We were summoned from the play-ground,
We were called in from the wood,
And our country found us ready
At the stirring call for food.
Do not add unto our burden,
If you hap to pass along,
For, although our backs are breaking,
You can hear us sing this song:--

CHORUS

Keep the gardens growing,
Digging, planting, hoeing;
If you plant and weed aright
The crop will grow.
Do not stand repining
While the sun is shining,
Turn the good soil inside out,
And fertilize and sow.

Mother Britain sent a message,
To her daughter in the West,
“We need every kind of food-stuffs,”
So we’re bound to do our best;
For the soldiers in the trenches
And the homeland we must feed,
And no worthy son will fail her,
When his mother is in need.

AN ELEGY WRITTEN IN RICHMOND

I

Low in the eastern sky the breaking light
Pales in the vault of heaven the morning star,
Presaging me the dying hour of night,
And that the twilight gray is not afar;

II

For night is slowly changing into morn,
And through the gloom the forms of ships appear.
Across the Arm below, the bugle horn
Reveille’s call brings to my listening ear.

III

No other sound is on the morning air
To echo back from hills and dales around;
No home has man; no beast has here lair,
And desolation seems to own the ground;

IV

Save me who sit beneath an aged elm
Which some one’s home at Richmond once did grace,
Ere fell misfortune did it overwhelm
And left this tree alone to mark the place.

V

Yet here I am beneath this hoary tree
And ruminate upon the recent past--
If such events again should hap to be--
The ruins round their gloomy bodings cast.

VI

But still I sit amidst these scenes of death
Which call to mind that dire December day,
When Fate unkindly blew his blighting breath,
Reducing homes to dust, and men to clay.

VII

And question thus: “Was there no law amiss?
Had no officials power to prevent
A devastation, dark and drear, as this?
Was Richmond’s loss naught but an accident?”

VIII

And in my breast a rising hate I feel
For man-made Laws which oft protect the High
And leave the Low their grievous wounds to heal
And bear their load of sorrow till they die.

IX

A sense of sadness passes through my soul,
An earthly grief akin to human-kind,
But ere this sorrow sad doth reach its goal
Celestial musings fill my troubled mind.

X

The hatred lately felt within my breast
And which I vainly thought naught could allay
Until my spirit passed to its last rest;
I surely find is speeding fast away.

XI

Some Spirit sweet seems near to me abide
Who doth from me remove all earthly dread,
And in most soothing ways my senses chide
That I hold counsel with the living dead.

XII

I look around to see whose is the voice
Whose cadence falls so sweetly on my ear
As thus to make my hating heart rejoice,
But vain my quest, no living soul is near.

XIII

A spirit voice I know, it needs must be
That sounds upon the air with silv’ry tone
And yet, withal, no fears arise in me,
Though midst the ruins here I am alone.

XIV

The voice now cautions me to listen well,
And in harmonious tones with lightning speed
This story he narrates for me to tell,
And thus I write it down that all may read.