Duncan Campbell Scott

Duncan Campbell Scott (1862—1947) is one of Canada’s Confederation poets, and was a prominent civil servant. The first of his eight poetry collections, The Magic House and Other Poems, was published in 1893.

He had wanted to become a doctor, but in 1879 because his father (a Methodist Minister) had influence but lacked money, Duncan was hired by Canada’s first Prime Minister, John A. MacDonald, to be a clerk in the federal Department of Indian Affairs— a department he served in for the rest of his career.

He is a controversial figure in Canadian literature. His poetry celebrates the Canadian wilderness, and the life of her native peoples. Ironically Scott’s poetic sorrow at their dying cultures — as Northrop Frye noted — was exacerbated by the national policy of assimilation which he contributed to as deputy superintendent of the Department of Indian Affairs from 1913 to 1932.

Despite this legacy from his contribution to, and participation in, the Canadian government’s policies, Scott’s literary reputation as a fine poet is undeniable. His long poem “A Legend of Christ’s Nativity” appeared in Lundy’s Lane and Other Poems (McClelland & Stewart, 1916).

From Shadow

Now the November skies,
And the clouds that are thin and gray,
That drop with the wind away;
A flood of sunlight rolls,
In a tide of shallow light,
Gold on the land and white
On the water, dim and warm in the wood;
Then it is gone, and the wan
Clear of the shade
Covers fields and barren and glade.
The peace of labour done,
Is wide in the gracious earth;
The harvest is won;
Past are the tears and the mirth;
And we feel in the tenuous air
How far beyond thought or prayer
Is the grace of silent things,
That work for the world alway,
Neither for fear nor for pay,
And when labour is over, rest.

The moil of our fretted life
Is borne anew to the soul,
Borne with its cark and strife,
Its burden of care and dread,
Its glories elusive and strange;
And the weight of the weary whole
Presses it down, till we cry:
Where is the fruit of our deeds?
Why should we struggle to build
Towers against death on the plain?
All things possess their lives
Save man, whose task and desire
Transcend his power and his will.

The question is over and still;
Nothing replies: but the earth
Takes on a lovelier hue
From a cloud that neighboured the sun,
That the sun burned down and through,
Till it glowed like a seraph's wing;
The fields that were gray and dun
Are warm in the flowing light;
Fair in the west the night
Strikes in with vibrant star.

Something has stirred afar
In the shadow that winter flings;
A message comes up to the soul
From the soul of inanimate things:
A message that widens and grows
Till it touches the deeds of man,
Till we see in the torturous throes
Some dawning glimmer of plan;
Till we feel in the deepening night
The hand of the angel Content,
That stranger of calmness and light,
With his brow over us bent,
Who moves with his eyes on the earth,
Whose robe of lambent green,
A tissue of herb and its sheen,
Tells the mother who gave him birth.
The message plays through his power,
Till it flames exultant in thought,
As the quince-tree triumphs in flower.
The fruit that is checked and marred
Goes under the sod:
The good lives here in the world;
It persists,— it is God.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of six poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Poiema/Cascade), plus three anthologies — available through Wipf & Stock. His new book The Role of the Moon, inspired by the Metaphysical Poets, is now available from Paraclete Press.

John Masefield

John Masefield (1878—1967) is a significant English poet of the early twentieth century. Both of his parents died when he was a young child. In 1891 he left school to go on board the HMS Conway, where he trained for a life at sea. His aunt thought this would help cure his obsession with reading. Being on board ship, however, gave him plenty of free time to read, and to write; this is where he also learned the joy of story-telling. In 1895 Masefield discovered the poetry of Canadian poet Duncan Campbell Scott, which inspired him to immerse himself in poetry, and eventually to dedicate his life to it.

His first poetry collection Salt-Water Ballads (1902) demonstrates the influence of his time at sea, and includes his famous poem “Sea Fever,” which begins with the lines,
----“I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely
---------sea and the sky,
----And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer
---------her by...”

In 1911 he composed the long narrative poem “The Everlasting Mercy” — a poem that tells the story of a drunkard and womanizer named Saul Kane, who experiences a true conversion to Christ. The poem was ground-breaking, in that its character speaks in a colloquial and coarse manner, rather than in refined “poetic” language.

In 1923 an edition of his Collected Poems sold an impressive 80,000 copies. Masefield became Poet Laureate of the UK in 1930, succeeding Robert Bridges. Masefield's cremated remains were placed in Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey.

from The Everlasting Mercy

O Christ who holds the open gate,
O Christ who drives the furrow straight,
O Christ, the plough, O Christ, the laughter
Of holy white birds flying after,
Lo, all my heart’s field red and torn,
And Thou wilt bring the young green corn
The young green corn divinely springing,
The young green corn forever singing;
And when the field is fresh and fair
Thy blessèd feet shall glitter there,
And we will walk the weeded field,
And tell the golden harvest’s yield,
The corn that makes the holy bread
By which the soul of man is fed,
The holy bread, the food unpriced,
Thy everlasting mercy, Christ.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His latest poetry collection is Ampersand (2018, Cascade). His books are available through Amazon, and Wipf & Stock, including the anthologies The Turning Aside, and Adam, Eve, & the Riders of the Apocalypse.