"Macdonald, though thy soul hath passed away From wonted wolds in our Canadian land, Where thou wast chiefest of the fervid band That sought to give the people fullest sway O'er their own destiny, thy spirit goes Triumphant in this Canada of ours Resplendent now before the elder Pow'rs Who mark how virile our young nation grows!
"Thy wisdom was the vision of a seer Who knew the meaning of the pregnant days Which gen'rous Time should father into ways For unity...."
In the memorial lyric to William Henry Drummond, whom Dr. Logan enshrines as "Sovereign of Joy and Prince of Tears," the poet touches perhaps his most musical note in the lines:
"O Lost Canadian Singer of the winsome lays, How farest thou along the Elysium ways,-- Art thou companionless as we And sorrowing?
"O gentle heart, we wonder if thou farest happily With Homer and the Attic strain, With Milton and the Tragic train."
Among the younger Canadian poets are two sisters, Annie Campbell Huestis and Ethel Huestis Butler, who have each won distinction. One little lyric of Mrs. Butler's, _On Life's Highway_, is singularly poetic in its motive, contrasting the experiences of walking as companioned with Grief, or with Joy, and is expressed with much tenderness of feeling. The work of Miss Huestis suggests that she makes her pilgrimages to the "holy hill," and brings away with her all the fragrance of the thyme. A poem of hers entitled _Aldaran, the Singer_, has somewhat of that sustained sweetness and music that so signally characterised Mrs. Browning's _Catarina to Camoens_. From Miss Huestis's _Aldaran_ are these extracts:
"Aldaran, who loved to sing, Here lieth dead. All the glory of the spring, All its birds and blossoming, Near his still bed Cannot waken him again. Cannot lure to hill and plain, Aldaran, the Singer, Who is dead.
"Aldaran, who loved to sing, Here lieth low; Not again his heart shall spring At the time of blossoming, Ah, who can know? Still at dusk or break of day, { 268} Some can hear him on his way, Aldaran, the vanished one, Walking, hidden, in the sun; Moving, mist-like, by the streams When the early twilight dreams; Speeding on his quiet way, Never seen by night or day,
"But in pity drawing near To the help of those who fear. To the beds of those who die, Singing low their lullaby, Singing still, when they are far Where the mist and silence are, Singing softly still that they May not fear the hidden way. So, to those whose day is sped, In the hour lone and dread, Cometh Aldaran, the Singer, Who is dead!"