114 ROYAL SOCIETY 01;^ CANADA 



clear that our admiration must be diserimiuating-, for it is only within 

 certain narrow limits that they rise into real poetry. 



One limitation to their range ought to be specially noticed : it is the 

 total lack of all genuine '^ natural magic." When the princess in the 

 Pomiiiinr Doux wakes her sister with 



Ma sa'ur, voilà le jour, 

 and is answered 



Non, ce n'est (lu'une étoile 

 Qu'éclaire nos amours, 



we get, indeed, a tine poetic touch ; but without any of the sympathy with 

 Nature which we see in this little Czech poem : 



Star, bright star ! 



Thou art from love's fetters free ; 



Hadst thou a heart, my golden star, 



A shower of sparks thou wouldest weep for nie. 



The language of tlowers is purely conventional and has nothing what- 

 ever of the Celtic glamour in it. The S})anish gipsy can tind his 

 mistress fairer than the white carnation as it opens to the morning sun ; 

 but it never occurs to the Canadian habitant to use anj' simile of this 

 kind. He sings glibl}^ enough of "le bouquet de roses " and " mon joli 

 cœur de rose" ; but it would be quite alien to his genius to employ the 

 rose in a description of a girl asleep : 



Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain. 



As though a rose .should shut and be a bud again. 



ilc tells us ver}^ pleasingly of the apple tree, that 



Les feuilles en sont vertes, 



but this is a mere generality, quite devoid of the ])eculiar charm of 

 Chaucer's '-glad light-green." In a land of falling waters, the best 

 desci'iption of their beauty is only another general remark — 



J'ai trouvé l'eau si belle, 

 though Nature is assuredly not less lavish in providing her similes in 

 Canada than in Roumania, where they sing — 



And through his slumbers, murmuring on, their watch the waters keep ; 

 O ! happy waters that may sing and lull him in his sleep ! 



The Canadian folksinger would never think of ascribing royal honoui-s to 

 the sunset, like the tireek Calabrians who call it " o iglio vasilc'ggui " — 

 o yXios fiaaiXevei. Nor could he ap])reciate the golden ju-omise of 

 some rare, quiet, sunlit afternoon in our early March, when 



Winter, .slumbering in the open air. 



Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring. 



No, the (yanadian folksinger has never consciously felt the joy of being 

 '• ma<le one with Nature." But surprise him unawares, and you find that 



