APPENDIX A XLV 



The Confederation School indeed expressed something which 

 was at the root of the chivalrous conduct of our young Canadians 

 in the Great War. They both expressed and inspired it. 



It would be very easy to trace the elements of the common task 

 in the product of others of the school, but as two of the most eminent 

 are among our own Fellowship, I shall quote a brief distinctive note 

 from each. 



Frederick George Scott wrote the following inscription for the 

 Soldiers' Monument at Quebec: 



"Not by the power of Commerce, Art or Pen 



Shall our great Empire stand, nor has it stood, 

 But by the noble deeds of noble men, 



Heroic lives and heroes' outpoured blood." 



And from Duncan Campbell Scott may be chosen the exquisite 

 sonnet: 



OTTAWA 



Before Dawn. 



"The stars are stars of morn; a keen wind wakes 

 The birches on the slope; the distant hills. 

 Rise in the vacant North; the Chaudière fills 

 The calm with its hushed roar;' the river takes 

 An unquiet rest, and a bird stirs, and shakes 

 The morn with music; a snatch of singing thrills 

 From the river; and the air clings and chills. 



Fair in the South : fair as a shrine that makes 

 The wonder of a dream, imperious towers, 

 Pierce and possess the sky, guarding the halls. 

 Where our young strength is welded strenuously; 

 While in the East the Star of morning dowers 

 The land with a large tremulous light, that falls 

 A pledge and presage of our destiny." 



The Great War is vastly more stirring as an era than Confeder- 

 ation was. We are passing through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, 

 and many of our sons have crossed the dark river itself and disappeared 

 into the night. Fierce tests are forging men and will turn into our 

 home life a stern and determined army, hating shams, not afraid of 

 true revolutions, and accustomed to ideals, although singularly silent 

 about them Momentous views and profound feelings have already 

 begun to find some utterance here as well as in other allied lands. 

 By examining the body of scattered verse from Canadian pens, we 

 may hope to construct a dim picture of our coming poetic generation. 

 Never mind the form. The mass must be regarded in the same light 

 as those absorbing wash-and-pencil drawings, which come from the 



