The Canadian Authors Meet

Scott, Francis Reginald (1899 - 1985)

Original Text

F.R. Scott, F.R. Scott: Selected Poems (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1966): 70.

1Expansive puppets percolate self-unction

2Beneath a portrait of the Prince of Wales.

3Miss Crotchet’s muse has somehow failed to function,

4Yet she’s a poetess. Beaming, she sails

5From group to chattering group, with such a dear

6Victorian saintliness, as is her fashion,

7Greeting the other unknowns with a cheer—

8Virgins of sixty who still write of passion.

9The air is heavy with Canadian topics,

10And Carman, Lampman, Roberts, Campbell, Scott,

11Are measured for their faith and philanthropics,

12Their zeal for God and King, their earnest thought.

13The cakes are sweet, but sweeter is the feeling

14That one is mixing with the literati;

15It warms the old, and melts the most congealing.

16Really, it is a most delightful party.

17Shall we go round the mulberry bush, or shall

18We gather at the river, or shall we

19Appoint a Poet Laureate this fall,

20Or shall we have another cup of tea?

21O Canada, O Canada, Oh can

22A day go by without new authors springing

23To paint the native maple, and to plan

24More ways to set the selfsame welkin ringing?

RPO poem Editors

Ian Lancashire / Sharine Leung

RPO Edition

2011

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