Mrs. Moody
Mrs. Moody
Original Text
James McIntyre, Musings on the Banks of Canadian Thames, including poems on local, Canadian and British subjects, and lines on the great poets of England, Ireland, Scotland and America, with a glance at the wars in Victoria's reign (Ingersoll: H. Rowland, 1884): 52-53. B-11 1857 Fisher Rare Books Library.
3She showed she had both pluck and push,
4In her work, roughing in the bush.
5For there all alone she will dwell,
7Outbreak her husband strove to quell --
8Her own grand struggles she doth tell.
9Round bush life she threw a glory,
10Pioneer renowned in story;
11But her tale it is more cheering
12When she wrote about the clearing.
14Though eighty-six, she doth not fail;
15She now is writing of wild flowers
16Grown in Canada's woody bowers.
Notes
1] "As we have given glances at various Canadian authors in this work, perhaps there is none more worthy than Mrs. Moody, whose vigorous pen was ever active in favor of Canada. She is a sister of the celebrated Agnes Strickland, author of `The Queens of England.' Mrs. Moody is enjoying reasonably fair health in Toronto. She was born in the beginning of the century." [poet's note] Back to Line
2] Mrs. Moody: Susanna Moodie, who wrote Roughing it in the Bush (1852) and followed it with Life in the clearings versus the bush (1853). Her health may have been reasonably good in 1884 but she died on April 8, 1885. Back to Line
6] McKenzie: William Lyon Mackenzie (1795-1861), the first major of Toronto, led a rebellion against the establishment that was defeated when, on December 7, 1837, loyalists routed the rebels at Montgomery's Tavern (The Canadian Encyclopedia, 2nd edn. [Edmonton: Hurtig, 1988]: 1271), now a museum at the corner of Dundas Street West and Islington Avenue in West Toronto. Back to Line
13] "Mrs. Trail, also a celebrated champion of Canada, who is older even than her sister, Mrs. Moody. She livesnear Peterboro." [poet's note] Catharine Parr Traill (1802-99) published The Backwoods of Canada in 1836 but became a botanist of note afterwards with her Canadian Wildflowers (1868) and Studies of Plant Life in Canada (1885). Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1884
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 1999.
Rhyme