17 March 2009

A Saint Patrick's Day Fragment



It's no insult to describe Thomas D'Arcy McGee as a better politician than poet; he was, after all, one of our great statesmen. Still, I find this verse from The Poems of Thomas D'Arcy McGee (Montreal: D. & J. Sadlier, 1869) has stayed with me longer than any of his speeches. That the poet was cut down by an assassin's bullet on an April evening lends weight.

Funeral procession of the Late Hon. Thomas D'Arcy McGee
St. James Street, Montreal, 13 April 1868
Photograph by James Inglis (LAC C-083423)

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