The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems

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Other Poems by Kate Seymour Maclean
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Title: The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems
Author: Kate Seymour Maclean
Release Date: October, 2004 [EBook #6623]
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Edition: 10
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0. START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COMING
OF THE PRINCESS ***
Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Robert Prince, Charles Franks and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
This file was produced from
images generously made available by the Canadian Institute for
Historical Microreproductions.
THE COMING OF THE PRINCESS; AND OTHER POEMS.
BY
KATE SEYMOUR MACLEAN, KINGSTON, ONTARIO.
AN INTRODUCTION, BY THE EDITOR OF "THE CANADIAN
MONTHLY."
INTRODUCTION.
BY G MERCER ADAM.
The request of the author that I should write a few words of preface to
this collection of poems must be my excuse for obtruding myself upon
the reader. Having frequently had the pleasure as editor of The
Canadian Monthly, of introducing many of Mrs. MacLean's poems to
lovers of verse in the Dominion it was thought not unfitting that I
should act as foster father to the collection of them here made and to
bespeak for the volume at the hands at least of all Canadians the
appreciative and kindly reception due to a
Child of the first winds and suns of a nation.
Accepting the task assigned to me the more readily as I discern the high
and sustained excellence of the collection as a whole let me ask that the
volume be received with interest as a further and most meritorious
contribution to the poetical literature of our young country (the least
that can be said of the work), and with sympathy for the intellectual and
moral aspirations that have called it into being.

There is truth, doubtless, in the remark, that we are enriched less by
what we have than by what we hope to have. As the poetic art in
Canada has had little of an appreciable past, it may therefore be thought
that the songs that are to catch and retain the ear of the nation lie still in
the future, and are as yet unsung. Doubtless the chords have yet to be
struck that are to give to Canada the songs of her loftiest genius; but he
would be an ill friend of the country's literature who would slight the
achievements of the present in reaching solely after what, it is hoped,
the coming time will bring.
But whatever of lyrical treasure the future may enshrine in Canadian
literature, and however deserving may be the claims of the volumes of
verse that have already appeared from the native press, I am bold to
claim for these productions of Mrs. MacLean's muse a high place in the
national collection and a warm corner in the national heart.
To discern the merit of a poem is proverbially easier than to say how
and in what manner it is manifested. In a collection the task of
appraisement is not so difficult. Lord Houghton has said: "There is in
truth no critic of poetry but the man who enjoys it, and the amount of
gratification felt is the only just measure of
criticism." By this test the
present volume will, in the main, be judged. Still, there are
characteristics of the author's work which I may be permitted to point
out. In Mrs. MacLean's volume what quickly strikes one is not only the
fact that the poems are all of a high order of merit, but that a large
measure of art and instinct enters into the composition of each of them.
As readily will it be recognized that they are the product of a cultivated
intellect, a bright fancy, and a feeling heart. A rich spiritual life
breathes throughout the work, and there are occasional manifestations
of fervid impulse and ardent feeling. Yet there is