CANADIAN VIEWPOINT By WILSON MACDONALD, Tho Ten Greatest Poem in tho Bag: lish Language. There is no better way of rousing human interest than by making some unusual 'specific statement. The evasidons of conservative literateurs may be interesting to the academic mind, but the public, which is in- tuitive, are not concerned over their meaningless array of words.' In one number of the Atlantic monthly appeared a seven-page article, writ- ten by a man lichened with degrees, and the only art in the magnificent array of words was the avoidance of expressing any definite thought. From firet to last the essay was a complete circumlocution of words and thus it made a tremendous im- pression in university circles where the prevailing idea is that )iterary xcellence and cowardice of expres- sion are synonomous,. To-day evas- fon has reached the flower of its ma- turity. Where the academy fosters one genius it harbours tem drones, and genius sand dullness always fight their royal battles under academic auspices. Ten Oxford dullards were writing voluminous piffie that was universally accepted while Matthew Arnold was singing the immortal "Scholar Gypsy," which was univer- sally rejected. It is the same to-day as in the past: the dulards are hall od with salvos while the divine eup- bearers are given the lash of cultur- of verbiage. One of the reasons of the present world-wide rejection of art is the complexity of its character and the obtuseness of its presentation. I be- Heve we are approaching a day when the cultured evasion of our profes- sors will be held to be as inartistic as the most vulgar offering of the jazz movement. . The tremendous vogue of jazz is an honest rebellion against musical snobbery and against musical criticism of the pedantic kind. In the last century we have moved, in art, from simplicity to complexity and from straightfor- wardness to obscurity, and now we find our audience is more interested in bapal things that are at least sin cera. fhan in artistic triumphs of ut- ter insincerity. A man can measure the sincerity of his love fof literature by his atti- tude toward the writers of his day. His claim is surely a most dishonest one if he pereistently refuses to read all contemporary verse while glaim- ing an affection for the produce of the dead: No where do you find this mildewed affection so arrogant- 'ly fostered as in academic circles, and J know of at least three profes- sors of English MHterature in Cana- dian universities who vigorously as- sall Canadian verse and yet have Raa touched the fringe of it J their reading. The flash of genius does not cross once ina decade the pages of the Century, Hurper's, Scribner's and othey magasines that delight only in the phrased utterance of passionless © maturity. The English magazines fare better. They at least do not debar all contributions that make definite assertions in a atratghitor- ward nfanner, A few years ago a magazine con- tained an article on the "Ten Great- est Books of all Time," and this one essay with its direct assertion -caus- ed more interest in books among the general public than anything: that dad been written in fifty years, A man; disdaining that pedantic .eti- quette which is the father of eva- sion, had dared to proclaim simply and sincerely his literary : prefer. ences. '"Thers is magle In the word tem, and when I give what I consider the ten greatest short poems in the Bug- lish language the magic of the num- ber will, I know, arrest as much interest as the list iteelf. Here then is my choice: "Elegy in a Country Churchyard" Thomas Gray. "Ode to a Grecian Urn"--John Keats. "Ode Keats. "Ode to a Skylark" --Shelley. "Rabbi Ben Esra"---Browning. "Lines in Tintern Wordsworth. "Lycidas"--Milton. "Friends in Paradise'--Henry Vaughn. "The Gypsy Arnold. "Dejection"--Coleridge. This list includes no poems with less than fifty lines, for a poem of sustained power is undoubtedly a greater triumph than a single flash of genius. I have made my selections with some misgivings for there are many poems that righteously clamor for admittance. Most insistent and authentic in their plea are: to a Nightingale"'--John Scholar'--Matthew "Ode to a West Wind"'--Shelley. "Locksley Hall"--Tennyson. '"'Saul"--Browning. "Bugene Aram'--Hood. "Nature and the Poet"--Words- worth, "Intimations on Wordsworth. Poem XXVII, in Lad"--Housman. "The Blessed Damozel"--Rossett!. "Rugby Chapel"---Arnpld. "Thanatopsis'~~~Bryant, "The Open Road"-----Whitman, Ff I had not used the qualification of the word "short," 1 would have included "The Ballade of Reading Gaol" by Wilde; "The Eve of St. Agnes," by Keats; "The Rime of the Ancient Mariners," by Coleridge and "Adonais" by Shelley. In the aesthetic circles United States poetry is measured by the cleverness of a rhyme or by the novelty of the vehicle, that country the overtone, which is the spiritual life of a poem is an over- looked factor. Yet this overtone.is that indescribable something that jmmortalizes. And I have made my {hoice of these ten poems with little thought of technique, brilllamcy or poetic artifice but because they seem to possess a spiritual grandeur, a loftiness of utterance and an atmo. spheric completeness guch as few other poems possess in so perfect a degree. The immortal "Elegy" 1s the es- sence of English philosophy in the presence of death. It is atmo- spheric, In tone, movement and thought and no disturbance of liter- ary law or phenomenon of change can lessen its éterpal value. "Lyel- das" ie the wedding of an unsur- passed "'grandness of manner" with an unmeasurable grief and the over- tone thunders in beauty notsunlike the voice of those waters that were wrapped about the beloved object of the song. 'The Scholar Gypsy" is the nobler yearning of the aoca- demic spirit, It is the righ eum light of a mind that loved , and in the poem this love wrestles with the spirit of the cloistér and the sunlight conquers and a grave Tyr- ian trade: "Saw the come, Freighted with amber grapes amd Chean wine, Green bursting figs, and tummies steeped in prine." I make no apology for including faughn's "Friends in Paradise." The poem has a richness of philoso- phy and a magic of movement thet grow as 'we companion with the Immortality" -- "A Shropshire merry Greclan coasted verses which end with a philosophy LRN Abbey" -- |" of the} THE DAILY BRITISH WHIG' T HE BUILDING DOM TNION That Canadian P for gga 3 Meteo N London to aid That a pus "above) and thirtytei Brusselton to Stockton. To quote the local Chronicler: "Such was its velocity that in some parts the 'speed was frequently twelve miles an hour." George Stephenson, the engineering genius back of this -epoch-making enterprise, ventured this prophecy: "You will live to see the day, though "I may not live: so long, when railways DO YOU KNOW-- ships now noid all records wh America and the ports of wr can by G Ro from D of the Canadian Pacific. Stephensons Eo Eg 1825 PACIFIC will come to su Kaori Godwin ' Do 1985 "when the last spike acific--that "the Great Greatest Highway! a ( Spans the World That én 1923 the Canadien Pacific R 14,650,427 passengers and 30,852,994t0ns of freight Centennial of the Steam Railway 1925 marks two important anniversaries--the hundredth of the steam railway--the 40 Just one hundred years ago, & cording to the scribe on the spot, a "great concourse" /of people witnessed the first trial of the steam railway. The locomotive (inset ""waggofis" made the run from persede almost all other methods of conveyance in this country--when mail coaches will go by railway, and railroads will become the great High . Way for the King and his subjects. The time is coming when it will be cheaper for a working man to travel by railway than to walk on foot." It was not until 1 iin the Canadian for the King and his subjects" ental reali alipy in Canada. Not only were Canada's scat. tered provinces united into one great nation--but the most difficult' and most important link created in what was to become the World's became a transcontin- YOU KENOW~-- ~ ailway carried was driven High Way 5 that both believer and agnostic must accept: "And yet as angels in some brighter climes Call to the soul tn hours of sleep 80, some strange thoughts rameend our wonted the (Note.--~I would ceive. from my readéf their idea of places, and succeeding generations have a duty to perform in showing respect to the places where their forebears He. It other fathers would apply to the police magistrate for aid in get- ting shiftless sons to work it would be Deiter. No able-bodied young man should be idle if he can secure work, --- By all means let us have "Leo the to equal the older set. clety in' St. George's hail. church @rtendshlp for you! It did one good the other day to Saud A 6 AURIS. Abou '@ SunawRX It's up to you to look your best old plain girls, pretty SoaaisE passed. Mr. Horse also managed to '|ereate a discussion in the ety coun- cll last week on the quality of a fire SSpaumnt den, Jand it was made HEAD and BRONCHIAL SO clear that we cannot run our fre brigade with motors alone auy more than we cammot live by bread alone. The horse has still a place to NH. | "Freedom from Paine