The following is a re-print of a past column by former Advertiser columnist Stephen Thorning, who passed away on Feb. 23, 2015.
Some text has been updated to reflect changes since the original publication and any images used may not be the same as those that accompanied the original publication.
Poetry enjoyed a far greater popularity in the 19th century than it does now, and Canada began to develop traditions in poetry before those in other literary forms.
Nature and local themes were two of these; by the 1870s, they had become wedded in the first real flowering of Canadian nationalism. It is significant that one of the major poets of this period, Charles Mair, was a founder of the Canada First Movement.
Some critics would argue that Alexander McLachlan was the first of the major Canadian poets. Born in Glasgow, McLachlan emigrated to Canada in 1840, and from 1850 until his death in 1896, he lived not far from Elora, first in Erin township, and later near Orangeville.
His earlier poems dealt with the trials of emigration, pioneer farming, and homesickness, but in his later work a strong Canadian nationalism is clear.
Some readers of this column will be familiar with McLachlan’s poem Elora, which John Connon included on the last page of his History of Elora:
O lovely Elora! Thy valley and stream
Still dwell in my heart like a beautiful dream,
And everything peaceful and gentle I see
Brings back to my memory some image of thee.
I’ve roamed this Dominion, allured by the gleam
Of the wild woodland beauty by mountain and stream, From lone Manitoulin all down to the sea,
But found ne ‘er a spot, Sweet Elora, like thee.
This is only the first of three verses, but shows very well the way McLachlan combined the themes of nature, nationalism and localism. McLachlan knew Elora well, and was a regular visitor to his friends in the village.
He supported himself by farming and tailoring. His books sold reasonably well for poetry, but the royalties were meagre. From time to time, though, he went on tour, usually with another performer, and provided audiences with a mixed program of music and readings.
McLachlan was one of the first performers at the Elora drill shed (Armoury Hall, now the Elora LCBO), and he appeared there many times during the 1870s.
Most contemporary readers will regard McLachlan’s verse as corny at best.
In fact, few would dispute that his rhyme pattern lacks grace, or that his anapestic rhythms are wooden and heavy-handed. Still, his verse was better than most written at the time on similar themes.
It is important to remember that this type of poetry was taken as serious artistic expression 150 years ago, and enjoyed wide public support in written form and in public readings.
McLachlan’s verse was imitated by innumerable amateur poets, and the Elora area had more than its share of these. Like McLachlan, many of these poets had been heavily influenced by Robert Burns, and to a lesser extent by Walter Scott, Alfred Tennyson and American poets of the period.
Local newspapers occasionally published their efforts, a practice they would continue into the 1930s.
As far as I am aware, no one has ever compiled a list of all the local would-be poets, or gathered together all the poems written over the past 150 years with Elora, Salem and vicinity as their subject matter. I am certain that there is enough to fill a small book.
Poetry with local subject matter became even more popular in the early 20th century in Canada. This trend was reflected locally. The work of the local poets of the 1900 to 1930 period shows most often the influence of a later generation of Canadian poets such as Charles G.D. Roberts, Pauline Johnson, and particularly Bliss Carman, all of whom did their best work long before 1900.
The form and style of Elora poetry remained firmly rooted in the late 19th century.
Roberts, Johnson and Carman developed their skills as performers to a high degree, and wrote verse of a far better technical quality than the poets of McLachlan’s generation.
They became heroes to those who had literary ambitions and saw themselves as part of the movement to establish a true Canadian culture.
Locally, the best and most important poets of this period were John Mortimer, Olive Snyder and Alice Collins.
Mortimer was born in Winterbourne in 1856, and his family moved to the Elora area the following year. He took over the family farm and ran it until he retired to Elora in 1922. Mortimer wrote a great deal during his lifetime, and his poems were published from time to time in the Elora Express.
In 1911, Mortimer published a book of verse: Daydreams of a Pioneer and Other Poems. He became depressed at the public indifference to the volume, and in a fit of despondency he threw about 300 copies of the book down a disused well.
A number of the remaining 200 copies had gone to family members and friends; few were actually sold to the public. Consequently, it is quite rare, and the few existing copies are prized keepsakes.
Mortimer also wrote verse that has never been published. Much of this work is serious, even solemn in nature, and on religious and philosophical themes.
Olive Snyder was the daughter of William Snyder, the Elora station agent for the Great Western Railway and its successor, the Grand Trunk. She was also an aunt of Katherine Marston, publisher of the Elora Express in the 1950s and 1960s.
Olive Snyder grew up in a well-to-do, cultured household, and began to display her literary talents in the 1890s, when she was in her 20s.
Various magazines and newspapers published Snyder’s poems over the years. Taken as a whole, her work displays a nostalgic tone, with strong, clear imagery, and an understated sophistication. Eventually her work appeared in several small books, printed locally by the Elora Express. These include Little Towns, Pictures and Other Poems, and Remembering.
Alice Roger Collins was not an Elora native, but came here in 1923 when her husband, a bank manager, was transferred to Elora. She was one of the most prolific of Elora poets, publishing at least eight books during the 1920s and 1930s. Of course, only a small part of her writing deals explicitly with Elora.
Though not a major poet, Alice Collins did receive national and international recognition, and some of her work was published in anthologies in England.
Her best Elora poem is Beautiful Elora, which was published several times in the 1930 era.
A few days ago, Rodger Holmes (who writes a weekly column in the Wellington Advertiser) showed me an interesting work entitled The Highly Industrialized and Strikingly Beautiful Grand River Valley. It was published by the Grand River Valley board of trade in 1932. Elora is represented by a couple of photographs of the gorge and Alice Collins’s poem.
Beautiful Elora is a sonnet, a technically demanding form, and Collins made the task even more difficult for herself by constructing an acrostic of the first letters of each line, which spell “Beautiful Elora.”
Before the white man viewed this glorious strand –
Ere Huron, or Algonquin proudly strode
Along this rocky ridge, or struck a wad
Upon the floor of trackless, thick-treed land,
This mighty chasm was here — and, all unknown,
Its maddened waters rushed, with whirl and roar,
Force sweeping ev ‘ry obstacle before,
Until the gap a Giant Gorge had grown.
Like Cortez, who the blue Pacific saw –
(Enraptured was he, speechless, at his goal) –
Like him, at this vast void, silent am I.
O as my eyes behold these cliffs with awe,
Regret for petty meanness smites my soul –
And then I pray for Vision broad and high.
Although poetry has lost its wide popular appeal, the existence of so much with Elora subject matter is another indication that Elora’s natural beauty has had a profound effect on artistic sensibilities over the decades.
*This column was originally published in the Elora Sentinel on Sept. 14, 1993.
