I count it a great honor to present to you a Canadian poet of the first rank—of the rank of Carman and Lampman—hitherto unknown in Canada except to the very few, but recognized and rightly appraised, again by the few, in England and America. I refer to Francis Sherman, who was born in Fredericton in 1871, and died in Atlantic City in 1926. the complete neglect of his work by the critics, till within the last two or three years, may be accounted for, though hardly excused, by the fact that his poems are in mere bulk so slender, and issued in such extremely limited editions, that they seemed hardly to bid for any general recognition. They have none of them been published in Canada, and the scattered copies that found their way across to us came into the hands of poetry-lovers and collectors who were content to cherish them in private. I must mark one notable exception, however. In March, 1927, the year following Sherman’s death, that great collector and fine critic the late Rufus Hathaway published an article in Willison’s Monthly, calling theattention of the Canadian public to the beauty of Sherman’s poetry. But the Canadian public refused to take notice. When Sherman’s first book, Matins, appeared (Boston, 1896), I sent a copy to Kipling, who wrote me about it with warm admiration. Carman, needless to say, praised it without stint. But Sherman was a banker of very special distinction (he established the foundations of Canadian banking in Cuba), and I suppose it never [page 19] occurred to Canadians that a man could achieve a like distinction in two such unlike fields of endeavor as poetry and banking.
Lorne Pierce has prepared the first complete edition of Francis Sherman’s poems. For this edition he has written an admirable memoir, a sketch of Sherman’s career and personality, with a brief critical appraisal of his genius, gathering the material with painstaking care from many authoritative sources. This address of mine will serve merely as a supplement to Dr. Pierce’s monograph, giving my own personal reminiscences of Sherman, whom I knew intimately and loved and admired, and attempting a more or less detailed estimate of certain of the poems, which I propose to read to you.
When, in 1874, my father was appointed Rector of Fredericton, and I forsook Westcock and the wide horizons of the Tantramar country to live in the beautiful little city of elms on the River St. John, the eager schoolboy of fourteen was of course quite unaware of the existence of three-year-old Frankie Sherman, though his home was only four blocks away form the Rectory, as was the home of Bliss Carman in another direction. But though little Frankie was all unknown to us schoolboys, the name of Sherman was one to conjure with among us, because of “Sherman’s Wharf.” This massive old structure, since fallen to decay and removed, lay along the riverside in front of the Cathedral and Parliament Buildings, only a couple of hundred yards from the Collegiate School; and throughout the spring, summer and autumn it was the very centre of our schoolboy activities, our favorite resort. Around it, under the shelter of the high bank, we swam, we launched our birch canoes, we explored for spruce gum the great log-rafts sometimes tied up below it. And once there I was saved from drowning by the heroism of a senior schoolmate, Frank McInnes, who, when I was sucked beneath the raft by the strong current, with splendid daring plunged under and dragged me forth into life. There at Sherman’s Wharf the lumber-tugs and snub-nosed wood-boats used to tie up. [page 20] I have a far-off memory of Sherman’s father, a tall, heavy-shouldered, grave-eyed man with, I think, a flowing light moustache, standing on the bank and thoughtfully contemplating his storied wharf. Of Sherman’s mother at that time I have a more vivid memory—a dark, black-browed, strikingly handsome woman, Spanish-looking as it seemed to my boyish imagination, though she was of United Empire Loyalist stock. Sherman’s home, wherein he was later to write the immortal Matins, stood near the river end of St. John Street within a stone’s throw of “The Wharf.”
It was not till 1895, when I resigned my professorship at King’s College, Windsor, and returned to Fredericton to live, that I came into close personal contact with Sherman, though I had heard of him from time to time, from Carman, Fred St. J. Bliss, and others of my Fredericton relations and friends, as someone who was going to count heavily in our circle,—as already, though so much younger, a “kindred spirit.” He was then (1895) twenty-four years of age, and held the position of cashier of the Woodstock Branch of the Merchants’ Bank of Halifax; and such was his genius for banking that two years later (1897) he was made Manager of the Fredericton Branch― “the youngest man holding that office in Canada,” to quote Dr. Pierce,—and in February of 1899 he was promoted to Assistant Manager of the Montreal office, was transferred in May to Havana as Assistant Agent; and in November of the same year was appointed First Agent, which put him in charge of the whole Cuban business. I mention this en passant to show the impression his financial abilities had made on the authorities of the Bank, and also to explain the scantiness of his poetic output. With business responsibilities so vast upon so youthful a pair of shoulders, it is not strange that his poetry was all but smothered in the bud.
But to return to Fredericton in 1895! I had looked forward with special interest to meeting Sherman, after all I had heard of him: and he more than fulfilled my anticipations. In appearance [page 21] he was very tall, lean, very dark, with heavy black eyebrows like his mother, and with the large wistful eyes of the poet rather than the banker . . . . in all he was good to look upon and had a very definite air of distinction. I found him most congenial, not only in his devotion to poetry, in which our tastes consistently agreed, but also in his passion for canoeing and for the life of the wilds.
But at this period Sherman had very little time for his masculine friendships, however congenial. He had become engaged. I knew his fiancée, Miss May Whelpley, who was a singularly beautiful girl with great charm both of manner and character. I used to think that, in that Fredericton which prided itself on its beautiful girls, she was perhaps the loveliest and the most altogether desirable; and Sherman was deeply devoted to her. I don’t remember that she was a hiking enthusiast, but they were accustomed to go on long drives in the country together, in her carriage, after banking hours; and in the long, bland summer evenings there was his birch canoe for them, and all the lovely world of the winding Nashwaak and Nashwaaksis. They were never married, because just about the time when he was becoming able to marry,—I cannot place the exact date, but I think it was some time in 1898,―Miss Whelpley was stricken with infantile paralysis, which crippled her and some years later caused her death. Until the end Sherman remained devoted to her. I believe she was the one great and inspiring romance of his life until, after a long lapse of years, he was to meet Miss Ruth Sullivan of Philadelphia, the lady who, in 1921, became his wife.
When Sherman was living in Cuba I several times ran down to Havana to visit him. These visits shine in my memory. Heavily engrossed though he was in his banking affairs, out of hours he threw them off completely. Our concern, our conversation was, to paraphrase Horace, of libros, veneremque vinum. Over our fragrant “green Havanas” and the potent golden distillage of Bacardi rum we discussed everybody’s poetry except our own,—for in regard to his poetry he was always extremely [page 22] reticent. Sometimes we would drive out to the lovely silver-sanded bathing beach of the Marianao, which was protected from the sharks of those infested seas by a broad, shelving bar of white sand which the man-eaters feared to cross. I had misgivings lest some shark, more individual and exploratory, and more voracious, than his fellows, might venture in over the bar: but I pretended to be content with Sherman’s assurance that this was, as he casually phrased it, “rather improbable.” And the swimming there was so delightful that I—almost—forgot the remote but uncomfortable possibility of sharks!
My other memories of my visits to Sherman in Havana seem to be chiefly of gay dinners, and of moonlight drives beneath the palms of the Malecon. But one episode stands sharply outline. It was at the great annual function of the Masquerade Ball at the Takon Theatre. Frank and I went in ordinary evening dress, but most of the other men, and all the women, were in costume, and masked. We were both enthusiastic dancers, and of course, with partners unlimited and unrecognized to choose from, we enjoyed ourselves immensely. In the course of the evening we made the acquaintance of a part of slender and flower-like girls, gracefully and scantily costumed and heavily masked. We danced with them, and Frank and I got separated for a time. I was enraptured with my partner. She danced exquisitely. She helped me sweetly with my halting Spanish—she herself knowing no English. She initiated me into the difficult and impassioned steps of the Cuban Valson. We stayed together through four or five dances. Then, to my keen regret, a tall cavalier in scarlet came and carried her off—but it would only be for a little while, she sweetly assured me. I felt that I had made a great hit with her. And in very truth I had. When I came down to earth I presently realized that I had made such a hit with her that she had been unable to tear herself away from me without a keepsake. In the close embrace of that last Valson the dear child had relieved me [page 23] of a gold matchsafe and of my gold watch,—the one and only gold watch I have ever possessed.
Fortunately I am always able to be amused at my own follies. A few minutes later, when I met Frank at our rendezvous under the boxes and told him about it, he did not jeer at one as I expected. “My little partner,” said he thoughtfully, “was rather a sweet thing too. I’d like to meet her again. I had left my watch at home. It would have been just as well if I had left money and my cigarette case at home also. They have gone to keep your watch company.”
We did not see our two merry maskers again. They had evidently gone home and changed their costumes, to be ready for other romantic adventures. But Frank and I remained, and continued to enjoy ourselves. For I, fortunately, had had my money in an impregnable trousers pocket where not even the dainties fingers could get at it.
Shortly after my last visit to Cuba I went to London to live, and I never saw Frank Sherman again. We just dropped out of each other’s lives—though not out of each other’s hearts. During the Great War (like myself, he joined up as a private at the very beginning of it, and was speedily promoted), our lines nearly crossed at times, but he was in the Canadian service and I for a long period was in the Imperial service, so we never managed to meet, which is a matter of deepest regret to me. After the War I stayed in Europe, while he retuned to Canada and presently betook himself to Philadelphia, where he married. After my own return to Canada in February, 1925, I heard of him, but never from him. And then, in June, 1926, I was shocked by the news of his most untimely death.
The chief influence to be detected in Francis Sherman’s verse is that of William Morris,—the early Morris, of The Defence of Guenevere. This influence is shown in certain ballads, such as “The Kingfisher,” “A November Vigil,” “The Quiet Valley,” “The Window of Dreams,” and “The Relief of Wet Willows.” [page 24] These have Morris’s wistful and homesick aloofness from the actual and the contemporary. They have the savor of old tapestries. They sing longingly of knights in armor, and of lovely ladies whose red lips have long, long vanished into the kingdom of dream. They are of the very stuff of romance. They have a haunting beauty of cadence and color. And they are of meticulously perfect craftsmanship. But in a sense they are Sherman’s “’prentice work.” Almost at once he threw off the unreal enchantment, the moonlit glamour of the Morrissian romance, and made his contact with the realities of life and human emotion, and also with the authentic austerities and sharp, strong sweetness of his own New Brunswick landscape. But he held fast to the directness and lucidity of utterance, the extreme verbal simplicity which he had learned from Morris. Much of Morris’s yearning imagination he has always, but he applies it to the emotions and aspirations of to-day. In his attitude toward life, in his “philosophy of life,” as we say, he is profoundly at odds with Morris. He looks forward, not backward. He does not, like Morris, adjure us to
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