Copyright (C) 1943 by The Estate of Mona Gould.
"On the food of the strong I fed, on dark strange life itself,
Wisdom-giving and sombre with the unremitting love of ages.
There was dank soil in my mouth,
And bitter sea on my lips
In a dark hour, tasting the Earth."
James Oppenheim
Copyright, Canada, 1943By Mona GouldAll rights reserved - no part of this book may be reproducedin any form without permission in writing from the publisher,except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connectionwith a review written for inclusion in a magazine or newspaper.Printed in Canada T.H. Best Printing Co., Limited Toronto. Ont.
To Graham and John
Acknowledgements
Grateful acknowledgment is made to Alfred A. Knopf Inc.,
publisher, New York, for permission to use the lines from
"Tasting the Earth" by James Oppenheim, from his
Songs For the New Age (1914), and for permission to reprint to:
Saturday Night, Chatelaine, Montreal C.A.A. Year Books,
Canadian Forum., Gossip, Montrealer, Canadian Magazine,
Woman's Illustrated (London, Eng. ), Woman's Journal (London, Eng.).
Foreword
We all of us know that the ordinary every-day man and woman,the people we brush against in street cars, the people who read thefunnies - the people who are like us - are capable of the profoundestdepths of feeling and the noblest aspirations. But it is only on therarest occasions that we happen to see one of them at it, so to speak,and when we do we have a certain sense of shame at intruding onsomething that really should be private between him and his God.
The artist enables us to see this ordinary man and woman in themoments when they are not ordinary, without any of this sense ofintrusion. I think Mona Gould, in most of the verses in this volume,has been exceptionally successful in this kind of revelation, andI think Canada needs it. A number of these verses have been publishedin "Saturday Night" during the term of my editorship, and I am veryglad that they are now to have a more permanent resting place.
B. K. Sandwell
Contents
Colour in the Willows
"They Also Serve …"
Litany for the Lonely
This Was My Brother
"Nostalgia"
"Toujours Gai"
That Girl in Hong Kong
Image
Convoy
Answer Me!
Immorality, 1943
Cathedral
You Wrote
Blood Donor Clinic 10 a.m.
Promise
Tasting the Earth
Spring Sunday … in a Small Town
Ghost of New Year's Eve
Quiet Has Come Down
Hands
Rain … in the City
You, the Sower of Seed
Nightmare
Contact
Autumn is Unfair
Nocturne
Portrait of Father
Small Christmas Tree
Ladies at Tea
Portrait
Hill-top, Caledon
You, Being Dead
Dilemma
Night Garden
Some Quiet Day … Perhaps
Cloister
Colour In the Willows
Darling … t