I read an original copy of this book which includes the poems of 34 other women. I scanned the cover of the book, shown to the left.
In her "Prefactory Note" to the booklet, Isabel Ecclestone Mackay writes:
"'What is well done, 'twere well to do again' - this must be the old saying whose advice the compilers of this inviting booklet have wisely heeded. Last year "Verse and Reverse" was an experiment; this year it is an institution - at least we who read it will hope that it may be so. There are few things more delightful than to turn the fresh-cut pages of a new miscellany, sure of coming upon something good, yet never knowing how entirely good it may be. The little "finds" one makes have a flavor undefinable - like the eating of a fish one has caught oneself.
New names and older names are here; names we know well and names we hope to know better. And, above the names, lie swift glimpses of personality, so clear sometimes that the name seems an afterthought. To discriminate is not the duty of a preface, and happily so, since, in the pleasant byways of verse, discrimination is safely left to those who wander through them. Do you look for sentiment - a touch of humor - an odd bit of philosophy - a thumbnail sketch - a dash of color? You will find them all here - at many you will look again, and some you will not forget."
Indeed, Montgomery is one of those that you look to again, and one that "you will not forget." Here is the poem that Montgomery contributed to the booklet:
Spring Song by L. M. Montgomery
O gypsy winds that pipe and sing
In budding boughs of beech,
I know I hear the laugh of spring
In all your silver speech.
O little mists that hide and curl
In hollows wild and green,
I know you will come in gauze and pearl
To wait upon your queen.
O little seed of mellow earth
Where rain and sunshine kiss,
I know the quivering joy of birth
Throbs in your chrysalis.
O Hope, you blossom on my way
Like violet from the clod,
And Love makes rosy all the grey
When spring comes back from God.
References:
1 Toronto Women's Press Club. Verse
and Reverse. Toronto: F. D. Goodchild, Co. 1921.
Last Updated 03.28.04
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