This volume established Isabella Valancy Crawford as one of Canada's
principal poets. Coupled with an introductory collage of viewpoints and reactions to her
work by James Reaney its provides a vivid glimpse into the literary past of this
country.
Although her poetry reflects the patterns of her time, Isabella Valancy
Crawford was able to accept the raw and vigorous Canadian landscape on its own terms. She
was the first of our poets for whom it became the setting for struggle, passion, love,
and death. She celebrated the young land with an imagery enriched by allusions to North
American Indian lore reflected in such lines as these:
From his far wigwam sprang
the strong North Wind And rushed with war-cry down the steep ravine,
And wrestled with the giants of the woods; And with his ice-club beat the swelling
crests Of the deep water courses into death.
'These verses bear the stamp
of genius and show a true poetic instinct,' said a critic in The Canadian Magazine in
1895. The poetry of Isabella Valancy Crawford forms a vital part of the body of Canadian
writing.
