Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SAINT CESAIRE, by WILSON PUGSLEY MACDONALD


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SAINT CESAIRE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: A village quaint is saint cesaire
Last Line: Beneath her mistletoe and holly.
Subject(s): Villages


A VILLAGE quaint is Saint Cesaire,
With homes that brew their own content.
Her single spire points high in air
To show where her departed went.
No town she knows save Montreal,
And that is farther off than Heaven.
The parish priest is straight and tall
Although his years are sixty-seven.

This padre is a kindly chief
Who bravely lifts the common care,
The gray hairs of the parish grief
Are numbered in his whitened hair.
He knows not any change of creed,
Nor days of doubt, nor nights of worry,
But plants the old and silent seed
Amid the gardens of our hurry.

If you should go to Saint Cesaire,
And let no scorn betray your eye,
The gentle priest will show you there
Men unafraid to live or die.
You'll miss the city's silk and ease
That indolence delights to cherish;
But more enduring gifts than these
Are heaped upon this humble parish.

Afar, the airplane drones her path;
The angry motor shakes the town;
The swift leviathan, in wrath,
Ploughs the green ocean up and down --
But here is still the plodding horse
And slow quatre-rous and rustic staring:
Yet here is freedom from remorse
That follows in the paths of daring.

If brick and stone and gold are wealth
Then Saint Cesaire is poor, in truth.
But if there's gold in love and health,
In age that keeps the soul of youth,
In youth that holds its fevered way
Serenely 'mid the days of folly,
Then Saint Cesaire is rich to-day
Beneath her mistletoe and holly.





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