Alan Sullivan

Alan Sullivan Poems

Alan Sullivan Biography

Edward Alan Sullivan was a Canadian poet and author of short stories. Life Born in St. George's Rectory, Montreal, Alan Sullivan was the oldest son of Edward Sullivan and Frances Mary Renaud. In 1869, his father became rector of Trinity Church, Chicago. The family moved to the city in 1871, and thus witnessed the Great Chicago Fire. When he was 15, Alan began attending Loretto in Musselburgh, Scotland, a famous school for boys. On his return to Canada, he attended the School of Practical Science, Toronto. After this he did railway exploration work in the West, and later worked in mining. He was assistant engineer in the Clergue enterprises at Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario for a year and a half, before the organization of the Consolidated Lake Superior Company. Subsequently he spent several years as a mining engineer in the Lake of the Woods district during the period of its gold exploitation. Writing Sullivan gained recognition in the United States through his poems, short stories and comprehensive articles on various themes. These frequently appeared in Harper's Magazine, the Atlantic Monthly, and other leading American periodicals. Recognition In 1941 he won the Governor General's Award for English language fiction for the novel Three Came to Ville Marie and the The Magic Makers in 1930.)

The Best Poem Of Alan Sullivan

Brébeuf And Lalemant

Came Jean Brébeuf from Rennes, in Normandy,
To preach the written word in Sainte Marie–
The Ajax of the Jesuit enterprise:
Huge, dominant and bold–augustly wise.
The zealot's flame deep in the hot brown eyes
That glowed with strange and holy whisperings,
And searched the stars, and caught angelic wings
Beating through visions of mysterious things.
Once, in the sky, a cross and martyr's crown
Hung o'er the squalor of the Huron town.
And spectres, armed with javelin and sword,
Foreshadowed the dread army of the Lord;
But, onward through the forest, to his fate
Marched the great priest, unawed by Huron hate:
In every scourge he glimpsed the sacred Tree
And the dear Master of his embassy.

[Page 287]

'Twas in St. Louis, where the Hurons lay,
Screened from the blue sweep of the Georgian Bay,
That the frail brother Lalemant, and Brébeuf,
Built a strange sanctuary, whose trembling wall
Was birchen bark, on whose long, curving roof
Lay tawny skins. A spirit seemed to call
In supplication through the holy place
For some strong mercy on the untamed race
That, naked, sat in this thrice wondrous room;
And, peering through the incense-burdened gloom,
Stared at the altar, where the black-robes bent
O'er the bright vessels of their sacrament.

Till, on the grim and memorable day,
When, to the Host, they bade their converts pray,
There flashed a gasping runner through the wood:
'The Iroquois! The Iroquois!' he cried.
As fire that stings the forest into blood
And drives red gales of ruin far and wide,
So frenzied fear ran riot, in a flood
That surged convulsive. But the great priest stood
Like a strong tower, when fretted billows race
Tumultuously about its massy base:
'Courage, my children, through the flame I see
The dear white Christ, whose long sought sons are ye.'

Then suddenly from out the wood there rose
The shouting of innumerable foes,
And waves of painted warriors from the glade
Swept yelping, through the tottering palisade.
Were devils ere so murderous as men
In whose brown breasts those devils breathed again,
When agony the shuddering sky assailed,
When age and youth in choking anguish wailed?
Torn from the breast, the child was cleft in twain,
The mother shrieked, then fell among the slain;
Age had no power to swerve the dripping knife,
Youth gained but torture as the end of life,
The wounded perished in the bursting flame
That left St. Louis but a woeful name.
But 'midst the dead and dying moved the priest,

[Page 288]

Closing dead eyes, speeding the soul released;
'Absolvo te'–to trembling lips the word
Descended from the Hurons' new found Lord.
And, ere the night took pity on the dead,
Brébeuf and Lalemant in chains were led;
And one, the giant of Normandy, was bound
To a great stake; when staring boldly round
With ardent gaze, he saw the convert throng
Captive. 'Have courage! It will not be long;
Torture is but salvation's earthly price.
To-day we meet the Christ in Paradise.'

O heart of iron, O strange supernal zeal,
That braves the fire, the torture and the steel!
O torn and shrinking flesh that yet can find
The crown of thorns mysteriously entwined!
O sightless orbs that still their Lord discern,
Howe'er the coals their blackened sockets burn.

Thus sped the Jesuit's triumphant soul.
And Lalemant, ere the rising of the sun,
Achieved through torment his far-shining goal.
And all the Huron missions, one by one,
Were driven by the Iroquois like spray
That strong winds snatch and swiftly whirl away.

Sleep, Lalemant! Brébeuf, a long surcease!
Still moves your martyr's spirit through the glade;
Still mourns the northern forest, when the peace
And benediction of the twilight shade
Awakens in the dark memorial pines
A velvet-footed, cedar-scented breeze,
That whispers where the green and knotted vines
Enmesh the cloistered colonnade of trees.

Alan Sullivan Comments