Alfred Gordon

Alfred Gordon Poems

Alfred Gordon Biography

To meet unexpectedly a new poet of originality and power, and to feel for a few minutes the charm of his frank, sincere and warm-blooded personality, was my privilege in a Yonge Street bookstore, one fortunate day in January, 1916. The poet was Mr. Alfred Gordon of Montreal, and my attention had just been drawn by Mr. Albert Britnell to Father Dollard's appreciative critique, when in walked Mr. Gordon with a volume of his Poems under his arm. Mr. Gordon was born in London, England, in 1888. He was educated in a private school, and at Finsbury Technical College, where he studied for three years and graduated with a certificate in Mechanical Engineering. Shortly after graduation he was employed by the Underfeed Stoker Company, and in connection with this company, first saw Canada in 1908, when he came out on the Allan Line steamer, Corinthian, assisting in boiler tests to determine the relative efficiency of mechanical stoking as against hand-firing. This was the voyage on which the Corinthian came into collision with the Malin Head, and Mr. Gordon was stranded with the rest for a fortnight at Levis. Through a misunderstanding the steamer continued homeward without him, and he was left alone and penniless. Eventually he got back to England, but not finding congenial employment of a permanent nature, he decided, in June, 1910, to cross the ocean again, this time to settle in Canada. He carne first to Toronto where he says, I was engaged in almost unbelievably humble work, before I went to Lachine and entered the employ of The Dominion Bridge Company as a structural draughtsman. Mr. Gordon stuck to draughting, 'eventually making good,' and was with The St. Lawrence Bridge Company when the Great War broke out, unsettling industrial conditions and causing loss of employment to himself and others. The drudgery–to him–of a clerkship in an insurance office provided a livelihood for a time, when he resigned to become Managing Editor of The Canadian Spectator and Bookman, a new journalistic venture with headquarters in Montreal. In this city Mr. Gordon resides with his mother, to whose devotion and guidance he ascribes whatever attainment and success he has achieved.)

The Best Poem Of Alfred Gordon

Dedication

There was a time in boyhood, ere life ceased
To hold a miracle in every hour,
We saw a City shining in the East
That drew us towards it with a magic power.

I saw its spires in glittering array,
And called you to me, while, with shaded sight,
We looked and wondered how far off it lay.
And looked again along the roadway white.

I told you how right fair it was, and you,
Half-willing only, placed your hand in mine–
'T was but a mirage–aye, that all men knew,
But yet none mortal ever might divine.

And now the whole width of the Atlantic main
Divides the fortune of our temporal ways;
Perhaps we shall not meet on earth again
Except in memories of those bygone days.

With strengthened vision you, maybe, have wrought
The consummation of that early dream,
Whilst I, too certain in Youth's pride, am brought
To cry the passing of its transient gleam.

Indeed, I think now that I did not see
The Eternal City of man's endless quest–
'T was Art, not Life, that first awakened me,
Though, once awakened, I might never rest.

I saw the beauty, first, of Form alone;
To Knowledge, not to Wisdom, I aspired:
But hardly even God to Youth makes known
The things 'more excellent' of Him required.

Who were the captains of my early song?
Swinburne and Dowson, Symons, Oscar Wilde:
Sensuous or violent, but seldom strong;
By them unconsciously I was beguiled.

Yet it was natural I should mistake
Their loves and lutes and towers of ivory
For that Adventure which the soul must make
Or else for ever ignominious be.


And, at the root, the difference is not great;
'T is but a strangeness more profound I seek:
The Boy's romance, to him, is filled with Fate,
Although his elders of it lightly speak.

So here, inversely, and from time to time,
Is told, dear friend, my pilgrimage since then–
From decoration and embroidered rhyme
To some poor reading of the minds of men.

I sometimes ponder if each soul that wins
An entrance to the far-off gates thereof,
May make atonement for a spirit's sins,
If once it dwelt with it, on earth, in love.

I wonder if those hours, though so long past,
When we in word and deed went hand in hand,
Will be a sacrament, and, at the last,
Together in that City we shall stand?

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