Songs of the Great Dominion

Songs of the Great Dominion

Songs of the Great Dominion: Voices from the Forests and Waters, the Settlements and Cities of Canada (1889) was a collection selected and edited by W.D. Lighthall, a writer and barrister of Montréal, and intended as one of the Windsor Series of "Poetical Anthologies" published by Walter Scott of London, who also issued it under the title Canadian Songs and Poems in 1892. This late 19th-century collection of Canadian verse is animated by the high ideals and the greater British Empire loyalties of its compiler. Supplied with a ringing introduction which echoes with patriotic sentiment and lyrical praise for Canada, this is a collection of confident poetry truly representative of the national and literary self-respect of the emergent Dominion. The anthology is noteworthy for its attempt to include some French Canadian poetry in the appendix as well as some folksongs in translation, and for its recognition of a distinct Indian element in Canadian writing.