 |
| Battle of Plains of Abraham |
Abram’s Plains
Thomas Cary (1751-1823)
Thy Plains, O Abram! And thy pleasing views,
Where, hid in shades, I sit and court the muse,
Grateful I sing. For there, from care and noise,
Oft have I fled to taste thy silent joys:
There, lost in thought, my musing passion fed,
Or held blest converse with the learned dead.
…
But chiefly here presumption’s price she paid,
And in the dust, her faded honors laid;
When up the heights, great Wolfe his vet’rans led,
Panting, the level lawn they dauntless tread:
As bold they rise the broad battalion forms,
The gain’d ascent, for fight, their bosom warms;
When soon, in view, appears the num’rous foe,
With arms bright-flashing from the plains below:
With ardour glowing in his country’s cause,
His hostile sword the chief intrepid draws;
The troops, to conquest, now inspiring cheers,
High beat their breasts, strangers to abject fears:
A chief no more he leads on foot the line,—
Thus, with his soldiers’ fate, his hopes combine.
The deaf’ning drums the charge loud rattling sound,
The charge th’ opposing cliffs thund’ring rebound.
The battle rages, bullets, charged with fate,
The hungry soil, with human victims, sate.
Attending fate, grim death, with hasty stride,
Triumphs a victor on either side.
Too sure, alas! the leaden vengeance flies,
And on the chief its force repeated tries.
Heedless of wounds, he hides the purple flood,
His courage kindling with the loss of blood;
‘Till spent, at length, nature’s oblig’d to yield,
He falls ere fix’d the fortune of the field.
Whilst, o’er his sight, spreads the thick veil of death,
And life suspended stays the struggling breath,
Anxious, he hears the shout—“they fly, they fly,”
“Who fly” “The foe” — “contented then I die.”—
…
Thomas Cary was born in Bristol, England. According to Bibliotheca Canadensis, Cary started out in the service of the East India Co, later emigrated to British America, and became a member of the bar of Nova Scotia.
Sometime before 1789, Cary came to Quebec City. In 1805, he founded the Quebec Mercury, a weekly English-language newspaper, which he owned and edited until his death in 1823…."Abram’s Plains" is not only important for its political views. It was one of the earliest poems printed in Quebec.[1]
The Battle of the Plains of Abraham, which was fought on September 13, 1759, continues to be fought today. This summer, a tourist attraction re-enactment, sponsored by Parks Canada, was cancelled because of a threat of violence. We, at Poetry Quebec, want to remember the event not to celebrate the victory gained or defeat suffered there, but to commemorate the fact that Cary wrote one of the earliest poems – “Abram’s Plains” – in English in Quebec. This 14-page poem is a poetic tribute to the farmer’s field where two colonial powers met in battle. Cary, being a loyal Englishman, celebrated the victory; however, the poem is more interesting for its “odefication” of the Plains and description of the different regions of Quebec. It is far from being an Iliad but it does suggest that the only winner there was death.
 |
| Death of General Wolfe by Benjamin West |
 |
| Death of Montcalm by Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Cote |
We have reproduced two excerpts to give our readers a sense of early epic poetry in Quebec/Canada and to remember the English language poetic roots in Quebec.
An ironic and little known fact (perhaps a foreshadowing of Quebec/Canada’s multiculturalism) is that although the British forces, led by General Wolfe, defeated the French forces, led by General Montcalm, both men died during the battle, and so the surrender of Quebec, on behalf of the British, was negotiated by a Scotsman named General Murray and for the French, by another Scotsman, Jean-Baptiste-Nicholas Roach.
[1] Paraphrased from Mary Jane Edwards, The Evolution of Canadian Literature in English: Beginnings to 1867 (Toronto, Montreal: 1973 Holt, Rinehart and Winston of Canada, Limited) p 36.
