There was gatherin’ of women, there was hush upon the stairway, There was whisperin’ and smilin’, but it was no place for me; A little ship was comin’ into harbour through the fair-way— It belongs to Mary Callaghan and me. Shure, the longest day has endin’, and the wildest storm has fallin’— There’s a young gossoon in yander, and he sits upon my knee; There’s a churchful for the christenin’—do you hear the imp a-callin’? He’s the pride of Mary Callaghan and me. As a composer of song texts, Parker is rivalled only by his Canadian compatriot, Arthur Stringer, whose poems in ‘Irishy’ have been most winningly and humorously set to music by their compatriot, Gena Branscombe (Mrs. J. F. Tenney). It is indeed as a poet, whose lyrics are inevitable texts for songs which have literary charm and simple humanity that Sir Gilbert Parker has been most admired and appreciated. For this view we have the authority of Sir Gilbert himself. In the Introduction to the volume of his poetry in his Collected Works, he says: ‘_Mary Callaghan and Me_ has been set to music by Mr. Max Muller, and has made many friends, and _The Crowning_ was the Coronation ode of _The People_, which gave a prize, too ample I think, for the best musical setting of the lines. Many of the other pieces in _Embers_ have been set to music by distinguished composers, like Sir Edward Elgar, who has made a song-cycle of several, Sir Alexander Mackenzie, Mr. Arthur Foote, Mrs. Amy Woodforde Finden, Robert Somerville, and others. The first to have musical setting was _You’ll Travel Far and Wide_, to which in 1895 Mr. Arthur Foote gave fame as _An Irish Folk Song_. Like _O Flower of All the World_, by Mrs. Amy Woolforde Finden, it has had a world of admirers, and such singers as Mrs. Henschel helped to make Mr. Foote’s music loved by thousands, and conferred something more than an ephemeral acceptance of the author’s words.’ Both, then, as a poet of mystical vision and sublimated emotion, and of human sentiment and instincts which add to the humanity and gaiety of life, Sir Gilbert Parker appears as a poet who has authentic creative gifts and who is a master craftsman in the ‘art’ of verse. In novelty and variety his sonnets and lyrics have significantly enhanced the quality of Canadian poetry, and have in their own degree and way given the work of the poets of the Systematic School and Period the character of a genuine ‘renaissance.’