But if any of the future Canadian poet, Western or Eastern, should prefer or incline to turn back to the ways of Service and Stead, let him reflect that since beauty is our clearest manifestation of the union of the real and the ideal, that is, of perfection, not to love and promote beauty in poetry is so far forth to refuse to love and promote the Godlike in the hearts of mankind, for perfection is the essence of the Godhead. To become a poet may not be a moral duty. But if one elects the office of poet, then to perfect oneself, as far as possible, in poetic artistry for the sake of beautifully or compellingly embodying in verse whatsoever is lovely in Nature or noble in ideas, is to attain to high moral dignity in one’s own soul as a poet and to impress on the world the high spiritual function of poetry. * * * * * Sources of quotations in this chapter: Poems of Robert W. Service—_The Songs of a Sourdough_ (Ryerson Press: Toronto); _The Rhymes of a Rolling Stone_, (Ryerson Press: Toronto). Poems of Robert Stead—_Kitchener and Other Poems_—or in _The Empire Builders_ (Musson Book Co.: Toronto). CHAPTER XX _The_ Restoration Period THE RESTORATION OR SECOND RENAISSANCE PERIOD IN CANADIAN LITERATURE—NEW FORMS, THEMES, AND SOCIAL IDEALS—THE POETS— MARJORIE PICKTHALL—ROBERT NORWOOD—KATHERINE HALE—AND OTHERS. We call the period beginning with the publication of Marjorie Pickthall’s first volume of verse, _Drift of Pinions_ (1913), and on to the present, the Restoration or Second Renaissance Period in Canadian Literature. It is a ‘restoration’ period because it marks a return, after the Decadent Interim of the Vaudeville School (1907-1912), to the aesthetic and artistic ideals of the first systematic group of native-born Canadian writers. It is a ‘renaissance’ because the writers of the period undertook the systematic production of original authentic literature, and because they wrote under the inspiration of new themes, ideals, and forms. By 1913 when the Canadian public had tired of the picaresque themes and the plashing anapaests of Robert Service, and the vogue of the Vaudeville School had passed, there was a demand for clean and sweet sustenance of the soul and refreshing new verbal music for the spirit. It was a demand for pure Beauty— of fragrance made, Woven and rhymed of light.