Matins In 1896, Sherman visited Bliss Carman's publishers, Copeland and Day, in
Boston, taking with him "a slim manuscript of thirty poems in an assortment of styles, most either sonnets or ballads." Copeland and Day published them as his first book,
Matins. Copeland and Day subsequently became the regular publisher of Sherman's work.
Rudyard Kipling reportedly also praised the book. The poetry of this first volume "is unmistakably derived from Rossetti and the early Morris". Many of the stories recall Morris poems: "a narrator speaks from beyond life, a fantastic setting is located beyond space and time, a ballad and a dramatic monologue are written in the
Froissartian tone, interior and exterior landscapes reflect the speakers' disturbed psychological states, precise details of colour predominate, italics are used for effect, atmospheres are Medieval, and, in general, the subjects are love, fate, and death." At the same time, as Roberts notes, in "some respects Sherman was most akin to Rossetti. 'A Memory,' 'The Path,' 'The Last Flower' and 'The Kingfisher' ... vividly recall Rossetti's brilliance of light color, but most of all his rich imagery and sensuous recollection."
In Memorabilia Mortis Sherman's next publication,
In Memorabilia Mortis, also published in 1896, was an elegy he had composed just two months after Morris's death that October. The elegy consists of six stanzas, each of which is also a technically perfect sonnet. Roberts says of these that, "In mastery of the sonnet form, in beauty of cadence, in verbal felicity and adequacy of thought content, with the nineteen sonnets of lofty faith published, in 1899, under the title of
The Deserted City, they fully establish him in the same rank with
Lampman, our master sonneteer." The elegy contains obvious allusions to Morris's work: "the seasonal and perceptual subjects of Sherman’s elegy recall
The Earthly Paradise sequence of lyrics as a whole; in a sense,
In Memorabilia Mortis returns Morris's art to him in a modified and relevant Canadian form and by so doing demonstrates the universality of his mythmaking project."
A Prelude Sherman's long poem "A Prelude" was published privately by Copeland and Day in 1897. It "demonstrates a subtle shift away from the
Pre-Raphaelites. Its diction is not as anachronistic as the previous collections, though it is still freighted with elevated language. Sherman incorporates Canadian foliage such as birches, maples, and pines more perceptibly here and allows himself a closer association to New Brunswick subject matter." Roberts called "A Prelude" "a sustained contemplative poem of nature interwoven with human interest, inspired with that seriousness, that unawareness of the trivial, so characteristic of all Sherman's work. It is written, with unfaltering technique throughout, in that most exacting Italian verse form, the
Terza Rima, which scarcely any one else except
Shelley has known how to handle successfully in English."
The Deserted City Three years later, Copeland and Day published (again privately)
The Deserted City, "nineteen lyrical and finely disciplined sonnets on faith and love, described by Roberts as the work of a 'master sonneteer'." Modelled on
Dante Gabriel Rossetti's "House of Life," the sonnet sequence "demonstrates Sherman's attempts to reconcile spiritual/secular dichotomies by exploring the soul/body conflict."
The Deserted City "exhibits a less elevated language and explores the Canadian scene in a more realistic sense" than in his earlier work.
A Canadian Calendar: XII Lyrics Sherman's last collection was
A Canadian Calendar: XII Lyrics, privately published in Havana in 1900. This cycle, meant to describe Canadian nature over a full year, show "a more authentic New Brunswick, partly because Sherman exhibits a greater diversity of metrical pattern than in previous works." Roberts calls this book "Sherman's most mature and deepest work. Life has marked him inescapably. The tragedy of his great love and his great loss inspires every one of these twelve poems, but always it is expressed interpretatively in terms of the changing seasons." In this last book, "Sherman's ability to apply the techniques of Rossetti and, especially, Morris to specifically Canadian subjects appears most clearly.... Sherman presents the particularities of seasonal changes in landscape, as well as the correspondent variations in human mood, with sensitivity and clarity. Form and content blend. 'A Song in August' and 'Three Gray Days' are examples of this suitability."
An Acadian Easter "An Acadian Easter," published in
The Atlantic Monthly in 1900, is considered Sherman's strongest piece of work. "This is an attempt — a very successful attempt — to present an heroic and supremely tragic episode of Canadian history, the episode of
Madame La Tour ... but impressionistically and by allusion. It is written in firmly woven but intensely emotionalized blank verse interspersed with plangent lyrics. It is a poetical, but hardly a popular, triumph." The poem is a dramatic monologue spoken by Madame LaTour, "with varying stanza forms reminiscent of Morris's 'Sir Peter Harpdon's End' and 'Rapunzel'. Whereas the personal voice of Lady La Tour recalls that of Guenevere, her historical voice and situation have similarities with those of Peter Harpdon. The speaker's reflections on her betrayal by both love and history give her words the psychological intensity and nostalgic depth of the
Guenevere poems.... Her vision is, then, 'Pre-Raphaelite but, at the same time, distinctively Canadian." In her essay, "'There Was One Thing He Could Not See': William Morris in the Writing of Archibald Lampman and Francis Sherman," Karen Herbert sums up: "Sherman's integration of Canadian history, landscape, and perspective into Morris's psychological narrative, colour symbolism, and form creates an exemplary Canadian myth. All in all, Sherman's poetry acknowledges both his debt to Morris and Rossetti and his allegiance to a Canadian mode of vision and voice. This dialectic predominates in the work of Francis Sherman, a personally diffident but artistically assured turn-of-the-century Canadian poet." ==Recognition==