[In] Pratt the essential myth is achievement, to moral purpose. (p. 6)

Individual narrative poems treat of parts of the general course of achievement, with its advances and set backs: blocked in [Brébeuf and His Brethren] and The Titantic, moving on in Behind the Log and The Roosevelt and the Antinoe, succeeding in [Towards the Last Spike.] The only real obstacle he records is human, therefore only human resources are needed to overcome the hindrances: creative imagination, effort, courage, and willing submission of individual goals to attain a communal end. In this Pratt expresses the essential myth of Canada at the turn of the century, the achievement for its own sake, with the prime motive exemplified by the axiom that nature abhors a vacuum—the emptiness must be filled, the chaos ordered. (pp. 9-10)

Pratt's symbols for good are warm-blooded reasoning creatures—the dog in "Carlo", the "Apes...