Between 1932 and 1934, A.J.M. Smith had one of his last significant bursts of creativity while transitioning from relative unemployment toward the security of a career as a scholar and anthologist of Canadian literature. Smith’s earlier verse, including “Like an Old Proud King in a Parable” (1928), “Good Friday” (1929), and “To a Young Poet” (1934), establishes a model of self-sacrifice for the poet by stressing the precepts of modern poetry at the expense of recognition and popularity. By the mid-s, however, Smith’s sacrificial confidence shows signs of weakness, and poems such as “A Soldier’s Ghost” (1934) and “Chorus” (1936) point to a darker, less assertive articulation of personal sacrifice. By portraying instances of sacrifice in Greek myth, Christian doctrine, and in the more contemporary socio-political context of war, Smith puts forth his sacrificial poetics in an attempt to negotiate the relationship between the poet and his readership and, more broadly, the poet’s relationship with society.