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(Excerpt)
TO thee we come,—to thee, the latest left | |
| And loveliest of our daughters,—Canada! | |
| Now ours, and ours alone. The power of France | |
| That held thee once is vanished all away; | |
| And the fierce strifes are over, and the claims | 5 |
| Of angry nations balanced in the beam | |
| Of Destiny, and ours is the award. | |
| Long months the tide of battle ebbed and flowed | |
| Upon the plains and in the pathless woods, | |
| The midnight gloom still blossoming into fire, | 10 |
| The midnight silence broken by the crash | |
| Of cannon or the Indian’s savage cry. | |
| Till the steep crags above the city walls | |
| Our soldiers scaled, and in the dead of night | |
| Heard the deep river murmuring far below, | 15 |
| And saw the watch-fires of the foe before, | |
| Islanded in by death on either side. | |
| But now upon the heights in loneliness | |
| Stands a gray pillar, telling all the world | |
| That here died Wolfe victorious, nothing more; | 20 |
| A hero’s simple tribute, for the words | |
| Ring like a trumpet down the vale of years, | |
| And echo in the ages far away. | |
| And thus we won the land, and year by year | |
| The nations grew together into one; | 25 |
| While the charred ruins mouldered into dust, | |
| And trampled corn forgot the soldier’s heel; | |
| And the sad memories of the bygone strife | |
| Faded, as fades a foam-streak in the sea, | |
| Or as a star-trail in the midnight sky. | 30 |
| And who but needs must love a land like this, | |
| Where every passing hour hath its own charm, | |
| And every season its own loveliness? | |
| In winter the pure veil of feathery snow | |
| Down floating from the sky in noiseless folds; | 35 |
| In spring the waking music of the air, | |
| And the world wavering through a mist of green; | |
| Then in the heat of summer the full leaves | |
| And the deep coolness of the woodland dell; | |
| And last the forest all ablaze with pomp | 40 |
| And glory of all hues, till cold winds come | |
| And strew the gold about the autumn fields. | |
| Here as we mount and leave the coast below, | |
| Lake leads to lake, sea opens into sea, | |
| Great waters hidden in the land and linked | 45 |
| Together in a sounding labyrinth, | |
| One river chain still running through them all, | |
| From Northern ice-crags spired and pinnacled, | |
| With gable and gargoyle, arch and oriel, | |
| And subtlest maze of frosted tracery, | 50 |
| Rock-based, rock-roofed, like some fantastic fane | |
| Hewn by rough craftsmen in the days of old, | |
| And buttressed firm against the Northern gales. | |
| From that cold clime they stretch into the south | |
| By plain and forest under kindlier skies. | 55 |
| There rise the masses of the gloomy pines, | |
| Marshalled together to a solid front | |
| Against the fury of all winds that blow. | |
| League after league the stately line goes on, | |
| With now and then a hollow overhead | 60 |
| Through which the light steals trembling; now and then | |
| Some sound amid the solitude,—the crash | |
| Of falling branch or cry of frightened bird,— | |
| Westwards and westwards ever till the day | |
| Breaks dim before us, and we stand at last | 65 |
| Upon the prairie rippled by the breeze | |
| To waves and breaking in a foam of flowers: | |
| Vast hazy reaches, sloping far away | |
| To western mountains, where a thousand peaks | |
| Flush to the crimson of the dawn’s first beam, | 70 |
| Or sparkle silver splendors to the moon, | |
| There rolls the great St. Lawrence to the sea, | |
| Sweeping by rapids and by cataract | |
| Whose thunder never hushes, and the gleam | |
| Of falling waters lightens night and day; | 75 |
| By islands thickly sown as stars in heaven, | |
| Lying like lilies on the river bed, | |
| With clear-cut petals lifted from the wave, | |
| A cluster of unnumbered loveliness. | |
| There do they dwell and labor; there the axe | 80 |
| Wakes with the warbling lark, and cheerily rings | |
| The livelong day, while the pines shake and fall | |
| And float into the stream to make their way | |
| By lake and river to the distant sea. | |
| And there they plough the plain and sow their seed | 85 |
| Till the swift seasons make them rich return, | |
| While the wide acres glow with golden grain | |
| To feed the multitudes of other lands. | |
| Thrice happy souls! to whom the passing years | |
| Bring little sorrow and light clouds of ill. | 90 |
| Far from the troublous tumult of the storm, | |
| Far from the suffering nations ye abide, | |
| Tearless and passionless, and there in peace | |
| Watch the long days go down into their grave, | |
| And catch the dying whisper of the world. | 95 |
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