CANADA.
Oh Canada! great Canada!
Land of all lands to be; Farewell to lays of olden clime!
We touch the lyre for thee. For thee, Oh gracious, morning land!
Through cycles of renown Thy leal of heart, and firm of hand
Shall guard thy spotless crown.
Exhaustless, boundless Canada!
Thy myriad forests wave; Thy snow-capped mountains cleave the skies;
Thy shores, two oceans lave. Thy sea-wide lakes, thy rivers bold
Are worlds of crystal sheen;
And vast as empires famed of old
Thy prairies, rolling green.
Oh fair and beauteous Canada!
Aneath thy sapphire sky, Gay-plumaged warblers wing their flight
O'er flowers of gorgeous dye, Which own no faint, exotic blush
Of Care's trim, training hand; Rich dowered of health, with nature's flush,
They brighten all the land.
Thou may'st not boast, fair Canada!
The soft, spice-laden breeze; Or palm of Ethiopian land,
Or pearl of Ceylon seas. Yet thine no dread, samiel curse,
To blight thy emerald plains; Thine only wholesome air, to nurse
Pure blood in patriot veins.
Thou may'st not point, young Canada!
To sumptuous mosques of pride; Or watery highways, where with song,
The gay gondolas glide. But thine, beneath wide starry dome,
Along ten thousand streams, O'er many a league of richest loam,
To animate life dreams.
Thou opest, regal Canada!
Floodgates off either sea; And tyrant-crushed, and crushed of fate,
Find peaceful rest in thee. Upon thy generous-yielding sward,
And round thy teeming coast, Just labor finds its just award;
Nor heart of hope is lost.
Oh high-souled! hopeful Canada!
Long may thy banner wave O'er soil where will to work is gold,
Nor man nor mind is slave. God's grace thee further, lovèd land!
Live thou thy high behest! So shalt thou 'mid the nations stand
Erect; through blessing blest.
[SIEUR DE MAISONNEUVE,]
OR
THE FOUNDING OF MONTREAL.
Tho' rough be the path thou art destined to tread,
Let courage and truth be thy stay; Thy course be straight onward, aye looking ahead,
Doubt not, neither droop by the way. Who spanned the wide ocean, who narrowed the soil,
With spirits untrammeled of fear, Have found, through the struggle, the sorrow, the toil,
Sure help from on high ever near.
He had ta'en his last look of those terraced hills
Where the golden and green intertwine; Where song of the peasant doth sing in the rills,
As he gleaneth the fruit of the vine. He had breathed fond adieux to his own loved land,
A land of rare science and art; Where learning's vast treasure to genius lends hand,
And knowledge ennobleth the heart.
Aglow with the fire of a heavenly grace,
He had sailed for the ice drift and snow; With vigor of purpose had ventured his face
To yet fiercer, more deadly foe. To the darkening scowl of the dusky crew
He would radiate beams of love; Would labor and bide, with his well-chosen few,
The unction bestowed from above.
They told him of brothers who perished before;
Of the tortures of savage hate; Vain pleading! it stirred but his courage the more
To conquer, or share in their fate. Not his to recall, with a sigh of regret,
Those voices far over the main; Where the sun of his brilliant boyhood set,
On the banks of the royal Seine.
Not his to feel faint on the thorniest path,
Or to shrink whate'er might betide: They know not, or heed not humanity's wrath
Who are vowed to the Crucified. He gazed on the shore, with its dark fringe of pine;
To the heavens, with bright disc on the blue; Then, lightened his vision with rapture divine;
The future arose to his view.
"I shall go," said he, "unto Montreal
Though each tree were an Iroquois!" And the God of the dauntless hearkened his call,
The God of the martyred ones saw. Now the great city smiles where the grim forest loomed,
And the red man boweth the knee; And the Cross which was trampled in triumph hath bloomed
From mountain to uttermost sea.