Not a listless brain nor an idle hand
Was there in all that town,
But strong defences the people planned,
And hewed the great trees down.
The rippling stream, with consummate art,
In barriers huge they pent,
And made their home in the new lake’s heart,
And dwelt therein content.
But woe to the town and its people all!
Earth giveth no deathless joy,
And where man’s merciless glances fall
The simple they fain destroy.
The brutal and covetous Spanish horde
That raided the Aztec land,
Put its people and chieftains to the sword,
Its cities to the brand.
And here in this northern wilderness,
This wonderful beaver town,
That baffled the elemental stress
Before our sires went down.
Its stately domes and its barriers vast,
Its sinuous streets, its lake,
The hunter destroyed and overcast,
For a little riches’ sake.
He slaughtered the noble beaver kings,
And loosened the fettered stream.
And now the reeds, like a thousand strings,
With music as of a dream,
In the night wind mourn the departed lake
And the stately beaver town,
While the rippling waves in the rushes break,
As the stream goes eddying down.
And musing here on the grassy site
Of the beaver colony,
My soul is carried in fancy’s flight
To the site of Ville Marie,
Where the Hochelagans, or beaver race
Of Indians, dwelt of old,
Their name renowned from their mountain’s base
To where the ocean rolled.
Hochelaga the Beaver Meadow meant,
And where the beaver dwelt
Long since, the white man pitched his tent,
And before heaven knelt.
He felled the trees and he stayed the tide
Of tribesmen rushing down,
And, like the beaver, he builded wide
And strong a mighty town.
The curious skill and the council sage,
And the beaver’s love of toil,
Became as well his heritage
As the broad and fruitful soil.
Then honor be to the beaver’s name,
And praise to the beaver’s skill,
And in the labor that makes for fame
May we all prove beavers still.
VOYAGEUR SONG.
Our mother is the good green earth,
Our rest her bosom broad;
And sure, in plenty and in dearth,
Of our six feet of sod,
We welcome Fate with careless mirth
And dangerous paths have trod,
Holding our lives of little worth
And fearing none but God.