"God is not a Lord requiring
Sacrifice of memories dear,
And their love in life untiring
To His life hath brought then near.
Thus his wish to have beside him
That which seems her voice, is good:
Lovingly the Lord hath tried him,
And his heart hath understood."
NIAGARA
A ceaseless, awful, falling sea, whose sound
Shakes earth and air, and whose resistless stroke
Shoots high the volleying foam like cannon smoke!
How dread and beautiful the floods, when, crowned
By moonbeams on their rushing ridge, they bound
Into the darkness and the veiling spray;
Or, jewel-hued and rainbow-dyed, when day
Lights the pale torture of the gulf profound!
So poured the avenging streams upon the world
When swung the ark upon the deluge wave,
And, o'er each precipice in grandeur hurled,
The endless torrents gave mankind a grave.
God's voice is mighty, on the water loud,
Here, as of old, in thunder, glory, cloud!
ON CHIEF MOUNTAIN
A GREAT ROCK ON THE AMERICAN NORTH-WEST FRONTIER.
Among white peaks a rock, hewn altar-wise,
Marks the long frontier of our mighty lands.
Apart its dark tremendous sculpture stands,
Too steep for snow, and square against the skies.
In other shape its buttressed masses rise
When seen from north or south; but eastward set,
God carved it where two sovereignties are met,
An altar to His peace, before men's eyes.
Of old there Indian mystics, fasting, prayed;
And from its base to distant shores the streams
Take sands of gold, to be at last inlaid
Where ocean's floor in shadowed splendour gleams.
So in our nations' sundered lives be blent
Love's golden memories from one proud descent!
CUBA
Spake one upon the vessel's prow, before
The sinking sun had kissed the glittering seas:
"'Twas here Columbus with his Genoese
Steered his frail barks toward the unknown store,
With hope unfaltering, though all hope seemed o'er;
Calm 'mid the mutineers the prophet mind
Saw the New World to which their eyes were blind,
Heard on its continents the breakers' roar,
Told of the golden promise of the main,
While cursed his crew, and called a madman's dream
The land his ashes only hold for Spain!
It rose on dim horizon with the gleam
Of morn, proclaiming to the kneeling throng
All treasures theirs, because one heart was strong."
ON THE NEW PROVINCE "ALBERTA."
[This Province was called after the Princess, one of whose Christian names is Alberta.]