Rejoice young hearts in your youth, morn is the time for gladness,
Time to sow for a harvest which all too soon you must reap;
Bright be the hour of your noontide with never a shadow of sadness,
Golden the gleam of your evening with silence and rest and sleep.
Glows the west crimson and gold far down the glorious river,
Cross and tower and turret fade in the gloom of the night;
Yet will my heart remember both Mother and sons forever,
Far though the pathway may lead me, swift though the years in their flight.
A SONG OF THE HOMELAND
I'll sing you a song of the Homeland,
Though the strains be of little worth,
A song of our own loved Homeland,
Of the noblest land upon earth;
Where the tide of the sea from oceans three
Beats high in its triple might,
Where the winds are born in a southern morn
And die in a polar night.
I'll sing you a song of the Eastland,
Of the land where our fathers died,
Where Saxon and Frank, their feuds long dead,
Are sleeping side by side;
Where their sons still toil on the hard-won soil
Of the mighty river plain,
Where the censer swings and the Angelus rings,
And the old faith lives again.
I'll sing you a song of the Westland
Where the magic cities rise,
And the prairies clothed with their golden grain
Stretch under the azure skies;
Where the mountains grim in the clouds grow dim
Far north in the arctic land,
And the northern light in its mystic flight
Flares over the golden strand.
And I'll sing of the men of the Homeland
From the north and east and west,
The men who went to the Homeland's call,
(Ah, God, we have given our best!)
But not in vain are our heroes slain
If under the darkened skies,
All hand in hand from strand to strand
A sin-purged nation rise.