Quebec! Quebec! thou dowered queen
Of beauty! for thee nature smiles;
A vista wide of hill and vale,
A river with a thousand isles,
Above whose calm, majestic breast
Frowns an impregnable citadel,
A safeguard to our entrance-gate,
Where Wolfe and Montcalm fearless fell.
Historic and heroic days
Those stern defiant cliffs have known,
The thunder of the battle strife,
Wild cheer, defeat, and dying moan.
Beautiful and historic stream,
Flow on, flow on, toward the sea—
The outlet to our wide domain—
Flow on in calm tranquillity!
Heroes of old ascended thee,
Brave men that would not be denied;
They pierced the wilds beyond the flood,
And death and danger they defied.
From Saguenay to Ottawa,
Across the blue Laurentian hills,
Are homes of the French habitant,
And love for thee his warm heart thrills.
With habits all so queer and quaint,
Their social life we plainly trace;
E’er faithful to their usages,
A happy and contented race.
And they have stood by Britain’s side
When war was rife on every hand—
De Salaberry at Chateauguay
Dealt a good blow for this fair land.
Ontario speaketh to our heart—
More blest, and more diversified
Are the rich blessings of her soil—
We greet her e’er with love and pride.
Numerous cities dot her o’er,
Hamlets and town by hundreds rise,
A vigorous and enduring growth,
Throbbing with trade and enterprise.
Pastoral scenes so fair and sweet
Meet the glad, enraptured gaze;
By verdured hill and lovely vale,
And a thousand broad highways,
By lake and stream and riverside,
The children’s laugh and mothers’ song
Float out along the summer air,—
A busy, bright, and happy throng.
O happy homes and loving hearts,
By rural scenes, or city’s ways!
Pinched not by poverty and wrong,
Blest in the fulness of your days!
The busy days pass swiftly by,
The evening brings good cheer along;
Canadian homes are bright and gay,
And purified by love and song.
Manitoba bursts on our view,
The prairies stretching far away,
Where thousands make their happy homes,
Blessing the auspicious day
They sought and found this “great lone land.”
And still they come from every shore,
Seeking out free Canadian homes,—
And there is room for millions more.
Here towns are rising everywhere,
A vigorous growth on every hand;
Industry’s ceaseless, cheerful din
Is heard throughout this goodly land.
Then, Manitobans, thrice three cheers
Ring out! ring out, in swelling tones,
A shout for this Dominion wide,
And for these new Canadian homes!
The prairie province opes the way
To these far vast and fertile plains;
The wheatlands of the world lie here—
This Canada to all proclaims.
And on and on we wend our way,
O’er areas vast our steps are drawn;
We flit by hill and lake and stream,
Beyond the great Saskatchewan.