They muffled their drums and reversed their arms,
And marshalled around his bier,
And solemnly bowed their war-worn heads,
And silently dropped a tear.
E’en the painted savages loved him well,
And o’er each stoical face
Stole a shadow of pain and tenderness,
Hallowing that sacred place.
A grateful country has planted there
A monument tow’ring high,
His memory e’er to perpetuate,
Pointing ever to the sky.
The hero and his aide, parted not by death,
Secure their relics rest there,
In the lovely land of the Maple Leaf
Ever so loyal and fair.
Aye, a grateful country placed it there—
On earth there’s no grander scene—
And we sing with a grateful, fervent heart
To our country and our Queen.
Revere, then, the dead, and honor them still,
They died our freedom to save;
God bless the flag of a thousand years
May it long o’er us proudly wave.
A FOREST DREAM.
Bare and gaunt the forest standeth,
Reaching out so wide and high,
As if mutely supplicating
Mercy of an angry sky.
Oh! such hollow and weird voices
Issue from its solemn aisles,
As if lonely forest phantoms
Mourn the loss of summer’s smiles.
I have sought the dim old forest
And its old familiar ways:
Frozen streams, dark glens and bowers,
Dear to me in childhood’s days.
All is silent and forsaken,
Leaf and flower lie cold and dead,
Mute appealing to the memory,
Telling of a day that’s fled.
I have known when summer’s mantle,
Fair and sweet as poet’s dream,
Covered in a wild profusion
These old haunts with rustling green.
Then the forest aisles were merry
With the glee the song-birds made,
And their gentle echoes followed
Every stream and fragrant glade.
Then I sung with boyhood’s rapture,
Leaped and shouted in the dell,
Till the golden hush of sunset,
With its silent shadows, fell
O’er the hills that, rapt in dreaming,
Watched the moonrise on the sea,
Where the wavelets danced and murmured
Low voiced and mysteriously.