SANZAS
"Whom have I in heaven but thee?"
'Twere nought to me, yon glorious arch of night,
Decked with the gorgeous blazonry of heaven,
If, to my faith, amid its splendors bright,
No vision of the Eternal One were given;
I could but view a dreary, soulless waste—
A vast expanse of solitude unknown;—
More cheerless for the splendors o'er it cast,
For all its grandeur more intensely lone.
'Twere nought to me, this ever-changing scene
Of earthly beauty, sunshine, and delight—
The wood's deep shadows and the valley's green,
Morn's tender glow, and sunset's splendors bright—
Nought, if my Father smiled not from the sky,
The cloud, the flower, the landscape, and the leaf;
My soul would pine 'mid Earth's vain pageantry,
And droop in hopeless orphanage and grief.
'Twere nought to me, the Ocean's far expanse,
If His perfections were not mirrored there,
Hopeless across the unmeasured waste I'd glance,
And clasp my hands in anguish, not in prayer,
Nought, Nature's anthem, ever swelling up
From Nature's myriad voices, for the hymn
Would breathe nor love, nor gratitude, nor hope,
Robbed of the tones that speak to me of Him.
This wondrous universe, how less than nought
Without my God—how desolate and drear!
A mockery Earth with her vain splendors fraught—
A gilded pageant every rolling sphere;
The noonday sun with all his glories crowned,
A sickly flame, would glimmer faint and pale;
And all Earth's melodies, their sweetness drowned,
Be but the utt'rance of a funeral wail!
CANADA
Fair land of peace!—to Britain's rule and throne
Adherent still, yet happier than alone,
And free as happy, and as brave as free,
Proud are thy children—justly proud, of thee!
Thou hast no streams renowned in classic lore,
No vales where fabled heroes moved of yore,
No hills where Poesy enraptured stood,
No mythic fountains, no enchanted wood;
But unadorned, rough, cold, and often stern,
The careless eye to other lands might turn,
And seek, where Nature's bloom is more intense,
Softer delights to charm the eye of sense.
But we who know thee, proudly point the hand
Where thy broad rivers roll serenely grand—
Where, in still beauty 'neath our northern sky,
Thy lordly lakes in solemn grandeur lie,—
Where old Niagara's awful voice has given
The flood's deep anthem to the ear of heaven
Through the long ages of the vanished past,
Through Summer's bloom, and Winter's angry blast—
Nature's proud utterance of unwearied song,
Now, as at first, majestic, solemn, strong,
And ne'er to fail, till the archangel's cry
Shall still the million tones of earth and sky,
And send the shout to ocean's farthest shore—
"Be hushed ye voices—time shall be no more!"