If yonder patient sheep and kine,
Close shrinking from the sun’s hot flame,
Had man’s gift—“power of speech divine,”
They surely would repeat the same—
Each blade of grass, each fainting flower,
Would whisper to the shrubs and trees,
How much they longed for evening’s hour,
With cooling breath and grateful breeze.
[THE FALL OF THE LEAF.]
Earnest and sad the solemn tale
That the sighing winds give back,
Scatt’ring the leaves with mournful wail
O’er the forest’s faded track;
Gay summer birds have left us now
For a warmer, brighter clime,
Where no leaden sky or leafless bough
Tell of change and winter-time.
Reapers have gathered golden store
Of maize and ripened grain,
And they’ll seek the lonely fields no more
Till the springtide comes again.
But around the homestead’s blazing hearth
Will they find sweet rest from toil,
And many an hour of harmless mirth
While the snow-storm piles the soil.
Then, why should we grieve for summer skies—
For its shady trees—its flowers,
Or the thousand light and pleasant ties
That endeared the sunny hours?
A few short months of snow and storm,
Of winter’s chilling reign,
And summer, with smiles and glances warm,
Will gladden our earth again.
[THE OLD TOWERS OF MOUNT ROYAL OR VILLE MARIE.]
On proud Mount Royal’s Eastern side,
In view of St. Lawrence’s silver tide,
Are two stone towers of masonry rude,
With massive doors of time-darken’d wood:
Traces of loop-holes are in the walls,
While softly across them the sun-light falls;
Around broad meadows, quiet and green,
With grazing cattle—a pastoral scene.
Those towers tell of a time long past,
When the red man roamed o’er regions vast,
And the settlers—men of bold heart and brow—
Had to use the sword as well as the plough;
When women (no lovelier now than then)
Had to do the deeds of undaunted men,
And when higher aims engrossed the heart
Than study of fashions or toilet’s art.
A hardy race from beyond the sea
Were those ancient founders of Ville Marie!
The treacherous Sioux and Iroquois bold
Gathered round them as wolves that beset a fold,
Yet they sought their rest free from coward fears;
Though war-whoops often reached their ears,
Or battle’s red light their slumbers dispel,—
They knew God could guard and protect them well.
Look we back nigh two hundred years ago:
Softly St. Lawrence bright waters flow,
Shines the glad sun on each purple hill,
Rougemont, St. Hilary, Boucherville,
Kissing the fairy-like isle of St Paul’s,
Where, hushed and holy, the twilight falls,
Or St. Helen’s, amid the green wave’s spray,
All lovely and calm as it is today.