Ignoble is the fear of loss;
The call of honour all demands!
What thought those generous hearts of dross
Who sowed our races in these lands?
Who blames the Loyalist of pelf?
Champlain, what cared he for himself?
Ignoble is the dread of harm:—
Expurge it for a nobler creed!
Until we smile at all alarm
Poor will be our Canadian breed.
He may not count on victories
Who will not die as patriot dies.
Ignoble the consent to take
The light opinions of our worth
That strangers condescending make
Who own not better brains nor birth:—
Children of men who toiled and fought,
Build your own fate; respect your lot.
Arise! Live out a larger dream—
Your nation's that ye may be man's:
Advance; invent; improve; the gleam
Of dawn for all illume your plans!
Greece lived! the world requires again
The lives of nations and of men!
THE KEERLESS PARD.
No, I'm a disappointed man,
Though I've acted fer the best;
But I tell ye, stranger, what it is—
The Occident's not the West.
Have I got the hang of the dialeck?
Ye're nearer New York ner I
An' ye've seen th' latest litteracher
This lingo's laid-down by.
What is Bret Harte now givin' us?
How's the Colorado tongue?
Bret wuz the pard that run the West
When I wuz East—and young;—
That is to say, three months ago.
But now I must be grey,
Fer I've been out here so long I've lost
The hang o' the Western way.
Way down thar in the State o' Maine,
In mild Skowhegan town,
I pastured as a tenderfoot
An' the clerk o' Storeclothes Brown.