And every ship that sails across the foam,
And every train that rushes from the sea,
And every sun that brightens heaven's dome,
And every breeze that stirs the leafing tree,
Sings to the pilgrims a glad song of home,
With freedom, joy and opportunity.
WOLFE.
"I would rather have written those lines than take Quebec to-morrow."—Wolfe, on hearing Gray's "Elegy" read the night before the capture of Quebec.
Thou need'st no marble monuments to keep
Thy fame immortal and thy memory
An inspiration to make pulses leap
And resolution spring to mastery.
Thou need'st no gilded tablets on the walls
Of cities, no imposing sepulchre,
Imperishable Wolfe, whose name recalls
The flower of kings, who bore Excalibur.
The ultimate dispensers of renown,
The poets, shall accord thee honor fit,
And add fresh laurels ever to thy crown,
High-minded hero, who hadst rather writ
Those lines of one to every poet dear
Than take the fortress of a hemisphere.
MONTCALM.
"Ce n'est rien, ce n'est rien; ne vous affligez pas pour moi, mes bonnes amies."
Montcalm, calm mount, thou didst not faint nor fail
At that fierce volley from thy foemen near,
Nor at the charge's deafening prelude quail,—
The Highland slogan and the Saxon cheer.
But thou, even thou, couldst not withstand the shock
That broke and bore precipitately on
Tried regiments, La Sarre and Languedoc,
Béarn, Guienne and Royal Roussillon.