Memories of Canada and Scotland, Speeches and Verses | Page 2

CORPORATION
VERSES ON CANADIAN SUBJECTS.
CANADA, 1882.
"Are hearts here strong enough to found
A glorious people's sway?"

Ask of our rivers as they bound
From hill to plain, or ocean-sound,

If they are strong to-day?
If weakness in their floods be found,

Then may ye answer "Nay!"
"Is union yours? may foeman's might
Your love ne'er break or
chain?"
Go see if o'er our land the flight
Of Spring be stayed by
blast or blight;
If Fall bring never grain;
If Summer suns deny their
light,
Then may our hope be vain!
"Yet far too cramped the narrow space
Your country's rule can own?"

Ah! travel all its bounds and trace
Each Alp unto its fertile base,

Our realm of forests lone,
Our world of prairie, like the face
Of
ocean, hardly known!
"Yet for the arts to find a shrine,
Too rough, I ween, and rude?"
Yea,
if you find no flower divine
With prairie grass or hardy pine.
No
lilies with the wood,
Or on the water-meadows' line
No purple Iris'
flood!
"You deem a nation here shall stand,
United, great, and free?"
Yes,

see how Liberty's own hand
With ours the continent hath spanned,

Strong-arched, from sea to sea:
Our Canada's her chosen land,
Her
roof and crown to be!
QUEBEC.
O fortress city, bathed by streams
Majestic as thy memories great,

Where mountains, floods, and forests mate
The grandeur of the
glorious dreams,
Born of the hero hearts who died
In founding here
an Empire's pride;
Prosperity attend thy fate,
And happiness in thee
abide,
Pair Canada's strong tower and gate!
May Envy, that against thy might
Dashed hostile hosts to surge and
break,
Bring Commerce, emulous to make
Thy people share her
fruitful fight,
In filling argosies with store
Of grain and timber, and
each ore,
And all a continent can shake
Into thy lap, till more and
more
Thy praise in distant worlds awake.
Who hath not known delight whose feet
Have paced thy streets or
terrace way;
From rampart sod or bastion grey
Hath marked thy
sea-like river greet.
The bright and peopled banks which shine
In front of the far
mountain's line;
Thy glittering roofs below, the play
Of currents
where the ships entwine
Their spars, or laden pass away?
As we who joyously once rode
Past guarded gates to trumpet sound,

Along the devious ways that wound
O'er drawbridges, through
moats, and showed
The vast St. Lawrence flowing, belt
The
Orleans Isle, and sea-ward melt;
Then by old walls with cannon
crowned,
Down stair-like streets, to where we felt
The salt winds
blown o'er meadow ground.
Where flows the Charles past wharf and dock.
And Learning from
Laval looks down,
And quiet convents grace the town.

There swift

to meet the battle shock
Montcalm rushed on; and eddying back,

Red slaughter marked the bridge's track:
See now the shores with
lumber brown,
And girt with happy lands which lack
No loveliness
of Summer's crown.
Quaint hamlet-alleys, border-filled
With purple lilacs, poplars tall,

Where flits the yellow bird, and fall
The deep eave shadows. There
when tilled
The peasant's field or garden bed,
He rests content if
o'er his head
From silver spires the church-bells call
To gorgeous
shrines, and prayers that gild
The simple hopes and lives of all.
Winter is mocked by garbs of green,
Worn by the copses flaked with
snow,--
White spikes and balls of bloom, that blow
In hedgerows
deep; and cattle seen
In meadows spangled thick with gold,
And
globes where lovers' fates are told
Around the red-doored houses low;

While rising o'er them, fold on fold,
The distant hills in azure glow.
Oft in the woods we long delayed,
When hours were minutes all too
brief,
For Nature knew no sound of grief;
But overhead the breezes
played,
And in the dank grass at our knee,
Shone pearls of our
green forest sea,
The star-white flowers of triple leaf
Which love
around the brooks to be,
Within the birch and maple shade.
At times we passed some fairy mere
Embosomed in the leafy screen,

And streaked with tints of heaven's sheen,
Where'er the water's
surface clear
Bore not the hues of verdant light
From myriad
boughs on mountain height,
Or near the shadowed banks were seen

The sparkles that in circlets bright
Told where the fishes' feast had
been.
And when afar the forests flushed
In falling swathes of fire, there
soared
Dark clouds where muttering thunder roared,

And mounting
vapours lurid rushed,
While a metallic lustre flew
Upon the vivid
verdure's hue,
Before the blasts and rain forth poured,
And slow

o'er mighty landscapes drew
The grandest pageant of the Lord:
The threatening march of flashing cloud,
With tumults of embattled
air,
Blest conflicts for the good they bear!
A century has God
allowed
None other, since the days He gave
Unequal fortune to the
brave.
Comrades in death! you live to share
An equal honour, for
your grave
Bade Enmity take Love as heir!
We watched, when gone day's quivering haze,
The loops of plunging
foam that beat
The rocks at Montmorenci's feet
Stab the deep
gloom with moonlit rays;
Or from the fortress saw the streams

Sweep swiftly o'er the pillared beams;
White shone the roofs, and
anchored fleet,
And grassy slopes where nod in dreams
Pale hosts
of sleeping Marguerite.
Or when the dazzling Frost King mailed
Would clasp the wilful
waterfall,
Fast leaping to her snowy hall
She fled; and where her
rainbows hailed
Her freedom, painting all her home,
We climbed
her spray-built palace dome,
Shot down the radiant glassy wall

Until we