Fleurs de lys and Other Poems | Page 6

maddening order,?That none in the country may trade?With the tribes on our side of the border,?Who is not a benedict staid;?In spite of a clause, far the sorest,?That none past his twentieth year,?And single, shall enter the forest?On any pretext whatsoe'er.
Now, you know I was ever a rover,?Half stifled by cities or towns,?Of nature--and you--a warm lover,?Wooing both in despite of your frowns,?So you well may imagine my sorrow?When fettered and threatened like this--?Oh! Marie, dear, pack up to-morrow,?And bring me back freedom and bliss.
If you do not, who knows but some morning?I'll waken and find a decree?Has been passed, that, without any warning,?Has wedded some woman to me??Oh! Marie, ch��re Marie, have pity;?You only my woes can assuage;?I'm confined, till I wed, to the city,?And feel like a bird in a cage.
Then come, nor give heed to the billows?That tumble between you and Jules.?I know a sweet spot where lithe willows?Bend over a silvery pool,?And there we will dwell, dear, defying?Misfortune to tear us apart.?My darling, come to me, I'm dying?To press you again to my heart.
THE OAK.
Last of its race, beside our college?There stands an Oak Tree, centuries old,?Which, could it voice its stores of knowledge,?Might many a wondrous tale unfold.?It marked the birth of two fair towns,?And mourned the cruel fate of one,?Yet still withstands grim Winter's frowns,?And glories in the Summer sun.
Jacques Cartier passed, its branches under,?Up yonder mount one autumn day,?And viewed, with ever-growing wonder,?The scene that spread beneath him lay.?He was the first from Europe's shore?To pass beneath the Oak Tree's shade,?The first whose vision wandered o'er?Such boundless wealth of stream and glade.
Beneath his feet a little village?Lay, like a field-lark in her nest,?Amid the treasures of its tillage,?The maize in golden colors dressed.?Years passed; and when again there came?A stranger to that peaceful spot,?Gone was the village and its name,?Save by a few gray-heads, forgot.
But soon beneath the Oak, another,?And sturdier village took its place;?One that the gentle Virgin mother?Has kept from ruin by her grace.?She saved it from the dusky foes?Who thirsted for its heroes' blood,?And when December waters rose?About its walls she stilled the flood.
What noble deeds and cruel, stranger?Than aught in fiction ere befell,?What weary years of war and danger?That village knew, the Oak might tell.?Perchance, brave Dollard sat of yore?Beneath its very shade, and planned?A deed should make for evermore?His name a trumpet in the land.
Perchance, beneath its gloomy shadows?De Vaudreuil sat that bitter day?When round about him, in the meadows?Encamped, the British forces lay;?And as he wrote the fatal word?That gave an Empire to the foe,?The Old Oak's noble heart was stirred?With an unutterable woe.
The army of a hostile nation?Once since hath entered Ville Marie,?But we avenged that desecration?At Chrystler's farm and Chateauguay--?Peace! peace! 'tis cowardly to flout?Our triumphs in a cousin's face:?That page was long since blotted out?And Friendship written in its place.
Beloved of Time, the Old Oak flourished?While at its foot its little charge,?An eaglet by a lion nourished,?Grew mighty by the river marge;?Till, where the deer were wont to roam,?There throbs to-day a nation's heart,?Of wealth and luxury the home,?Of learning, industry and art.
No longer now the church bells' ringing?Fills all the little town with life,?Its loud-tongued, startling clangor bringing?Young men and aged to the strife.?No longer through the midnight air?The savage hordes their war-cries peal,?As rushing from their forest lair?They meet the brave defenders' steel.
Long has the reign of war been ended?And Commerce crowned, whose stately fleet?Brings ever treasures vast and splendid?To lay them humbly at her feet.?And now her eager sons to-day?Have crossed the wild, north-western plain,?And made two oceans own her sway?Held captive by a slender chain.
What further Time may be preparing?For this fair town, the years will tell,?But while her sons retain their daring,?Their zeal and honor, all is well.?Still, as the seasons come and go,?Long may they spare the Old Oak Tree?In age as erst in youth to throw?Protection over Ville Marie.
NELSON'S APPEAL FOR MAISONNEUVE.
"Silent I have stood and borne it, hoping still from year to year That the pleading voice of justice you would some day wake to hear. But beneath the soulless present you have sunk the glorious past, Till I cannot bear it longer--you must learn the truth at last. Shame upon you, shameless city, heart of this great land of yours, That the world should say you care not if your founder's name endures! Shame upon you, that no statue stands within your greatest square To commemorate the hero who so often battled there!?Who long years ago sprang lightly from his pinnace to the beach, And amid the virgin forests, spreading far as eye could reach, Knelt and prayed, his people with him, while the prophet-priest foretold?How their growth should be as great as was the mustard seed's of old.
"Have you ceased to care, already, how