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

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 reached the snowdrift foam,?As shoots to waves some meteor ball.
Then homeward, hearing song or tale,?With chime of harness bells we sped?Above the frozen river bed.?The city, through a misty veil,?Gleamed from her cape, where sunset fire?Touched louvre and cathedral spire,?Bathed ice and snow a rosy red,?So beautiful that men's desire?For May-time's rival wonders fled:
What glories hath this gracious land,?Fit home for many a hardy race;?Where liberty has broadest base,?And labour honours every hand!?Throughout her triply thousand miles?The sun upon each season smiles,?And every man has scope and space,?And kindliness, from strand to strand,?Alone is born to right of place!
Such were our memories. May they yet?Be shared by others, sent to be?Signs of the union of the free?And kindred peoples God hath set?O'er famous isles, and fertile zones?Of continents! Or if new thrones?And mighty