Memories of Canada and Scotland, Speeches and Verses | Page 9

abides, and mighty nations?Cannot ever more be strong.?So each huntress found a master,?Yielding to her heart's new birth,?And no more along the prairie?Beat her steed the sounding earth.?Yearly yet the Blackfeet women?Meet and dance and sing the day?When through love they won, and, winning,?Freedom passed with love away!
SAN GABRIEL, ON THE PACIFIC COAST.
Grey-cowled monk, whose faith so earnest?Guides these Indians' childlike hearts,?As their hands to toil thou turnest,?Teaching them the Builder's arts,?Speak thy thought! as now they gather?Round the white walls on the plain,?Rearing them for God the Father,?And the glory of New Spain.
"Thou, St. Gabriel, knowest only?Why thy holy bells I raise,?To no turret proud and lonely,?There to sound the hours of praise;--?Why I keep them close beside me,?Framed within the church's walls,?Here where heathen lands shall hide me?Until death to judgment calls."
Then St Gabriel in high heaven?Told the saints this mortal's lot,?As the Angelus at even?Rose to day that dieth not;?And from out the nightly wonder?Of the darkened world would float,?Mingling with the near sea's thunder,?Yonder belfry's golden note.
"Two there were, whose loves were blighted?By the Spanish pride abhorred,?And their vows and wealth they plighted?To the Missions of the Lord.?For his church these bells she gave him,?When within their glowing mould,?She had cast what were her treasures,?--All her ornaments of gold.
"So do these, that to his seeming?Were but good as touched by her,?Ring to seek for love redeeming?All who sorrow, all who err.?Yes, though human love be ever?Heard upon the throbbing air,?This shall make his life's endeavour?Stronger through a woman's prayer.
"God is not a Lord requiring?Sacrifice of memories dear,?And their love in life untiring?To His life hath brought then near.?Thus his wish to have beside him?That which seems her voice, is good:?Lovingly the Lord hath tried him,?And his heart hath understood."
NIAGARA
A ceaseless, awful, falling sea, whose sound?Shakes earth and air, and whose resistless stroke?Shoots high the volleying foam like cannon smoke!?How dread and beautiful the floods, when, crowned?By moonbeams on their rushing ridge, they bound?Into the darkness and the veiling spray;?Or, jewel-hued and rainbow-dyed, when day?Lights the pale torture of the gulf profound!?So poured the avenging streams upon the world?When swung the ark upon the deluge wave,?And, o'er each precipice in grandeur hurled,?The endless torrents gave mankind a grave.?God's voice is mighty, on the water loud,?Here, as of old, in thunder, glory, cloud!
ON CHIEF MOUNTAIN
A GREAT ROCK ON THE AMERICAN NORTH-WEST FRONTIER.
Among white peaks a rock, hewn altar-wise,?Marks the long frontier of our mighty lands.?Apart its dark tremendous sculpture stands,?Too steep for snow, and square against the skies.?In other shape its buttressed masses rise?When seen from north or south; but eastward set,?God carved it where two sovereignties are met,?An altar to His peace, before men's eyes.?Of old there Indian mystics, fasting, prayed;?And from its base to distant shores the streams?Take sands of gold, to be at last inlaid?Where ocean's floor in shadowed splendour gleams.?So in our nations' sundered lives be blent?Love's golden memories from one proud descent!
CUBA
Spake one upon the vessel's prow, before?The sinking sun had kissed the glittering seas:?"'Twas here Columbus with his Genoese?Steered his frail barks toward the unknown store,?With hope unfaltering, though all hope seemed o'er;?Calm 'mid the mutineers the prophet mind?Saw the New World to which their eyes were blind,?Heard on its continents the breakers' roar,?Told of the golden promise of the main,?While cursed his crew, and called a madman's dream?The land his ashes only hold for Spain!?It rose on dim horizon with the gleam?Of morn, proclaiming to the kneeling throng?All treasures theirs, because one heart was strong."
ON THE NEW PROVINCE "ALBERTA."
[This Province was called after the Princess, one of whose Christian names is Alberta.]
In token of the love which thou hast shown?For this wide land of freedom, I have named?A province vast, and for its beauty famed,?By thy dear name to be hereafter known.?Alberta shall it be! Her fountains thrown?From alps unto three oceans, to all men?Shall vaunt her loveliness e'en now; and when,?Each little hamlet to a city grown,?And numberless as blades of prairie grass,?Or the thick leaves in distant forest bower,?Great peoples hear the giant currents pass,?Still shall the waters, bringing wealth and power,?Speak the loved name,--the land of silver springs--?Worthy the daughter of our English kings.
VERSES
CHIEFLY FROM HIGHLAND STORIES.
GAELIC LEGENDS
Oft the savage Tale in telling?Less of Love than Wrath and Hate,?Hath within its fierceness dwelling?Some pure note compassionate.
Mark, if rude their nature, stronger,?Manlier are the minds that keep?Thought on rightful vengeance longer?Than on those who can but weep.
Better sing the horrid battle?Than its cause of crime and wrong;?Sing great life-deeds! the death-rattle?Is too common for a song.
Lays where man in fight rejoices?Sang our Sires, from Sire to Son;?Heard and loved the hero voices,?"Dare, and more than life is won!"
COLHORN.
Lo, a castle, tall, lake-mirrored,?Ringed around by mountain forms,?Roofless, ruined, still defying?Summer's rains and winter's storms.
Every shattered lifeless window,?Every stone in every