Memories of Canada and Scotland, Speeches and Verses | Page 7

the sight
Our Rocky Sierras' sweet

rivers of light.
Away to the West! Westward ho! Westward ho!
From mountains and
lakes there the great rivers flow!
If told of Brazil or great Mexico's gold,
Of Cotton States' warmth and
of Canada's cold,
Go say how we prize, like the ore of the mine,

The snows sapphire-shadowed in winter's sunshine;
--Our gayest of
seasons! which guards the good soil
For races who won it through
faith and through toil.
Away to the West! Westward ho! Westward ho!
Bright sparkles its
winter, and light is its snow!
There gaily, in measureless meadows, all day
The sun and the breeze
with the grass are at play,
In billows that never can break as they pass,

But toss the gold foam of the flower-laden grass,
The bright yellow
disks of the asters upcast
On waves that in blossoms flow silently
past.
Away to the West! Westward-ho! Westward ho!
Where over the
prairies the summer winds blow.
The West for you, boys! where our God has made room
For field and
for city, for plough and for loom.
The West for you, girls! for our
Canada deems
Love's home better luck than a gold-seeker's dreams.

Away! and your children shall bless you, for they
Shall rule o'er a
land fairer far than Cathay.
Away to the West! Westward ho! Westward ho!
Thou God of their
fathers, Thy blessing bestow!
THE SONG OF THE SIX SISTERS.
[Manitoba, Assiniboia, Saskatchewan, Athabasca, Alberta,
and
British Columbia.]

At a feast in the east of our central plains,
Girt with the sheaths of the
wheaten grains,
Manitoba lay where the sunflowers blow,
And sang
to the chime of the Red River's flow:
"I am child of the spirit whom
all men own,
My prairie no longer is green and lone,
For the hosts
of the settler have ringed me round,
And his bride am I with the
harvest crowned."
On her steed at speed o'er her burning grass
We saw Assiniboia pass:

"The bison and antelope still are mine,
And the Indian wars on my
boundary-line;
Where his knife is dyed I love to ride
By the cactus
blooms or the marshes wide,
While the quivering columns of thunder
fire
Give light to the darkened land's desire."
"To the North look ye forth," cried the voice of one,
Who dwells
where the great twin rivers run;--
"Or farther yet," Athabaska cried,

"Where mightier waters the hills divide:
'Peace' is their name, and the
musk ox there
Still feeds alone on the meadows fair."
"Nay, stay,"
said the first; "the white man's word
Hath called me the kindest to
horse and herd."
From on high where the sky and the snow-born rill
Each morn and
eve to the rose-tints thrill,
Sang the fairy Sprite of the Fountain Land:

"A daughter of her, whose sceptred hand
With the flag of the
woven crosses three
Hath rule o'er the ocean, hath christened me,

And my waves their homage repeat again,
And that standard greet in
the loyal main."
And their lays in her praise then sang the four:
"Alberta has all we
can boast and more:
The scented breath of the plains is hers,
The
odours sweet of the sage and firs;
There the coal breaks forth on her
rolling sod,
And the winters flee at the winds of God.
Columbia,
come! for we want but thee;
Now tell of thyself and thy silent sea!"
"Clad with the silver snow, a pine
Guarded the grot of a golden mine,


And dark was the shade which the mist-wreaths cast
Though
brightly they shone on the mountain vast.
Stars and sun o'er that cavern swept,
Where on the glittering sand I
slept;
But none could behold me, or know where was stored
More
treasure than monarch e'er won with the sword.
Floods in fathomless torrents fall
Through the awful rifts of the
Alpine wall,
Where I passed in the night over forest and glen,
O'er
the ships on the sea and the cities of men--
Swifter than morn! His shafts of love
Behind me caught the peaks
above,
But touched not my wings: I had gone e'er he came
Where
the vine-maple fringed the deep forest with flame.
Strewn o'er the sombre walls of green
In saffron or in crimson sheen,

How lovely those gardens of autumn, where rolled
In smoke and in
fire the red lava of old!
Soon I reached my sea-girt home
Sheltered from the breakers' foam.

Seek not for mine isle, for a thousand and more
Lie asleep in the
calm near the mountainous shore.
Oft I roam in moon ray clear
With the puma and the deer;
From the
boughs of Madrôna that droop o'er a bay
I watch the fish dart from
the beams of the day.
Mine are tranquil gulfs, nor give
Sign to lovers where I live;
But the
sea-rock betrays where my netting is hung,
When the meshes of light
o'er its mosses are flung!"
She ceased, and then in chorus strong
The blended voices floated
long:--
"No sirens we, of shore or wave,
To sing of love and tempt the brave:

We fled their path, and freedom found
Where blue horizons

stretched around,
And lilies in the grasses made
A double sunshine
on each blade.
No wooers we, but, wooed by them,
We yield our
maiden