Thoughts, Moods and Ideals: Crimes of Leisure | Page 9

of
Tecumseh;
Of the eight who fell at Cut Knife,
Bright in early
bloom and courage,
When our youth leapt up for trial;
In the names
of thousand others
Whom we proudly keep remembered
As our
saviours from the Indian,
From the savage and the rebel,
Or from
Hampton, or Montgomery
By Quebec's old faithful fortress;
And at
Chrysler's Farm and Lundy;
And upon the lakes and ocean;
Or who
lived us calmer service;--
Many is the roll, and sacred;--
In their
names a voice is calling,
Through this native land of ours!
Hark, for we have need to listen!
All our martyrs warn and shame us.

Do not let them see us cowards!
Why are all these faint-heart
whispers
In the very hour of progress?
Tattles of disquiet vex us,
And among us are new enemies--

Cowards, weak, ignoble whiners,
Esaus, placemen, low-browed livers,

Traitors, salesmen of a nation.
Some would have us drop
despondent
And convince us we are nothing.
(Us of whom ten
thousand heroes
Hitherto to here have conquered
And we must be
faithful to them!)

Some are hypocrites and cynics;
Some would
wreck us; some would leave us;
Even in the hour of peril
Would the
hand of many fail us;
They would almost make to falter
Our old
simple faith in God.

Therefore this appeal, O brothers,
Earnestly do I adjure you
To
believe and trust your country.
By the glorious star of England,
Shining mast-high o'er all oceans;

In the name of France the glorious;
In the world-proud name of
Europe;
Whence you draw your great traditions;
I adjure you trust
your country!
By all noble thoughts of manhood;
By the toil of your forefathers;

By their sacrifices for you;
By the Loyalist tradition;
And your own
heart's generous instincts;
I adjure you be Canadian.
II.
"Is there a place, a work, a rank
Our Canada is called to fill:--
She
has but struggled till she sank
Hers is it but to toil and till:
No seat
among the peoples ours."--
So speaks the Tempter in our bowers.

So soft he presses on his bonds:--
But hark! a softer voice responds:
"Behold, Canadians, this your place,
Your task, your rank, in earth
and heaven
To make you an especial race
To God and human
progress given."
Too holy is the task for jeers,
Too lofty to permit
of fears.
Ignoble is the fear of loss;
The call of honour all demands!
What
thought those generous hearts of dross
Who sowed our races in these
lands?
Who blames the Loyalist of pelf?
Champlain, what cared he
for himself?
Ignoble is the dread of harm:--
Expurge it for a nobler creed!
Until
we smile at all alarm
Poor will be our Canadian breed.
He may not
count on victories
Who will not die as patriot dies.
Ignoble the consent to take
The light opinions of our worth
That
strangers condescending make
Who own not better brains nor birth:--


Children of men who toiled and fought,
Build your own fate;
respect your lot.
Arise! Live out a larger dream--
Your nation's that ye may be man's:

Advance; invent; improve; the gleam
Of dawn for all illume your
plans!
Greece lived! the world requires again
The lives of nations
and of men!
THE KEERLESS PARD.
No, I'm a disappointed man,
Though I've acted fer the best;
But I
tell ye, stranger, what it is--
The Occident's not the West.
Have I got the hang of the dialeck?
Ye're nearer New York ner I

An' ye've seen th' latest litteracher
This lingo's laid-down by.
What is Bret Harte now givin' us?
How's the Colorado tongue?
Bret
wuz the pard that run the West
When I wuz East--and young;--
That is to say, three months ago.
But now I must be grey,
Fer I've
been out here so long I've lost
The hang o' the Western way.
Way down thar in the State o' Maine,
In mild Skowhegan town,
I
pastured as a tenderfoot
An' the clerk o' Storeclothes Brown.
Till I got to readin' Roarin Camp
An' about that Truthful James,

Buffalo Bill an' Bloody Gulch,
An' pistol-an'-poker games,
An' the pleasure o' shootin' justices
An' sheriffs deeputies
An' the
oncomplainin' public
An' the gineral mob likewise.
Then I--wich my name is Dangerous Jake--
(Leastwise when took
that way)
Sloped unappreciative Brown
An' follered the wake o'
day.
An' here am I in Bismarck Jug!
Fer an inoffensive spree--
Puttin'

some buckshot inter the leg
Of a pagan-tail Chinee.
Wot is the good of our churches
Ef the Mongol's goin' ter rule?
An'
how kin ye shoot the redskin
When they're givin' him beef and
school?
What are the Rockies comin' too?
Well, I've acted fer the best.
But
the only remark I've got to make, is--
The Occident's not the West
THE BATTLE OF LAPRAIRIE. (1691.)
A BALLAD.
I.
That was a brave old epoch,
Our age of chivalry,
When the Briton
met the Frenchman
At the fight of La Prairie;
And the manhood of
New England,
And the Netherlander true
And Mohawks sworn,
gave battle
To the Bourbon's lilied blue.
II.
That was a brave old governor
Who gathered his array,
And stood
to meet, he knew not what
On that alarming day.
Eight hundred,
amid rumors vast
That filled the wild wood's gloom,
With all New
England's flower of youth,
Fierce for New France's doom.
III.
And the brave old half five hundred!
Their's should in truth be fame;

Borne down the savage Richelieu,
On what emprise they came!

Your hearts are great enough, O few:
Only