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

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 your numbers fail,?New France asks more for conquerors?All glorious though your tale.
IV.
It was a brave old battle?That surged around the fort,?When D'Hosta fell in charging,?And 'twas deadly strife and short;?When in the very quarters?They contested face and hand,?And many a goodly fellow?Crimsoned yon La Prairie sand.
V.
And those were brave old orders?The colonel gave to meet?That forest force with trees entrenched?Opposing the retreat:?"DeCalliere's strength's behind us?And in front your Richelieu;?We must go straightforth at them;?There is nothing else to do."
VI.
And then the brave old story comes,?Of Schuyler and Valrennes?When "Fight," the British colonel called,?Encouraging his men,?"For the Protestant Religion?And the honor of our King!"--?"Sir, I am here to answer you!"?Valrennes cried, forthstepping.
VII.
Were those not brave old races?--?Well, here they still abide;?And yours is one or other,?And the second's at your side,?So when you hear your brother say,?"Some loyal deed I'll do,"?Like old Valrennes, be ready with?"I'm here to answer you!"
WINTER'S DAWN IN LOWER CANADA.
To each there lives some beauteous sight: mine is to me most fair, I carry fadeless one clear dawn in keen December air,?O'er leagues of plain from night we fled upon a pulsing train; For breath of morn, outside I stood. Then up a carmine stain Flushed calm and rich the long, low east, deep reddening till the sun Eyed from its molten fires and shot strange arrows, one by one On certain fields, and on a wood of distant evergreen,?And fairy opal blues and pinks on all the snows between:?(Broad earth had never such a flower, as in my country grows, When