Verses and Rhymes by the way | Page 2

trained and harnessed steam, No paddle-wheel's revolving sound, No raftsman's cheer, no bay of hound Was heard to break the silent spell That seemed to rest o'er wood and dell, All was so new, so in its prime-- An almost perfect solitude, As if had passed but little time Since the All Father called it good. Nature in one thanksgiving psalm, Gathered each sound that broke the calm.
There was a little clearing there-- A snow white cot--a garden fair-- Where useful plants in order set, With bergamot and mignonette. Glories that round the casement run, And pansies smiling at the sun, And wild-wood blossoms fair and sweet, Showed forth how thrift and beauty meet; There was a space to plant and sow, Fenced by the pines strong hands laid low. By that lonely cottage stood, With eyes fixed on the swollen flood, A slight young girl with raven hair, And face that was both sad and fair.
Oh, fair and lovely are the maids, Nursed in Canadian forest shades; The beauties of the older lands Moulded anew by nature's hands, Fired by the free Canadian soul, Join to produce a matchless whole. The roses of Britannia's Isle, In rosy blush and rosy smile; The light of true and tender eyes, As blue and pure as summer skies; Light-footed maids, as matchless fair As grow by Scotia's heath fringed rills-- Sweet as the hawthorn scented air, And true as the eternal hills. We have the arch yet tender grace, The power to charm of Erin's race; The peachy cheek, the rosebud mouth, Imported from the sunny south, With the dark, melting, lustrous eye, Silk lashes curtain languidly.
The charms of many lands had met In Marie of Plantagenet; She had the splendid southern eye She had the northern brow of snow, The blush caught from a northern sky, Dark silky locks of southern flow, Light-footed as the forest roe, As stately as the mountain pine, A smile that lighted up her face, The sunshine of a maiden's grace, And made her beauty half divine. So fair of face, so fair of form Was she the peerless forest born. Nature is kindly to her own, To this Canadian cottage lone, A back-wood settler's lot to bless, She brought this flower of loveliness, Seldom such beauty does she bring To grace the palace of a king.
A chevalier of sunny France, Whom fate ordained to wander here, To trade, to trap, to hunt the deer, To roam with free foot through the wild, He chanced, at husking, in the dance To meet Marie, Le Paige's child,-- And vowed that, roaming everywhere, Except the lady fair as day, Who held his troth-plight far away, He ne'er saw face or form so fair; From France's fair and stately queen, To maiden dancing on the green, From lowly bower to lordly hall, This forest maid outshone them all
When old Le Paige would hear this praise, Then would he turn and smiling say To the plump partner of his days, "We who know our Marie well, How true the heart so young and gay, We will not of her beauty tell. Her love is more to thee and me, And yet our child is fair to see."
So many a dashing hunter brave, And many an axeman of the wood, And hardy settler was her slave And thought the bondage very good; But she, so kind to those she met, She smiled on all, but walked apart, Keeping the treasure of her heart, The fair Queen of Plantagenet, No thought of love her bosom stirs Toward her rustic worshippers Until one came and settled near Famed as a hunter of the deer
The firmest hand, the truest eye, The dauntless heart and courage high Where his, and famed beyond his years He stood among his young compeers, He, ere the snow-wreath left the land, Slew two fierce wolves with single hand, Famished they followed on his tracks, He armed with nothing but his axe He knew the river far and near, Beyond the foaming dread Chaudiere, Far far beyond that spot of fear He'd been a hardy voyageur Through the white swells of many assault Had safely steered his bark canoe, Knew how to pass each raging chute, Though boiling like the wild Culbute The wilds of nature were his home, His paddle beat the fleecy foam Of surging rapids' yeasty spray. And bore him often far away Beyond the pinefringed Allumette, He saw the sun in glory set, His boat song roused the lurking fox From den beside the Oiseau rock Upward upon the river's breast, The highway to the wild Nor-west, Past the long lake Temiscamingue, Where wild drakes plume their glossy wing, Oft had he urged his light canoe, Hunting the moose and caribou; He knew each portage on