“ Proud! were we proud of them? God! they were part of us,
Sons of us, brothers, all marching to fight;
Swift at their country's call, ready each man and all,
Eager to battle for her and the right.
Wide are the plains to the north and the westward,
Stretching out far to the gray of the sky—
Little they cared as they filed from the barrack-room,
Shoulder to shoulder, if need be, to die.
Was there one flinched? Not a boy, not a boy of them;
Straight on they marched to the dread battle's brunt—
Fill up your glasses and drink to them, all of them,
Canada's call found them all at the front. ”

“ And the pine becomes a palm by the dark Egyptian water;
And the Nile's like many a stream we know that fills its brimming cup;
We'll think it is the Ottawa as we track the batteaux up!
Pull, pull, pull! as we track the batteaux up!
It's easy shooting homeward when we're at the top.
O, the cedar and the spruce line each dark Canadian river;
But the thirsty date is here, where the sultry sunbeams quiver;
And the mocking mirage spreads its view afar on either hand;
But strong we bend the sturdy oar towards the Southern land!
Pull, pull, pull! as we track the batteaux up! ”

“ All thine, all mine.
AN ODE FOR THE CANADIAN CONFEDERACY
AWAKE, my country, the hour is great with change!
Under this gloom which yet obscures the land,
From ice-blue strait and stem Laurentian range
To where giant peaks our western bounds command,
A deep voice stirs, vibrating in men's ears
As if their own hearts throbbed that thunder forth,
A sound wherein who hearkens wisely hears
The voice of the desire of this strong North,—
This North whose heart of fire
Yet knows not its desire
Clearly, but dreams, and murmurs in the dream.
The hour of dreams is done. Lo, on the hills the gleam! ”

“ For the leaves that all have fallen, the flowers that are dead.
O Gentle-breath! O Gentle-breath!
They did not know you sang of death.
O promise sweet!—I hear it!—the falling of the rain!
The leaves once more shall rustle, the flowers come again!
The flowers come again, with their faces fresh and sweet,
And all the grass shall tremble 'neath the touches of your feet.
For you will come, O Gentle-breath!
And sing again your song of death!
THE LITTLE WHITE SUN
THE sky had a gray, gray face,
The touch of the mist was chill,
The earth was an eerie place,
For the wind moaned over the hill ”

“ Here are reflected the singular loveliness of our evanescent spring, the glow and luxuriant life of our hasting summer, the sensuous glory of our autumn, and the tingle of our frosty air and the white winter's cheer. Every form and aspect of natural beauty is, in some degree, caught and expressed—sometimes in homely, sometimes in classical phrase; often with striking simplicity, and generally with much purity of thought and an authentic note. A sane and wholesome spirit is characteristic of the verse, and its spiritual quality seems to me to be of a high order. ”

“ Beyond all strain of mortal toil
He lieth, with unstainëd crest,
Calm-sleeping on his chosen soil.
No higher boon may patriot crave
Than grateful country's honest tear;
Whilst Faith, outreaching 'yond the grave,
With stainless emblem decks the bier.
[212]
Rare mind! firm as the granite stone
From out thy much-loved Scottish hills;
Soul, clear as sunlight's upper zone
When smiling o'er Canadian rills!
Oh, well for thee, belovëd land,
That, ripening to thy golden prime,
Stout hearts, and faithful, held thine hand
And led thee on to ampler time.
Embalm his memory, Canada! ”

“ HE sits at last among his peers,
While we stand chilled with eyes grown dim
In looking over life's grey fields,
And feel the heart-light folded in.
O great soul! entered in to know
The fulness of the Central Life!
O giant leader of the race,
Who never with the world made strife,
But led it surely, grandly on,
Scaling clear heights with leap and bound,—
Then, beckoning with a strong man's hand,
He kept his way to higher ground!
No maudlin cry he gave the world,—
"Behold my grief, pity my pain;"
Strong as the breath of Alpine hills,
Sweet as the sound of summer rain,
The songs he gave us. ”

“ And cries with a tremulous, quivering voice
For the launch of the White Canoe.
Oh, gently the ripples will kiss her side,
And tenderly bear her on;
For she is the wandering phantom bride
Of the river she rests upon;
[361] She is loved with a love than cannot forget,
A passion so strong and true
That never a billow has risen yet
To peril the White Canoe.
So come when the moon is enthroned in the sky,
And the echoes are sweet and low,
And Nature is full of the mystery
That none but her children know. ”

“ Where strength is needed most, and most is given.
'TIS SUMMER STILL
'TIS Summer still, yet now and then a leaf
Falls from some stately tree. True type of life!
How emblematic of the pangs that grief
Wrings from our blighted hopes, that one by one
Drop from us in our wrestle with the strife
And natural passions of our stately youth.
And thus we fall beneath life's summer sun.
Each step conducts us through an opening door
Into new halls of being, hand in hand
With grave Experience, until we command
The open, wide-spread autumn fields, and store
The full ripe grain of Wisdom and of Truth. ”

“ Yon cabins by the forest side
Are all transformed and glorified!
[228] O, surely grief nor care,
Nor poverty with strife and din,
Nor anything like vulgar sin,
Can ever enter there!
The ox, let loose to roam at will,
Is lying by the water still;
And on yon spot of green
The very herd forget to graze,
And look in wonder and amaze
Upon the mystic scene.
And yonder Lake Ontario lies,
As if that wonder and surprise
Had hushed her heaving breast—
And lies there with her awful eye
Fixed on the quiet of the sky
Like passion soothed to rest ”

“ Shall be their country's heritage, to hold
Eternal pattern to her living sons—
What dare we bring? They, dying, have won all.
A drooping flag, a flower upon their graves,
Are all the tribute left,—already theirs
A nation's safety, gratitude, and tears,
Imperishable honor, endless rest!
And ye, O stricken-hearted! to whom earth
Is dark though Peace is smiling, whom no pride
Can soothe, no triumph-pæan can console,
Ye surely will not fail them—will not shrink
To perfect now your sacrifice of love?
GEORGE HERBERT CLARKE SKATER AND WOLVES
SWIFTER the flight! ”

“ We'll ne'er forget the good old blood
That courses through our veins;
Proud Scotia's fame, old Erin's name,
And haughty Albion's powers,
Reflect their matchless lustre on
This Canada of ours.
Fair Canada,
Dear Canada,
This Canada of ours!
May our Dominion flourish then,
A goodly land and free,
Where Celt and Saxon, hand in hand,
Hold sway from sea to sea;
[117] Strong arms shall guard our cherished homes
When darkest danger lowers,
And with our life-blood we'll defend
This Canada of ours.
Fair Canada,
Dear Canada,
This Canada of ours! ”

“ Behold this glorious temple, with dome of starry sky,
And floor of greensward scented, and trees for pillars high;
And song of birds for music, and bleat of lambs for prayer,
And incense of sweet vapors uprising everywhere.
Behold his table bounteous spread over land and sea,
The sure reward of labor, to every mortal free;
And hark! through Nature's anthem there rises the refrain,
"God owns the world, but giveth it unto the sons of men."
But see, within the temple, as in Solomon's of old,
The money-changers haggle, and souls are bought and sold ”

“ The dusk-gold hair that now the angels know?
What means this tender April sky to her,
With bells that chime against the winds of spring?
Does memory move her when the blue birds sing,
Or does she feel the old sweet pulses stir?
The organ lays its voice across our strife.
What is it that the sobbing notes would say?
For you and me, my heart, another day!
For her—the Resurrection and the Life!
MY COMRADE CANOE
TRUE comrade, we have tasted life together ”

“ And on this day the Bedouin learns, in the Mahdi's shattered might,
With what a god-like majesty the island legions fight.
But, oh! the cost, the bitter cost! for ere the set of sun
The bravest heart of Alba's isle its earthly course has run;
And Britain weeps sad, bitter tears whilst flushed with victory,
For on Metemneh's blood-red sand lies noble Burnaby.
Avenged? Behold what hecatombs around the dead man lay
(The royal paw is heaviest when the lion's brought to bay) ;
And as the shades of even fall upon this day of strife
That heap of slain exceedeth far the foes he slew in life. ”

“ Dreamed that a foe was lurking near, impatient for the fray.
But in that hour,—when Nature's self serenely seemed to sleep,—
In the dim valley of the Dee, a bow-shot from the keep,
A ghost-like multitude defiled in silence from the wood
That with its stately pines concealed the Fort for many a rood,—
The banner of that spectral host is soiled with murderous stains—
They are the "Tigers of the Sea," the cruel-hearted Danes!
Far o'er the billows they have swept to Caledonia's strand;
They carve the record of their deeds with battle-axe and brand ”

“ Her hair is the dusk of an autumn night,
Her brow the moonbeam's pallid light,
Her voice is the voice of the wind and the wave,
When the breeze blows low and the ripples lave
The feet of a wooded mountain hoar
Rising on southern storied shore.
The breath from between her hallowed lips
Is the breath exhaled from a rose that sips
The dew on a lucid April day,
Soft as the spring, as summer gay. ”

“ OF CANADIAN VERSE
THE WHITETHROAT
SHY bird of the silver arrows of song,
That cleave our Northern air so clear,
Thy notes prolong, prolong,
I listen, I hear—
"I—love—dear—Canada,
Canada, Canada."
O plumes of the pointed dusky fir,
Screen of a swelling patriot heart,
The copse is all astir
And echoes thy part!...
Now willowy reeds tune their silver flutes
As the noise of the day dies down ”

“ With the poor fruit a woman's nature yields
When love sows seed? Hush! let us keep our souls
In silence—Words of comfort, words of cheer,
But mock the senses when the war-cloud rolls
Black 'twixt the eyes and all the heart holds dear.
What can we give them? Prayers?
Shall not the God of battles work His will?
He guards, He smites. Our strength is to be still
And wait His word; to cast aside our cares
And trust His justice. Strife
And peace are in His hand. ”

“ THE VOICE OF THE PINES
WE fear not the thunder, we fear not the rain,
For our stems are stout and long;
Or the growling winds, though they blow amain,
For our roots are great and strong;
Our voice is eternal, our song sublime,
And its theme is the days of yore—
Back thousands of years of misty time,
When we first grew old and hoar!
Deep down in the crevice our roots were hid,
And our limbs were thick and green
Ere Cheops had builded his pyramid,
Or the Sphinx's form was seen.
Whole forests have risen within our ken,
Which withered upon the plain ”

“ The glory of the summer sky
May change to tints of autumn hue;
But faith that sheds its amber light
Will lend our heaven a tender blue.
O altar of eternal youth!
O faith that beckons from afar!
Give to our lives a blossomed fruit—
Give to our morns an evening star!
THE SONG MY MOTHER SINGS
O SWEET unto my heart is the song my mother sings
As eventide is brooding on its dark and noiseless wings!
Every note is charged with memory—every memory bright with rays
Of the golden hours of promise in the lap of childhood's days. ”

“ Mixed with all fragrance, strong with a great breath
From cloudland, and the climes that win the mind,
[346] And full of pulses to awaken death.
Full well I know the storm will smite my flower,
My tiny short-stemmed blossom of the sod;
But when my flower and I have lived an hour
I'll bear it on the wind away to God:
And wind and flower and spirit may adorn
Some Eden-garden where new worlds are born.
DEATH THE REVEALER
I KNOW that death is God's interpreter:
His quiet voice makes gracious meanings clear
In grievous things that vex us deeply here
Between the cradle and the sepulchre. ”

“ We work out blind desires,
And for our sons ordain
The blessing or the bane.
In ignorance we stand
With fate on either hand,
[306] And question stars and earth
Of life, and death, and birth.
With wonder in our eyes
We scan the kindred skies,
While through the common grass
Our atoms mix and pass.
We feel the sap go free
When spring comes to the tree;
And in our blood is stirred
What warms the brooding bird.
The vital fire we breathe
That bud and blade bequeathe,
And strength of native clay
In our full veins hath sway. ”

“ CANADA, Canada, land of the maple,
Queen of the forest and river and lake,
Open thy soul to the voice of thy people,
Close not thy heart to the music they make.
Bells, chime out merrily,
Trumpets, call cheerily,
Silence is vocal, and sleep is awake!
Canada, Canada, land of the beaver,
Labor and skill have their triumph to-day;
Oh! may the joy of it flow like a river,
Wider and deeper as time flies away. ”

“ Upon the Tigers of the Sea, the carnage-loving Danes.
The lurid glare of torches served to light them to their foes:
They hewed those felons, hip and thigh, with stern, relentless blows;
Claymore and battle-axe and spear were steeped in slaughter's flood,
While every thistle in the moat was splashed with crimson blood;
And when the light of morning broke, the legions of the Danes
Lay stiff and stark, in ghastly heaps, around the Fort of Slaines!
Nine hundred years have been engulfed within the grave of Time
Since those grim Vikings of the North by death atoned their crime. ”

“ So come, Vernal-Heart, now summer is flown;
Let autumn elude the return of the rime,
And the sad sea change with the season alone:
Not us who have loved—loved well in our time.
Shall summer not know the autumnal touch?
Shall love when forlorn of the spring be green?
Or we, who were lovers of old overmuch,
Regain what is lost, or relume what has been?
BESIDE THE MARTYR'S MEMORIAL (Oxford)
THEIR very gods, it seems, we have forgot ”