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To
The Honourable
Sir Donald A. Smith,
K. C. M. G., LL. D.
Who, with the more than regal right
Of generous heart, and princely hand
Hath fostered learning in our land;
And set it on the highest height.
Who faileth not 'fore certain test
Of faith supreme—true zeal for man;
Who, working out supernal plan,
Doth serve his God and country best,—
These Carols of Canada, etc., etc.,
are
Most Respectfully Inscribed.
In sending forth these gleanings from the later compositions of my few leisure hours, I take the opportunity of thanking most sincerely those many friends who have so generously subscribed for the work. Not only has their kind appreciation caused me to realize that I am no longer a stranger in a strange land, but also, that I possess the whole-souled sympathy of not a few, in this the country of my adoption.
Many are the tender memories which unite me to the olden land: a land for ever hallowed as the quiet resting-place of the lovèd dead, and the once happy home of a love-encircled childhood. Still, I cannot but deplore the many evils existing therein; more especially that evil of a system which places the greater number at the mercy of the fewer—the debasing system of extensive landlordism; a system which may have suited in those former periods when kingdoms and positions were mainly dependent upon force of arms, but for which there can be no plausible apology in this progressive, and pretentiously humanizing age; and if any words of mine shall induce the tyrant-crushed and woe-oppressed of other climes to raise their eyes towards the setting sun, and to seek a home in this Canada,—this God-appointed haven, these words shall not have been penned in vain.
I cherish the utmost faith in the future of Canada—faith which leads me to look beyond my little day and view her, with ample resources still developing, with invitations of welcome still extended, a full-grown nation of intelligent, enterprising and generous-souled people, more glorious by far than the world-renowned empires of the past; a nation unfettered from bigotry of sect, envy of position, and clannishness of clime; a nation whose belief is in the eternal fatherhood of God, and the universal brotherhood of humanity; a nation whose every act of every day life is the pure and lofty exponent of a Christly Christianity, and in whose healthy moral atmosphere vice with its attendant train of evils cannot exist; a nation upon which, over all its boundless pasture lands and by its many sounding shores, the sun of Freedom shines, and the honest, earnest worshipper bendeth never a humble knee save to fair Freedom's God.
E. S. MACLEOD.
Charlottetown, Nov. 1893.
CAROLS OF CANADA.
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Oh Canada! great Canada!
Land of all lands to be;
Farewell to lays of olden clime!
We touch the lyre for thee.
For thee, Oh gracious, morning land!
Through cycles of renown
Thy leal of heart, and firm of hand
Shall guard thy spotless crown.
Exhaustless, boundless Canada!
Thy myriad forests wave;
Thy snow-capped mountains cleave the skies;
Thy shores, two oceans lave.
Thy sea-wide lakes, thy rivers bold
Are worlds of crystal sheen;
And vast as empires famed of old
Thy prairies, rolling green.
Oh fair and beauteous Canada!
Aneath thy sapphire sky,
Gay-plumaged warblers wing their flight
O'er flowers of gorgeous dye,
Which own no faint, exotic blush
Of Care's trim, training hand;
Rich dowered of health, with nature's flush,
They brighten all the land.
Yet, not thy beauty, Canada,
Could hold thy people's love;
Yet not thy vastness, nor thy might
Could soul of nations move.
But this, that o'er thy gleaming lakes,
And through thy waving pines,
The glory of a future breaks;
The sun of freedom shines.
Thou may'st not boast, fair Canada!
The soft, spice-laden breeze;
Or palm of Ethiopian land,
Or pearl of Ceylon seas.
Yet thine no dread, samiel curse,
To blight thy emerald plains;
Thine only wholesome air, to nurse
Pure blood in patriot veins.
Thou may'st not point, young Canada!
To sumptuous mosques of pride;
Or watery highways, where with song,
The gay gondolas glide.
But thine, beneath wide starry dome,
Along ten thousand streams,
O'er many a league of richest loam,
To animate life dreams.
Thou opest, regal Canada!
Floodgates off either sea;
And tyrant-crushed, and crushed of fate,
Find peaceful rest in thee.
Upon thy generous-yielding sward,
And round thy teeming coast,
Just labor finds its just award;
Nor heart of hope is lost.
Oh high-souled! hopeful Canada!
Long may thy banner wave
O'er soil where will to work is gold,
Nor man nor mind is slave.
God's grace thee further, lovèd land!
Live thou thy high behest!
So shalt thou 'mid the nations stand
Erect; through blessing blest.
SIEUR DE MAISONNEUVE,
OR
THE FOUNDING OF MONTREAL.
Tho' rough be the path thou art destined to tread,
Let courage and truth be thy stay;
Thy course be straight onward, aye looking ahead,
Doubt not, neither droop by the way.
Who spanned the wide ocean, who narrowed the soil,
With spirits untrammeled of fear,
Have found, through the struggle, the sorrow, the toil,
Sure help from on high ever near.
He had ta'en his last look of those terraced hills
Where the golden and green intertwine;
Where song of the peasant doth sing in the rills,
As he gleaneth the fruit of the vine.
He had breathed fond adieux to his own loved land,
A land of rare science and art;
Where learning's vast treasure to genius lends hand,
And knowledge ennobleth the heart.
Aglow with the fire of a heavenly grace,
He had sailed for the ice drift and snow;
With vigor of purpose had ventured his face
To yet fiercer, more deadly foe.
To the darkening scowl of the dusky crew
He would radiate beams of love;
Would labor and bide, with his well-chosen few,
The unction bestowed from above.
They told him of brothers who perished before;
Of the tortures of savage hate;
Vain pleading! it stirred but his courage the more
To conquer, or share in their fate.
Not his to recall, with a sigh of regret,
Those voices far over the main;
Where the sun of his brilliant boyhood set,
On the banks of the royal Seine.
Not his to feel faint on the thorniest path,
Or to shrink whate'er might betide:
They know not, or heed not humanity's wrath
Who are vowed to the Crucified.
He gazed on the shore, with its dark fringe of pine;
To the heavens, with bright disc on the blue;
Then, lightened his vision with rapture divine;
The future arose to his view.
"I shall go," said he, "unto Montreal
Though each tree were an Iroquois!"
And the God of the dauntless hearkened his call,
The God of the martyred ones saw.
Now the great city smiles where the grim forest loomed,
And the red man boweth the knee;
And the Cross which was trampled in triumph hath bloomed
From mountain to uttermost sea.
'Twas in the lone, uncultured wilds
Of far Assiniboia,
Ere commerce took its giant stride
From east to western sea.
From grasp of lordly tyranny
Came brave and sturdy band;
The sons of sires who framed the old,
To build the fair, new land.
The red men tracked the hunter's path
Through miles of gloomy wood;
And now, with whoop and fiendish yell,
Before their victim stood.
With rifle shot he kept his ground,
And held the foe at bay;
Yet, what avail his single strength!
Ten times his number they.
He leaped upon a rocky ledge
Which overhung the wave;
Far kindlier fate than scalping-knife,
The risk of watery grave.
He glanced towards his precious haven
Upon its patch of green;
He saw his loved ones by the door,
But—the river rolled between.
Another saw; love prompted wit;
Upon the grassy floor
She laid her babe, then fleetly sought
The wherry by the shore.
With strong, young arm she plied the oar;
The waters twirl and toss;
'Tis vain! beneath that cataract
No human power may cross.
List! through the noisome, seething surge,
A voice of hope and cheer:
"Leap in, and swim adown the stream,
I'll meet you—never fear!"
The current bears the slight skiff on,
The Indians' arrows fly,
But the huntsman's form is seen no more
Against that lurid sky.
For he hath plunged into the foam
And, borne upon the tide,
Is now beyond all chance of harm,
His brave wife by his side.
Saved by that faith-inspiring Love
Which glorifies the hearth;
Which amply fills with choice-drawn wealth,
And crowns the loves of earth.
Where frowning bulwarks guard the coast
Around our sea-girt Isle,
Where wildest winters wreak their wrath,
And sweetest summers smile.
In holy calm of eventide
Which crowned the sunbright day,
We sat upon a grassy knoll
That overlooked the bay.
All glorious the lingering light
From out the radiant west,
As loath to leave a scene so fair,
Illumined ocean's crest.
Along the path, with quiet tread,
There came an aged form
Whose sunburnt features told that he
Had weathered many a storm.
He'd held command in goodly craft
On nigh and far off seas;
Had furled the sail on foreign strand,
And scoured 'fore every breeze.
Now, 'yond all lure of worldly wealth
Through commerce on the foam,
He anchored where affection set,
Within his childhood's home.
Nor tide, nor wind, nor black storm-cloud
Could bar his passage more,
As he waited sailing orders
For glad Beulah's shore.
We asked him, as he rested near,
If he the story knew
Of that bleak, lonely cape which stretched
Upon our right hand view.
"I can relate," he said, "the tale
My grandsire told to me:—
It happened in the year of grace
Seventeen sixty-three.
"That year the Isle of St. Jean
Was ceded, this you know,
To Britain, in the treaty signed
By France, at Fontainebleau.
"French privateers, which robbed our coast,
Were harassed by our men;
McKenzie, with a British sloop
Unaided, captured ten.
"One, fleeter than the rest escaped,
Commanded by Le Force;
In dread of foes, or unknown seas,
He held a leeward course.
"But all too fast the gallant ship
Bore down towards the bay;
Caught on deceitful shifting sands,
A stranded wreck she lay.
"The boats made shore, the crew dispersed,
One officer remained
With his commander, and large share
Of ill-won booty gained.
"On yonder cape they pitched a tent,
And from the vessel's store
In haste, with slightest interval,
Much precious freight they bore.
"But where 'twas hid no mortal knew;
Folk say within yon grove,
Whose crowding giants dull the day,
Exists the treasure-trove.
"Be't so or not, to me it seems
This cursed greed of gold
Shuts all the finer feelings out,
Deforms life's fairest mould.
"Rends rare affection's dearest ties,
Transforms the friend to foe;
In battlefield of worldly gain
Smites with unsparing blow.
"Repels all humanizing love;
In haste to reach its goal,
Draws even from gates of paradise
The earnest, God-ward soul.
"Two daring youths, from hamlet nigh,
Through motives curious, went
When friendly even lent its shades,
Anear the strangers' tent.
"They heard dispute o'er money hoard,
Then louder, wrathful tones,
Which hotter, higher, waxed until
They sunk in low, faint moans.
"Next morn three sturdy fishermen
Steered out across the wave;
They heeded not the swelling surge,
Their hearts were firm and brave.
"But, Oh! what vision met their gaze!
Upon that silent shore
The Captain of the stranded bark
Lay stiffening in his gore.
"Far from his loved in La Belle France,
Far from his native plain;
Where longing eyes, and yearning hearts
Might long for him in vain.
"He died not as the soldier dies;
For country and for king;
For him no martial banners wave,
No lyre his praise doth sing.
"Rough hands, but souls of sympathy,
Entombed him where he fell;
While sounding ocean wailed his dirge,
And wavelets rang his knell.
"Now, until ocean yields her dead,
Till dries yon river's source,
That cape, baptizèd with his blood,
Shall bear the name 'Le Force.'"
He paused. "What of the murderer?
And what to him befell?"
"He fled, from that dread hour of guilt
No tongue his fate could tell.
"No legal technicality
Could paint his black as white,
Or color with a golden tinge
The blackness of his night.
"Though richly-garbed, accomplished vice
May bide the Final Day;
With brutal, prompt, unstudied crime
The law brooks no delay.
"His was no deed of villain art
Which slowly works its will,
Which wiles its victim to his death,
And slays with callous skill.
"It may be that a Higher Judge
Could measure best his crime;
And that, through penitence he found
Pardon and peace in time."
The sun had sunk beneath the wave,
The moon had risen on high;
And glorified, with silvery beams,
The earth, and sea, and sky.
Light zephyrs thrilled on ocean's chords,
Through wavelet's hum and flow;
Alas! that scene surpassing fair,
Should sin or sorrow know.
Alas! that guilt, or causeless woe
Should darken nature's smile;
As that foul deed, the first to blight
With crime Prince Edward Isle.
I.
Bright beauty of northern winter!
The sun, with its tenderest glow,
Gilded the haze of the housetops,
Warm-tinted earth's mantle of snow.
Flashed forth the crystalline branches,
Bedazzling of jewelry rare;
Rich set in radiance of splendor,
Choice pearlets of nature's own wear.
Dark night with its gloom had faded,
Fair morning its halo unfurled;
Yet stirred not the solemn silence
With the hum of a waking world.
Unheard was the sound of labor,
Mute—hushed was the voice of the street;
Only the tread of passers by,
Who stayed not their hastening feet.
Only half whispers, curt replies
To eager questions, doubtful given;
For hearts were awed with sudden fear,
For dearest ties of earth were riven.
Soft cloudlets afloat on the blue,
Pure wreaths of the shimmering snow,
Re-uttered in language sublime,
The breathings of unwonted woe.
Alas, for the dreaming of life!
Though heard not the roll of the drum,
Nor witnessed the ensign of war,
A merciless tyrant had come.
Strife is no strife ill-divided
When man fighteth frail brother-man;
But war is a warfare unequal
When giant force leadeth one van.
What marvel that mortals shrank back,
That science e'en held bated breath;—
Over the lights of our dwellings
There hovered the angel of death.
The flags which drooped from the windows,
And waved in the winterly sun,
Signalled fierce battle was raging,