Since the morning we parted
On the slippery docks of Rochelle,
I have wandered, well nigh broken-hearted,
Through many a tree-shadowed dell:
I've hunted the otter and beaver,
Have tracked the brown bear and the deer,
And have lain almost dying with fever,
While not a companion was near.
I've toiled in the fierce heat of summer
Under skies like a great dome of gold,
And have tramped, growing number and number,
In winter through snowstorm and cold.
Yet the love in my heart was far hotter,
The fear of my soul far more chill,
As my thoughts crossed the wild waste of water
To your little home on the hill.
But now Father Time in a measure
Has reconciled me to my fate,
For I know he will bring my dear treasure
Back into my arms soon or late.
And, besides, every evening, when, weary,
I lie on my soft couch of pine,
Sleep wafts me again to my dearie,
And your heart once more beats against mine.
You never have heard of such doings
As those that are going on here;
We've nothing but weddings and wooings
From dawn till the stars reappear.
For the king, gracious monarch, a vessel
Has sent, bearing widows and maids
Within our rough bosoms to nestle,
And make us a home in the glades.
They are tall and short, ugly and pretty,
There are blondes and brunettes by the score:
Some silent and dull, others witty,
And made for mankind to adore.
Some round as an apple, some slender--
In fact--so he be not in haste--
Any man with a heart at all tender
Can pick out a wife to his taste.
Now, darling, don't pout and grow jealous,
I still am a bachelor free,
In spite of the governor's zealous
And extra-judicial decree,
Commanding all men to be married
In less than two weeks from this date,
And promising all who have tarried
Shall feel the full strength of his hate:
In spite of his maddening order,
That none in the country may trade
With the tribes on our side of the border,
Who is not a benedict staid;
In spite of a clause, far the sorest,
That none past his twentieth year,
And single, shall enter the forest
On any pretext whatsoe'er.
Now, you know I was ever a rover,
Half stifled by cities or towns,
Of nature--and you--a warm lover,
Wooing both in despite of your frowns,
So you well may imagine my sorrow
When fettered and threatened like this--
Oh! Marie, dear, pack up to-morrow,
And bring me back freedom and bliss.
If you do not, who knows but some morning
I'll waken and find a decree
Has been passed, that, without any warning,
Has wedded some woman to me?
Oh! Marie, chère Marie, have pity;
You only my woes can assuage;
I'm confined, till I wed, to the city,
And feel like a bird in a cage.
Then come, nor give heed to the billows
That tumble between you and Jules.
I know a sweet spot where lithe willows
Bend over a silvery pool,
And there we will dwell, dear, defying
Misfortune to tear us apart.
My darling, come to me, I'm dying
To press you again to my heart.
_THE OAK._
Last of its race, beside our college
There stands an Oak Tree, centuries old,
Which, could it voice its stores of knowledge,
Might many a wondrous tale unfold.
It marked the birth of two fair towns,
And mourned the cruel fate of one,
Yet still withstands grim Winter's frowns,
And glories in the Summer sun.
Jacques Cartier passed, its branches under,
Up yonder mount one autumn day,
And viewed, with ever-growing wonder,
The scene that spread beneath him lay.
He was the first from Europe's shore
To pass beneath the Oak Tree's shade,
The first whose vision wandered o'er
Such boundless wealth of stream and glade.
Beneath his feet a little village
Lay, like a field-lark in her nest,
Amid the treasures of its tillage,
The maize in golden colors dressed.
Years passed; and when again there came
A stranger to that peaceful spot,
Gone was the village and its name,
Save by a few gray-heads, forgot.
But soon beneath the Oak, another,
And sturdier village took its place;
One that the gentle Virgin mother
Has kept from ruin by her grace.
She saved it from the dusky foes
Who thirsted for its heroes' blood,
And when December waters rose
About its walls she stilled the flood.
What noble deeds and cruel, stranger
Than aught in fiction ere befell,
What weary years of war and danger
That village knew, the Oak might tell.
Perchance, brave Dollard sat of yore
Beneath its very shade, and planned
A deed should make for evermore
His name a trumpet in the land.
Perchance, beneath its gloomy shadows
De Vaudreuil sat that bitter day
When round about him, in the meadows
Encamped, the British forces lay;
And as he wrote the fatal word
That gave an Empire to the foe,
The Old Oak's noble heart was stirred
With an unutterable woe.
The army of a hostile nation
Once since hath entered _Ville Marie_,
But we avenged that desecration
At Chrystler's farm and Chateauguay--
Peace! peace! 'tis cowardly to flout
Our triumphs in a cousin's face:
That page was long since blotted out
And Friendship written in its place.
Beloved of Time, the Old Oak flourished
While at its foot its little charge,
An eaglet by a lion nourished,
Grew mighty by the river marge;
Till, where the deer were wont to roam,
There throbs to-day a nation's heart,
Of wealth and luxury the home,
Of learning, industry and art.
No longer now the church bells' ringing
Fills all the little town with life,
Its loud-tongued, startling clangor bringing
Young men and aged to the strife.
No longer through the midnight air
The savage hordes their war-cries peal,
As rushing from their forest lair
They meet the brave defenders' steel.
Long has the reign of war been ended
And Commerce crowned, whose stately fleet
Brings ever treasures vast and splendid
To lay them humbly at her feet.
And now her eager sons to-day
Have crossed the wild, north-western plain,
And made two oceans own her sway
Held captive by a slender chain.
What further Time may be preparing
For this fair town, the years will tell,
But while her sons retain their daring,
Their zeal and honor, all is well.
Still, as the seasons come and go,
Long may they spare the Old Oak Tree
In age as erst in youth to throw
Protection over _Ville Marie_.
_NELSON'S APPEAL FOR MAISONNEUVE_.
"Silent I have stood and borne it, hoping still from year to year
That the pleading voice of justice you would some day wake to hear.
But beneath the soulless present you have sunk the glorious past,
Till I cannot bear it longer--you must learn the truth at last.
Shame upon you, shameless city, heart of this great land of yours,
That the world should say you care not if your founder's name endures!
Shame upon you, that no statue stands within your greatest square
To commemorate the hero who so often battled there!
Who long years ago sprang lightly from his pinnace to the beach,
And amid the virgin forests, spreading far as eye could reach,
Knelt and prayed, his people with him, while the prophet-priest
foretold
How their growth should be as great as was the mustard seed's of old.
"Have you ceased to care, already, how that noble little band
Toiled, and fought with man and nature that their sons might
rule the land,
Braving winter's cold and famine, summer's hot and stifling breath,
Danger in unnumbered forms; and in each form a cruel death,
Slain by skulking, coward foemen, now one moment in the corn
Singing some sweet Norman ditty, and the next one overborne?
Comrades, you have mothers, sisters, wives whom you would die to save,
Think, then, of the noble ones who claim your tribute to the brave;
Tender women, timid children, crouching at the barricade,
Pallid, trembling, stained with blood, yet nerved to give the
needed aid,
Staunching deadly wounds, and wiping death-dews from a loved
one's brow,
While their fathers, husbands, brothers fought and won they scarce
knew how!
"Think of him among them toiling! hear his simple, trusting prayers!
See him, stern, unyielding, hopeful, with a thousand daily cares,
Sharing his companions' hardships, cheering there and chiding here,
With a head to rule them wisely, and a heart that knew not fear,
Sleeping with his armor on him and his weapons by his bed,
Ready ever for the foes that, like the shadows, came and fled.
See him fighting in the forest with a host that seeks his blood!
Hear him praying to the Virgin to restrain the rising flood,
Vowing that if she would heed him and preserve the little town,
He himself would bear a cross and plant it on Mount Royal's crown!
True crusader, in whose heart there never dwelt one sordid thought,
Guardian of the Virgin's city: this is he you honor not.
"Of our Queen a stately statue stands upon Victoria Square,
In its hand a wreath of laurel, in that wreath a tiny pair
Nesting year by year uninjured, heedless of the passing throng,
Living symbols of a reign that guards the weak from every wrong.
Loyalty upraised that statue, and were it the only one
That your city had erected still the deed were nobly done.
But to honor me, my brothers, one whose blood was never shed
On your soil or for your country, heaps but shame upon my head,
Not because you might not praise me--I may merit your esteem--
But because you place me first where he alone should stand supreme.
Shame upon you, to forget him and remember such as I!
Shame upon you, if your ears are heedless still to honor's cry!
"True, I tamed a haughty foeman at Trafalgar and the Nile,
But I had a nation's wealth and numbers at my back the while.
His was one long fight with scarcely seven score to do his will,
With a host of open foes and secret foes, more deadly still;
Foes in every bush and hollow, foes behind his monarch's throne,
Stabbing with one hand extended seemingly to clasp his own.
Yet he triumphed, and behold you! now a country growing fast,
With a glorious future breaking through the darkness of the past,
With a host of stout hearts toiling day and night to make you great,
And a glittering roll of heroes worthy of a mighty state.
Yet you cannot he a nation if your children never hear
Aught of those whose blood has won the land that they should hold most
dear.
"Can you wonder that the rains have beaten on my statued form?
Can you marvel that the winter shakes me with its fiercest storm?
Ah! not age it is but shame that makes me look so worn and old,
Makes me hang my head and tremble lest the bitter truth be told.
It is murmured by the maples, it is whispered by the wind,
Till I cannot but imagine it is heard by all mankind,
How your children, from gay boyhood until tottering age, behold
Gallant Maisonneuve forgotten and less worthy me extolled.
Oh! my comrades, if you love me, lighten the disgrace I feel,
Lend your ready hands to aid me, bend your hearts to my appeal:
Raise a statue to the founder of this great, historic town,
Chomedey de Maisonneuve, or pity me and take mine down."