Читать книгу Carols of Canada, Etc., Etc - E. S. MacLeod - Страница 6

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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.