Читать книгу A Treasury of Canadian Verse, with Brief Biographical Notes - Группа авторов - Страница 21

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IN the glimmering light of the Old Régime

A figure appears like the flushing gleam

Of sunlight reflected from sparkling stream,

Or jewel without a flaw.

Flashing and fading but leaving a trace

In story and song of a hardy race,

Finely fashioned in form and face—

The Old Coureur-de-Bois.

No loiterer he 'neath the sheltering wing

Of ladies' bowers where gallants sing.

Thro' his woodland realm he roved a king!

His untamed will his law.

From the wily savage he learned his trade

Of hunting and wood-craft; of nothing afraid:

Bravely battling, bearing his blade

As a free Coureur-de Bois.

A brush with the foe, a carouse with a friend,

Were equally welcome, and made some amend

For the gloom and silence and hardships that tend

"To shorten one's life, ma foi!"

A wife in the hamlet, another he'd take—

Some dusky maid—to his camp by the lake;

A rattling, roving, rollicking rake

This gay Coureur-de-Bois.

Then peace to his ashes! He bore his part

For his country's weal with a brave stout heart

A child of nature, untutored in art,

In his narrow world he saw

But the dawning light of the rising sun

O'er an Empire vast his toil had won.

For doughty deeds and duty done

Salût! Coureur-de-Bois.