Читать книгу Canadian Battlefields, and Other Poems - J. R. Wilkinson - Страница 17

Awake! awake, Ojibways!

To dream in peace no more,

For there comes a bold invader

From eastward by the shore.

Rowing in swift, strong bateaux,

With strokes both strong and long,

To the cadence of fearless voices

In a gay boatman’s song,

Come full two hundred singers,

In boats, a score or more,

Far o’er the laughing waters,

Skirting the eastern shore.

Who are they, these fearless strangers,

Armed with sword and lance,

With arquebuse and musketoon?

They are fiery sons of France,

Exploring the boundless forests,

Locating rivers and seas;

Ignoring the red man’s title,

Coming his rights to seize.

Ha! they spy the eastern outlet

That leads to the lagoon,

Far across the teeming marshlands,

The domain of teal and loon.

They enter with eager spirits

This strange tract to explore;

And halting not, they discover

Point Pelee’s western shore.

A causeway of cedar and hillock,

From lagoon to lake they trace;

And their bateaux quickly transport

By way of the Carrying Place.

And they gaze on the expansion,

And cheerily launch away,

And disappear in the distance,

Across wide Pigeon Bay.

The Ojibways in amazement

Saw this strange concourse pass by;

A foreboding premonition

Whispered of danger nigh.

Mitwaos in council assembled

His chiefs and warriors brave;

Many scores of fiery stalwarts,

Of countenance stern and brave.

And calmly they deliberated,

Counselling for peace or war;

Should they allow these daring strangers

Their sacred rights to mar?

After the chiefs had spoken

Of the pending dangers nigh,

It was finally decided

The strangers might pass by

In peace, and unmolested,

If they did not interfere

With the vast teeming hunting grounds

Of the nation, far and near.

When three moons had waxed and waned,

The voyageurs, returning, came

From over the western waters,

Lit by the sunset’s flame.

And they drew up at the Narrows,

The Carrying Place again,

A “cut” in the cedar hillocks

Aglow with autumn’s flame.

De Orville, their gallant leader,

And Pontgravé and Le Jeune,

Knew their followers were weary,

And made decision soon

To bivouac near the marshlands

For a day of needed rest,

And to replenish their commissariat

With fish and game the best.

The camp-fires were all alighted

At the eve’s afterglow,

And the pines and cedars quivered,

And the waves made murmur low.

The scene was worthy a Rembrandt,

So rich the light and shade,

And the starry vault above them,

And the winds that whisper made.

“A song! a song!” de Orville cried,

“The night is rife with glory.

Let’s while a merry hour away

In singing and in story.”

“A song! a song!” as one they cry,

“Life hath enough of sorrow;

Sing while we may with hearts so gay,

Care cometh with the morrow.”

“Le Jeune! Le Jeune! lead on, lead on,

The stars are laughing o’er us;

Give us thy latest and thy best,

And we will join the chorus.”

Le Jeune had a poetic soul,

And voice of wondrous sweetness;

He reached men’s better, nobler part,

And won them to completeness.

And the groups about the camp-fires,

A picturesque, gay throng,

Heard many a quaint old story,

Pun, laugh, and ringing song;

And thus ’mid the wilds of nature

Passed the joyous hours away.

Light-hearted, merry Voyageurs,

Ever gallant and gay,

Beside the deep glowing embers,

Passed the night in calm repose,

And in the soft early dawning

Refreshened they uprose;

And with arquebuse and musketoon,

Spear, trap, and fishing-line,

They scattered o’er the marshlands

And ’neath the haunts of pine.

And from the Narrows and the shore,

Marshlands and wide lagoons,

There burst the crash of arquebuse

And roar of musketoons.

And all day long the sport went on;

At eve they counted o’er

A tempting hoard of luscious game,

Right welcome to their store.