NICHOLAS FLOOD DAVIN

NOW the Fraser gleamed Below, its benches white with apple trees In bloom. 'Neath one an Indian stood, in hand A tom-tom rude, on which he beat, the while He sang in sad tones looking towards the sea. The children of his tribe impassive sat And smoked their deep-bowled long-stemmed pipes:

With spread wings forever Time's eagle careers, His quarry old nations, His prey the young years; Into monuments brazen He strikes his fierce claw, And races are only A sop for his maw. The red sun is rising Behind the dark pines, And the mountains are marked out In saffron lines, The pale moon still lingers, But past is her hour Over mountain and river Her silver to shower. As yon moon disappeareth, We pass and are past; The Paleface o'er all things Is potent at last. He bores through the mountains, He bridges the ford, He bridles steam horses Where Bruin was lord, He summons the river Her wealth to unfold, From flint and from granite He crushes the gold. Those valleys of silence Will soon be alive With huxters who chaffer, Prospectors who strive, And the house of the Paleface Will peer from the crest Of the cliff, where the eagle To-day builds his nest. The Redskin he marred not White fall on wild rill, But to-morrow those waters Will turn a mill; And the streamlet which flashes Like a young squaw's dark eye, Will be black with foul refuse, Or may be run dry. From the sea where the Father Of waters is lost, To the sea where all summer The iceberg is tost, The white hordes will swarm And the white man will sway, And the smoke of his engine Make swarthy the day. Round the mound of a brother In sadness we pace, How much sadder to stand At the grave of a race! But the good Spirit knows What for all is the best, And which should be chosen, The strife or the rest. As for me, I'm time-weary, I await my release; Give to others the struggle, Grant me but the peace,— And what peace like the peace Which death offers the brave? What rest like the rest That we find in the grave? For the doom of the hunter There is no reprieve; And for me, 'mid strange customs, 'Tis bitter to live. Our part has been played Let the white man play his; Then he too disappears, And goes down the abyss. Yes! Time's eagle will prey On the Paleface at last, And his doom like our own Is to pass and be past.