THOUGHTS, MOODS AND IDEALS.
Reading edition
THE CONFUSED DAWN.
YOUNG MAN What are the Vision and the Cry That haunt the new Canadian soul? Dim grandeur spreads we know not why O'er mountain, forest, tree and knoll, And murmurs indistinctly fly.— Some magic moment sure is nigh. O Seer, the curtain roll!
SEER The Vision, mortal, it is this— Dead mountain, forest, knoll and tree Awaken all endued with bliss, A native land—O think!—to be— Thy native land—and ne'er amiss, Its smile shall like a lover's kiss From henceforth seem to thee.
The Cry thou couldst not understand, Which runs through that new realm of light, From Breton's to Vancouver's strand O'er many a lovely landscape bright, It is their waking utterance grand, The great refrain "A NATIVE LAND!"— Thine be the ear, the sight.
(1882.)