The Oxford Book of Canadian Verse
The MapleHenry Faulkner Darnell (18311915)
A
With its fair and changeful dress!
A type of our youthful country
In its pride and loveliness.
Whether in Spring or Summer,
Or in the dreary Fall,
’Mid Nature’s forest children
She ’s fairest of them all.
Her graceful form is seen,
Her wide, umbrageous branches
The sunburnt reaper screen;
’Mid the dark-browed firs and cedars
Her livelier colours shine,
Like the dawn of a brighter future
On the settler’s hut of pine.
Whispers on breezy downs,
And casts refreshing shadows
O’er the streets of our busy towns;
She gladdens the aching eyeball,
Shelters the weary head,
And scatters her crimson glories
On the graves of the silent dead.
To the sun’s returning sway,
And merry groups are speeding
To sugar-woods away;
The sweet and welling juices,
Which form their welcome spoil,
Tell of the teeming plenty
Which here waits honest toil.
Breaks Nature’s icy sleep,
And the forest boughs are swaying
Like the green waves of the deep;
In her fair and budding beauty
A fitting emblem she
Of this our land of promise,
Of hope, of liberty.
Droop silently and fall,
Like drops of lifeblood welling
From a warrior brave and tall,
They tell how fast and freely
Would her children’s blood be shed,
Ere the soil of our faith and freedom
Should echo a foeman’s tread.
With her fair and changeful dress!
A type of our youthful country
In its pride and loveliness.
Whether in Spring or Summer,
Or in the dreary Fall,
’Mid Nature’s forest children
She ’s fairest of them all.