The Oxford Book of Canadian Verse
The Confused DawnWilliam Douw Schuyler-Lighthall (18571954)
YOUNG MAN
WThat 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!
SThe 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.
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.