Charles Sangster

By England's side we stand,
We grasp her royal hand,
And pay her rightful homage through her Son;
Thank God for England's care!
Thank God for Britain's heir!
Our hearts go forth to meet him - we are one.

A loyal Province pours
Her thousands to her shores,
From iron-girt Superior to the sea;
We feel our youthful blood
Surge through us like a flood,
There's not a slave amongst us - we are free.

For none but Freemen know
The truly loyal throe
That gives heroic impulse to the Man -
The passion and the fire,
The chivalrous desire:
Our Fathers all were heroes - in the van.

And we, their ardent sons,
Through whom, triumphant, runs
The old intrepid attribute serene,
Would leave our chosen land,
Our homes, our forests gra...

I am happier for the Spring;
For my heart is like a bird
That has many songs to sing,
But whose voice is never heard
Till the happy year is caroling
To the daisies on the sward.

I'd be happier for the Spring,
Though my heart had grown so old
Like a crone 'twould sit and sing
Its shrill runes of wintry cold;
For I'd know the year was caroling
To the daisies on the wold.

Bird of the fanciful plumage,
That foldest thy wings in the west,
Imbuing the shimmering ocean
With the hues of thy delicate breast,
Passing away into Dreamland,
To visions of heavenly rest!

Spirit! when thou art permitted
To bask in the sunset of life;
Serene in thine eventide splendour,
Thy countenance victory rife;
Leaving the world where thou'st triumphed
Alike o'er its greatness and strife:

Thine be the destiny, spirit,
To set like the sun in the west;
Folding thy wings of rare plumage,
Conscious of infinite rest,
Heralded on to thy haven,
The Fortunate Isles of the Blest.

That morn our hearts were like artesian wells,
Both deep and calm, and brimming with pure love.
And in each one, like to an April day,
Truth smiled and wept, while Courage wound his horn,
Dispatching echoes that are whispering still
Through all the vacant chambers of our souls;
While Sorrow sat with drooped and aimless wing,
Within the solitary fane of thought.
We wished some warlike Joshua were there
To make the sun stand still, or to put back
The dial to the brighter side of time.
A cloud hung over Couchiching; a cloud
Eclipsed the merry sunshine of our hearts.
We needed no philosopher to teach
That laughter is not always born of joy.
"All's for the best," the fair Eliza said;
And we derived new courage from her lips,
That spake the maxim of her trustin...

If seasons, like the human race, had souls,
Then two artistic spirits live within
The Chameleon mind of Autumn - these,
The Poet's mentor and the Painter's guide.
The myriad-thoughted phases of the mind
Are truly represented by the hues
That thrill the forests with prophetic fire.
And what could painter's skill compared to these?
What palette ever held the flaming tints
That on these leafy hieroglyphs foretell
How set the ebbing currents of the year?
What poet's page was ever like to this,
Or told the lesson of life's waning days
More forcibly, with more of natural truth,
Than yon red maples, or these poplars, white
As the pale shroud that wraps some human corse?
And then, again, the spirit of a King,
Clothed with that majesty most monarchs lack,
Mig...

OCTOBER 13TH, 1859.*

One voice, one people, one in heart
And soul, and feeling, and desire!
Re-light the smouldering martial fire,
Sound the mute trumpet, strike the lyre,
The hero deed can not expire,
    The dead still play their part.

Raise high the monumental stone!
A nation's fealty is theirs,
And we are the rejoicing heirs,
The honored sons of sires whose cares
We take upon us unawares,
    As freely as our own.

We boast not of the victory,
But render homage, deep and just,
To his - to their - immortal dust,
Who proved so worthy of their trust
No lofty pile nor sculptured bust
    Can herald their degree.

No tongue need blazon forth their fame -
The cheers that stir the sacred hill
Are but mere promptings ...

Who'll dive for the dead men now,
Since Colin is gone?
Who'll feel for the anguished brow,
Since Colin is gone?
True Feeling is not confined
To the learned or lordly mind;
Nor can it be bought and sold
In exchange for an Alp of gold;
For Nature, that never lies,
Flings back with indignant scorn
The counterfeit deed, still-born,
In the face of the seeming wise,
In the Janus face of the huckster race
Who barter her truths for lies.

Who'll wrestle with dangers dire,
Since Colin is gone?
Who'll fearlessly brave the maniac wave,
Thoughtless of self, human life to save,
Unmoved by the storm-fiend's ire?
Who, Shadrach-like, will walk through fire,
Since Colin is gone?
Or hang his life on so frail a breath
That there's but a step 't...

Her thoughts are sweet glimpses of heaven,
Her life is that heaven brought down;
Oh, never to mortal was given
So rare and bejewelled a crown!
I'll wear it as saints wear the glory
That radiantly clasps them above -
    Oh, dower most fair!
    Oh, diadem rare!
Bright crown of her maidenly love.

My heart is a fane of devotion,
My feelings are converts at prayer,
And every thrill of emotion
Makes dearer the crown I would wear.
My soul in its fulness of rapture
Begins its millennial reign,
    Life glows like a sun,
    Love's zenith is won,
And Joy is sole monarch again.

My noonday of life is as morning,
God's light streams approvingly down;
Uncovered, I wait her adorning,
She comes with the beautiful crown!
I'll wear i...

"They run! they run!" - "Who run?"    Not they
Who faced that decimating fire
As coolly as if human ire
    Were rooted from their hearts;
They run, while he who led the way
So bravely on that glorious day,
Burns for one word with keen desire
    Ere waning life departs!

"They run! they run!" - "Who run?" he cried,
As swiftly to his pallid brow,
Like crimson sunlight upon snow,
    The anxious blood returned;
"The French! the French!" a voice replied,
When quickly paled life's ebbing tide,
And though his words were weak and low
    His eye with valour burned.

"Thank God!    I die in peace," he said;
And calmly yielding up his breath,
There trod the shadowy realms of death
    A good man and a brave;
Through all the...

Dear Carrie, were we truly wise,
And could discern with finer eyes,
And half-inspired sense,
The ways of Providence:

Could we but know the hidden things
That brood beneath the Future's wings,
Hermetically sealed,
But soon to be revealed:

Would we, more blest than we are now,
In due submission learn to bow, -
Receiving on our knees
The Omnipotent decrees?

That which is just, we have.    And we
Who lead this round of mystery,
This dance of strange unrest,
What are we at the best? -

Unless we learn to mount and climb;
Writing upon the page of time,
In words of joy or pain,
That we've not lived in vain.

We all are Ministers of Good;
And where our mission's understood,
How many hearts we must
Raise, t...

England's Hope and England's Heir!
Head and crown of Britain's glory,
Be thy future half so fair
As her past is famed in story,
Then wilt thou be great, indeed,
Daring, where there's cause to dare;
Greatest in the hour of need,
England's Hope and England's Heir.

By her past, in acts supreme,
By her present grand endeavour,
By her future, which the gleam
Of our fond hopes brings us ever:
We can trust that thou wilt be
Worthy of a fame so rare,
Worthy of thy destiny,
England's Hope and England's Heir.

Be thy spirit fraught with hers,
Queen, whom we revere and honour;
Be thine acts love's messengers,
Brightly flashing back upon her;
Be what most her trust would deem,
Help the answer to her prayer,
Realize her holiest drea...

"God bless the darling Eva!" was my prayer.
A pure, unconscious depth of earnestness
Was in her eyes, so indescribable
You might as well the color of the air
Seek to daguerreotype, or to impress
A stain upon the river, whose first swell
Would swirl it to the deep.    A calm, sweet soul,
Where Love's celestial saints and ministers
Did hold the earthly under such control
Virtue sprung up like daisies from the sod.
Oh, for one hour's sweet excellence like hers!
One hour of sinlessness, that never more
Can visit me this side the Silent Shore,
To stand, like her, serene, unblushing before God!

Thank God I love the Flowers!
Mute voices of the Spring,
That gladden all her bowers
With their varied blossoming;
They weave a charm around them
On each summer dale and bough,
For a Fairy train has bound them
In wreaths upon her brow.

Far up along the mountain,
And in the valleys green,
In the field, and by the fountain,
The smiling ones are seen;
Some looking up to heaven,
With eyes of deepest blue;
Some stooping down at even
To quaff the sparkling dew.

And from them all there speaketh
A language sweet and pure,
Fitted for him who seeketh
A God's nomenclature.
As tidal pulses thrill the seas,
And moments build the hours,
Heaven breathes her unvoiced mysteries
In sermons from the Flowers.

Underneath the maple-tree
Gertrude worked her filigree,
    All the summer long;
To sweet airs her voice was wed,
As she plied her golden thread;
Echo stealing through the grove
Filched away the words of love,
And the birds, from tree to tree,
Bore the witching melody
    Through avenues of Song.

Underneath the maple-trees
Zephyrs chant her melodies,
    All the summer long;
Words and airs no longer wed,
Death has snapped the vocal thread
Echo sleeping in the grove
Dreams of liquid airs of love,
And the birds among the trees
Fill with sweetest symphonies
    Whole avenues of Song.

Sounds of rural life and labour!
Not the notes of pipe and tabour,
Not the clash of helm and sabre
    Bright'ning up the field of glory,
Can compare with thy ovations,
That make glad the hearts of nations;
E'en the poet's fond creations
    Pale before thy simple story.

In the years beyond our present,
King was little more than peasant,
Labour was the shining crescent,
    Toil, the poor man's crown of glory;
Have we passed from worse to better
Since we wove the silken fetter,
Changed the plough for book and letter.
    Truest life for tinsel story?

Up the ladder of the ages
Clomb the patriarchal sages,
Solving nature's secret pages,
    Kings of thought's supremest glory;
Eagle-winged, and sight far reaching -
Are we wise...

    We never say, "Good Night;"
For our eager lips are fleeter
Than the tongue, and a kiss is sweeter
    Than parting words,
    That out like swords;
So we always kiss Good Night.

    We never say "Good Night."
Words are precious, love, why lose 'em?
Fold them up in your maiden bosom;
    There let them rest,
    Like love unconfessed,
While we kiss a sweet Good Night.

    There comes a last Good Night.
Human life - not love - is fleeting;
Heaven send many a birth-day greeting;
    Dim years roll on
    To life's gray-haired dawn,
Ere we kiss our last Good Night.

            -    -    -

    We've kissed our last Good Night!
Love's warm tendrils torn and bleeding,
Vain all human interceding!
    Oh, life! ...

Old Grandpere gat in the corner,
With his grandchild on his knee,
Looking up at his wrinkled visage,
For his winters were ninety-three.

Fair Eleanor's locks were flaxen,
The old man's once were gray,
But now, they were white as the snow-drift
That lay on the bleak highway.

Her summers rolled on as golden
As waves over sunny seas;
But Grandpere could perceive no summers,
The winters alone were his.

He folded his arms around her,
Like Winter embracing Spring;
And the angels looked down from heaven,
And smiled on their slumbering.

But soon the angelic faces
Were filled with seraphic light,
As they gazed on a beauteous spirit
Passing up through the frosty night:

Till it stood serene before them,
A youth most d...

When the heavens throb and vibrate
All along their silver veins,
To the mellow storm of music
Sweeping o'er the starry trains,
Heard by few, as erst by shepherds
On the far Chaldean plains:

Not the blazing, torch-like planets,
Not the Pleiads wild and free,
Not Arcturus, Mars, Uranus,
Bring the brightest dreams to me;
But I gaze in rapt devotion
On the central star of three.

Central star of three that tingle
In the balmy southern sky;
One above, and one below it,
Dreamily they pale and die,
As two lesser minds might dwindle,
When some great soul, passing by,

Stops, and reads their cherished secrets,
With a calm and godlike air,
Luring all their radiance from them
Leaving a dim twilight there,
Something vague, and...