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Title: Canada
Author: Edward Doyle [
More Titles by Doyle]
I
O Canada, Long red with cottage flame
From Britain's torch! thy blasts milk not the cloud
To nourish hope; instead, they spread the shroud
On Human Spirit answering Freedom's claim.
Whence comes the cold which icicles with shame,
Thy heart's Niagara, that should thunder loud
Unto thy far off soul in sorrow, bowed
O'er Papineau, whom Thraldom could not tame?
Now following the Friends, who grandly led
The slave through tunnels to the Northern Star,
To find, in freedom, richer bloomage far,
Than the Magnolia o'er the cattle shed,--
I reach thy soul,--where now the Crawfords are,
And learn the cold is not from manhood dead.
II
Whence comes this cold to Freedom's claim? we know
Only too well,--from creatures of the King,
Who had dragged Hell of every poisonous thing
And, through our country, had spread waste and woe.
Beaten at last, they flocked like carion crow,
On the dead body of their will to sting,
Which drifting Northward, and enlargening,
Loomed Dante's Nimrod, 'mid the Arctic snow.
There, with the reptile's hate of Man Upright,
As God created him, and reptiles veins,
Aflow with deaths cold blood--for that sustains
The life of tyrant and of parasite--
This monster, though half sunk in Hell, remains
High, still, above the Arctic's shuddering night.
III
The monster's inhalations empty Hell
Of all deterents to Life's flow and flower;
Then, its outbreathings icily devour
The cataract in flight and, down the dell,
The streamlets to delight, and buds, as well,
Of virtue, forming bloom for Freedom's bower;--
Nay, its out breathings,--through Creed hatred's power--
Grow Boreus and face where freeman dwell.
Lo! with Sun-warmth for Truth and Human Right,
Is Boreus met. Who hurles him down the deep?
Look close;--'tis Gladden who, on Freedom's steep,
Is as inspiring, as, on Andes' height,
The great Christ Statue, bidding Rancor sleep
And Life's diverging rays in love, beam Light.
IV
The cataracts wild leap, turned glittering ice
In shame's suspension, and crow souls afeeding
Upon a huge dead body and fast breeding,--
Is, as a scene, not worth the railroad's price;
But, oh, if, with "Excelsior" for device,
Thou climb thy Alpine way, each day exceeding
The other's height, what throngs would watch thy speeding
And, for the thrill thou woulds't give them, come twice!
O Canada! why all this sleigh-bell rhyming?
'Tis on the reindeer, hope, in speed with me
To the grand morning, when thou shalt breathe free
Upon the apex of thine Alpine climbing,
From foulsome, choaking smells of tyranny,
Thick from the Great Sea Serpent's inland sliming.
V
God said to Wrong: "No further shalt thou go."
This, Monroe heard and held, then, in his heart.
It was this he repeated, when on chart
He made his markings, checking Freedom's foe.
God never grants to Wrong the right to grow;
Because He sets its bounds, does not impart
His blessing on its growth, more than its start;
His blessing goes to Right, to overthrow.
Oh, let thine eyes for migratory flight
Speed southward! Passing Prejudice's Lake,
Green-crusted with stagnation which some take
For verdure, they will see from Andes' height,
How Freedom's battle forms the red day-break,
And tides are swells from thrall, hurled deep from sight.
VI
Thine eyes returning from the Southern Cross,
Will, when like Perry, they have reached the Pole,
Search under it to find thy banished soul,
O Canada, and tell it of thy loss
In letting a foul dead body, which the moss
Of the deep sea should hide, loom as thy whole
And rule, as dead things rule, with death for toll,
As pierced by Papineau through Glamor's gloss.
From South to North, no sky is black but thine.
Thy fecund brain, the Borealis, shows
A swaying disc with shades of dark for glows,
With but a faint salt smell of Color's brine,
The pent-up billows in the disc's dark close,
Which might flood midnight with rare, world-wide shine.
VII
We seek no annexation, but of Mind,
Heart, Spirit. True, thy clear, sonorous voice
At Freedom's class-call, would make us rejoice,
For, then, close-coasting thrall would fail to find
In the new world, one truant to mankind,
Swimming out to the foreigners' decoys,
Or fast asleep amid his infant toys,
Instead of at the task, which God assigned.
Oh, let thy spirit come, but it must be
Along the star-way to the rising sun--
The way of love; not down creed hates that run,
Like broken stone-steps, to a roaring sea--
The way thou oft, hast come. Rise, and be one
On the new world's Star-top of Liberty.
VIII
"The Angels come in dreams," says Holy Writ;
And Science says, "No sleep so deep, but dreams."
Devine appearances with brightening gleams
Toward Paradise up from the demon's pit,
Ever rouse virtue; aye, for God redeems
His fire, wherever hid; the tempest teems,
But still his sparks fly, quick as flint is hit.
Wake, Canada! and let thy Papineaus
Be dreams remembered; yea, let them inspire
Thy life to follow Freedom high and higher
Through Rights' whole range of summits, crowned with snows
Sparkling from star-moulds of the Soul's desire,
On earth from Heaven where, clouds from flames, they rose.
[The end]
Edward Doyle's poem: Canada
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