THESE
THREE SCORE YEARS
(An
Ode for Canada's Diamond Jubilee)
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OH to
be back where the oatfields are blowing
In my own Canadian
home;
Where the shadows chase the shadows across the water
meadows
And the deep grass
seethes like foam! |
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II
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| So sang
the exile, wearying for dead days; |
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And
homeward turned o'er the long-furrowed sea
To find new wonder in the old dear ways,
And drown in dreams
fulfilled the ache of memory. |
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III
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Deliberate
Time, toiling for age on age
To chisel one lean
channel down the steep, |
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Or grave
in stone some enigmatic page
Of aeons lapsed in
immemorial sleep,
What impulse urged you to this ecstatic haste,
Drove you to spurn
the dragging centuries;
To beat blind oafish Ignorance to her knees, |
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And,
in a space as brief
To immortal eyes as
that twixt bud and leaf,
To fling the marvel of a million
hearths
And towered and teeming cities o'er the waste? |
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IV
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| These
three score fateful years! |
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So
swiftly have they sped, so fleetly wrought,
Our eyes, confused
by dust of toil and strife,
By turmoil of desires and hopes and fears,
Have scarce perceived the miracles
they wrought,
Or sensed the splendours
burgeoning into life; |
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Till
now, on this proud day we celebrate,
Pausing to count the cost and
gain, we stand
With eyes unsealed, with wondering hearts elate,
To view the task complete as our
great Fathers planned. |
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V
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| Theirs
was the vision, theirs the faith far-seeing, |
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And
theirs the force that forged our unity,
That called a nation into instant being
And stretched its
boundaries from sea to sea.
They snared a savage continent in steel.
They bowed the eternal
icepeaks to their will. |
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The
clamour of old hates they bade be still.
They tamed old factions to the common weal.
And one, our poet, statesman, seer combined,
Sealed with a martyr's blood the bond his faith
had signed. |
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VI
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are we worthy these heroic sires, |
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These
twain world-mastering peoples whence they sprang?
Doth still the breed
run true,
Still in our veins upflame the ancient fires?
Make answer, Fields of Flanders, Fields of France,
Where late our young battalions
marched and sang, |
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Our
airmen soared the shrapnel-shattered blue!
Bear witness, Ypres and Vimy, with what cheer,
And courage clear,
And high contempt of fear,
Embattled at the grim old Lion's side, |
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| Our
scarred battalions triumphed, laughed and died! |
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VII
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Dying,
they live imperishable, and proclaim,
Our manhood's stature
to the world, their blood
A sacrament of glory, and their fame
The enduring pledge
of that new brotherhood |
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Of equal
nations which we "Empire" name,—
That Commonwealth in which we proudly own
Love to our peers, allegiance to our Throne. |
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VIII |
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And
so I end my random song, returning
To that which makes
perchance its only worth,— |
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The
patriot warmth within my bosom burning
Through all my wanderings
o'er the curious earth.
Friends have I found in far and alien places,
Beauty and ardour in unfamiliar faces,
But first in my heart this land I call my own! |
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| Canadian
am I in blood and bone! |
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Written
for the New Brunswick Celebration of Canada's
Diamond Jubilee at Fredericton.
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