Our Intellectual Strength and Weakness: A Short Historical and Critical Review of Literature, Art and Education in CanadaBourinot, John George
History
Our Intellectual Strength and Weakness: A Short Historical and Critical Review of Literature, Art and Education in Canada
Bourinot, John George
Canada -- Intellectual life; Canadian literature -- History and criticism; French-Canadian literature -- History and criticism
"Hail to the day when the Britons came over,
And planted their standard with sea-foam still wet,
Around and above us their spirits will hover,
Rejoicing to mark how we honour it yet.
We'll honour it yet, we'll honour it yet,
The flag of Old England! we'll honour it yet.
"In the temples they founded their faith is maintained,
Every foot of the soil they bequeathed is still ours,
The graves where they moulder no foe has profaned,
But we wreathe them with verdure, and strew them with flowers!
The blood of no brother, in civil strife pour'd,
In this hour of rejoicing, encumbers our souls!
The frontier's the field for the Patriot's sword,
And cursed be the weapon that Faction controls!
CHORUS--"Hail to the day, etc.
"Then hail to the day! 'tis with memories crowded,
Delightful to trace 'midst the mists of the past,
Like the features of Beauty, bewitchingly shrouded,
They shine through the shadows Time o'er them has cast.
As travellers track to its source in the mountains
The stream which, far swelling, expands o'er the plains,
Our hearts, on this day, fondly turn to the fountains
Whence flow the warm currents that bound in our veins.
CHORUS--"Hail to the day, etc.
"And proudly we trace them: no warrior flying
From city assaulted, and fanes overthrown,
With the last of his race on the battlements dying,
And weary with wandering, founded our own.
From the Queen of the Islands, then famous in story,
A century since, our brave forefathers came,
And our kindred yet fill the wide world with her glory,
Enlarging her Empire and spreading her name.
CHORUS--"Hail to the day, etc.
"Ev'ry flash of her genius our pathway enlightens--
Ev'ry field she explores we are beckoned to tread--
Each laurel she gathers our future day brightens--
We joy with her living, and mourn for her dead.
Then hail to the day when the Britons came over,
And planted their standard, with sea-foam still wet,
Above and around us their spirits shall hover,
Rejoicing to mark how we honour it yet.
CHORUS--"Hail to the day," etc.]
ESSAYISTS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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