We showed, when the road was completed, Our duty we never would shirk; And the Master who viewed it repeated: "That man should be judged by his work." He called up the saints of the ages, To honor us with their esteem, And pardoned our past-blotted pages-- When I woke, and I found 'twas a dream. THE MUSTERING OF THE LEGION (To the Legion of Frontiersmen) _'Twas a dream that I dreamed of to-morrow, A shadow was cast before, And the men who were missing had gathered To answer the call to war. Did ye think they were dead to the Empire? Ah, no, though their trail is dim! On the roll of the Legion you'll find them, The Frontiersmen of the King._ I dreamed that a land was in sore distress, I dreamed of a great review, And the frontiersmen from across the sea Had gathered, a motley crew; For the word had flown to the rolling stone That perilled was England's name; From the North and South, to the East and West They listened, and then they came. They came from the north, the Alaskan coast, They came from the White Man's Grave, The men of the ranch and the mounted police, In company with the knave; Forgetting it all at the nation's call, Unmindful of aught beside, They were needed there, there were none to spare, In stemming disaster's tide. Not a smile was seen, as the strange array Was mustered, and still they came From the Southern Cross and the midnight sun, The desert and from the plain: They came from the mountains and Grosvenor Square, The trapper beside the knight, The men of the jungle and Labrador, In eagerness for the fight. They came in detachments, they came alone, They paid or they worked their way, In moccasins, chaps, or in overalls, The young with the old and grey: Their law was the law of the _Forty-four_, And grimly across the waves They came, for the King was in need of them, His men of the damn-fool trades. They came from the mist of a future dawn, The lands of to-morrow's sun; The lands that in exile and weariness Had awaited the man to come. They came from the shade of a Moslem mosque, The desert of long ago; These men who had welcomed the Legion's call, Their loyalty e'en to show. They came from the shanty and lumber camp, They came from a prairie shack, The office and camp of the engineers, The Irishman and the Mac; They came from the land of the Golden Fleece, And far from an Indian shore, Obeying the word that was passed along, The Frontiersman's call to war. For the call had reached, God alone knew how, And Britons beyond the seas Caught its wailing cry, as it passed them by, Borne on by the evening breeze; In the fevered zone, or the Northern home, O'er wilderness, dark and bare, It spoke, and its note was o'er-pregnant, With weariness, pain, and care.