I have passed the warden cities at the Eastern water-gate Where the hero and the martyr laid the corner stone of State, The habitant, _coureur-des-bois_, and hardy voyageur-- Where lives a breed more strong at need to venture or endure? I have seen the gorge of Erie where the roaring waters run, I have crossed the Inland Ocean, lying golden in the sun, But the last and best and sweetest is the ride by hill and dale With the packer and the packhorse on the Athabasca Trail. I'll dream again of fields of grain that stretch from sky to sky And the little prairie hamlets where the cars go roaring by, Wooden hamlets as I saw them--noble cities still to be, To girdle stately Canada with gems from sea to sea. Mother of a mighty manhood, land of glamour and of hope, From the eastward sea-swept islands to the sunny western slope, Ever more my heart is with you, ever more till life shall fail I'll be out with pack and packer on the Athabasca Trail. RAGTIME! ["During the catastrophe the band of the _Titanic_ played negro melodies and ragtime until the last moment, when they broke into a hymn."--DAILY PAPER.] Ragtime! Ragtime! Keep it going still! Let them hear the ragtime! Play it with a will! Women in the lifeboats, men upon the wreck, Take heart to hear the ragtime lilting down the deck. Ragtime! Ragtime! Yet another tune! Now the "Darkey Dandy," now "The Yellow Coon!" Brace against the bulwarks if the stand's askew, Find your footing as you can, but keep the music true! There's glowing hell beneath us where the shattered boilers roar, The ship is listing and awash, the boats will hold no more! There's nothing more that you can do, and nothing you can mend, Only keep the ragtime playing to the end. Don't forget the time, boys! Eyes upon the score! Never heed the wavelets sobbing down the floor! Play it as you played it when with eager feet A hundred pair of dancers were stamping to the beat. Stamping to the ragtime down the lamp-lit deck, With shine of glossy linen and with gleam of snowy neck, They've other thoughts to think to-night, and other things to do, But the tinkle of the ragtime may help to see them through. Shut off, shut off the ragtime! The lights are falling low! The deck is buckling under us! She's sinking by the bow! One hymn of hope from dying hands on dying ears to fall-- Gently the music fades away--and so, God rest us all! CHRISTMAS IN WARTIME 1916 Cheer oh, comrades, we can bide the blast And face the gloom until it shall grow lighter. What though one Christmas should be overcast, If duty done makes all the others brighter. 1917 THE LAST LAP We seldom were quick off the mark, And sprinting was never our game; But when it's insistence and hold-for-the-distance, We've never been beat at that same.