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Title: Know'st Thou The Land?
Author: W. M. MacKeracher [
More Titles by MacKeracher]
Know'st thou the land where the pious and bold
Beared Christianity's emblem of old,
And civilization's beneficent reign
Extended o'er anarchy's savage domain?
The land of the dauntless explorers who prest
Upstream, through the wilderness, into the West?
Know'st thou the land of the soldier and knight,
The land of adventure and toil and delight?
Know'st thou the land?
Know'st thou the land?
'Tis the land of my home, my beloved native land.
Know'st thou the land where the Briton and Gaul,
In courage and prowess supreme over all,
Contending for lordship and vying for place,
Collided and locked in a mighty embrace
So bravely that fame has awarded the palm
Of deathless renown to both Wolfe and Montcalm?
Know'st thou the land for which heroes have died,
The land of the strong and the true and the tried?
Know'st thou the land of the broad maple tree?
The noblest and best of his fellows is he:
He grows in the meadow, the grove and the wood;
His trunk is for timber, his sap is for food;
His boughs are for fire in the cold winter days;
His leaves are for shade from the summer sun's blaze.
Know'st thou the land of the maple benign,
The land of the elm and the oak and the pine?
Know'st thou the land where the great inland seas
Are tossed by the tempest or fanned by the breeze;
The land of Superior's crystalline tide,
Of Huron's exuberant vigor and pride,
Of Erie's alluring voluptuous glance,
Ontario's laughing Elysian expanse?
Know'st thou the land that is praised evermore
By the chant of their surge and Niagara's roar?
Know'st thou the land of the clear-flowing streams
That mirror the stars and reflect the sun's beams?
Through the woods and the farmland they wander at large,
And the deer and the kine come to drink at their marge;
They flash in the distance like ribands of white;
Their trout-haunted pools are the angler's delight.
Know'st thou the land of the rivers and rills,
The boon of the lowlands, the joy of the hills?
Know'st thou the land where St. Lawrence proceeds
By cities and hamlets and blossoming meads
And islands and waters of lesser degree,
With his tribute to pour in the lap of the sea?
His shining battalions he halts to deploy,
Or leaps through the rapid with turbulent joy.
Know'st thou the land that he laves in his flow,
Where deep-laden argosies royally go?
Know'st thou the land of the mountains that rise
Till their summits are lost in the depths of the skies?
Their granite foundations are far underground,
Where the gold and the coal and the iron abound;
And the sun on their white-headed majesty flings
The radiance of crowns and the purple of kings.
Know'st thou the land of these citadels tall,
With their ramparts and battlements, wall upon wall?
Know'st thou the land where the ice and the snow
On all things a magical beauty bestow?
Then the earth is a bride and the tingling air wine,
The frosty sky sparkles, the Pleiades shine,
And the bright "merry dancers" in gorgeous array,
Like ghosts of dead sunbeams, come forth to their play.
Know'st thou the land of the sleigh-bells, the land
Of the warm fireside and the welcoming hand?
Know'st thou the land where kind Nature has given
In earth's beauty and grandeur a foretaste of heaven;
Where History lingers, enthralled with the view
Of as splendid exploits as the world ever knew;
Where Industry reaps the rewards of her toil
In the wealth of the cities, the fruits of the soil?
Know'st thou the land which the Muses regard,
The land of the sculptor, the singer, the bard?
Know'st thou the land where the spell of the past
Is over the mind irresistibly cast;
Where the present fulfills the fond hopes of the years,
The dreams of romancers, the visions of seers,
Where the future inspires with a prospect sublime,
Maturing the fairest fruition of time?
Know'st thou this land of Heaven's favor possest,
The fortunate land of a destiny blest?
Know'st thou the land?
Know'st thou the land?
'Tis the land of my home, my belov'd native land.
[The end]
W. M. MacKeracher's poem: Know'st Thou The Land?
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