Canadian Streams

O rivers rolling to the sea From lands that bear the maple-tree, How swell your voices with the strain Of loyalty and liberty! A holy music, heard in vain By coward heart and sordid brain, To whom this strenuous being seems Naught but a greedy race for gain. O unsung streams--not splendid themes Ye lack to fire your patriot dreams! Annals of glory gild your waves, Hope freights your tides, Canadian streams! St. Lawrence, whose wide water laves The shores that ne'er have nourished slaves! Swift Richelieu of lilied fame! Niagara of glorious graves! Thy rapids, Ottawa, proclaim Where Daulac and his heroes came! Thy tides, St. John, declare La Tour, And, later, many a loyal name! Thou inland stream, whose vales, secure From storm, Tecumseh's death made poor! And thou small water, red with war, 'Twixt Beaubassin and Beauséjour! Dread Saguenay, where eagles soar, What voice shall from the bastioned shore The tale of Roberval reveal, Or his mysterious fate deplore? Annapolis, do thy floods yet feel Faint memories of Champlain's keel, Thy pulses yet the deed repeat Of Poutrincourt and d'Iberville? And thou far tide, whose plains now beat With march of myriad weathering feet, Saskatchewan, whose virgin sod So late Canadian blood made sweet? Your bulwark hills, your valleys broad, Streams where de Salaberry trod, Where Wolfe achieved, where Brock was slain,-- Their voices are the voice of God! O sacred waters! not in vain, Across Canadian height and plain, Ye sound us in triumphant tone The summons of your high refrain.