The Ontario Readers Part 41

Throughout Canada the news of the victory of Queenston Heights awakened universal joy and enthusiasm, second only to that with which the taking of Detroit was hailed. But the joy and enthusiasm were damped by the sad tidings, that he who had first taught Canada's sons the way to victory had given his life for her defence, and slept in a soldier's grave with many of her best and bravest.

UNKNOWN

THE BUGLE SONG

The splendour falls on castle walls And snowy summits old in story: The long light shakes across the lakes, And the wild cataract leaps in glory.

Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O hark, O hear! how thin and clear, And thinner, clearer, farther going!

O sweet and far from cliff and scar The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!

Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying: Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O love, they die in yon rich sky, They faint on hill or field or river: Our echoes roll from soul to soul, And grow for ever and for ever.

Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.

TENNYSON

CHARITY

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding bra.s.s, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

For now we see through a gla.s.s, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

I. CORINTHIANS, XIII.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

"What means this glory round our feet,"

The Magi mused, "more bright than morn?"

And voices chanted clear and sweet, "To-day the Prince of Peace is born."

"What means that star," the Shepherds said, "That brightens through the rocky glen?"

And angels, answering overhead, Sang, "Peace on earth, good-will to men!"

'Tis eighteen hundred years and more Since those sweet oracles were dumb; We wait for Him, like them of yore; Alas, He seems so slow to come!

But it was said, in words of gold No time or sorrow e'er shall dim, That little children might be bold In perfect trust to come to Him.

All round about our feet shall s.h.i.+ne A light like that the wise men saw, If we our living wills incline To that sweet Life which is the Law.

So shall we learn to understand The simple faith of shepherds then, And, clasping kindly, hand in hand, Sing, "Peace on earth, good-will to men."

And they who do their souls no wrong, But keep at eve the faith of morn, Shall daily hear the angel song, "To-day the Prince of Peace is born!"

LOWELL

THE BARREN LANDS

Long before the treeless wastes are reached, the forests cease to be forests except by courtesy. The trees--black and white spruce, the Canadian larch, and the gray pine, willow, alder, etc.--have an appearance of youth; so that the traveller would hardly suppose them to be more than a few years old, at first sight. Really this juvenile appearance is a species of second childhood; for, on the sh.o.r.es of the Great Bear Lake, four centuries are necessary for the growth of a trunk not as thick as a man's wrist. The further north the more lamentably decrepit becomes the appearance of these woodlands, until, presently, their sordidness is veiled by thick growths of gray lichens--the "caribou moss," as it is called--which clothe the trunks and hang down from the shrivelled boughs. And still further north the trees become mere stunted stems, set with blighted buds that have never been able to develop themselves into branches; until, finally, the last vestiges of arboreal growth take refuge under a thick carpet of lichens and mosses, the characteristic vegetation of the Barren Grounds.

Nothing more dismal than the winter aspect of these wastes can be imagined. The Northern forests are silent enough in winter time, but the silence of the Barren Grounds is far more profound. Even in the depths of midwinter the North-Western bush has voices and is full of animal life. The barking cry of the crows (these birds are the greatest imaginable nuisance to the trapper, whose baits they steal even before his back is turned) is still heard; the snow-birds and other small winged creatures are never quiet between sunset and sunrise; the jack-rabbit, whose black bead-like eye betrays his presence among the snow-drifts in spite of his snow-white fur, is common enough; and the childlike wailing of the coyotes is heard every night. But with the exception of the shriek of the snow-owl or the yelping of a fox emerged from his lair, there is no sound of life during seven or eight or nine months of winter on the Barren Grounds; unless the traveller is able to hear the rus.h.i.+ng sound--some can hear it, others cannot--of the s.h.i.+fting Northern lights.

In May, however, when the snows melt and the swamps begin to thaw, the Barren Grounds become full of life. To begin with, the sky is literally darkened with enormous flights of wild-fowl, whom instinct brings from the southern reaches of the Mississippi and its tributaries to these sub-Arctic wildernesses, where they find an abundance of food, and at the same time build their nests and rear their young in safety. The snow-geese are the first to arrive; next come the common and eider-duck; after them the great northern black-and-red-throated divers; and last of all the pin-tail and the long-tail ducks. Some of these go no further than just beyond the outskirts of the forest region; others, flying further northward, lay their eggs in the open on the moss. Eagles and hawks prey on these migratory hosts; troops of ptarmigan (they are said to go to no place where the mercury does not freeze) seek food among the stunted willows on the sh.o.r.es of the lakes and sloughs; and in sunny weather the snow-bunting's song is heard.

Soon after the arrival of the migratory birds the wilderness becomes newly clothed in green and gray. The snow, which never once thaws during the long winter, forms a safe protection for vegetable life.

As soon as the lengthening summer's day has thawed this coverlet of snows, vegetation comes on at a surprising rate--a week's suns.h.i.+ne on the wet soil completely transforming the aspect of the country. It is then that the caribou leave their winter quarters in the forest region and journey to the Barren Grounds.

Just as the prairies might have been called "Buffalo-land" thirty years ago, and the intervening enforested country may still be styled "Moose-land"--not that the moose is nearly so common in Saskatchewan and Athabaska as it was before the rebellion of 1885 opened up that country--so from the hunter's point of view "Caribou-land" would be an exceedingly apt name for the _tundra_ of Greater Canada. Only the Indians and the Eskimos (the former living on the confines of the forests, and the latter along the far Arctic coasts) visit these territories, and but for the presence of the vast herds of caribou, it is pretty certain that such mosquito-haunted wastes would never be trodden by man. It is true that the musk-ox is an important inhabitant of the wastes, but the numbers of that strange beast, which seems to be half sheep, half ox, are not nearly so great, and there are reasons to believe that it is being slowly but surely driven from its ancient pastures by the caribou, just as, in so many parts of the world, the nations of the antelope have receded before the deer-tribes.

E. B. OSBORN: "Greater Canada."

A SPRING MORNING

There was a roaring in the wind all night; The rain came heavily and fell in floods: But now the sun is rising calm and bright, The birds are singing in the distant woods, Over his own sweet voice the stock-dove broods, The jay makes answer as the magpie chatters, And all the air is filled with pleasant noise of waters.

All things that love the sun are out of doors, The sky rejoices in the morning's birth, The gra.s.s is bright with rain-drops;--on the moors The hare is running races in her mirth; And with her feet, she from the plashy earth Raises a mist, that, glittering in the sun, Runs with her all the way, wherever she doth run.

WORDSWORTH

For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.

SOLOMON'S SONG. II, 11, 12