The Song Of The Six Sisters.
By John Campbell
[Manitoba, Assiniboia, Saskatchewan, Athabasca, Alberta, and British Columbia.]
At a feast in the east of our central plains,
Girt with the sheaths of the wheaten grains,
Manitoba lay where the sunflowers blow,
And sang to the chime of the Red River's flow:
"I am child of the spirit whom all men own,
My prairie no longer is green and lone,
For the hosts of the settler have ringed me round,
And his bride am I with the harvest crowned."
On her steed at speed o'er her burning grass
We saw Assiniboia pass:
"The bison and antelope still are mine,
And the Indian wars on my boundary-line;
Where his knife is dyed I love to ride
By the cactus blooms or the marshes wide,
While the quivering columns of thunder fire
Give light to the darkened land's desire."
"To the North look ye forth," cried the voice of one,
Who dwells where the great twin rivers run;--
"Or farther yet," Athabaska cried,
"Where mightier waters the hills divide:
'Peace' is their name, and the musk ox there
Still feeds alone on the meadows fair."
"Nay, stay," said the first; "the white man's word
Hath called me the kindest to horse and herd."
From on high where the sky and the snow-born rill
Each morn and eve to the rose-tints thrill,
Sang the fairy Sprite of the Fountain Land:
"A daughter of her, whose sceptred hand
With the flag of the woven crosses three
Hath rule o'er the ocean, hath christened me,
And my waves their homage repeat again,
And that standard greet in the loyal main."
And their lays in her praise then sang the four:
"Alberta has all we can boast and more:
The scented breath of the plains is hers,
The odours sweet of the sage and firs;
There the coal breaks forth on her rolling sod,
And the winters flee at the winds of God.
Columbia, come! for we want but thee;
Now tell of thyself and thy silent sea!"
"Clad with the silver snow, a pine
Guarded the grot of a golden mine,
And dark was the shade which the mist-wreaths cast
Though brightly they shone on the mountain vast.
Stars and sun o'er that cavern swept,
Where on the glittering sand I slept;
But none could behold me, or know where was stored
More treasure than monarch e'er won with the sword.
Floods in fathomless torrents fall
Through the awful rifts of the Alpine wall,
Where I passed in the night over forest and glen,
O'er the ships on the sea and the cities of men--
Swifter than morn! His shafts of love
Behind me caught the peaks above,
But touched not my wings: I had gone e'er he came
Where the vine-maple fringed the deep forest with flame.
Strewn o'er the sombre walls of green
In saffron or in crimson sheen,
How lovely those gardens of autumn, where rolled
In smoke and in fire the red lava of old!
Soon I reached my sea-girt home
Sheltered from the breakers' foam.
Seek not for mine isle, for a thousand and more
Lie asleep in the calm near the mountainous shore.
Oft I roam in moon ray clear
With the puma and the deer;
From the boughs of Madrna that droop o'er a bay
I watch the fish dart from the beams of the day.
Mine are tranquil gulfs, nor give
Sign to lovers where I live;
But the sea-rock betrays where my netting is hung,
When the meshes of light o'er its mosses are flung!"
She ceased, and then in chorus strong
The blended voices floated long:--
"No sirens we, of shore or wave,
To sing of love and tempt the brave:
We fled their path, and freedom found
Where blue horizons stretched around,
And lilies in the grasses made
A double sunshine on each blade.
No wooers we, but, wooed by them,
We yield our maiden diadem,
And welcome now, no longer mute,
Tried hearts so true and resolute!"