| |
| IN the seaport of Saint Malo ’twas a smiling morn in May, | |
| When the Commodore Jacques Cartier to the westward sailed away; | |
| In the crowded old Cathedral all the town were on their knees | |
| For the safe return of kinsmen from the undiscovered seas; | |
| And every autumn blast that swept o’er pinnacle and pier | 5 |
| Filled manly hearts with sorrow, and gentle hearts with fear. | |
| |
| A year passed o’er Saint Malo—again came round the day, | |
| When the Commodore Jacques Cartier to the westward sailed away; | |
| But no tidings from the absent had come the way they went, | |
| And tearful were the vigils that many a maiden spent; | 10 |
| And manly hearts were filled with gloom, and gentle hearts with fear, | |
| When no tidings came from Cartier at the closing of the year. | |
| |
| But the earth is as the Future, it hath its hidden side, | |
| And the Captain of Saint Malo was rejoicing in his pride | |
| In the forests of the North—while his townsmen mourned his loss, | 15 |
| He was rearing on Mount-Royal the fleur-de-lis and cross; | |
| And when two months were over and added to the year, | |
| Saint Malo hailed him home again, cheer answering to cheer. | |
| |
| He told them of a region, hard, ironbound, and cold, | |
| Where no seas of pearl abounded, nor mines of shining gold, | 20 |
| Where the wind from Thulê freezes the word upon the lip, | |
| And the ice in spring comes sailing athwart the early ship; | |
| He told them of the frozen scene until they thrill’d with fear, | |
| And piled fresh fuel on the hearth to make them better cheer. | |
| |
| But when he changed the strain—he told how soon are cast | 25 |
| In early Spring the fetters that hold the waters fast; | |
| How the Winter causeway broken is drifted out to sea, | |
| And rills and rivers sing with pride the anthem of the free; | |
| How the magic wand of Summer clad the landscape to his eyes, | |
| Like the dry bones of the just when they wake in Paradise. | 30 |
| |
| He told them of the Algonquin braves—the hunters of the wild; | |
| Of how the Indian mother in the forest rocks her child; | |
| Of how, poor souls, they fancy in every living thing | |
| A spirit good or evil, that claims their worshipping; | |
| Of how they brought their sick and maim’d for him to breathe upon, | 35 |
| And of the wonders wrought for them through the Gospel of St. John. | |
| |
| He told them of the river, whose mighty current gave | |
| Its freshness for a hundred leagues to ocean’s briny wave; | |
| He told them of the glorious scene presented to his sight, | |
| What time he reared the cross and crown on Hochelaga’s height, | 40 |
| And of the fortress cliff that keeps of Canada the key, | |
| And they welcomed back Jacques Cartier from his perils o’er the sea. | |
| |
