| |
| ALL hail to the broad-leaved Maple, | |
| With its fair and changeful dress! | |
| A type of our youthful country | |
| In its pride and loveliness. | |
| Whether in Spring or Summer, | 5 |
| Or in the dreary Fall, | |
| ’Mid Nature’s forest children | |
| She ’s fairest of them all. | |
| |
| Down sunny slopes and valleys | |
| Her graceful form is seen, | 10 |
| Her wide, umbrageous branches | |
| The sunburnt reaper screen; | |
| ’Mid the dark-browed firs and cedars | |
| Her livelier colours shine, | |
| Like the dawn of a brighter future | 15 |
| On the settler’s hut of pine. | |
| |
| She crowns the pleasant hill-top, | |
| Whispers on breezy downs, | |
| And casts refreshing shadows | |
| O’er the streets of our busy towns; | 20 |
| She gladdens the aching eyeball, | |
| Shelters the weary head, | |
| And scatters her crimson glories | |
| On the graves of the silent dead. | |
| |
| When Winter’s frosts are yielding | 25 |
| To the sun’s returning sway, | |
| And merry groups are speeding | |
| To sugar-woods away; | |
| The sweet and welling juices, | |
| Which form their welcome spoil, | 30 |
| Tell of the teeming plenty | |
| Which here waits honest toil. | |
| |
| When sweet-voiced Spring, soft-breathing, | |
| Breaks Nature’s icy sleep, | |
| And the forest boughs are swaying | 35 |
| Like the green waves of the deep; | |
| In her fair and budding beauty | |
| A fitting emblem she | |
| Of this our land of promise, | |
| Of hope, of liberty. | 40 |
| |
| And when her leaves, all crimson, | |
| Droop silently and fall, | |
| Like drops of lifeblood welling | |
| From a warrior brave and tall, | |
| They tell how fast and freely | 45 |
| Would her children’s blood be shed, | |
| Ere the soil of our faith and freedom | |
| Should echo a foeman’s tread. | |
| |
| Then hail to the broad-leaved Maple, | |
| With her fair and changeful dress! | 50 |
| A type of our youthful country | |
| In its pride and loveliness. | |
| Whether in Spring or Summer, | |
| Or in the dreary Fall, | |
| ’Mid Nature’s forest children | 55 |
| She ’s fairest of them all. | |
| |
