Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

The Oxford Book of Canadian Verse

The Maple

Henry Faulkner Darnell (1831–1915)

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,

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,

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

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;

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

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,

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

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.

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

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!

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

She ’s fairest of them all.