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CANADIAN SINGERS AND THEIR SONGS
"Kin Unknown."
No mother wept when thou didst take thy leave,
No home hopes now in vain for thy return,
No saddened family for months shall grieve,
When from some messenger thy fate they learn.
Still thou art not unclaimed, for Britain knows
That thou didst cross the world for sake of her,
And thou, brave boy, art brother to all those
Whom freedom doth in these scarred fields inter.
What was it made thee quit thy customed task,
When wars shrill bugle woke thy quiet vale?
Wouldst thou begin anew?—In vain we ask,
But now where worth is known they bid thee, 'Hail'.
And what if to this old world thou wast strange,
Down storied fields with heroes thou dost range.
Alexander Louis Fraser.
43
