PAST AND PRESENT
(Driftwood)
...Grand, heroic, true,
Faithful and brave thine earnest work to do,
O glorious present! we rejoice in thee,
Thou noble nurse pf great deeds yet to be!
Hast thou not shown us that our mother Earth
Still, in exultant joy, gives heroes birth?
Do not the old romances that our youth,
Revered and honored as the truest truth,
Grow pale and dim before the facts sublime
Thy pen has written on the scroll of Time?
Ah! never yet did poet's tongue,
Though like a silver bell it rung;
Or minstrel, o'er his sounding lyre
Breathing the old, prophetic fire;
Or harper, in the storied walls
Of Scotia's proud, baronial halls—
Where mail-clad men with sword and spear
Waited entranced the song to hear,
That through the stormy midnight hour
Fast held them in its spell of power—
Ah! never yet did they rehearse,
In flowing rhyme or stately verse,
The praise of deeds more nobly done,
Or tell of fields more grandly won!
We laud thee, we praise thee, we bless thee to-day!
At thy feet, lowly bending, glad homage we pay!
Faithful and brave thine earnest work to do,
O glorious present! we rejoice in thee,
Thou noble nurse pf great deeds yet to be!
Hast thou not shown us that our mother Earth
Still, in exultant joy, gives heroes birth?
Do not the old romances that our youth,
Revered and honored as the truest truth,
Grow pale and dim before the facts sublime
Thy pen has written on the scroll of Time?
Ah! never yet did poet's tongue,
Though like a silver bell it rung;
Or minstrel, o'er his sounding lyre
Breathing the old, prophetic fire;
Or harper, in the storied walls
Of Scotia's proud, baronial halls—
Where mail-clad men with sword and spear
Waited entranced the song to hear,
That through the stormy midnight hour
Fast held them in its spell of power—
Ah! never yet did they rehearse,
In flowing rhyme or stately verse,
The praise of deeds more nobly done,
Or tell of fields more grandly won!
We laud thee, we praise thee, we bless thee to-day!
At thy feet, lowly bending, glad homage we pay!
