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The Coming Of The Princess
by Kate Seymour MacleanI.
Break dull November skies, and make
Sunshine over wood and lake,
And fill your cells of frosty air
With thousand, thousand welcomes to the Princely pair!
The land and the sea are alight for them;
The wrinkled face of old Winter is bright for them;
The honour and pride of a race
Secure in their dwelling place,
Steadfast and stern as the rocks that guard her,
Tremble and thrill and leap in their veins,
As the blood of one man through the beacon-lit border!
Like a fire, like a flame,
At the sound of her name,
As the smoky-throated cannon mutter it,
As the smiling lips of a nation utter it,
And a hundred rock-lights write it in fire!
Daughter of Empires, the Lady of Lome,
Back through the mists of dim centuries borne,
None nobler, none gentler that brave name have worn;
Shrilled by storm-bugles, and rolled by the seas,
Louise!
Our Princess, our Empress, our Lady of Lorne!
II.
And the wild, white horses with flying manes
Wind-tost, the riderless steeds of the sea.
Neigh to her, call to her, dreadless and free,
"Fear not to follow us; these thy domains;
Welcome, welcome, our Lady and Queen!
O Princess, oh daughter of kingliest sire!
Under its frost girdle throbbing and keen,
A new realm awaits thee, loyal and true!"
And the round-cheeked Tritons, with fillets of blue
Binding their sea-green and scintillant hair,
Blow thee a welcome; their brawny arms bear
Thy keel through the waves like a bird through the air.
II.
Shoreward the shoal of mighty shoulders lean
Through the long swell of waves,
Reaching beyond the sunset and the hollow caves,
And the ice-girdled peaks that hold serene
Each its own star, far out at sea to mark
Thy westward way, O Princess, through the dark.
The rose-red sunset dies into the dusk,
The silver dusk of the long twilight hour,
And opal lights come out, and fiery gleams
Of flame-red beacons, like the ash-gray husk
Torn from some tropic blossom bursting into flower,
Making the sea bloom red with ruddy beams.
IV
Still nearer and nearer it comes, the swift sharp prow
Of the ship above and the shadow ship below,
With the mighty arms of the Titans under,
All bowed one way like a field of wind-blown ears,
Still nearer and nearer, and now
touches the strand, and, lo,
With the length of her bright hair backward flowing
Round her head like an aureole,
Like a candle flame in the wind's breath blowing,
Stands she fair and still as a disembodied soul,
With hands outstretched, and eyes that shine through tears
And tremulous smiles
When the trumpets, and the guns, and the great drums roll,
And the long fiords and the forelands shake with the thunder
Of the shout of welcome to the daughter of the Isles.
V
Bring her, O people, on the shoulders of her vassals
Throned like a queen to her palace on the height,
Up the rocky steeps where the fir tree tassels
Nod to her, and touch her with a subtle, vague delight,
Like a whisper of home, like a greeting and a smile
From the fir-tree walks and gardens, the wood-embowered castles
In the north among the clansmen of Argyle.
Now the sullen plunge of waves for many a mile
Along the roaring Ottawa is heard,
And the cry of some wood bird,
Wild and sudden and sweet,
Scared from its perch by the rush and trample of feet,
And the red glare of the torches in the night.
And now the long facade gay with many a twinkling light
Reaches hands of welcome, and the bells peal, and the guns,
And the hoarse blare of the trumpets, and the throbbing
of the drums
Fill the air like shaken music, and the very waves rejoice
In the gladness, and the greeting, and the triumph of
their voice.
VI.
Under triumphal arches, blazoned with banners and scrolls,
And the sound of a People's exulting, still gathering as it rolls,
Enter the gates of the city, and take the waiting throne,
And make the heart of a Nation, O Royal Pair, your own.
Sons of the old race, we, and heirs of the old and the new;
Our hands are bold and strong, and our hearts are faithful and true;
Saxon and Norman and Celt one race of the mingled blood
Who fought built cities and ships and stemmed the unknown flood
In the grand historic days that made our England great
When Britain's sons were steadfast to meet or to conquer fate
Our sires were the minster builders who wrought themselves unknown
The thought divine within them till it blossomed into stone
Forgers of swords and of ploughshares reapers of men and of grain,
Their bones and their names forgotten on many a battle plain
For faith and love and loyalty were living and sacred things
When our sires were those who wrought and yours were the leaders
and kings.
VII
For since the deeds that live in Arthur's rhyme
Who left the stainless flower of knighthood for all time
Down to our Blameless Prince wise gentle just
Whom the world mourns not by your English dust
More precious held more sacredly enshrined
Than in each loyal breast of all mankind,
Men bare the head in homage to the good,
And she who wears the crown of womanhood,
August, not less than that of Empress, reigns
The crowned Victoria of the world's domains
North, South, East, West, O Princess fair, behold
In this new world, the daughter of the old,
Where ribs of iron bar the Atlantic's breast,
Where sunset mountains slope into the west,
Unfathomed wildernesses, valleys sweet,
And tawny stubble lands of corn and wheat,
And all the hills and lakes and forests dun,
Between the rising and the setting sun;
Where rolling rivers run with sands of gold,
And the locked treasures of the mine unfold
Undreamed of riches, and the hearts of men,
Held close to nature, have grown pure again.
Like that exalted Pair, beloved, revered,
By princely grace, and truth and love endeared,
Here fix your empire in the growing West,
And build your throne in each Canadian breast,
Till West and East strike hands across the main,
Knit by a stronger, more enduring chain,
And our vast Empire become one again.