Rule Britannia

When Britain first, at Heaven's command,
Arose from out the azure main;
This was the charter of the land,
And guardian angels sung this strain:
"Rule, Britannia, rule the waves;
Britons never will be slaves."

The nations, not so blest as thee,
Must, in their turns, to tyrants fall:
While thou shalt flourish great and free,
The dread and envy of them all.
"Rule, Britannia, rule the waves;
Britons never will be slaves."

Still more majestic shalt thou rise,
More dreadful, from each foreign stroke:
As the loud blast that tears the skies,
Serves but to root thy native oak.
"Rule, Britannia, rule the waves;
Britons never will be slaves."

Thee haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame:
All their attempts to bend thee down,
Will but arouse thy generous flame;
But work their woe, and thy renown.
"Rule, Britannia, rule the waves;
Britons never will be slaves."

To thee belongs the rural reign;
Thy cities shall with commerce shine:
All thine shall be the subject main,
And every shore it circles thine.
"Rule, Britannia, rule the waves;
Britons never will be slaves."

The Muses, still with freedom found,
Shall to thy happy coast repair:
Blest isle! with matchless beauty crown'd,
And manly hearts to guard the fair.
"Rule, Britannia, rule the waves;
Britons never will be slaves."


James Thomson (1700-1748)

Last Lines


No coward soul is mine,
No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere:
I see Heaven's glories shine,
And faith shines equal, arming me from fear.

O God within my breast,
Almighty, ever-present Deity!
Life - that in me has rest,
As I - undying Life - have power in thee!

Vain are the thousand creeds
That move men's hearts: unutterably vain;
Worthless as withered weeds,
Or idlest froth amid the boundless main,

To waken doubt in one
Holding so fast by thine infinity;
So surely anchored on
The steadfast rock of immortality.

With wide-embracing love
Thy spirit animates eternal years,
Pervades and broods above,
Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears.

Though earth and man were gone,
And suns and universes ceased to be,
And thou were left alone,
Every existence would exist in thee.

There is not room for Death,
Nor atom that his might could render void:
Thou - thou art Being and Breath,
And what thou art may never be destroyed.

Emily Brontë

Fire and Ice

SOME say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Robert Frost

Quote:

“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says ‘I’ll try again tomorrow.’”


- Mary Anne Radmacher

Canada

O Child of Nations, giant-limbed,
Who stand'st among the nations now
Unheeded, unadored, unhymned,
With unanointed brow, --

How long the ignoble sloth, how long
The trust in greatness not thine own?
Surely the lion's brood is strong
To front the world alone!

How long the indolence, ere thou dare
Achieve thy destiny, seize thy fame, --
Ere our proud eyes behold thee bear
A nation's franchise, nation's name?

The Saxon force, the Celtic fire,
These are thy manhood's heritage!
Why rest with babes and slaves? Seek higher
The place of race and age.

I see to every wind unfurled
The flag that bears the Maple Wreath;
Thy swift keels furrow round the world
Its blood-red folds beneath;

Thy swift keels cleave the furthest seas;
Thy white sails swell with alien gales;
To stream on each remotest breeze
The black smoke of thy pipes exhales.

O Falterer, let thy past convince
Thy future, -- all the growth, the gain,
The fame since Cartier knew thee, since
Thy shores beheld Champlain!

(Montcalm and Wolfe! Wolfe and Montcalm!
Quebec, thy storied citadel
Attest in burning song and psalm
How here thy heroes fell!

O Thou that bor'st the battle's brunt
At Queenston and at Lundy's Lane, --
On whose scant ranks but iron front
The battle broke in vain! --

Whose was the danger, whose the day,
From whose triumphant throats the cheers,
At Chrysler's Farm, at Chateauguay,
Storming like clarion-bursts our ears?

On soft Pacific slopes, -- beside
Strange floods that northward rave and fall, --
Where chafes Acadia's chainless tide --
Thy sons await thy call.

They wait; but some in exile, some
With strangers housed, in stranger lands, --
And some Canadian lips are dumb
Beneath Egyptian sands.

O mystic Nile! Thy secret yields
Before us; thy most ancient dreams
Are mixed with far Canadian fields
And murmur of Canadian streams.

But thou, my country, dream not thou!
Wake, and behold how night is done, --
How on thy breast, and o'er thy brow,
Bursts the uprising sun!


Charles G. D. Roberts

Northwest Passage

Ah, for just one time I would take the Northwest Passage
To find the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea;
Tracing one warm line through a land so wild and savage
And make a Northwest Passage to the sea.

Westward from the Davis Strait 'tis there 'twas said to lie
The sea route to the Orient for which so many died;
Seeking gold and glory, leaving weathered, broken bones
And a long-forgotten lonely cairn of stones.

Three centuries thereafter, I take passage overland
In the footsteps of brave Kelso, where his "sea of flowers" began
Watching cities rise before me, then behind me sink again
This tardiest explorer, driving hard across the plain.

And through the night, behind the wheel, the mileage clicking west
I think upon Mackenzie, David Thompson and the rest
Who cracked the mountain ramparts and did show a path for me
To race the roaring Fraser to the sea.

How then am I so different from the first men through this way?
Like them, I left a settled life, I threw it all away.
To seek a Northwest Passage at the call of many men
To find there but the road back home again.

Stan Rogers

The Patriot's Dream


The songs of the wars are as old as the hills
They cling like the rust on the cold steel that kills
They tell of the boys who went down to the tracks
In a patriotic manner with the cold steel on their backs

The patriot's dream is as old as the sky
It lives in the lust of a cold callous lie
Let's drink to the men who got caught by the chill
Of the patriotic fever and the cold steel that kills

The train pulled away on that glorious night
The drummer got drunk and the bugler got tight
While the boys in the back sang a song of good cheer
While riding off to glory in the spring of their years

The patriot's dream still lives on today
It makes mothers weep and it makes lovers pray
Let's drink to the men who got caught by the chill
Of the patriotic fever and the cold steel that kills

Well there was a sad, sad lady
Weeping all night long
She received a sad, sad message
From a voice on the telephone
Her children were all sleeping
As she waited out the dawn
How could she tell those children
That their father was shot down
So she took them to her side that day
And she told them one by one
Your father was a good man ten thousand miles from home
He tried to do his duty and it took him straight to hell
He might be in some prison, I hope he's treated well

Well there was a young girl watching in the early afternoon
When she heard the name of someone who said he'd be home soon
And she wondered how they got him, but the papers did not tell
There would be no sweet reunion, there would be no wedding bells
So she took herself into her room and she turned the bed sheets down
And she cried into the silken folds of her new wedding gown
He tried to do his duty and it took him straight to hell
He might be in some prison, I hope he's treated well

Well there was an old man sitting in his mansion on the hill
And he thought of his good fortune and the time he'd yet o kill
Well he called to his wife one day, "Come sit with me awhile"
Then turning toward the sunset, he smiled a wicked smile
"Well I'd like to say I'm sorry for the sinful deeds I've done
But let me first remind you, I'm a patriotic son"
They tried to do their duty and it took 'em straight to hell
They might be in some prison, I hope they're treated well

The songs of the wars are as old as the hills
They cling like the rust on the cold steel that kills
They tell of the boys who went down to the tracks
In a patriotic manner with the cold steel on their backs

The train pulled away on that glorious night
The drummer got drunk and the bugler got tight
While the boys in the back sang a song of good cheer
While riding off to glory in the spring of their years

The patriot's dream still lives on today
It makes mothers weep and it makes lovers pray
Let's drink to the men who got caught by the chill
Of the patriotic fever and the cold steel that kills.

Gordon Lightfoot

Yw Parliament of England

Ye Parliament of England,
You Lords and commons, too,
Consider well what you're about
And what you're going to do.
You're now to fight with Yankees,
I'm sure you'll rue the day,
You roused the Sons of Liberty
In North Amerikay.

You first confined our commerce,
And said our ships shant trade,
You next impressed our seamen,
And used them as your slaves;
You then insulted Rogers,
While ploughing o'er the main,
And had we not declared war,
You'd have done it o'er again.
You thought our frigates were but few,
And Yankees would not fight,
Until brave Hull your Guerriere took,
And banished her from your sight.
The Wasp then took your Frolic,
We'll nothing say to that,
The Poictiers being of the line,
Of course she took her back.
Then next, upon Lake Erie,
Where Perry had some fun,
You own he beat your naval force,
And caused them for to run;
This was to you a sore defeat,
The like ne'er known before,
Your British Squadron beat complete
Some took, some run ashore.
There's Rogers, in the President,
Will burn, sink, and destroy;
The Congress, on the Brazil coast,
Your commerce will annoy;
The Essex, in the Sonth Seas,
Will put out all your lights,
The flag she waves at her mast-head-
"Free Trade and Sailors' Rights!"
Lament, ye sons of Britain,
Far distant is the day
When you'll regain by British force
What you're lost in America;
Go tell your King and parliament,
By all the world 'tis known,
That British force, by sea and land,
By Yankees is o'erthrown.
Use every endeavor,
And strive to make a peace,
For Yankee ships are building fast,
Their Navy to increase;
They will enforce their commerce,
The laws by Heaven were made,
That Yankee ships in time of peace,
To any port may trade.

The Last Watch

They dragged her down, dead, from Tobermory,
Too cheap to spare her one last head of steam,
Deep in diesel fumes embraced,
Rust and soot upon the face of one who was so clean.
They brought me here to watch her in the boneyard,
Just two old wrecks to spend the night alone.
It's the dark inside this evil place.
Clouds on the moon hide her disgrace;
This whiskey hides my own.

CHORUS
It's the last watch on the Midland,
The last watch alone,
One last night to love her,
The last night she's whole.
My guess is that we were young together.
Like her's, my strength was young and hard as steel.
And like her too, I knew my ground;
I scarcely felt the years go round
In answer to the wheel.
But then they quenched the fire beneath the boiler,
Gave me a watch and showed me out the door.
At sixty-four, you're still the best;
One year more, and then you're less
Than dust upon the floor.

CHORUS

So here's to useless superannuation
And us old relics of the days of steam.
In the morning, Lord, I would prefer
WHen men with torches come for her,
Let angels come for me.

CHORUS

It's the last watch on the Midland,
The last watch alone,
One last night to love her,
The last might she's whole.

Note

Miss Poppy is quite ill. A few prayers may be in order.. remember Dogs take no account of who you pray to.