DEAR LAND OF ALL MY LOVE

Long as thine art shall love true love,
Long as thine science truth shall know,
Long as thine eagle harms no dove,
Long as thy law by law shall grow,
Long as thy God is God above,
Thy brother every man below,
So long, dear land of all my love,
Thy name shall shine thy fame shall glow!
                 -Sidney Lanier
                  The Treasury Readers
                  Book Six (1934)
                  The Department of Education
                       for New Brunswick

CANADA'S CHILD

Are you Canada's child?
Do you wander her meadows, gather her bright 
flowers,
Do you walk her gray streets, follow her winding
roads on your way to school?
Are you Canada's child?

Come, then, little Ellaf, with your pale shining
hair and sea-blue eyes.
You are Canada's child now.  You are from
Iceland; your fathers are known in the world.
They are strong and brave; they are fearless men.
They dared the wild waves a thousand years 
ago.
Will you be strong and brave here in your new
home?

Come then, little Ileana, what have you brought
from your deep hidden valleys,
From your grandmother's whitewashed cottage
with the thatched roof?
Have you remembered her patterns?  Are they
woven into your mind?  Show us her tapestries.
Show us her old embroideries, give us the bright
threads onto our clumsy hands;
Our cloth is plain and new; teach us your colours.
 
Come then, little Matsumoto, tell us of what 
you love.
Tell us of cherry blossoms, of waterfalls, of
temples, of old mountains,
Read to us your poems, painted with hair-fine
brushes on shining silk.
Our country is so big.  Make us look at it
closely, Matsumoto, make our eyes see in it
The perfect things that give you joy.

Come then, Sonia, with your pointed chin and 
delicate hands;
What do you bring, from the old land that was
yours?  Do you bring music,
Do you bring dark songs in your heart, the songs
of those who loved their country
And were driven away?  Sing them to us; they
are beautiful.

Come then, dark-eyed Yvonne.  Why, we cannot say 
"come" to you!
You have been Canada's child for three hundred
years.

You are here too, little Daphne, with your ash-
blond hair,
With your pink cheeks and your clear English 
gaze; you are our older sister.

And you, Bruce, from the rugged northern glens,
You have been our strenght from the beginning.

What can we say to you, Running Wolf,
little brother?
Will you tell us what the wind means when it
blows in the autumn?
Will you show us the ways of the forest?

You are all Canada's children now, you Ileana,
you, Matsumoto, you, little Loyze;
You, Wllaf, you, Margarita, you, John, and
Micheal.
You are all Canada's children now:
What do you bring to her in your small warm
hands?
               -Frances Shelley Wees
                Golden Windows
                Pathways to Reading(1946)III
                New Brunswick Series