The Confused Dawn

YOUNG MAN
WHAT are the Vision and the Cry
That haunt the new Canadian soul ?
Dim grandeur spreads, we know not why,
O'er mountain, forest, tree, and knoll,
And murmurs indistinctly fly —
Some magic moment sure is nigh.
O Seer, the curtain roll !
SEER
The Vision, mortal, it is this —
Dead mountain, forest, knoll, and tree,
Awaken all endued with bliss,
A native land — O think ! to be
Thy native land — and, ne'er amiss,
Its smile shall like a lover's kiss,
From henceforth seem to thee.

The Cry thou couldst not understand,
Which runs through that new realm of light,
From Breton's to Vancouver's strand,
O'er many a lovely landscape bright,
It is their waking utterance grand,
The great refrain, ' A Native Land ! '
Thine be the ear, the sight.