Classic Poem

Baring its breast to the sun as of yore
Stretches the fertile Acadian shore;
Waiting for sickle and scythe and wain
Glisten its fields of golden grain.

Like a sabred sentinel, grim and gray,
Blomidon stands at the head of the Bay,
And the turbulent ocean tides at will
Sweep into Minas Basin still.

Deep in the hills the Gaspereau
Babbles on to the sea below,
Crystal and clear, till Fundy's flood
Makes it a river red as blood.

Here is the spot, enringed with blue,
Where sparks from the forge of Basil flew,
Under these clustered willows green
Dwelt Gabriel's love, Evangeline.

Long ere the Frenchmen drove away
The encroaching tides from broad Grand Pré,
Binding the dykes like emerald bands
Round the murmuring meadow lands,

The Micmac sailed in his birch canoe,
In the track of the moon, the Basin blue,
Hunted the hills, or fell asleep
By his wigwam fire in the forest deep.

Skilled in many an Indian art
The dark-faced mother crooned apart
To her tired babes the folk-songs wild
That are sung to each Algonquin child.

Over the tribe with jealous eye
The Father of All kept watch on high,
In the purple mists of Blomidon
The mighty Glooscap had his throne.

No matter how far his feet might stray
From the usual haunts of the tribe away
When the Micmac uttered his cry of fear
He found his Glooscap there to hear.

'Twas Glooscap had sent for the Indian's use
Beaver and bear and mink and moose
Into the heart of the wild woodlands;
Glooscap had strewn the sparkling sands

Of the tide-swept beach of the stormy Bay
With amethysts purple and agates gray;
And into the heart of love had flung
That which keeps love ever young.

But the Frenchman came and with ruthless hand
Cut the forests and cleared the land,
And plowed and planted, till on the shore
Micmac and moose were seen no more;

And Glooscap went with his heart opprest
Into the wild, mysterious west,
While the Micmac kindled his wigwam fire
Far from the grave of his child and his sire.

Now, bravely bearing the thrusts of fate,
Passive-spirited, free from hate,
He hunts the moose when the snows lie deep
Fishes the streams where salmon leap,

Or patiently weaves his baskets gay
And paddles his birch canoe away;
But he always dreams of the ages when
Glooscap shall dwell with his tribe again.