Classic Poem

A RE there none to speak and save?
Canada, my own, my own.
From western peak to eastern wave?
Canada, my own, my own.
Are there none to lift and save,
Must you sink in helot grave,
Crushed in gyve of thief and knave?
Canada, my own, my own.

Are there none to wake the dead,
O people unto grossness wed?
Canada, my own, my own.
Must this cursèd trade go on,
Franchise but a bartered pawn,
Freedom, thought and honor gone?
Heaven strike or send a holier dawn
To Canada, my own, my own.

Must the hideous tale be told?
Canada, my own, my own.
Men like puppets bought and sold,
Freeman's rights for place and gold?
Canada, my own, my own.
Must this hideous lie go on?
Are we but degenerate spawn
Of a greater people gone?
Canada, my shamed, dishonored own.

Canada, my own, my own,
Lie in the dust and make your moan,
Dishonored by those very ones
Who should have been your truest sons,
Like ship on surfs that overwhelm,
With some false captain at the helm,
Canada, my own, my own.
Creep in the dust and make your moan;
To childish superstitions doomed,
Or in material greed entombed,
Your people sleep through sordid years
Of modern doubts and deeds and fears.
Lie in the dust and make your moan;
Poor Canada, my own, my own.

O wherefore wonder when our life
Is all one shrunken party strife,
When every question of the hour
Betrayed to greed of party power,
When every voice for truth is stilled,
Save that which party spake or willed.
With pandering pulpits, venial press,
God send redress, God send redress
To this poor human wilderness,
A people for high dreamings meant,
But damned by too much government.

O dream in vain your future power,
And build in vain your heart's high tower;
O Canada, my own, my own.
When you have sold the olden truth,
That greatness which inspired thy youth,
And bartered for a sordid gleam
The light of all your highest dream,
With all the gross, material strife
Of godless, money-hungered life,
O Canada, my own, my own;
Your children, they have dragged you down
And trampled all your old renown,
As some base harlot of the town,
O Canada, my own, my own.

O splendid dream of plain and lake,
When will you from this curse awake,
And with new-kindled honor take
Your place with those who guide the helm
Of Britain's mighty people realm?
When will you, raised to that regard
Of self, above the market yard
Of life's low levels, hold your share
In Britain's mighty world-wide care?
O Canada, my own, my own!

O wide thy lands and wide thy sky,
Canada, my own, my own!
But wider yet the living lie
That we have lived, my own, my own!
Let us arise from our old graves
Of self and ill, as o'er the waves
God's dawn from night, to that which saves,
Canada, my own, my own;
Rise and strike the shackles free
That bind us lip and heart and knee,
And be what God dreamed we should be,
Canada, my own, my own.
Loved Canada, my own!