Appeal / John Frederic Herbin

Crisco 1492,  Great Canadian Flag, Windsor, ON, 2025-06-22.  CC BY SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Appeal

Canadians! raise aloft your country’s flag,
Nor low to earth, nor lifeless see it drag.
Up! till each sign in gentle winds unread,
Meets breezes strong, and every fold is spread.
Its place is high, above the feeble gust
That dims its color with a servile dust.
Among the storms, there see it proudly move
The emblem of your country and your love —

Where all its noble length becomes unfurled
By winds that shake the proudest of the world.
Then will the nations read upon its face,
Whatever, once, their country and their race,
One hope and one ambition closely tie

This people to a common destiny.

A bond of kindred makes your pulses beat,
Frank, Saxon, Kelt, with triple force and heat;
Your veins no longer separate currents run,
Your hearts now animate and beat as one.
Oh noble land and nation! growing strong,
One sky and flag is yours, whatever tongue.
To hold and crown your rampart and your hall
With zeal and valour, needs the strength of all.
My countrymen, your fathers’ valiant swords,
Their kings’ decrees, their sages’ golden words,
The world through cycles down have ruled and led —

A rich inheritance comes from the dead.
Their wisdom and their light are for your hand,
Blessed with the rule of this most fruitful land.

Thick years will come, sprung from the seed you sow;
And for those harvest-days that quickly flow,
The nation walks a-field casting the seed
Of worth and power, the future’s urgent need.
The sun of progress shines; and day full blest
And loud with labor from the east and west,
Hangs over you. Across the western sea,
Mankind new-born obeyed its destiny,
Wandering westward like a current’s trend;

In Canada the roadway hath its end.
The marching centuries of tribe and race
Around the earth, on this find halting-place.

Toward either coast the ocean currents glide;
Upon their waves your sailors homeward ride.
No mimic ships are yours, the keels are deep;
Your sons are brave when angry waters leap.
A man is this whose axe doth clear the ground;
And where he smites the forest tumbles round.
This is a warrior, the first to bleed,
The foremost in the rank of noble deed.
At helm, with axe, before the foemen’s guns,
You live and die your fathers’ worthy sons.
Proud of your flag, see! how your praises swing
It straight and clear, to nations heralding.

~~

John Frederic Herbin (1860-1923)

from Canada, and other poems, 1891

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

John Frederic Herbin biography

I Am a Canadian / John Diefenbaker

I Am a Canadian

I am a Canadian,
a free Canadian,
free to speak without fear,
free to worship God in my own way,
free to stand for what I think right,
free to oppose what I believe wrong,
free to choose who shall govern my country.
This heritage of freedom
I pledge to uphold
for mysef and all mankind.

~~
John G. Diefenbaker (1895-1979)
from Hansard, July 1, 1960
(a found poem)

(courtesy Flickr.com)

"I Am a Canadian" courtesy CdnPoli.

Canada / Pauline Johnson

Mack Male, Canada Day Fireworks, 2013. CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Canada

Crown of her, young Vancouver; crest of her, old Quebec;
Atlantic and far Pacific sweeping her, keel to deck.
North of her, ice and arctics; southward a rival’s stealth;
Aloft, her Empire’s pennant; below, her nation’s wealth.
Daughter of men and markets, bearing within her hold,
Appraised at highest value, cargoes of grain and gold.

---
E. Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake) (1861-1913)
from Flint and Feather, 1912

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Pauline Johnson biography

"Canada" read by Kareem Badreddine.

This Canada of Ours / J.D. Edgar

This Canada of Ours

(A national song)

Let other tongues in older lands
    Loud vaunt their claims to glory,
And chaunt in triumph of the past,
    Content to live in story.
Tho' boasting no baronial halls,
    Nor ivy-crested towers,
What past can match thy glorious youth,
        Fair Canada of ours?
                Fair Canada,
                Dear Canada,
        This Canada of ours!

We love those far-off ocean Isles,
    Where Britain's monarch reigns;
 We'll ne'er forget the good old blood
    That courses through our veins;
Proud Scotia's fame, old Erin's name,
    And haughty Albion's powers,
Reflect their matchless lustre on
        This Canada of ours.
                Fair Canada,
                Dear Canada,
        This Canada of ours!

May our Dominion flourish then,
    A goodly land and free,
Where Celt and Saxon, hand in hand,
    Hold sway from sea to sea;
Strong arms shall guard our cherished homes,
    When darkest danger lowers,
And with our life-blood we'll defend
        This Canada of ours.
                Fair Canada,
                Dear Canada,
        This Canada of ours!

~~
J.D. Edgar (1841-1899)
from This Canada of Ours, and other poems, 1893

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

J.D.Edgar biography

Home / Marthe Bijman

Home

Where we come from there are
raindrops that instantly evaporate on hot tar
like a field of tiny smoking fires,
low-running, brownish rivers
filled with rusty sludge and simmering rocks,
muddy dams with chalky banks
and wormy, warmish, silty bottoms.
heat that hits you in the chest
and wipes its oven mitt paw over your face,
white skies, or palest blue
or yellow and boiling, like curry, from the dust.

We were born creatures of arid habits:–
the subconscious searching of the sky
for rain clouds,
the inborn waiting for the rain,
the constant sniffing for the ozone after thunder,
the habitual drawing towards water,
always looking for some dampness
in the cracked, jigsaw-puzzle earth.

Where we live now there's
Snow,
that goes away
but not far,
and always comes back,
Water,
that burbles and rushes
always somewhere close,
glistening underneath jungly things,
Green things,
the tree-green, frog-green, grass-green,
bird-green, moss-green of our replete dreams,
the green, wet, snowy, tree-y place
we call home.

~~
Marthe Bijman
from Seven Circumstances

["Home" is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) Generic License.]

To Canada / James Alexander Tucker

To Canada

Unlike all leaves or, stout or slender,
All flowers kiss'd by summer's breath –
Which die in shame – the Maple's splendor
Is greatest in her hour of death.

Dear country, should occasion call
Thy sons to die in Freedom's strife,
Like thine own maple emblem fall
More glorious ev'n in death than life.

~~

James Alexander Tucker (1872-1903)

from Poems, 1904

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Will Longstaff (1879-1953), Ghosts of Vimy Ridge, 1931. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.

James Alexander Tucker biography

An Ode for the Canadian Confederacy / Charles G.D. Roberts

An Ode for the Canadian Confederacy

Awake, my country, the hour is great with change!
     Under this gloom which yet obscures the land,
From ice-blue strait and stern Laurentian range
     To where giant peaks our western bounds command,
A deep voice stirs, vibrating in men's ears
     As if their own hearts throbbed that thunder forth,
A sound wherein who hearkens wisely hears
    The voice of the desire of this strong North,—
          This North whose heart of fire
          Yet knows not its desire
     Clearly, but dreams, and murmurs in the dream.
The hour of dreams is done. Lo, on the hills the gleam!

Awake, my country, the hour of dreams is done!
     Doubt not, nor dread the greatness of thy fate.
Tho' faint souls fear the keen confronting sun,
     And fain would bid the morn of splendor wait;
Tho' dreamers, rapt in starry visions, cry
     "Lo, yon thy future, yon thy faith, thy fame!"
And stretch vain hands to stars, thy fame is nigh,
     Here in Canadian hearth, and home, and name;—
          This name which yet shall grow
          Till all the nations know
     Us for a patriot people, heart and hand
Loyal to our native earth, our own Canadian land!

O strong hearts, guarding the birthright of our glory,
      Worth your best blood this heritage that ye guard!
These mighty streams resplendent with our story,
     These iron coasts by rage of seas unjarred,—
What fields of peace these bulwarks well secure!
     What vales of plenty those calm floods supply!
Shall not our love this rough, sweet land make sure,
     Her bounds preserve inviolate, though we die?
          O strong hearts of the North,
          Let flame your loyalty forth,
     And put the craven and base to an open shame,
Till earth shall know the Child of Nations by her name!

~~
Charles G.D. Roberts (1860-1943)
from In Divers Tones, 1886

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

Charles G.D. Roberts biography

"An Ode for the Canadian Confederacy". Courtesy Canada the Unknown Country.

Canada / John Frushard Waddington

Canada

I

O Canada! Thou art loveliest
     Of Northern lands of sun and snow,
     Where fall and river swiftest flow
To mighty lake from mountain crest,
Crown'd Queen of Continents, thy name
A letter on the scroll of Fame —
     Thy proud course scarce begun —
          A fairy-land,
          A prairie-land,
Where silent sinks the sun.


II 

          With flying feet
          The seasons fleet
Swoop circlng through thy changeful skies.
          Trailing her flowers,
Blown freshly sweet with April showers,
          Thy soft Spring flies
Swift-wing'd as swallows in their southward flight
          And all thy Summer long
          Is but a song
               Of June
          And sun and moon.
Northward, 'mid Arctic day and Northern night,
     Thy fallow fields, all white with Winter, dream;
     Snow-dressed the trees, silent the frozen stream,
          And crown'd with ice the hill —
               While Southward still
Brown with her bracken and her fading ferns
          The burnished Autumn burns.


III 

Youth holds thy destiny. O Canada!
           Crude shape, not shamed
By cities nor by shambles. From afar
     Thy conquerors come, all eager and untamed.
Wild pasture! Not yet brought beneath the ban
           Of meddling man.
The burrower and the borer and the bold,
     Strong husbandmen, thy children - sons of toil
     Who live by delving deep thy virgin soil;
Uncouth, yet born to brave thy biting cold,
           These are thy sons, O Canada,
More dear to them the yellow wheat than gold.

~~
John Frushard Waddington (1915-1934 fl.)
from Canada, and other poems, 1915

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

John Frushard Waddington biography

I Like Canadians / Ernest Hemingway

I Like Canadians

By A Foreigner

I like Canadians.
They are so unlike Americans.
They go home at night.
Their cigarets don't smell bad.
Their hats fit.
They really believe that they won the war.
They don't believe in Literature.
They think Art has been exaggerated.
But they are wonderful on ice skates.
A few of them are very rich.
But when they are rich they buy more horses
Than motor cars.
Chicago calls Toronto a puritan town.
But both boxing and horse-racing are illegal
In Chicago.
Nobody works on Sunday.
Nobody.
That doesn't make me mad.
There is only one Woodbine.
But were you ever at Blue Bonnets?
If you kill somebody with a motor car in Ontario
You are liable to go to jail.
So it isn't done.
There have been over 500 people killed by motor cars
In Chicago
So far this year.
It is hard to get rich in Canada.
But it is easy to make money.
There are too many tea rooms.
But, then, there are no cabarets.
If you tip a waiter a quarter
He says "Thank you."
Instead of calling the bouncer.
They let women stand up in the street cars.
Even if they are good-looking.
They are all in a hurry to get home to supper
And their radio sets.
They are a fine people.
I like them.

~~
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)

from Toronto Star Weekly, 1923

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]

Also read: "I Like Americans"

Ernest Hemingway biography

O Canada: The land we love / David Pekrul

O Canada: The land we love

“O Canada”

We stand in awe of the land in which we live;
the beauty, the majesty,
the rugged snow-capped mountains,
the pristine lakes,
the solitude, the quietness,
the peace.

“Our home and native land”

Once the home of our native brothers,
now home to all who believe in freedom and peace.
Not a ‘melting pot’, but a diverse expanse
of cultures, languages and beliefs.

“True patriot love in all thy sons command”

To live here is to love this land beyond measure,
a command easily obeyed,
as this love-of-country burns deep in our hearts.
We are passionate in our love,
and proud to be called Canadian.

“With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The true north, strong and free”

A nation of strong, proud people.
Those in the south, living in nature’s rugged beauty,
Those in the north, living in a land of frozen tundra and ice.
People of vision and courage, taming the elements
to create a place of freedom and truth.

“From far and wide, O, Canada,
We stand on guard for thee”

Our military personnel are known as “Peace Keepers”,
small in number, but large in compassion,
reaching out to help those in need,
serving in the four corners of the earth.

“God keep our land glorious and free”

Our prayer is that the citizens of our country,
and the citizens of the world live in peace and freedom,
that they be free to exercise their beliefs without persecution,
and travel where their hearts take them,
without restrictions.

"O Canada, we stand on guard for thee”.

Let us stand up as a nation and be accountable,
protecting the values upon which our country was founded,
and in doing so “stand on guard for thee”.

~~
David Ronald Bruce Pekrul
from Parts of the Sum: Volume 2, 2012

["O Canada: The land we love" is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution - Non-commercial - No-Derivs 3.0 (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license] 

David Pekrul biography
My Hidden Voice: The poetry of David Ronald Bruce Pekrul

A Song for Canada / Agnes Maule Machar

A Song for Canada

Our Canada, young, strong and free,
     Whose sceptre stretches far,
Whose hills look down on either sea,
     And front the polar star,—
Not for thy greatness, half unknown,
     Wide plains or mountains grand
But,— as we hold thee for our own,—
     We love our native land!
          God bless our mighty forest-land
               Of mountain, lake and river.
          Whose loyal sons, from strand to strand,
               Sing 'Canada for ever!'

In winter robes of virgin snow
     We proudly hail thee ours;
We crown thee when the south winds blow
     'Our Lady of the Flowers;'
We love thy rainbow-tinted skies,
     Thy mystic charm of spring ;
For us thine autumn's gorgeous dyes,
     For us thy song-birds sing.
          God bless our own Canadian land
               Of mountain, lake and river.
          Whose loyal sons, from strand to strand,
               Sing 'Canada for ever!'

Fair art thou when the summer wakes
     The cornfields' yellow gold;
Thy quiet pastures, azure lakes.
     For us their treasures hold;
To us each hill and dale is dear,
     Each rock and stream and glen,
Dear scattered homes of kindly cheer,
     And busy haunts of men.
          God bless our own Canadian land
               Of mountain, lake and river.
          Whose loyal sons, from strand to strand,
               Sing 'Canada for ever!'

Our sires their old traditions brought,
     Their lives of faithful toil;
For home and liberty they fought
     On our Canadian soil.
Queenston, Quebec, and Lundy's Lane
     Can stir our pulses still;
The lands they held through blood and pain
     A free-born people fill.
          God bless our own Canadian land
               Of mountain, lake and river.
          Whose loyal sons, from strand to strand,
               Sing 'Canada for ever!'

Saxon and Celt and Norman we:—
     Each race its memory keeps ;
Yet o'er us all, from sea to sea,
     One Red Cross banner sweeps
Long may our Greater Britain stand
     The bulwark of the free!
But, Canada, our own fair land,
     Our first love is for thee!
          God bless our own Canadian land
               Of mountain, lake and river.
          Well may thy sons, from strand to strand,
               Sing 'Canada for ever!'

~~

Agnes Maule Machar (1837-1927)

from Lays of the True North, and other Canadian poems, 1902

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

Agnes Maule Machar biography

"A Song for Canada" sung for Canada the Unknown Country.

Canada / Charles G.D. Roberts

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 (1860-1943)
from In Divers Tones, 1886

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

Charles G.D. Roberts biography

A Winter's Day in California / James Alexander Tucker

A Winter's Day in California

(Santa Clara Valley)

This afternoon upon the hills

    The winter sun rests strangely sweet

    The valley, dreaming at their feet,

With murm'rous music thrills.

Music of zephyrs in the palms, 

    And scented eucalyptus trees;

    And chattering of shrill kildees

Round distant reedy dams;

And where the pine's dark flag unfurls,

    And blood-red holly-berries shine,

    And bay and chapparal intertwine,

The chirruping of squirrels.

Far off, the mountains, lapped in haze,

    High-throned – like hoary kings of old,

    Girt in their purple and their gold  –

Look forth with lofty gaze:–

Forth o'er dominions rich in stores

    Of corn and oil, and gold and wine,

    And flocks of sheep and herds of kine,

Clasped round by shining shores.

But sitting at the casement here,

    Where swims the tremulous rich delight

    Of slumb'rous sound and smell and sight,

This last day of the year:–

What son of Canada could forget,

    'Mid all the sensuous charm and glow,

    That frugal land of sun and snow

That holds his heart-strings yet?

That land where first he heard the song

     Of Robin Redbreast on the tree,

     When the late grass sprang tenderly

And days were waxing long;

That land of river, forest, rock, –

     Stern country! hallow'd by the tears

     And toils of simple pioneers,

The blood of Wolfe and Brock!

No, mid this lavish, rare display

     Of Nature's bounties, rich and free,

    My heart, dear country, turns to thee

In love this winter's day;

And would not give one foot of thy

     Rude soil, one white December blast,

     For all the valleys, verdant, vast,

For all this languid sky!

These make not nations, only hearts

     Strong as the basal rocks, and pure

     As limpid northern streams endure

When all else sinks and parts.

And such may flourish where the year

     Is chill, and Nature's iron hand

     Rules sternly o'er the sluggish land,–

As vigorously as here;–

Yea, more; for strength is born of toil,–

     In bitter sweat man eats his bread;

     And where the sweets too thick are spread

The virtues rot and spoil.

O Canada, think not thy creed

     Must rest on cities, factories, gold;

     If rich in men of liberal mould

Thou has no further need.

Pray, therefore, for true men and strong –

     Men who would dare to die for right,

     Who love and court God's searching light

Because they shield no wrong.

~~

James Alexander Tucker (1872-1903)

from Poems, 1904

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

James Alexander Tucker biography

Evening on the Marshes / Barry Straton

Evening on the Marshes

We have roamed the marshes, keen with expectation,
Lain at eve in ambush, where the ducks are wont to fly;
Felt the feverish fervor, the thrilling, full pulsation
As the flocks came whirring from the rosy western sky.

All day long the sun with heat, and breeze with coolness,
Smote or kissed the grasses, and it seemed another lake
Flooded o'er the land and up the hills in fulness,–
Shadows for the billows, sunshine for the waves that break.

Now beneath the pine, whose branches voice the breezes,
Past the toil of day, we lie like gods in utter peace;
This is life's full nectar, this from care releases,–
Oh, to rest forever here where toil and tumult cease!

Slowly down the west the weary day is dying;
Slowly up the east ascends the mellow, mystic moon;
Swiftly stoop the hawks; the hooting owls are flying;
Through the darksome splendour breaks the lonesome cry of loon.

Ghost-like move the sails along the lake's dim distance;
Faintly wafts the sailors' weirdsome song the waters o'er;
Faint the wavelets' music, as with low insistence,
Break they sofly singing on the drowsy sandy shore.

Wooing us in whispers, water, earth, and heaven,–
Mystic whispers, wafted o'er the darksome waving deep,–
Win us to themselves, our old creative leaven,
And we, mingling with them, softly sink to dreamless sleep.

~~
Barry Straton (1854-1906)
from Lays of Love, and miscellaneous poems, 1884

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Barry Straton biography