Arthur Weir

The Oak

Last of its race, beside our college
  There stands an Oak Tree, centuries old,
Which, could it voice its stores of knowledge,
  Might many a wondrous tale unfold.
It marked the birth of two fair towns,
  And mourned the cruel fate of one,
Yet still withstands grim Winter's frowns,
  And glories in the Summer sun.

Jacques Cartier passed, its branches under,
  Up yonder mount one autumn day,
And viewed, with ever-growing wonder,
  The scene that spread beneath him lay.
He was the first from Europe's shore
  To pass beneath the Oak Tree's shade,
The first whose vision wandered o'er
  Such boundless wealth of stream and glade.

Beneath his feet a little village
  Lay, like a field-lark in her nest,
Amid the treasures of its tillage,
  The maize in golden colors dressed.
Years passed; and when again there came
  A stranger to that peaceful spot,
Gone was the village and its name,
  Save by a few gray-heads, forgot.

But soon beneath the Oak, another,
  And sturdier village took its place;
One that the gentle Virgin mother
  Has kept from ruin by her grace.
She saved it from the dusky foes
  Who thirsted for its heroes' blood,
And when December waters rose
  About its walls she stilled the flood.

What noble deeds and cruel, stranger
  Than aught in fiction ere befell,
What weary years of war and danger
  That village knew, the Oak might tell.
Perchance, brave Dollard sat of yore
  Beneath its very shade, and planned
A deed should make for evermore
  His name a trumpet in the land.

Perchance, beneath its gloomy shadows
  De Vaudreuil sat that bitter day
When round about him, in the meadows
  Encamped, the British forces lay;
And as he wrote the fatal word
  That gave an Empire to the foe,
The Old Oak's noble heart was stirred
  With an unutterable woe.

The army of a hostile nation
  Once since hath entered Ville Marie,
But we avenged that desecration
  At Chrystler's farm and Chateauguay--
Peace! peace! 'tis cowardly to flout
  Our triumphs in a cousin's face:
That page was long since blotted out
  And Friendship written in its place.

Beloved of Time, the Old Oak flourished
  While at its foot its little charge,
An eaglet by a lion nourished,
  Grew mighty by the river marge;
Till, where the deer were wont to roam,
  There throbs to-day a nation's heart,
Of wealth and luxury the home,
  Of learning, industry and art.

No longer now the church bells' ringing
  Fills all the little town with life,
Its loud-tongued, startling clangor bringing
  Young men and aged to the strife.
No longer through the midnight air
  The savage hordes their war-cries peal,
As rushing from their forest lair
  They meet the brave defenders' steel.

Long has the reign of war been ended
  And Commerce crowned, whose stately fleet
Brings ever treasures vast and splendid
  To lay them humbly at her feet.
And now her eager sons to-day
  Have crossed the wild, north-western plain,
And made two oceans own her sway
  Held captive by a slender chain.

What further Time may be preparing
  For this fair town, the years will tell,
But while her sons retain their daring,
  Their zeal and honor, all is well.
Still, as the seasons come and go,
  Long may they spare the Old Oak Tree
In age as erst in youth to throw
  Protection over Ville Marie.