  The following response to Canada our home was given at a banquet of the Caledonian Society, Ingersoll: In responding to the sentiment Canada our home perhaps it would be appropriate to point out the prominent and distinguishing characteristics between the land of our nativity and the land of our adoption. In this Canada of ours we have no bonny blooming heath, no banks and braes covered o'er with daisies and gowans, no fragrant hedges showering down white spray in the May time, no whin and broom prodigal in their gaiety of yellow flowers, no hills nor glens where fairies gambol in pleasant and harmless sport, no grand ruins of ancient cathedrals and castles, no feathered songsters like the mavis and blackbird. Full oft we did enraptured hark To heavenly song of the skylark. But Canada is a young giant in its infancy with the noblest chain of lakes in the world on its frontier, and the most magnificent river the St. Lawrence. This land also possesses the largest fertile wilderness on the globe, but it is one which will ere many years have passed away, blossom like a garden, and where naught but grass and flowers now grow in wild luxuriance. Soon the husbandman will plow and sow and reap a rich reward in yellow golden grain. Domestic cattle quiet will graze where now the Buffalos roam and in spots now covered o'er with Indian wigwams, where white men never trod cities will Then poets will arise and high their lays will soar, Worthy of the muse of a Burns or a Moore, A Shakespeare and a Milton, the great and the wise, Will sing of the glories of our northern skies, Of its lakes and rivers and its mountains grand, Of its fertile plains and great prairie land, A fit theme for song this empire gigantic, Whose arms stretch from Pacific to Atlantic. |
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