O rivers rolling to the sea

From lands that bear the maple tree,

How swell your voices with the strain

Of loyalty and liberty!

A holy music heard in vain

By coward heart and sordid brain,

To whom this strenuous being seems

Naught but a greedy race for gain.

O unsung streams—not splendid themes

You lack to fire your patriot dreams!

Annals of glory gild your waves,

Hope freights your tides, Canadian streams!

St. Lawrence, whose wide water laves

The shores that ne'er have nourished slaves!

Swift Richelieu of lilied fame!

Niagara of glorious graves!

Thy rapids, Ottawa, proclaim

Where Daulac and his heroes came!

Thy tides, St. John, declare La Tour,

And, later, many a loyal name!

Thou inland stream, whose vales, secure

From storm, Tecumseh's death made poor!

And thou, small water, red with war,

'Twixt Beaubassin and BeausÉjour!

Dread Saguenay, where eagles soar,

What voice shall from the bastioned shore

The tale of Roberval reveal

Or his mysterious fate deplore?

Annapolis, do thy floods yet feel

Faint memories of Champlain's keel,

Thy pulses yet the deed repeat

Of Poutrincourt and D'Iberville.

And thou far tide, whose plains now beat

With march of myriad westering feet,

Saskatchewan, whose virgin sod

So late Canadian blood made sweet?

Your bulwark hills, your valleys broad,

Streams where De Salaberry trod,

Where Wolfe achieved, where Brock was slain,

Their voices are the voice of God!

O sacred waters! not in vain,

Across Canadian height and plain,

Ye sound us in triumphant tone

The summons of your high refrain.