(Written in Winter.)
All clad in rich hiemal robes
By blasts of Boreas plied,
The sovereign City of the North
Sits in majestic pride;
Beside St. Lawrence' noble stream,
Hard by his hidden tide,
She sits, and rears her head aloft
Upon Mount Royal's side.
A crown she wears of richest gems,
Of purest crystal bright,
That sparkle like a maiden's eyes
Which dazzle with delight;
Not gems that glitter best beneath
The courtly lamps by night;
But those whose brilliancy appears
By morning's purer light.
Her sceptre is not mineral
Up-gathered from the dust,
Nor gold, nor silver, long profaned
By man's accurs'd lust,
Nor substance base enough to feel
The vitiating rust,
But is a crystalled branch of oak
Just riven by the gust.
"I sit a queen," she proudly says,
"From the Atlantic Main
To where the Rockies to the sky
Their shaggy summits strain,
From where St. Lawrence speeds along
The ocean wave to gain
To where in darkness sleeps the heaven,
Unwaked by Phoebus' wain."