Canada Our Home

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 gayety of yellow flowers ; no hills
nor glens, where fairies gambol in pleasent 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 sky lark.

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, o'er 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.