THE GRAMOPHONE

Where the lonely settler's shanty dots the plain,

And he sighs for friends and comradeship in vain,

Through the silences intense

Comes a sound of eloquence

Shrilling forth in steely, brazen, waxen strain —

The deep, resonant voice of Gladstone calling from the tomb,

Or Ingersoll's deliverance before his brother's bier;

Then a saucy someone singing, “When the daisies are in bloom,”

And the fife and drummers rendering “The British Grenadier.”

Back as far into the hills as they could get,

They've a roof that turns the winter and the wet,

They are grizzled but they're gay,

They've a daily matinee,

They are happy though they're head and ears in debt —

“I wish I had my old girl back again,”

“If the wind had only blown the other way,”

Uncertain voices join an old refrain

And repeat the same performance every day.

There's a Scotchman holding down a mining claim

All unknown to Fortune, Influence or Fame,

But a few of Harry's songs

Are a solace for his wrongs

And he sings them ev'ry evening in his “hame” —

“I'm courtin’ Bonnie Leezy Lindsay noo,”

“When I get back again” — you know the lilt —

“We parted on the shore,” “I'm fou’, I'm fou’,”

“And that's the reason noo I wear the kilt.”

There's a son of Erin in Saskatchewan,

He's at work a half an hour before the dawn,

But before he goes to bunk

He makes a table of his trunk

And he sets his clock-work concert thereupon —

“The harp that once through Tara's halls,”

“St Patrick's day in the mornin’,”

“The last rose of summer,” and Fancy recalls

A glimpse of his “Kathleen Mavourneen.”

There's an Englishman who's living in a shack,

He's a victim of the gramophone attack,

With a half-a-dozen kids

( He has half that many “quids” )

But he dances with the youngest on his back —

Though he's living in the country of the Cree

The horn that hangs a fathom from his head

Stretches out a thousand leagues across the sea

And sings in dear old London town instead.

They are far from auditorium or hall,

But their minds are still a-tune to Music's call,

They can hear Caruso sing,

Or the bells of Shandon ring,

As they smoke and count the cracks along the wall.

I'm a miracle of eloquence imprisoned in the wax,

I'm a mental inspiration operated by a spring,

I'm a nightly consolation from Yukon to Halifax,

And the ends of all creation sit and listen while I sing:

I'm the Voice of all that man has sought and gained;

I'm the throb of ev'ry heart that ever pained;

I'm the Genesis of Fate,

I'm the Soul of Love and Hate,

I'm the humanly impossible attained!