THE OAK.

Last of its race, beside our college

There stands an Oak Tree, centuries old,

Which, could it voice its stores of knowledge,

Might many a wondrous tale unfold.

It marked the birth of two fair towns,

And mourned the cruel fate of one,

Yet still withstands grim Winter's frowns,

And glories in the Summer sun.

Jacques Cartier passed, its branches under,

Up yonder mount one autumn day,

And viewed, with ever-growing wonder,

The scene that spread beneath him lay.

He was the first from Europe's shore

To pass beneath the Oak Tree's shade,

The first whose vision wandered o'er

Such boundless wealth of stream and glade.

Beneath his feet a little village

Lay, like a field-lark in her nest,

Amid the treasures of its tillage,

The maize in golden colors dressed.

Years passed; and when again there came

A stranger to that peaceful spot,

Gone was the village and its name,

Save by a few gray-heads, forgot.

But soon beneath the Oak, another,

And sturdier village took its place;

One that the gentle Virgin mother

Has kept from ruin by her grace.

She saved it from the dusky foes

Who thirsted for its heroes’ blood,

And when December waters rose

About its walls she stilled the flood.

What noble deeds and cruel, stranger

Than aught in fiction ere befell,

What weary years of war and danger

That village knew, the Oak might tell.

Perchance, brave Dollard sat of yore

Beneath its very shade, and planned

A deed should make for evermore

His name a trumpet in the land.

Perchance, beneath its gloomy shadows

De Vaudreuil sat that bitter day

When round about him, in the meadows

Encamped, the British forces lay;

And as he wrote the fatal word

That gave an Empire to the foe,

The Old Oak's noble heart was stirred

With an unutterable woe.

The army of a hostile nation

Once since hath entered Ville Marie,

But we avenged that desecration

At Chrystler's farm and Chateauguay —

Peace! peace!‘ tis cowardly to flout

Our triumphs in a cousin's face:

That page was long since blotted out

And Friendship written in its place.

Beloved of Time, the Old Oak flourished

While at its foot its little charge,

An eaglet by a lion nourished,

Grew mighty by the river marge;

Till, where the deer were wont to roam,

There throbs to-day a nation's heart,

Of wealth and luxury the home,

Of learning, industry and art.

No longer now the church bells’ ringing

Fills all the little town with life,

Its loud-tongued, startling clangor bringing

Young men and aged to the strife.

No longer through the midnight air

The savage hordes their war-cries peal,

As rushing from their forest lair

They meet the brave defenders’ steel.

Long has the reign of war been ended

And Commerce crowned, whose stately fleet

Brings ever treasures vast and splendid

To lay them humbly at her feet.

And now her eager sons to-day

Have crossed the wild, north-western plain,

And made two oceans own her sway

Held captive by a slender chain.

What further Time may be preparing

For this fair town, the years will tell,

But while her sons retain their daring,

Their zeal and honor, all is well.

Still, as the seasons come and go,

Long may they spare the Old Oak Tree

In age as erst in youth to throw

Protection over Ville Marie.