The Project Gutenberg eBook of Canadian Battlefields, by Lieut.-Col. J. R. Wilkinson.

Backward, backward, through time’s vast chambers,
In a dreamful reverie go;
Flitting down the vanishing ages,
Fifty and two hundred years ago.
Between Lake Simcoe and Lake Huron,
In the radius of Ontario,
Waved a grand primeval forest
In the sunlight’s ebb and flow.

A great wide stretch of wooded landscape,
Interspersed by stream and rill;
With gentle swells and undulations,
And sylvan glade and shrouded hill.
And all this great wide reach was teeming
With all kind of luscious game;
The moose and red deer roamed by thousands,
In nature’s freedom went and came.

The savage bear and wild wolf haunted
This wide expanse in quest of prey;
The lynx and wildcat, too, were prowling
The dim aisles by night and day.
The crafty fox here thickly burrowed,
Mink, otter, and the festive coon;
The cunning beaver by the streamlet
Built under cover of night’s gloom.

The wild fowl covered all the streamlets—
Geese, ducks, and teal, and lonely loon;
Their ceaseless babble and their chatter
Enlivened all the forest’s gloom.
And song birds covered all the branches,
Sweet birds of every shade and hue;
And waves of melody they uttered,
As down the forest aisles they flew.

The night-bird, too, the night made vocal,
The cat-bird, owl, and whippoorwill;
They wakened up the dim recesses,
When summer nights were warm and still.
And through the awesome, stately forest,
Mysterious voices ebb and flow;
And weird, fantastic, ghostly shadows
Through faint, far distance palely go.

And Lake Simcoe and grand Lake Huron
Swarmed with fish in countless store;
All the warm bays and sunny inlets,
The streams and rivers round the shore.
And over all this wide expansion
The sweet wild winds in rapture blew,
Rustling through the dim old forest,
And o’er the lake’s wide bosom blue.

There sun and shadow alternating,
And skies of cloud or sapphire hue
Domed o’er the loveliness of nature—
The far, far past this picture knew.
Here was the home of the proud Hurons,
Fifty and two hundred years ago;
Thirty thousand happy Indians
By the bright water’s laughing flow.

Herein they dwelt for unknown ages,
By the Iroquois tribes hated so;
A fragment of some long lost nation,
Prehistoric, but who may know?
Aye, here they builded quaint, queer wigwams,
Indian towns by shore and stream,
Palisaded round and bastioned,
Double-rowed, and looped between.

Thus, to guard ’gainst outer foemen,
They builded strong, and to endure
The siege, or onslaught, or surprises,
They sought and labored to secure.
Within were store-rooms wide and ample,
With food to last at least a year,
From the Indian maize and cornfields—
Of famine they need have no fear.

And all the tepees and warm wigwams
Were blest with comfort and good cheer;
Stored with fish and game in plenty,
The winter had for them no fear.
Fine robes and mantles of warm bearskin,
Wolf and lynx and the festive coon,
Otter, mink, the fox and sly beaver,
As soft and warm as summer’s noon.

This great wide reach of lake and forest,
River and stream and flowing rill,
Rendered up their richest fulness
To the hunter’s unerring skill.
Laws and customs they established
In some far-off, unknown age—
Who shall penetrate the mystery
That enshrouds their history’s page?

And those barbaric laws and customs
Were respected and obeyed;
Sure death it was to the transgressor
Who the nation’s cause betrayed.
And they believed in the Great Spirit;
Manitou they worshipped there;
A future state of peace and comfort,
The happy hunting-grounds so fair.

Within those palisaded hamlets
Strange rites and festivals were seen;
The weird, blood-curdling pagan war-dance,
A frightful and barbaric scene.
And the great council of the nation,
Many grand war chiefs, stern and brave,
Deliberated all great questions,
And cunningly decision gave.

And those red children of the forest
Had their queer games, their social hour,
A relaxation from all turmoil,
A rest from war’s relentless power.
Then the great chiefs and older warriors
Smoked in peace, and stories told
Of their strange lives and great adventures,
Heroic deeds and ventures bold.

And the younger braves and maidens
Enacted what to youth belongs,
And told their tales of love and rapture,
Danced and sang their tribal songs.
Wandering by the shore or river,
Life to them was fair and sweet,
Many a dusky Indian beauty
Had her lover at her feet.

Oft in their light canoes they glided
O’er the waters’ sparkling blue,
Lingering in the dreamy sunset
’Neath fading skies of sapphire hue.
Ah! those heathen souls were happy,
Communing there with nature’s heart;
Beneath the wide-domed arch of heaven
They had of life a tender part.

And the lithe children of the nation
Played in wild, ecstatic glee,
Nimble in untrammelled nature,
As squirrel leaping from tree to tree.
And marriages were celebrated,
Funeral rites were quaint and queer;
Believing Manitou was near them
The mourner’s troubled heart to cheer.

Like us they had their hopes and passions,
Ambition stirred their pagan souls;
Strange fear and awe and superstition
An almighty hand controls.
And in the wind’s low sob and whisper,
The waves that murmur on the shore,
The phantom voices of the forest,
And in the storm king’s mighty roar.

CHAPTER II.

And thus it was with the proud Hurons
In that far-off and happy time;
Those strange children of the lone forest,
Reared where nature reigns sublime.
And thus it was the Jesuit fathers
Found this strange people by the shores
Of Lake Simcoe and wide Lake Huron
In palisaded towns by scores.

There with infinite care and kindness
They labored on through blood and tears,
Suffering torture and privation
For many long and weary years.
But the grand light at last is dawning,
Their work at last is signalized;
O’ercome at last, the Huron nation
Receives, is won, and Christianized.

And the dense wilderness resounded
With song and praise to God above;
Those savage hearts grew meek and tender
When purified by Christian love.
And they followed the Great Spirit,
And with never-failing zeal
Taught the lost from tribes far distant
Of the Saviour’s love to heal.

And for war no more they thirsted,
But prayed that peace might e’er prevail,
And tore the warpost from its socket—
No more they would their foes assail.
Now they worked among the maize fields,
Hunted, fished, and stored away,
Wisely, industriously preparing
For winter’s tempestuous day.

Suddenly the sky grew threatening,
Shadowy forms seemed in the air;
A ghostly moan swept down the forest,
A weird, hush’d wailing of despair.
Was ’t to warn of danger pending
Those phantom shapes and mournful cries
Came from across the faint, far distance
Along the dismal, startled skies.

And those frightened forest children
Gazed in awe upon the scene,
And they appealed to the Great Spirit
That he would save, and intervene
To avert impending danger,
And clear the sinister skies again,
To assuage the fear that fell upon them,
Relieve their hearts from anxious pain.

Suddenly the war-whoop sounded
From the ferocious Iroquois,
And from the dense concealing forest
They burst with fierce and hideous noise.
And they fell upon the Hurons,
Stunned by fright and unprepared;
There was no preconcerted action,
Cunningly they were caught and snared.

In vain the Huron warriors struggled,
In vain they nobly fought and died—
They could not stem that whirlwind onset,
And hundreds fell on every side.
The old and young alike were butchered,
Not e’en the little child was spared;
In vain the cry for life and mercy,
All, all that hideous slaughter shared.

Hundreds, too, of pleading prisoners
To the torture post were tied,
Burned and mangled and insulted,
When on God for help they cried.
Aye, like wolves compelled by hunger,
They thirsted for the Hurons’ blood;
And remorselessly they slaughtered,
Revelling in the crimson flood.

And when sated, like the wild wolf,
They glide like serpents swift away,
And gain the dense concealing forest,
Disappearing ’neath the shadows gray.
Then was mourning in the wigwams,
O’er their kin in hundreds slain;
Burned and rifled habitations
Make sore the heart by loss and pain.

CHAPTER III.

Thus commenced those dread incursions
Of the relentless Iroquois;
Unceasing in their deadly hatred,
They burst with frightful cruelty,
At hours or moments unexpected,
On the despairing Hurons there,
Slaying, burning, and desolating
The Huron Nation everywhere.

All their good towns were laid in ashes,
And thousands slain in bloody strife;
Hunted and pursued forever,
Their certain doom the scalping knife.
Amid it all they prayed unceasing,
Through dire distress and fell despair—
Pled for mercy and deliverance,
And for Divine protecting care.

Driven at last to desperation,
They left their homes and stole away,
And gained the Island of St. Joseph,
In the lovely Georgian Bay.
Here they built a fortressed mission,
And by thousands huddled round,
With the stern winter time upon them,
A storm-swept region, iron-bound.

There with suffering and privation,
And their dread foemen lurking near,
With pestilence in thousands slaying,
And tortured by consuming fear,
They prayed for peace and preservation,
Sustained in that dread anxious hour
By the assurance of the Great Spirit,
Trusting still His mighty power.

All through that direful time malignant,
Of persecution, blood, and flame,
The intrepid Jesuits preached unceasing,
Absolved and blessed in Jesus’ name.
Driven by want and sheer starvation,
O’erwhelmed now and desolate,
They leave their lone bleak island fortress
In desperate, appalling state.

Hell only hath a rage co-equal
To the ferocious Iroquois.
Again they fell upon the Hurons,
Gloating like fiends, with hideous glee;
Torturing, exterminating, burning,
Glutting their diabolic hate,
Red demons of incarnate fury,
A hideous and satanic state.

In vain the Huron braves did rally,
Fighting all desperately there,
Only to fall in the dread melee;
Beaten, massacred everywhere,
They fled now through the awesome forest,
Fled by river, and stream, and rill,
Seeking all vainly for concealment
By lonely vale and towering hill.

For an implacable foe pursues,
And o’er this wide expanse so fair
Was a reign of woe unutterable,
With grim death revelling everywhere.
And it ceased not for a moment,
That frightful carnage, by night nor day,
Till en masse the Hurons perished,
Swept from their mother earth away.

No more Lake Simcoe and Lake Huron,
Nor all that great wide reach between,
Shall echo to the Huron’s war song.
A weird strange life, which like a dream
Hath floated out by mystic spaces,
Down the silence of ceaseless flow,
Lost and mouldering with the ages,
Fifty and two hundred years ago.

And I pause in reverie dreamful
By Lake Huron’s liquid tide,
But no primeval forest greets me.
O’er the expansion far and wide
Are dotted homes, reposing peaceful,
Gemmed by river, hill and stream,
Crowned by the sunlight’s golden glory,
Where pagan wigwams once were seen.

ON THE HEADLAND.

It stood on a lonely headland,
Pointing far out to sea,
Braving the storms of centuries,
A venerable giant tree.
No other ones grew near it,
It towered there alone,
As if forever listening
To the ocean’s weary moan.

And phantom, mysterious voices
In its topmost boughs were heard
When the wind sobbed o’er the ocean,
And its giant form was stirred.
It crooned perhaps of a thousand years,
Of a thousand years ago,
When all life was summerladen,
A tender and golden glow.

It stands no more on the headland,
Pointing far out to sea;
It welcomes no more my coming,
It complains no more to me.
It yielded at last to the tempest,
’Twas forever swept away;
Alas, for the vacant places,
Time ever winneth the day.

I stand to-day on the headland,
Looking far out to sea,
Tired of life and the burden
Forever resting on me.
And over the lonely ocean,
The cold clouds roll stern and gray,
Obscuring a tender vision
Of a fair land far away.

ONLY A VISION.

In my vision I stood on a loftier mount
Than this wonderful world hath seen,
And gazed down a valley deep and dark,
Where so strangely rolled between
Lone shores that were weird and unearthly,
A river as black as death’s doom,
When a hopeless soul is departing,
And night comes in horror and gloom.

And the old and young there assembled,
With burdens too grievous to bear;
And their deep moans and lamentations
Rose up anguished from everywhere.
I saw by a light dim and waning
A river of deep, dark despair,
And a voice, as of God, sternly warning—
Up on high it floated somewhere.

And I raised my eyes toward heaven—
Not a ray of sunlight was there;
Fierce clouds swept along, as if driven
By fiends through the desolate air.
I listened in awe as that warning
Came in tones stern, yet tender as love,
Reaching down in that sorrowful valley
Saying, “Hopeless souls, look above.”

And up from those depths dark and dreary
Rose a prayer such as earth never heard,
So full of unutterable pleadings,
The very hills and mountains were stirred.
Suddenly the clouds rent asunder,
Rolled back, and the light of the spheres
Burst forth in intenseness and glory,
Lighting up that lone valley of tears.

I heard songs of praise and rejoicing,
Such music as earth never heard,
Entrancing my soul with its rapture,
Such immeasurable joy it conferred.
And quickly that vale, late so barren,
Bloomed with fruits and the fairest of flowers,
And music and laughter came rippling
From hillsides, sweet vales, and green bowers.

And the river flowed on in its beauty,
By mansions so fair on the lea;
On and on, flashing in the sunlight,
Gliding peacefully to the sea.
I knew there was rapture in heaven
When the wanderers returned to the fold,
For I heard the songs of the angels,
Attuned to their sweet harps of gold.

I, too, would have joined in rejoicing
With the friends of the long ago:
One fair as the angels awaiteth
Where the sunset gates are aglow.
But suddenly the thought came to me
That I was forsaken and lone,
On a desolate far mountain height,
Cast out ever from friends and home.

For there was no way from the mountain,
And I sank with a bitter cry
On the bleached and tempest-swept rocks,
O’erwhelmed and alone to die.
Many years have passed since that vision
Rapt my soul on that fatal day,
And still I am lost on the mountain,
And heaven seems far away.

THE WORLD WANTS A SMILING FACE.

The world wants a smiling face, my boy,
The world wants a bright smiling face;
’Tis the passport to favor on sea or land,
In every profession and place.
The world cares little, my darling boy,
And heeds not the lonely and sad;
But caresses ever the smiling face,
And whatever maketh it glad.

Besides, ’tis a duty, my noble boy;
God gave man the instinct to smile,
To lighten the burden his brother bears
For many a lone, weary mile.
Then keep your heart pure, my darling boy,
Doing ever the Father’s will;
And whatever your station in life may be,
Rich blessings thy years all shall fill.

Remove the obstacles from your path,
Though your hands be bleeding, my boy;
The brave and the pure that fight to the last
No evil can ever destroy.
Smile, though your heart be breaking, my boy;
To the world say never a word;
Go fearlessly on, and you’ll win at the last
The victory, though long deferred.

Smile on the children, my darling boy,
“Of such are the kingdom of heaven”;
From the loved of home withhold it not,
’Tis a potent and sunny leaven,
Raising the despondent to strength again,
Removing the gloom from the day;
It crowns all life with a nameless grace,
Putting sorrow and care away.

Your brother needs your bright smile, my boy,
And the clasp of your strong right hand;
His pathway may be with danger beset,
In many a strange, far land.
Pass not the sin-stained of earth, my boy,
Raise the fallen again if you can;
A purified soul, forgiven and blest,
Rejoiceth the Saviour of man.

Smile on the unfortunate, my boy,
Take the hand of the poor and old;
Sympathy warmeth the desolate—
’Tis better than silver and gold.
It leadeth up to the starry heights,
’Twas divinely, wisely given;
Soothing and blessing all the long way,
It surely entereth heaven.

THE VOICE OF TEARS.

THE GARDEN.

THE BATTLE OF QUEENSTON HEIGHTS.

They crossed in the gray of the morning,
Stole o’er from the other shore,
To invade the land of the Maple Leaf,
Two thousand proud foes, or more.
A detachment of the old Forty-Ninth
And Dennis’s brave volunteers
Opposed their landing determinedly,
Opening on them with cheers.

The roar of the guns from the battery
Rolled down Niagara’s gorge,
Awakening Brock and his fearless men
From their rest at old Fort George.
And in hot haste Brock and his aides-de-camp
Rode fast through the pale, cold light,
Bidding Sheaffe and his men to follow on
To aid in the coming fight.

Meanwhile the Americans won the heights,
And the guns half way below;
Their loss was a serious menace, too,
In the hands of the haughty foe.
Swift as the fleet wind Brock gained the vale
And lifted his flashing eye,
Measuring the foe on the cold, gray steeps,
And the battery nearer by.

“The guns must be won!” Brock quickly cried,
And came an answering cheer
From the intrepid, ready Forty-Ninth—
Brave souls devoid of all fear!
“Forward! charge home to the battery’s side!”
And dauntless he led the way,
Driving the foe from the smoking guns
By the cold steel’s deadly play.

Heroically leading, he drew their fire,
And fearlessly fighting fell,
Pierced through the breast by a mortal shot,
The leader all loved so well.
“Don’t mind me,” he thoughtfully cried;
“Push on, brave York volunteers!”
Sent a message to his sister over the sea,
His eyes suffused with tears.

Thus perished war’s genius gloriously,
A great leader young in years;
So loved and mourned for, brave, pure soul,
Thy name we bedew with tears.
Gallantly Sheaffe by St. David’s moves up,
Turning their flank by the way,
Gaining the heights by an impetuous rush,
Not a moment held at bay.

Consuming volleys they hurl on the foe,
Then charge with their deadly steel,
And hundreds are slain in the mad melee—
See the foe in panic reel!
The British line sweeps resistlessly down;
The proud foe must surely yield.
Ha! they break—they break into headlong flight
In defeat from that blood-red field!

Over the heights in mad flight now leaping,
Some were impaled on the trees,
Where mockingly their garments fluttered
For years in the storm and breeze.
Some plunged in the cold rushing river
To gain safely the other shore,
But were lost in the swirl of its waters,
And were heard of nevermore.

Nine hundred men surrendered to Sheaffe,
A force greater than his own.
Ah! ’twas a gallant day, and nobly won;
Signally the enemy were overthrown.
And, standing there on the glorious Heights,
They cheered for country and king;
They unfurled the “flag of a thousand years”;
Their shouts o’er the scene did ring.

’Twas a far-famed day for our lovèd land,
Ring it over the world so wide;
Like veterans Canadians fought that day,
With the regulars side by side.
Dearly the victory was won for us
In the death of beloved Brock.
Immortal hero! thy irreparable loss
Was to all a grievous shock.

They muffled their drums and reversed their arms,
And marshalled around his bier,
And solemnly bowed their war-worn heads,
And silently dropped a tear.
E’en the painted savages loved him well,
And o’er each stoical face
Stole a shadow of pain and tenderness,
Hallowing that sacred place.

A grateful country has planted there
A monument tow’ring high,
His memory e’er to perpetuate,
Pointing ever to the sky.
The hero and his aide, parted not by death,
Secure their relics rest there,
In the lovely land of the Maple Leaf
Ever so loyal and fair.

Aye, a grateful country placed it there—
On earth there’s no grander scene—
And we sing with a grateful, fervent heart
To our country and our Queen.
Revere, then, the dead, and honor them still,
They died our freedom to save;
God bless the flag of a thousand years
May it long o’er us proudly wave.

A FOREST DREAM.

Bare and gaunt the forest standeth,
Reaching out so wide and high,
As if mutely supplicating
Mercy of an angry sky.
Oh! such hollow and weird voices
Issue from its solemn aisles,
As if lonely forest phantoms
Mourn the loss of summer’s smiles.

I have sought the dim old forest
And its old familiar ways:
Frozen streams, dark glens and bowers,
Dear to me in childhood’s days.
All is silent and forsaken,
Leaf and flower lie cold and dead,
Mute appealing to the memory,
Telling of a day that’s fled.

I have known when summer’s mantle,
Fair and sweet as poet’s dream,
Covered in a wild profusion
These old haunts with rustling green.
Then the forest aisles were merry
With the glee the song-birds made,
And their gentle echoes followed
Every stream and fragrant glade.

Then I sung with boyhood’s rapture,
Leaped and shouted in the dell,
Till the golden hush of sunset,
With its silent shadows, fell
O’er the hills that, rapt in dreaming,
Watched the moonrise on the sea,
Where the wavelets danced and murmured
Low voiced and mysteriously.

Life was one long dream of gladness—
All unknown the future lay;
Ah! the years have brought deep sadness—
Summer’s merged in winter’s gray.
And I wander, bowed and weary,
Grieving o’er the faded past,
As the snowflakes flit around me,
Borne upon the winter’s blast.

WOMAN.

O June, thou art beautiful as ever!
Nature’s wrought in her wondrous way
A dream reverie of lilies and roses
Wherever we wander to-day.
Breathing up so tenderly everywhere
A fragrance subtly sweet,
Where the soft, low winds kiss the sunny hills,
And the waves fall down at our feet.

But woman is fairer and sweeter still,
And divine as a spirit dream;
And claiming all homage and tenderness,
And to reign in man’s heart supreme.
Thus, crowned in her perfect loveliness,
All alight are her witching eyes;
And peeping therein we dream, aye, we dream,
Of the angels in paradise.

O winsome woman! this lovely June day
More fair than the roses in bloom,
Or lilies that ope by the purling stream,
That fade from our life’s way too soon,
We pay thee court, we acknowledge thy sway,
We lay all we have at thy feet;
The cottage is home, and the mansion ’s alight,
When blest by thy presence so sweet.

When the heart would faint in the battle of life,
And our strength and our courage would fail,
We are roused by thee to a nobler strife,
And again the foe we assail.
And if thou art true and point us the way,
We face all opposing powers;
Though the fight be grievous and sorely long,
The vict’ry will surely be ours.

THE JESUIT.

Consecrated to a lonely life of celibacy,
Seeing only a vain delusion and a fallacy
In terrestrial unions—man’s uncertainty of bliss,
Suspended in the balance o’er an infinite abyss—
Appalled by sin and its delusive elements everywhere:
The cry of a lost world—an intonation of despair
Rising up from the depths of impenetrability;
The infinite to the finite, out from dread eternity,
Breathing subtly to the spiritual, the list’ning soul
Answereth “deep unto deep.”

And responsive to the irresistible communion
(Wond’rous affinity! mysterious, inscrutable union!)
Impelled to consecrate all of life, and all that life e’er gave,
To the cause of Christ, and by held and flood a world to save.
Moved by pity for man’s fallen and suffering state,
O’erwhelm’d in the vortex of a direful, impending fate,
Man must be lifted up and placed upon the narrow way,
More in the divine radiance and pure celestial ray
Of God’s own light. And thus the Jesuit is impelled;
By an undying enthusiasm of religious zeal
He goes forth to the rescue, to alleviate and heal.

And deeply learned and skilled in every earthly lore,
He gleans the gems of thought from the deep mines of every shore;
Searches for knowledge down the long vistas of the past,
Surmounting all impediments, winning the field at last.

Thus equipped, a diplomat, he is found near thrones of kings,
In palaces and parliaments; his subtle influence brings
Nations to the Church’s imperious, predominant feet:
In her insatiable interest all things must bend and meet.
With black cassock, the cross and rosary at his girdled side,
He goes forth, the Church’s consecrated champion and her pride.

No distance is too great to stay his eager, tireless feet;
Nor heat, nor biting cold, nor raging tempest, rain and sleet,
Can deter him from his purpose. On his devoted head
The elements beat in vain. Unsheltered and unfed,
He is found in the lonely wilds of every land and zone,
Fearless of every danger, oft suffering and alone.
Braving disease, pestilence, and the martyr’s tragic death;
Having no home, no wife, no country, only heaven in view,
And the redemption of the heathen, a weary work to do;
Sacrificing all desires of the weak and mortal frame,
Sustained through hard years of toil by heaven’s quenchless flame.

Such was Jean de Brébœuf, the Ajax of the Huron tribe,
A martyred hero, who all impediments, e’en death, defied
In the pursuit of duty, the lost lonely wilds to save,
Winning a crown of victory, and at last a martyr’s grave.

Over the far ocean the impassioned zealot came,
Hot in the pursuit of duty, with heart and soul aflame;
Stemming swift rivers along the rough and tortuous way,
Pressing forward through the dense lone wilderness day by day,
With soiled and tattered garments, and naked, bleeding feet,
Bearing a weary burden, his necessities to meet.
He sought, and found by Lake Huron’s vast and majestic side,
The pagan Huron nation in all its savagery and pride—
A vast tract stretching from Lake Simcoe to the Georgian Bay,
A scene of rustic loveliness in that strange time far away.
Thirty thousand Hurons, in palisaded towns by scores,
Built within the shadowy forest and along the shores;
A strange people, the red Hurons, of some far, forgotten age;
An unsolved mystery, a blank on history’s page!

Boldly entering the towns and wigwams, undismayed
By barbaric savagery in threatening form arrayed;
Through lines of spears and warclubs, tomahawks and flashing knives,
Stained by the blood of foemen, red with a thousand lives!

Aye, he went with but the cross of the Saviour at his side,
Raised a prayer to the Father, and to the red men cried,
“Peace! our mission’s peace; we come in the Great Manitou’s name,
To bid our red brothers war no more, but to enkindle a flame
Of peace and friendship; for ’tis the Great Spirit’s loving will
That his red children should war no more, that hate no more should fill
Their hearts, and as brothers to abide in a lasting peace—
In seeking the ‘happy hunting grounds’ strife and war must cease.”

With Père Daniel, Lalemant, Raguenean, Gamier, and Davost,
He built a mission house and chapel, watched by friend and foe,
Thus raising a Christian altar where pagan orgies reigned,
Upheld by a lofty purpose, by power divine sustained.
Unwonted sounds and echoes woke the lonely forest aisles,
The chant of ancient litanies down the weird, dim defiles;
The pleading passionate prayer rose, swelled, and died away
Down the vast corridors of the wilderness weird and gray.

Thus besought were savage tribes to espouse the sacred cause,
To abandon their pagan usages and barbaric laws.
The story of the Cross and God’s infinite love was told
By the fearless Jesuits, and passionately unrolled.
But it fell on stolid ears, and the dark, benighted mind
Of the Huron nation. A stoic heathenism, all blind,
Repelled the Cross, and in derision turned away
With muttered imprecations; and threatenings day by day
Fell on the unswerving servants of the altar and Cross,
Counting all suffering but gain, and even life no loss,
If the cause of Christ with the Huron nation should prevail.
Then let evil, every danger, e’en hell itself assail,
They would lay their lives, their all, at the Saviour’s sacred feet:
For their red brothers’ redemption they would all torture meet.

For years they met with but discouragement, grief, and care,
Scowls and menaces, distrust, and persecution everywhere;
Fierce jealousies, stirred up by the tribal “medicine men”;
A subtle pagan power, cunningly concealed, and when
Their ascendancy was threatened, stirred the dark, benighted mind
To acts of cruel violence—a superstition blind.
Thus suffering hunger, thirst, cold, heat, almost in despair,
And the powers of darkness combined; the spirit of the air
Echoed demon laughter; up from the deeps it rose and fell;
Up in derision from the very maw and counterscarp of hell;
And the wolf howled down the phantom corridors of the night,
And lost spirits shrieked, and all of good seemed put to flight.

But ’mid it all those devotees toiled on incessantly;
As one they sought God’s help in prayer and pleading unity.
Though scoffed and mocked, they importuned the Huron warriors still
To espouse the Saviour’s cause and obey His loving will.
And when the deadly pestilence subdued the nation’s pride,
And pale death stalked among the sad wigwams far and wide,
And a thousand braves were stricken in this disastrous hour,
And a thousand maidens perished by its fell, destroying power.
The aged and the children, too, were in hundreds swept away,
And the Huron hearts were breaking ’mid the horrors of the day;
And pitiful distress and helplessness reigned everywhere,
And the nation bowed in mourning in the frenzy of despair.

’Twas then the Hurons realized the Jesuits’ noble worth,
Learned to love their pale-faced brothers in that time of death and dearth;
For moving ’mid the dying and the stricken night and day,
Nursing, soothing, absolving, and bearing the dead away,
Won they the Hurons, and the Saviour’s story they receive,
Taught in their adversity to repent and to believe.
Thus was that strange people redeemed and Christianized,
And God’s cause established, and the Jesuits signalized.
The Hurons sought war no more—’mid blessings of peace and love,
Longed for Manitou, and “the happy hunting grounds above.”

But a scourge more dreadful now on the repentant nation fell:
The unsparing Iroquois, with the malignancy of hell,
Swept down upon the Hurons, caught by stealth, and unprepared.
All, all that hideous slaughter met—not one, not one was spared.
Though fighting sternly to the last, with the courage of despair,
They could not stem that fierce onslaught—pale death was rampant there.
Their palisaded towns were burned in rage by scores and scores,
And exterminating war reigned round Lake Huron’s lovely shores.

Amid it all Brébœuf, of the Huron mission, stood
With the gentle Lalemant, a brother supremely good;
And they absolved and blessed, fearless of their impending fate,
Caring for the wounded and dying, braving the foeman’s hate;
Amid the dreadful carnage, surrounded by flashing knives,
Red with the blood of the Hurons, red with a thousand lives!

Captives at last, by bloody hands borne to the torture post
With hundreds more, and surrounded by a gibing, fiendish host,
They met death by the most awful torture without a groan,
Blessing e’en the hands that mangled and seared to the very bone.
Aye, without a murmur, those steadfast souls bore the pain,
Exhorting all to look to God, that they should meet again
Where the cruel torture and life’s dread sufferings are o’er,
Meet Manitou in endless life, where sorrow comes no more.

And thus perished those martyred, heroic, devoted souls
For the cause of Christ; and as long as the grim ages roll
Shall their immortal deeds and imperishable fame be sung,
Till the last trump to waken the dead through all space be rung.