Look we back nigh two hundred years ago:
Softly St. Lawrence bright waters flow,
Shines the glad sun on each purple hill,
Rougemont, St. Hilary, Boucherville,
Kissing the fairy-like isle of St Paul's,
Where, hushed and holy, the twilight falls,
Or St. Helen's, amid the green wave's spray,
All lovely and calm as it is today.

No villas with porticos handsome, wide,
Then dotted our queenly mountain's side;
No busy and populous city nigh
Raised steeples and domes to the clear blue sky;
Uncleared, unsettled our forests hoar
Unbridged out river, unwharfed each shore;
While over the waves of emerald hue
Glided, lightly, the Indian's bark canoe.

It was in those towers--the Southern one--
Sister Margaret Bourgeoys, that sainted nun,
Sat patiently teaching, day after day,
How to find to Jesus the blessed way,
'Mid the daughters swarth of the forest dell,
Who first from her lips of a God heard tell,
And learned the virtues that woman should grace,
Whatever might be her rank or race.

Here, too, in the chapel-tower buried deep,
An Indian _brave_ and his grand-child sleep.*
True model of womanly virtues--she--