"Is union yours? may foeman's might
Your love ne'er break or chain?"
Go see if o'er our land the flight
Of Spring be stayed by blast or blight;
If Fall bring never grain;
If Summer suns deny their light,
Then may our hope be vain!

"Yet far too cramped the narrow space
Your country's rule can own?"
Ah! travel all its bounds and trace
Each Alp unto its fertile base,
Our realm of forests lone,
Our world of prairie, like the face
Of ocean, hardly known!

"Yet for the arts to find a shrine,
Too rough, I ween, and rude?"
Yea, if you find no flower divine
With prairie grass or hardy pine.
No lilies with the wood,
Or on the water-meadows' line
No purple Iris' flood!

"You deem a nation here shall stand,
United, great, and free?"
Yes, see how Liberty's own hand
With ours the continent hath spanned,
Strong-arched, from sea to sea:
Our Canada's her chosen land,