Ontario
Ontario
Original Text
Alexander McLachlan, Poems and Songs (Toronto: Hunter, Rose, 1874): 157-58. Internet Archive.
1O far away from my forest home,
2In the land of the stranger I must roam;
3And sigh amid flowers and trailing vines,
4For mine own rude land of lakes and pines.
5And I long--O, how I long to be
6In mine own Dominion of the free--
7 Ontario! Ontario!
8In mine own Dominion of the free--
9 Ontario!
10The old school-house, is it standing still?
11Do the pines still hang o'er the old saw-mill?
12Is the maple tree still fresh and green,
13That over our old log-house doth lean?
14Ah! back to them all, I fain would be
15In mine own Dominion of the free--
16 Ontario! Ontario!
17In mine own Dominion of the free--
18 Ontario!
19And does the blue-bird, in the Spring
20Come to it, as of old, to sing?
21And 'mong its branches build her nest,
22And rear its young ones in its breast?
23O, had I wings like her, I'd flee
24To mine own Dominion of the free--
25 Ontario! Ontario!
26To mine own Dominion of the free--
27 Ontario!
28And what, tho' many do forget,
29There's still one there that loves me yet!
30I see her form, I see her face--
31I hear her voice in every place!
32And backward still, she beckons me
33To mine own Dominion of the free--
34 Ontario! Ontario!
35To mine own Dominion of the free--
36 Ontario!
37And still, as a knock comes to the door,
38Tho' disappointed ten times o'er,
39She runs--but to find her hopes are vain,
40Of her wand'ring Billy back again:
41And back to her breast, I fain would flee,
42And mine own Dominion of the free--
43 Ontario! Ontario!
44And mine own Dominion of the free--
45 Ontario!
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2011
Rhyme