O Canada! Our home and native land! True patriot love in all thy sons command. With glowing hearts we see thee rise, The True North strong and free! From far and wide, O Canada, We stand on guard for thee. God keep our land glorious and free! O Canada, we stand on guard for thee. O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
The words of the original poem of 1908 by Stanley Weir are as follows:
O Canada! Our home and native land! True patriot love thou dost in us command. We see thee rising fair, dear land, The True North, strong and free; And stand on guard, O Canada, We stand on guard for thee.
Refrain O Canada! O Canada! O Canada! We stand on guard for thee. O Canada! We stand on guard for thee.
O Canada! Where pines and maples grow. Great prairies spread and lordly rivers flow. How dear to us thy broad domain, From East to Western Sea, Thou land of hope for all who toil! Thou True North, strong and free!
Refrain
O Canada! Beneath thy shining skies May stalwart sons and gentle maidens rise, To keep thee steadfast through the years From East to Western Sea, Our own beloved native land! Our True North, strong and free!
Refrain
Ruler supreme, who hearest humble prayer, Hold our dominion within thy loving care; Help us to find, O God, in thee A lasting, rich reward, As waiting for the Better Day, We ever stand on guard.
"The verse that keeps coming to my heart for him", I remarked to Victoria on our way home from the funeral visitation last week (as we both were struck by his utterly bereaved countenance)
Here is a man who took care of his suffering/bed-ridden wife for many years!
yet even so, death came unexpectedly...
(This was the 2nd Saturday in a row that I attended a funeral at the church of my childhood. plus a few visitations during the week... a sign that I'm getting older and nearer to the 'outer ripples' of this generation?:)
....then there was Canada Day...already again!
A year beginning to feel a little like a firework fizzle...flare and fade!
...or like a sun-sparkle on sea and sand; we stare amazed, reach but can never grasp
its shimmer through our fingers!
Ah, ache we cannot quell where well we know what moments
mete
The breaking and the binding of its swell like fields of
wheat
Where seasons sprout; the clout of teeny tick by tock
supreme
Whilst death reminds us to regard moments with high
esteem
Ah, beauty meets the eye and poets sigh and farmers grin
For seed begets the fruit where soon the harvest will begin
The quest for satisfaction a thirst nothing can fulfill
Unless we recognize the prize that moments cup and spill
Ah, tender troubadour, you tease us with your give and
take
Meandering through gardens weaving echoes in your wake
Where we cannot afford to miss one glorious syllable
Of summer’s silver-speckled sea-song’s ‘so-long canticle’
We grasp and clasp dawn’s fading flow’r; a wonder full of
woes
Dismantles moments of an hour like petals from a rose
The sway of night to day murmurs summer’s sweet green to
gold
Compelling us to look closer at moments in our hold
Ah, happiness, to find you is no secret if we see
That you are here and now; not an elusive destiny
The laughter of a child, a garden flower-wild, a brook
A you-and-me that makes the 'we', we dare not overlook
One of the little guys I babysit was delighted when I told him he may pick the green grapes to put in his loader because first-year vines need to put all their energy into the plant!