He says, “What fine fun when we all go back!”
      But Canada Home is very good fun
    When Pat’s little sled flies along the smooth track,
      Or spills in the snowdrift that shines in the sun. 
        For Home is Home wherever it is,
        When we’re all together and nothing amiss.

    Some day I should dearly love, it is true,
      To sail to the old Home over the sea;
    But only if Father and Mother went too,
      With Willy and Patrick and Eily and me. 
        For Home is Home wherever it is,
        When we’re all together and nothing amiss.

THE POET AND THE BROOK.

A TALE OF TRANSFORMATIONS.

A little Brook, that babbled under grass,
Once saw a Poet pass—­
A Poet with long hair and saddened eyes,
Who went his weary way with woeful sighs. 
And on another time,
This Brook did hear that Poet read his rueful rhyme. 
Now in the poem that he read,
This Poet said—­
“Oh! little Brook that babblest under grass!
(Ah me!  Alack!  Ah, well-a-day!  Alas!)
Say, are you what you seem? 
Or is your life, like other lives, a dream? 
What time your babbling mocks my mortal moods,
Fair Naiad of the stream! 
And are you, in good sooth,
Could purblind poesy perceive the truth,
A water-sprite,
Who sometimes, for man’s dangerous delight,
Puts on a human form and face,
To wear them with a superhuman grace?

“When this poor Poet turns his bending back,
(Ah me!  Ah, well-a-day!  Alas!  Alack!)
Say, shall you rise from out your grassy bed,
With wreathed forget-me-nots about your head,
And sing and play,
And wile some wandering wight out of his way,
To lead him with your witcheries astray?
(Ah me!  Alas!  Alack!  Ah, well-a-day!)
Would it be safe for me
That fateful form to see?”
(Alas!  Alack!  Ah, well-a-day!  Ah me!)

So far the Poet read his pleasing strain,
Then it began to rain: 
He closed his book. 
“Farewell, fair Nymph!” he cried, as with a lingering look
His homeward way he took;
And nevermore that Poet saw that Brook.

The Brook passed several days in anxious expectation
Of transformation
Into a lovely nymph bedecked with flowers;
And longed impatiently to prove those powers—­
Those dangerous powers—­of witchery and wile,
That should all mortal men mysteriously beguile;
For life as running water lost its charm
Before the exciting hope of doing so much harm. 
And yet the hope seemed vain;
Despite the Poet’s strain,
Though the days came and went, and went and came,
The seasons changed, the Brook remained the same.