January 11th is Sir John A. Macdonald Day in honour of Canada’s first Prime Minister.

We grow weary as we journey through the dark winter night. We may take a moment of respite, to slow down, and take in the silence. But we mustn’t stop too long, for we all have promises to keep: to ourselves, to each other. The easiest way out of the darkness is to continue on through it—right to the end. The sun shall rise before us.

THE CANADIAN
I never saw the cliffs of snow,
The Channel billows tipped with cream,
The restless, eddying tides that flow
About the Island of my dream.
I never saw the English downs,
Upon an April day,
The quiet old Cathedral towns,
The hedgerows white with may.

And still the name of England
Which tyrants laugh to scorn
Can thrill my soul. It is to me
A very bugle-horn.

A thousand leagues from Plymouth shore,
In broader lands I saw the light.
I never heard the cannon roar
Or, saw a mark of England's might;
Save that my people lived in peace,
Bronzed in the harvest sun,
And thought that tyranny would cease,
That battle-days were done.

And still the flag of England
Streamed on a friendly breeze,
And twice two hundred ships of war
Went surging through the seas.

I heard Polonius declaim
About the new, the golden age,
When Force would be the mark of shame
And men would curb their murderous rage.
'Beat out your swords to pruning hooks,'
He shouted to the folk.
But I— I read my history books
And marvelled as he spoke.

For it was glorious England,
The Mother of the Free,
Who loosed that foolish tongue, but sent
Her Admirals to sea.

And liberty and love were ours,
Home, and a brood of lusty sons,
The long, North sunlight and the flow'rs.
How could we think about the guns,
The searchlights on a wintry cloud,
The seamen, stern and bold,
Since we were hurrying with the crowd
To rake the hills for gold?

But it was glorious England
Who scanned the threatening morn-
To me the very name of her
Is like a bugle-horn.

-J. E. Middleton

Jesse Edgar Middleton was born in Wellington County, Ontario in 1872. He worked as a journalist and music critic for the “Mail and Empire” newspaper. He was also a composer, historian and novelist. He died in 1960 and was buried in Fort Macleod, Alberta.
This poem was first published in his book Sea Dogs and Men at Arms: A Canadian Book of Songs (1918).

In memory of my 3rd great grandparents William and Elizabeth Dutnall. William was born at Paddington in 1862 and died in Flaxcombe after only 11 years in Canada. Elizabeth was born in the village of Clyffe Pypard, Wiltshire and went to London around 1882. She died in Flaxcombe in 1928, where she is buried there.

To the Men of Fair France and All Europe…

At the End of the Day
Richard Hovey
There is no escape by the river,
There is no flight left by the fen;
We are compassed about by the shiver
Of the night of their marching men.
Give a cheer!
For our hearts shall not give way.
Here's to a dark to-morrow,
And here's to a brave to-day!

The tale of their hosts is countless,
And the tale of ours a score;
But the palm is naught to the dauntless,
And the cause is more and more.
Give a cheer!
We may die, but not give way.
Here's to a silent morrow,
And here's to a stout to-day!

God has said: "Ye shall fail and perish;
But the thrill ye have felt to-night
I shall keep in my heart and cherish
When the worlds have passed in night."
Give a cheer!
For the soul shall not give way.
Here's to the greater to-morrow
That is born of a great to-day!

Now shame on the craven truckler
And the puling things that mope!
We've a rapture for our buckler
That outwears the wings of hope.
Give a cheer!
For our joy shall not give way.
Here's in the teeth of to-morrow
To the glory of to-day!

From the Song of Roland:
LXXXII
Says Oliver: "Pagans from there I saw;
Never on earth did any man see more.
Gainst us their shields an hundred thousand bore,
That laced helms and shining hauberks wore;
And, bolt upright, their bright brown spearheads shone.
Battle we'll have as never was before.
Lords of the Franks, God keep you in valour!
So hold your ground, we be not overborne!"
Then say the Franks "Shame take him that goes off:
If we must die, then perish one and all."

In memory of E. Pauline Johnson “Tekahionwake” of the Mowhawk Nation of Canada, 1861-1913.

On July 1, 2023, Canada will be celebrating its 156th year since it became a “Dominion.“

CANADIAN BORN
We first saw light in Canada, the land beloved of God;
We are the pulse of Canada, its marrow and its blood:
And we, the men of Canada, can face the world and brag
That we were born in Canada beneath the British flag.

Few of us have the blood of kings, few are of courtly birth,
But few are vagabonds or rogues of doubtful name and worth;
And all have one credential that entitles us to brag-
That we were born in Canada beneath the British flag.

We've yet to make our money, we've yet to make our fame,
But we have gold and glory in our clean colonial name;
And every man's a millionaire if only he can brag
That he was born in Canada beneath the British flag.

No title and no coronet is half so proudly worn
As that which we inherited as men Canadian born.
We count no man so noble as the one who makes the brag
That he was born in Canada beneath the British flag.

The Dutch may have their Holland, the Spaniard have his Spain,
The Yankee to the south of us must south of us remain;
For not a man dare lift a hand against the men who brag
That they were born in Canada beneath the British flag.

E. Pauline Johnson was born on the Six Nations Reserve in Ontario, the daughter of a Mohawk Chief. She gained fame as a poet and stage actresse, promoting her Native and Canadian culture. Her Native name was Tekahionwake, “Double-life.” She died only a few days before her 52nd birthday in 1913 under in the shadows of the majestic mountains of Vancouver, BC, which she wrote about. Her ashes were scattered in Stanley Park, where there is a Monument to her unto this day.

They shall fear thee as long as the sun and moon endure, throughout all generations. He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass: as showers that water the earth. In his days shall the righteous flourish; and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth. HE SHALL HAVE DOMINION ALSO FROM SEA TO SEA, and from the river unto the ends of the earth. - Psalm 78

In Memory of Archibald Lampman (1861-1899)

*The Modern Politician*
What manner of soul is his to whom high truth
Is but the plaything of a feverish hour,
A dangling ladder to the ghost of power!
Gone are the grandeurs of the world's iron youth,
When kings were mighty, being made by swords.
Now comes the transit age, the age of brass,
When clowns into the vacant empires pass,
Blinding the multitude with specious words.
To them faith, kinship, truth and verity,
Man's sacred rights and every holiest thing,
Are but the counters at a desperate play,
Flippant and reckless what the end may be,
So that they glitter, each his little day,
The little mimic of a vanished king.

The video features photos of Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau & his son Justin Trudeau (and a few others), who share most of the blame for destroying Canada, in order to “rebuild” it in their own image.

“Foolish men imagine that because judgment for an evil thing is delayed, there is no justice;…Judgment for an evil thing is many times delayed, some a day or two, some a century or two, but it is sure as life, and it is sure as death.” -Thomas Carlyle

“In Pierre Trudeau, Canada has finally produced a Prime Minister worthy of assassination.”
- Former Prime Minister, John Diefenbaker

In memory of Sydney Keyes, 1922-1943.
War Poet
I am the man who looked for peace and found

My own eyes barbed.

I am the man who groped for words and found

An arrow in my hand.

I am the builder whose firm walls surround

A slipping land.

When I grow sick or mad

Mock me not nor chain me:

When I reach for the wind

Cast me not down:

Though my face is a burnt book

And a wasted town.

“The mistakes that have been committed in foreign policy are not, as a rule, apparent to the public until a generation afterwards.” 
-Otto von Bismarck

June 28, 2023 will be the 109th anniversary of the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the fateful event that would lead to the First World War, and in one way or another, all wars, chaos and collapses that have happened since. In the following days of the July Crisis, Sir Edward Grey, who was the British foreign Minister at the time, made many fruitless attempts to prevent a war. On the evening of August 3rd, 1914, the evening before Great Britain and her Empire would finally declare war, he made the prophetic remark: "The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time."

No more brother wars.

The Fathers
By Edwin Muir 1887~1959
A Native of Deerness, Orkney Islands

Our fathers all were poor,
Poorer our fathers’ fathers;
Beyond, we dare not look.
We, the sons, keep store
Of tarnished gold that gathers
Around us from the night,
Record it in this book
That, when the line is drawn,
Credit and creditor gone,
Column and figure flown,
Will open into light.
 
Archaic fevers shake
Our healthy flesh and blood
Plumped in the passing day
And fed with pleasant food.
The fathers’ anger and ache
Will not, will not away
And leave the living alone,
But on our careless brows
Faintly their furrows engrave
Like veinings in a stone,
Breathe in the sunny house
Nightmare of blackened bone,
Cellar and choking cave.
 
Panics and furies fly
Through our unhurried veins,
Heavenly lights and rains
Purify heart and eye,
Past agonies purify
And lay the sullen dust.
The angers will not away.
We hold our fathers’ trust,
Wrong, riches, sorrow and all
Until they topple and fall,
And fallen let in the day.

“They shall perish; but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment;
And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail.” -Hebrews 1:11&12

In 2019, it was estimated Canada had 9,000 churches that were at risk of being lost to the elements. In 2021, a series of arsons and vandalisms took place, in which 71 churches across Canada were targeted, 25 of which were damaged by fire, or totally burned to the ground.

Below is a link to a map and article showing all the vandalized churches in Canada:

https://tnc.news/2023/01/16/a-map-of-every-church-burnt-or-vandalized-since-the-residential-school-announcements/

9,000 Churches at risk:

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.5046812

Sacred Harp is a type of congregational hymn singing that evolved in America in the early 1800s. This song is 505 “Where Ceaseless Ages Roll:”

“Come, on, my friends, and go with me,

For I am on my journey home.

My Savior welcomes you with me

To live where joys are ever known.


Come, go with me to that fair land

Where ceaseless ages roll.”

This recording was done by the Ireland Sacred Harp Convention, in Cork.

An excerpt from the book “The Unknown Country,” by Canadian journalist and historian Bruce Hutchison, 1942. Reprinted in “A Pocketful of Canada,” edited by John D. Robins, 1952.

The imagination helps us to have a foot in two worlds: This World and the World to Come. Faith helps us to see. There is no promise that will go unfulfilled, and no failure that is a total loss. There is no cause that is hopeless. Now to Him “Whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to Him be honour and everlasting power. Amen.”

The Unknown City
By Sir Charles G. D. Roberts (1860-1943)

There lies a city inaccessible,
Where the dead dreamers dwell.

Abrupt and blue, with many a high ravine
And soaring bridge half seen,
With many an iris cloud that comes and goes
Over the ancient snows,
The imminent hills environ it, and hold
Its portals from of old,
That grief invade not, weariness, nor war.
Nor anguish evermore.

White-walled and jettied on the peacock tide,
With domes and towers enskied,
Its battlements and balconies one sheen
Of ever-living green,
It hears the happy dreamers turning home
Slow-oared across the foam.

Cool are its streets with waters musical
And fountains' shadowy fall,
With orange and anemone and rose
And every flower that blows
Of magic scent or unimagined dye,
Its gardens shine and sigh.
Its chambers, memoried with old romance
And fairy circumstance, —
From any window love may lean some time
For love that dares to climb.
This is that city babe and seer divined
With pure, believing mind.
This is the home of unachieved emprise.
Here, here the visioned eyes
Of them that dream past any power to do,
Wake to the dream come true.
Here the high failure, not the level fame,
Attests the spirit's aim.
Here is fulfilled each hope that soared and sought
Beyond the bournes of thought.
The obdurate marble yields; the canvas glows;
Perfect the column grows;
The chorded cadence art could ne'er attain
Crowns the imperfect strain;
And the great song that seemed to die unsung
Triumphs upon the tongue.

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city. —Hebrews 11:13-16

When Shall the Empire Fall?

When the last Scot has looked his last
On Scotia’s heathered hills;
When the last Jack Tar on England’s ships
His final death-call thrills;

When the last Celt in Erin’s Isle
Lies prone on Erin’s sod,
And Cambria’s last brave hill man hails
The summons of his God;

When Canada’s last stalwart son,
Lies stark amid her snows;
When India’s last proud red coat hurls
Defiance at her foes;

When the Great Southern Isles have sent
Their eager last recruit;
When Boer and Briton in the sun
Lie rigid, mangled, mute;

Yea, when Britannia’s flag unfurls
No more at Freedoms call,
Then, not till then, know friend or foe,
Shall Britain’s Empire fall.

-M. E. Richardson
The person that wrote this is unknown. Probably a Canadian in I found it in the back of my old copy of Rudyard Kipling poems. I think that is quite fitting, as Kipling offered much inspiration, and still does.

The predicament of our Western Countries, in particular the English speaking nations is a great one. It has been in the making by our own “leaders” for the better part of a century, and has sped up in the last 25 years. The people of those nations were never asked, and although there were a few valiant voices that spoke out against this betrayal, they were always quickly sidelined.

Our sovereignty and future was pawned, and our leaders have no intention of getting it back. Many now do not know what is happening, or even see a problem with it at all. Others help it along, and now many applaud our slow exit from existence and prominence in our own counties. Some even call for it to happen more quickly. We are frozen and kept in check by perpetuated lies and distortions of our own history.

What shall we do? Shall we relinquish? Shall we accept it? Shall we wait any longer? Shall we hold grudges against ourselves? Our ancestors knew a certain day would come…When the King Asleep in the Mountain would awake. It’s in our legends, that is our history, that is our future. We are the mountain and the King is waiting to awake. Our ancestors set our example. It isn’t over until it’s over…