A Canadian Song

Oh! can you leave your native land
An exile's bride to be;
Your mother's home, and cheerful hearth,
To tempt the main with me;
Across the wide and stormy sea
To trace our foaming track,
And know the wave that heaves us on
Will never bear us back?

And can you in Canadian woods
With me the harvest bind,
Nor feel one lingering, sad regret
For all you leave behind?
Can those dear hands, unused to toil,
The woodman's wants supply,
Nor shrink beneath the chilly blast
When wintry storms are nigh?

Amid the shades of forests dark,
Our loved isle will appear
An Eden, whose delicious bloom
Will make the wild more drear.
And you in solitude will weep
O'er scenes beloved in vain,
And pine away your life to view
Once more your native plain.

Then pause, dear girl! ere those fond lips