Eyes smile to ours; we hear each tender tone,
Grief's smart is softened--less the sense of loss.
This grave we have, at least; we're not alone!
And they must know of our unchanging love--
Our tender thought--our memory--our prayers!
And in our constancy, ah! each one shares
To whom death comes on distant battlefields,
When life's last breath not even the solace yields--
"There's one who'll mourn for me--whose tears will flow!"--
Not even a grave is theirs, unnamed, unwept!
God rest their souls--the dead we do not know!
Canada and Britain's War Union
By Edward W. Thomson, F.R.S.L., F.R.S.C.
[From THE NEW YORK TIMES, April, 1915.]
Canada's political relation to Great Britain, and, indeed, to all other
countries, has been essentially altered by Canada's quite voluntary
engagement in the war. Were feudal terms not largely inapplicable, one
might aver that the vassal has become the suzerain's ally, political
equality connoted.
But, indeed, Canadians were never vassals. They have ever been Britons,
whatever their individual origins, retaining the liberties of their
political birthright. While in a certain tutelage to their own monarchs'
immediate Ministries, they have continually, slowly, consciously,
expanded their freedom from such tutelage, substituting for it
self-government or rule by their own representatives, without forsaking
but rather enhancing their allegiance to the common Crown.
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