With arrows on their quarters and with numbers on their hoofs, <br />With the trampling sound of twenty that re-echoes in the roofs, <br />Low of crest and dull of coat, wan and wild of eye, <br />Through our English village the Canadians go by. <br /> <br />Shying at a passing cart, swerving from a car, <br />Tossing up an anxious head to flaunt a snowy star, <br />Racking at a Yankee gait, reaching at the rein, <br />Twenty raw Canadians are tasting life again! <br /> <br />Hollow-necked and hollow-flanked, lean of rib and hip, <br />Strained and sick and weary with the wallow of the ship, <br />Glad to smell the turf again, hear the robin’s call, <br />Tread again the country road they lost at Montreal! <br /> <br />Fate may bring them dule and woe; better steeds than they <br />Sleep beside the English guns a hundred leagues away; <br />But till war hath need of them, lightly lie their reins, <br />Softly fall the feet of them along the English lanes.<br /><br />William Henry Ogilvie<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/canadians-3/
