[It will be remembered that 1861 closed with an alarming
prospect of war between England and the United States,
growing partly out of the arrest of Mason and Slidell
on board the British steamship Trent. Of course
had war been declared Canada would have been involved.
On Christmas of that year therefore Miss JOHNSON wrote
this appeal, which was published in a Canadian paper.]
To prayer! to prayer! O ye who love
Your country’s peace, your country’s
weal,
To Him who rules supreme above,
In this dark hour of peril kneel.
To prayer! to prayer! before the cry
“To arms!” shall make your
spirit quake,—
And ere ye dream of danger nigh
The dark portentous war-cloud break.
So long hath Peace o’er hill and vale
Waved her white banner to the breeze,
We thought her smiles would never fail,
And only heard from o’er the seas
The murmur of an angry host,
The clang of arms, the cannon’s
roar,—
How false our hope! how vain our boast!
War threatens our beloved shore.
Great God! to whom the nations seem
Like dust that gathers on the scales,
A drop within a mighty stream,
A breath amid the northern gales,
We pray, the hearts of men dispose
So that the sounds of war may cease,
And nations who should ne’er be foes
Embrace, and pledge themselves to Peace.
[The following poem appeared in the Sherbrooke
(P. Q.) Gazette, sometime in the winter of
1863, and was the last article prepared by Miss JOHNSON
for the press. It is of special interest for having
been written during the dark days of the war in the
United States, and when the sympathy of England and
Canada for the North was by many questioned.]
I love the land where I was born,
’Tis a noble land and good;
It has many a field of wheat and corn
Where once the forest stood;
It has many a town and city grand,
Where the Savage used to roam;
To the poor of every other land
It offers a peaceful home.
I’m proud of the land where I was born,
I’m proud of the Parent Isle,
Whose banners float at the gates of morn,
And the gates of eve the while.
And my pulses leap with a joyous thrill,
Wherever they take the lead,
And join their hands with a hearty will
In doing a noble deed.
There’s another land that’s dear to me,
For it speaks the English tongue;
Like a shoot that springs from an old oak tree,
From the English race it sprung.
It has gained a mighty place on earth,
And a mighty name has won;
It has given to sage and hero birth,
And it boasts of Washington.
But a blot, a dark and loathsome blot,
Polluted that fair young land;
God waited till his wrath was hot,
And he took his sword in hand!
He had heard the bitter wail of woe,
He had heard the clanking chain—
He rescued a nation years ago,
He will rescue one again!
