The "Qu'Appelle" Valley.

Morning, lighting all the prairies,     Once of old came, bright as now,     To the twin cliffs, sloping wooded     From the vast plain's even brow:     When the sunken valley's levels     With the winding willowed stream,     Cried, "Depart, night's mists and shadows;     Open-flowered, we love to dream!"     Then in his canoe a stranger     Passing onward heard a cry;     Thought it called his name and answered,     But the voice would not reply;     Waited listening, while the glory     Rose to search each steep ravine,     Till the shadowed terraced ridges     Like the level vale were green.     Strange as when on Space the voices     Of the stars' hosannahs fell,     To this wilderness of beauty     Seemed his call "Qu'Appelle? Qu'Appelle?"     For a day he tarried, hearkening,     Wondering, as he went his way,     Whose the voice that gladly called him     With the merry tones of day?     Was it God, who gave dumb Nature     Voice and words to shout to one     Who, a pioneer, came, sunlike,     Down the pathways of the sun?     Harbinger of thronging thousands,     Bringing plain, and vale, and wood,     Things the best and last created,     Human hearts and brotherhood!     Long the doubt and eager question     Yet that valley's name shall tell,     For its farmers' laughing children     Gravely call it "The Qu'Appelle!"