The Lake of the Thousand Isles

You just never know what you're going to find on the Internet; gradually, all the world's literature, all the world's libraries, are becoming searchable from your desk. Today, I picked up this poem. Although I grew up in the Thousand Islands, and my ancestors have lived there for six or seven or eight generations, I never knew this rousing poem existed.

By Evan MacColl, sometime in the 19th century, obviously before the abolition of slavery in the US:


Though Missouri's tide may majestic glide,
There's a curse on the soil it laves;
The Ohio, too, may be fair, but who
Would sojourn in the land of slaves?

Be my prouder lot a Canadian cot
And the bread of a freeman's toils;
Then hurrah for the land of the forests grand,
And the Lake of the Thousand Isles!

I would seek no wealth, at the cost of health,
'Mid the city's din and strife;
More I love the grace of fair nature's face,
And the calm of a woodland life;

I would shun the road by ambition trod,
And the lore which the heart defiles;--
Then hurrah for the land of the forests grand,
And the Lake of the Thousand Isles!

O away, away! I would gladly stray
Where the freedom I love is found;
Where the pine and oak by the woodman's stroke
Are disturbed in their ancient bound;

Where the gladsome swain reaps the golden grain,
And the trout from the stream beguiles;
Then hurrah for the land of the forests grand,
And the Lake of the Thousand Isles.