We present this work in honor of Canada Day.

 

‘Tis evening, and the round red sun sinks slowly in the west,
The flowers fold their petals up, the birds fly to their nest,
The crickets chirrup in the grass, the bats flit to and fro,
And tinkle-tankle up the lane the lowing cattle go,
And the rich man from his carriage looks out on them as they come—
On them and on the barefoot boy that drives the cattle home.

“I wish,” the boy says to himself—“I wish that I were he,
And yet, upon maturer thought, I do not—no siree!
Not for all the gold his coffers hold would I be that duffer there,
With a liver pad and a gouty toe, and scarce a single hair;
To have a wife with a Roman nose, and fear lest a panic come—
Far better be the barefoot boy that drives the cattle home.”

And the rich man murmurs to himself: “Would I give all my pelf
To change my lot with yonder boy? Not if I now myself.
Over the grass that’s full of ants, and chill with dew to go—
With a stone bruise upon either heel, and a splinter in my toe!
Oh, I’d rather sail my yacht a year across the ocean’s foam
Than be one day the barefoot boy that drives the cattle home.”