Adieu, ye joys of fair Quebec!
We've got what's coarsely termed the sack.
Adieu, kind homes that we have
Entered;
What hopes and joys are around ye centered!
Adieu, ye flights of Lower Town stairs!
To mount you often, no one cares.
Adieu, that Club, with cook whose skill
Makes none begrudge his dinner bill.
Adieu, O sunny Esplanade!
You suit us loungers to a shade.
Adieu, thou Platform, rather small,
For upper-ten, the band and all.
And Music Hall! adieu to thee!
Ne'er kinder audiences we'll see;
There on each 'Stadacona' night,
'Ye antient citie' proves its right
To boast of beauty, whose fair fame,
To us at Malta even came.
Adieu, O Rink, and 'thrilling steel,'
Another sort of thrill we feel,
As eye entranced, those forms we follow,
And see the Graces beaten hollow.
Adieu, John's Gate! your mud and mire
Must end in time, as does each fire!
Adieu, that pleasant four-mile round,
By bilious subs so useful found.
Adieu, Cathedral! and that choir,
All eye and ear could well desire.
Adieu, that service - half-past three -
And chance walks after, home to tea.
And 'city fathers,' too, adieu!
Sorry we shan't know more of you.
Adieu, your daughters passing fair,
In dancing, skating, who so rare?
Adieu, too soon, O Citadel!
Adieu, hogs-back, we like thee well,
Though when on poudre days we've crossed,
Noses and ears we've all but lost.
Adieu, to Montmorency's Fall!
Adieu, ye ice-cones large and small!
Who can forget the traineau's leap
From off that icy height, so steep;
It takes your breath as clean away
As plunge in air - at best you may
Get safely down, and borne along,
Run till upset; but ah! if wrong
At first, you take to turning round,
The traineau leaves you, and you're found
Down at the bottom, rolling still,
Shaken and bruised and feeling ill.
Adieu, ye lakes and all the fishing!
To cast a fly we've long been wishing.
One last adieu! sorry are we
That this must be our p.p.c.!
Folly to think we'll feel resigned
In leaving you, who've proved so kind.
Our bark of happiness goes wreck,
In quitting you, far-famed Quebec!
- P.P.C., of the 25th K.O.B.
Our thoroughfares, our promenades, even in those dreary months, when the
northern blast howls over the Canadian landscape, have some blithsome
gleams of sunshine. Never shall we forget one bright, frosty January
afternoon, about four o'clock, in the year 1872, when solitary, though
not sad, standing on Durham [80] Terrace, was unveiled to us "a most
magnificent picture, a scene of glorified nature painted by the hand of
the Creator. The setting sun had charged the skies with all its gorgeous
heraldry of purple and crimson and gold, and the tints were diffused and
reflected through fleecy clouds, becoming softer and richer through
expansion. The mountain tops, wood-crowned, where the light and shadow
appeared to be struggling for mastery, stood out in relief from the white
plain, and stretching away in indistinct, dreamy distances finally seemed
to blend with the painted skies.
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