II.

THE EMBRYO CITY.

1.

"muros arcemque procul ac rara domorum Tecta vident; quæ nuno Romana potentia cœlo Equavit: tum res inopes Evandrus habebat."

YE who dwell in England's a London,
'Mid the world-throng'd hive of Labour!

⚫ Canada has her London and Oxford, and indeed her Windsor (two), and her Thames, - her

"parvam Trojam, simulataque magnis Pergama, et arentem Xanthi cognomine rivum."

Moving-easy, pensive, jaunty—
In your homes of solid comfort,

Stately leisure, snug refinement!

Scarce, I ween, can ye imagine

Collingwood 16, the embryo-city,

Village of no less ambition

Than to be great mart of Commerce,

"Tween Pacific and Atlantic.

Since her birth in grove primæval
Scarcely thrice hath flown our fleet orb
Round her sovran's throne of glory.

What she shall be in the future,

Let the future's self determine.

On that fateful site beheld we

Straggling, shapeless, haste-built cluster
Of wood buildings quickly counted,
Sparsely rear'd amid the dank swamp—

Dwelling of the noisy bull-frog,

Huge, dusk, yellow-eyed Dahinda,—

'Mid the crumbling, wind-toss'd sand-heaps,

'Mid the charr'd stems of the greenwood,

Towering-gloom-wrapp'd, weird-like, ghostly—

Where the fire-path from Toronto,

From Ontario and from Simcoe,

Meets the Georgian Bay19 of Huron.78

2.

"raucis,

Sole sub ardenti, resonant arbusta cicadis."

Sauntering here b in garish noon-tide,

Heard we what to English hearing

Seem'd of burning wood the crackle.

Much we marvell'd: "Can it well be?

We reached Collingwood on the 9th, and left it on the 12th. Besides the stroll alluded to, we walked along the shores of the Georgian Bay, and made the acquaintance of many beautiful flowers.

Brown its legs, and brown its body:
Edged with hue of English primrose
Were the winglets it expanded:

And the sound it loves to utter

Gives its name the rattling locust.17

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3.

"O! qui me gelidis in vallibus Hæmi Sistat, et ingenti ramorum protegat umbrâ !"

From the blistering heat sweet shelter
Sought we in the welcome forest.

"a living and rejoicing world.'

There on moss-grown boughs reposed we,

While above us and around us

Gorgeous butterflies were sweeping,

Wheeling round huge trunk, and 'lighting
On slim stem or broad leaf's surface,-
Waving, poising, opening, shutting,
Now contracting, now expanding,

All the dazzling glossy splendour

They looked very like the Camberwell Beauty (Vanessa Antiopa).

Of their richly-burnish'd pinions,

Brown, with twofold white band circled,—

Spots of azure-blue and yellow

Lighting up gay tails and borders.

'Neath us trail'd a winsome creeper: 18 White as snow her downy petal,

With faint, gentle blush beneath it; Bright her dark-green leaf and varnish'd, As of holly or camellia.

Sate we thus amid the verdure,
'Neath lush canopy thick-plaited

By the dædal hand of Nature;
View'd the squirrel springing fearless
Through the mazes of the branches;
Drank the music of the wildwood,

Murmuring o'er us and around us
As aërial ocean currents;

While the cow-bell's cheery tinkle,
From the grass-paved highway wafted,
Blent with glee of rapturous millions,