Part One of the Three Ages of Toronto

by M.G. Warenycia

I stood here before the first white sail came

As a footnote to Monsieur Champlain’s fame,

When the Huron and the Iroquois warred,

Longhouses and maize-fields dotting the sward,

Already tall and in aspect genteel

When first my kindred kenned the bite of steel.

With axe and musket each tribe sought its place,

Till plague and hunger laid waste to their race.

For many a year, none but ghosts did dwell

Mid wild ravine and goldenrod-fringed dell.

Then was a turmoil in the land to the South;

They came for land to feed the hungry mouth,

Those hardy wanderers, Loyal and stern,

By the sweat of their brows their bread to earn.

Forests primeval were wrenched from the earth,

My kinsmen’s corpses stacked by the hearth;

They planted apples and other things new:

Wheat, and cabbage, potato roots too.

Toil and thrift were these settlers’ home-brought creed:

The Land of Winter brooked no softer breed.

Alone I stood, upon the orchard knoll,

Spared since I shared their sombre, brooding soul.

I saw fires upon stately gambrel roofs,

My trunk echoing soldiers’ horses’ hoofs:

In blue legions, covetous, marched the Yanks,

Coming to conquer while expecting thanks.

Bold Brock fell and many a farmhouse burned;

With guns and guts th’invader’s gift was spurned.

Fruitful the orchards—and the people too,

Though alone in the wilderness they grew

As the wild-grape vines, in odd directions;

Each household its law with no corrections;

The clapboard cottages their secrets hold

Of sowings and reapings best left untold;

No Light there was save the Boreal sun;

Islands in forest-sea, nowhere to run.

Then came the age of Confederation;

The folk, grudging, joined a two-tongued nation.

Uneasily, I held my ancient court

As southward a City sprang from a Fort.

Pleased I was when the prospering townsmen

Lines their streets with thousands of my children.

“Toronto” ‘twas named, from Native fables;

They built shops, mills, charming Bay & Gables—

Homes graced with gardens that were studded thick

With lilies, Orange as their politics.

Above the crowd’s hubbub, the streetcar’s chime;

Sports on a Sunday was a grievous crime:

However much it expanded and thrived,

The City with my nature perfect jibed.

Then rose a madness over the ocean,

Threatening the Crown to whom devotion

Beat yet strong in the inhabitants’ hearts.

The City’s sons did eager depart,

But seldom returned except cruelly changed,

And art and music, expressing, grew strange.

The decade that followed was harsh and dry;

Some did run rum for the Yankees to buy;

Others o’er the sea did curious peer,

Some with admiration and some with fear.

Thus again to subdue the Teuton’s wrath

The City’s sons marched upon a one-way path.

As many as my leaves in autumn shed,

So many mourned the folk—their honoured dead.

Fire-scoured forests with doubled brightness bloom,

So land and people in richness did boom:

Stoic and stalwart like a mighty Elm

Or a storm-bred captain seizing the helm;

I saw the folk full of hope’s raw vigour

Stride broadly forward, trusting the Future.

Alas! About the time when first unfurled

Their banner, self-woven, before the world,

Into my vast roots a rot was creeping;

The centuries sap was fast depleting,

And so with all of the established stock:

Our limbs withered, our bark was dry as chalk.

When the arborists came and hewed our tops

And ripped us all up by the grove and copse,

The sun shone fresh upon a grand parade

And the City emerged from our eldritch shade.