220 RURAL LIFE IN CANADA 



p 



what one will, the country can never compete with the 

 city in the things of the city. The sparkling, flashing, 

 dazzling brilliance of her vivid, radiant streets by night 

 is all the city's own : 



Give to me, Love, our London town, 



Now, when the hovering night comes down, 



What if away there still be day, 

 Naked sky over silver reaches, 

 Bronze of bracken and gold of beeches? 



Give me the woven shadows brown 



Shot with the lights of London town! 



Little of stars our London recks; 

 Night with her fiery garland decks 



Light upon light as pearls strung white; 

 Fast through the shadows and moony blazes 

 Topaz and ruby whirl in blazes, 



Flash in the sinister veil, the crown 



Royal and fierce, of London town.* 



And better things than those pulsing waves of throb- 

 bing light which have such attraction for many, are 

 hers. But it is for you who are to serve humanity in 

 the country to learn the country's wealth in the things 

 of the country things that the city cannot have. If 

 the city is given a crown royal and fierce by her mechan- 

 ism of light, the country's dower is the sunrise and 

 sunset, dawn and day and the stars of night. If in 

 the city topaz and ruby whirl in blazes, in the country 

 is the light ineffable of all .precious gems from the 

 crimson flame of the ruby in the sunset up through the 

 orange of the jacinth in the tints of autumn and the 

 golden sheen of the topaz in the harvest, the living 



* Margaret L. Woods, " The Gondola of London." 



