On proud Mount Royal-s Eastern side,
In view of St. Lawrence-s silver tide,
Are two stone towers of masonry rude,
With massive doors of time-darken-d wood:
Traces of loop-holes are in the walls,
While softly across them the sun-light falls;
Around broad meadows, quiet and green,
With grazing cattle-a pastoral scene.

Those towers tell of a time long past,
When the red man roamed o-er regions vast,
And the settlers-men of bold heart and brow-
Had to use the sword as well as the plough;
When women (no lovelier now than then)
Had to do the deeds of undaunted men,
And when higher aims engrossed the heart
Than study of fashions or toilet-s art.

A hardy race from beyond the sea
Were those ancient founders of Ville Marie!
The treacherous Sioux and Iroquois bold
Gathered round them as wolves that beset a fold,
Yet they sought their rest free from coward fears;
Though war-whoops often reached their ears,
Or battle-s red light their slumbers dispel,-
They knew God could guard and protect them well.

Look we back nigh two hundred years ago:
Softly St. Lawrence bright waters flow,
Shines the glad sun on each purple hill,
Rougemont, St. Hilary, Boucherville,
Kissing the fairy-like isle of St Paul-s,
Where, hushed and holy, the twilight falls,
Or St. Helen-s, amid the green wave-s spray,
All lovely and calm as it is today.

No villas with porticos handsome, wide,
Then dotted our queenly mountain-s side;
No busy and populous city nigh
Raised steeples and domes to the clear blue sky;
Uncleared, unsettled our forests hoar
Unbridged out river, unwharfed each shore;
While over the waves of emerald hue
Glided, lightly, the Indian-s bark canoe.

It was in those towers-the Southern one-
Sister Margaret Bourgeoys, that sainted nun,
Sat patiently teaching, day after day,
How to find to Jesus the blessed way,
-Mid the daughters swarth of the forest dell,
Who first from her lips of a God heard tell,
And learned the virtues that woman should grace,
Whatever might be her rank or race.

Here, too, in the chapel-tower buried deep,
An Indian brave and his grand-child sleep.
True model of womanly virtues-she-
Acquired at Margaret Bourgeoys- knee;
He, won to Christ from his own dark creed,
From the trammels fierce of his childhood freed,
Lowly humbled his savage Huron pride,
And amid the pale-faces lived and died.

With each added year grows our city fair,
The steepled church, and spacious square,
Villas and mansions of stately pride
Embellish it now on every side;
Buildings-old land marks-vanish each day,
For stately successors to make way;
But from change like that may time leave free
The ancient towers of Ville Marie!