The charms of many lands had met
In Marie of Plantagenet;
She had the splendid southern eye
She had the northern brow of snow,
The blush caught from a northern sky,
Dark silky locks of southern flow,
Light-footed as the forest roe,
As stately as the mountain pine,
A smile that lighted up her face,
The sunshine of a maiden's grace,
And made her beauty half divine.
So fair of face, so fair of form
Was she the peerless forest born.
Nature is kindly to her own,
To this Canadian cottage lone,
A back-wood settler's lot to bless,
She brought this flower of loveliness,
Seldom such beauty does she bring
To grace the palace of a king.
A chevalier of sunny France,
Whom fate ordained to wander here,
To trade, to trap, to hunt the deer,
To roam with free foot through the wild,
He chanced, at husking, in the dance
To meet Marie, Le Paige's child,--
And vowed that, roaming everywhere,
Except the lady fair as day,
Who held his troth-plight far away,
He ne'er saw face or form so fair;
From France's fair and stately queen,
To maiden dancing on the green,
From lowly bower to lordly hall,
This forest maid outshone them all
When old Le Paige would hear this praise,
Then would he turn and smiling say
To the plump partner of his days,
"We who know our Marie well,
How true the heart so young and gay,
We will not of her beauty tell.
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