Laura Secord stamp issued by Canada Post, September 8, 1992
On the sacred scroll of glory
Let us blazon forth the story
Of a brave Canadian woman, with the fervid pen of fame,
So that all the world may read it,
So that every heart may heed it,
And rehearse it through the ages to the honor of her name.
In the far-off days of battle,
When the muskets’ rapid rattle
Far re-echoed through the forest, Laura Secord sped along
Deep into the woodland mazy,
Over pathways wild and hazy,
With a firm and fearless footstep and a courage staunch and strong.
She had heard the host preparing,
And at once with dauntless daring
Hurried off to give the warning of the fast-advancing foe ;
And she flitted like a shadow
Far away o’er fen and meadow,
Where the wolf was in the wildwood, and the lynx was lying low.
From within the wild recesses
Of the tangled wildernesses
Sounds mysterious pursued her ‘long the winding forest way,
And she heard the gutt’ral growling
Of the bears, that, near her prowling,
Crushed their course through coverts gloomy with their cubs in noisy play.
Far and near the hideous whooping
Of the painted Indians, trooping
For the foray, pealed upon her with a weird, unearthly sound,
While great snakes went gliding past her
As she sped on fast and faster,
And disaster on disaster seemed to threaten all around.
Thus for twenty miles she travelled
Over pathways rough and ravelled,
Braving danger for her country like the fabled ones of yore.
Till she reached her destination,
And forewarned the threatened station
Of the wave that was advancing to engulf it deep in gore.
Just in time the welcome warning
Came unto the men, that, scorning
To retire before the foemen, rallied ready for the fray,
And they gave such gallant greeting,
That the foe was soon retreating
Back in wild dismay and terror on that glorious battle-day.
Few returned to tell the story
Of the conflict sharp and gory
That was won with brilliant glory by that brave Canadian band,
For the host of prisoners captured
Far outnumbered the enraptured
Little group of gallant soldiers fighting for their native land.
Braver acts are not recorded
In historic treasures hoarded,
Than the march of Laura Secord through the forest long ago,
And no nobler deed of daring
Than the cool and crafty snaring
By the band at Beaver Dam of all that well-appointed foe.
But we know if war should ever
Rage again o’er field or river,
And the hordes of the invader should appear within our land,
Far and wide the trumpets pealing
Would awake the same old feeling,
And again would deeds of daring sparkle out on every hand.
Source: Charles Edwin Jakeway. The Lion and the Lilies: A Tale of the Conquest and Other Poems. Toronto: William Briggs, 1897
Laura Secord Telling Lieutenant Fitzgibbon of the Plans for the U.S. Attack on Beaverdams. Watercolour by Rosemary Bowen, 1977. Courtesy of the Niagara Falls Public Library
The sweet June moonlight softly fell
On meadow, wood, and stream
Where, 'neath the crags of Queenston Heights,
The green waves darkly gleam.
Alone the whip-poor-will’s sad cry
Blent with the murmuring pines,
Save where the sentry paced his rounds
Along the Yankee lines.
But, in one lowly cottage home,
Were sorrow and dismay ;—
Two troubled watchers might not sleep
For tidings heard that day.
Brave James Secord—no craven heart,
Beat in that crippled frame
That bore the scars of 'Queenston Heights'—
—Back to his cabin came.
With tidings of a secret plan
Fitzgibbon to surprise,
As, with his handful of brave men,
At Beaver Dam he lies ;—
For Boerstler, with seven hundred men,
And guns, and warlike store,
Will steal upon our outpost there
Guarded by scarce two-score !
‘Then, crushed at once, as it must be,
Our gallant little band !
The foe will press to force the heights
And sweep the conquered land !
‘Then noble Brock had died in vain !
—If but Fitzgibbon knew !—
But the poor cripple’s foot is stayed,
Though brave his heart and true.
Then Mary, bending o’er her babes,
Looked up, and smiled through tears ; —
‘These are not times for brave men’s wives
To yield to women's fears !
‘You cannot go to warn our men,—
They would not let you through ;
But if they'll let a woman pass,
This errand I will do.’
She soothed away his anxious fears,—
She knew the forest way ;—
She put her trust in Him who hears
His children when they pray.
Soon as the rosy flush of dawn
Glowed through the purple air,
She rose to household tasks, and kissed
Her babes, with whispered prayer.
Then to her faithful cow she went ;
—The sentry at the lines
Forgot to watch, as both were lost
Among the sheltering pines.
The rising sun’s first golden rays
Glanced through the forest aisles
And lighted up its sombre depths
With changeful golden smiles.
The fragrant odour of the pines,—
The birds' fresh carols sweet—
Breathed courage to the trembling heart
And strength to faltering feet.
And on she pressed, with steadfast tread,
Her solitary way,
Through tangled brake, and sodden marsh,
Through all the sultry day ;—
Though for the morning songs of birds,
She heard the wolf’s hoarse cry,
And saw the rattle-snake glide forth,
From ferny covert nigh.
She stopped not short for running stream
—The way found by the will,—
Nor for the pleading voice of friends
At fair St. David’s Mill.
The British sentry heard her tale
And cheered her on her way,
But bade her ‘ware the Indian scouts
That in the covert lay.
Anon,— as cracked a rotten bough,
Beneath her wary tread,
She heard them shouting through the gloom—
She heard their war-whoop dread.
But quickly, to the questioning chief,
She told her errand brave,—
How she had come a weary way
Fitzgibbon’s men to save !
The red-skin heard, and kindly looked
Upon the pale-faced 'squaw ;'—
Her faithful courage touched his heart,
Her weary look he saw.
‘Me go with you’ —was all he said,—
His warriors waved away, —
He led her safe to Beaver Dam,
Where brave Fitzgibbon lay.
With throbbing heart her tale she told ;
Full well Fitzgibbon knew
How great the threatened danger was,
If such a tale were true !
Then to De Haven swift he sent
To call him to his side,—
And all the moon-lit summer night,
Swords clash and troopers ride,—
While Mary, in a farm-house near,
In dreamless slumber lay,
And woke to find her gallant friends
Had fought and gained the day !
If e’er Canadian courage fail,
Or loyalty grow cold,
Or nerveless grow Canadian hearts,
Then be the story told,—
How woman's will and woman's wit
Then played its noblest part,
—How British valour saved the land,
And woman’s dauntless heart !
Source: G. Mercer Adam (ed.) Rose-Belford’s Canadian Monthly and National Review, vol 4, Jan-June 1880. Toronto: Rose-Belford Publishing Co., 1880
Our neighbours in a score of states,
Being more or less united,
Determined to come over here,
Not especially invited.
Having the job made up some how
With Napoleon the Great,
That he should make the Russian bow
While they of Canada would make a state.
Our ancestors a boon secured—
The freedom of each station ;
From trials that they then endured
Was born our present nation.
Year about eighteen twelve ;
Forget them shall we never ;
In memory's pages they still shall live
Till death our lives shall sever.
In all those years, '13, the most
Of fighting here was done,
And in '13, June 24th,
The grandest victory won.
April's days were nearly o'er
When Toronto was laid low ;
May had counted one month more
When in Niagara was the foe.
The militia were disbanded —
No more fighting to be done —
O'er every farmer's mantlepiece
A musket up was hung.
When the leafy month of June,
When foliage clothed the beech,
The folly of invasions,
Indians and militia teach.
Two Indian braves by Boerstler slain,
Made their station at the Ten,
Determined to fill up new graves
With twice as many men.
The farmer viewed his meadow land,
Now ready for the scythe ;
"To-morrow I this grass will cut,
If tomorrow I'm alive."
Scarce finished was his ramble,
Walking slowly to his meal,
He hears the note of warlike spoil
By the Indian in his zeal.
To-day he knew he'd other work ;
Scarce touched his morning meal,
But, taking down his trusty gun,
He towards the fore did steal.
The Beechwoods spread with ample shade
Cast over all a sombre hue.
Whose sturdy trunks assist to aid
To keep our men from view.
Those who lived near arrived the first
The foe to hold at bay
Until were gathered to the field
Those who further lived away.
Soon cannon from the mountain brow
Boom on the calm, still air,
And to engage in battle
Militia far and near repair.
The regulars had heard alarms
The horseman were on time
To take the leader's sword and arms
And guard them to our line.
A victory small, and won like this
By the farmers of the Ten,
Had more effect to keep the peace
Than an army of fighting men.
But, as the seasons come and go,
Never that long day of June
Shall be blotted from our memory,
Our harvest work as soon.
Source: Thorold Post, June 8, 1894, p. 6
J.P. Merritt from Page’s 1876 Historical Atlas of Lincoln & Welland Counties
Monument and bust of Laura Secord, heroine of Battle of Beaver Dam, Beaver Dam, Ontario, Canada, stereograph, 1908 Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.
A STORY worth telling, our annals afford,
’Tis the wonderful journey of Laura Secord!
Her poor crippled spouse hobbled home ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡With the news
That Bœrstler was nigh ! “Not a minute to lose,
Not an instant,” said Laura, “for stoppage or pause—
I must hurry and warn our brave troops at Decaws.”
“What ! you !” said her husband “to famish and tire !”
“Yes, me !” said brave Laura, her bosom on fire.
“And how will you pass the gruff sentry ?” said he,
“Who is posted so near us ?”
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡“Just wait till you see ;
The foe is approaching, and means to surprise
Our troops, as you tell me. Oh, husband, there flies
No dove with a message so needful as this—
I’ll take it, I’ll bear it, good bye, with a kiss.”
Then a biscuit she ate, tucked her skirts well about,
And a bucket she slung on each arm, and went out
’Twas the bright blush of dawn, when the stars melt from sight,
Dissolved by its breath like a dream of the night ;
When heaven seems opening on man and his pain,
Ere the rude day strengthens, and shuts it again.
But Laura had eyes for her duty alone—
She marked not the glow and the gloom that were thrown
By the nurslings of morn, by the cloud-lands at rest,
By the spells of the East, and the weirds of the West.
Behind was the foe, full of craft and of guile ;
Before her, a long day of travel and toil.
“No time this for gazing,” said Laura, as near
To the sentry she drew.
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡“Halt ! you cannot pass here.”
“I cannot pass here ! Why sirrah you drowse,
Are you blind ? Don’t you see I am off to my cows.”
“Well, well you can go.” So she wended her way
To the pasture’s lone side, where the farthest cow lay,
Got her up, caught a teat, and with pail at her knees,
Made her budge, inch by inch, till she drew by degrees
To the edge of the forest. “I’ve hoaxed, on my word,
Both you and the sentry,” said Laura Secord.
With a lingering look at her home, then away
She sped through the wild wood—a wilderness gray—
Nature’s privacy, haunt of a virgin sublime
And the mother who bore her, as ancient as Time ;
Where the linden had space for its fans and its flowers,
The balsam its tents, and the cedar its bowers ;
Where the lord of the forest, the oak, had its realm,
The ash its domain, and its kingdom the elm ;
Where the pine bowed its antlers in tempests, and gave
To the ocean of leaves the wild dash of the wave,
And the mystical hemlock—The forest’s high-priest—
Hung its weird, raking, top-gallant branch to the east.
And denser and deeper the solitude grew,
The underwood thickened, and drenched her with dew ;
She tripped over moss-covered logs, fell, arose,
Sped, and stumbled again by the hour, till her clothes
Were rent by the branches, and thorns, and her feet
Grew tender and way-worn and blistered with heat.
And on, ever on, through the forest she passed,
Her soul in her task, but each pulse beating fast,
For shadowy forms seemed to flit from the glades
And beckon her into their limitless shades :
And mystical sounds—in the forest alone,
Ah! who has not heard them ?—the voices, the moan,
Or the sigh of mute nature, which sinks on the ear,
And fills us with sadness or thrills us with fear ?
And who, lone and lost, in the wilderness deep,
Has not felt the strange fancies, the tremors which creep,
And assemble within, till the heart ’gins to fail,
The courage to flinch, and the cheeks to grow pale,
’Midst the shadows which mantle the spirit that broods
In the sombre, the deep haunted heart of the woods ?
She stopped—it was noonday. The wilds she espied
Seemed solitudes numberless. “Help me !” she cried ;
Her piteous lips parched with thirst, and her eyes
Strained with gazing. The sun in his infinite skies
Looked down on no creature more hapless than she,
For woman is woman where’er she may be.
For a moment she faltered, then came to her side
The heroine’s spirit—the Angel of Pride.
One moment she faltered. Beware ! What is this ?
The coil of the serpent ! the rattlesnake’s hiss !
One moment, then onward, What sounds far and near ?
The howl of the wolf, yet she turned not in fear
Nor bent from her course, till her eye caught a gleam
From the woods of a meadow through which flowed a stream,
Pure and sweet with the savour of leaf and of flower.
By the night dew distilled, and the soft forest shower ;
Pure and cold as its spring in the rock crystalline,
Whence it gurgled and gushed ’twixt the roots of the pine.
And blessed above bliss is the pleasure of thirst,
Where there’s water to quench it ; for pleasure is nursed
In the cradle of pain, and twin marvels are they
Whose inter-dependence is born with our clay.
Yes, blessed is water, and blessed is thirst,
Where there’s water to quench it ; but this is the worst
Of this life, that we reck not the blessings God sends,
Till denied them. But Laura, who felt she had friends
In heaven as well as on earth, knew to thank
The giver of all things, and gratefully drank.
Once more on the pathway, through swamp and through mire,
Through covert and thicket, through bramble and brier,
She toiled to the highway, then over the hill,
And down the deep valley, and past the new mill,
And through the next woods, till, at sunset, she came
To the first British picket and murmured her name ;
Thence, guarded by Indians, footsore and pale
She was led to Fitzgibbon, and told him her tale.
For a moment her reason forsook her ; she raved,
She laughed, and she cried—“They are saved, they are saved !”
Then her senses returned, and with thanks loud and deep
Sounding sweetly around her she sank into sleep.
And Bœrstler came up, but his movements were known,
His force was surrounded, his scheme was o’erthrown
By a woman’s devotion—on stone be’t engraved—
The foeman was beaten and Burlington saved.
Ah ! faithful to death were our women of yore !
Have they fled with the past to be heard of no more ?
No, no ! Though this laurelled one sleeps in the grave,
We have maidens as true, we have matrons as brave ;
And should Canada ever be forced to the test—
To spend for our country the blood of her best !
When her sons lift the linstock and brandish the sword,
Her daughters will think of brave Laura Secord !
Source: Raise the Flag and Other Patriotic Canadian Songs and Poems. Toronto: Rose Publishing, 1891
Mair originally published this poem possibly in 1888 – the following was written in Grip, July 7, 1888:
The heroic conduct of Mrs. Laura Secord in apprising the British of the contemplated attack of Bœrstler’s forces in 1812, is once again made the subject of a poem, and this time the same hand that gave in Tecumseh, Vide the Week of June 21st. A first rate piece of work by a Canadian author is something uncommon enough to evoke enthusiasm, and the bard of Price Albert rarely fails to “do us proud.” After reading his latest we unanimously shout “Give us Mair, Charles, give us Mair!”
The full title of this epic poem is The Fredoniad; or, Independence Preserved. An Epic Poem on The Late War of 1812.
This is a poem in 40 cantos covering the entire War of 1812. This page contains the table of contents of each of the 4 volumes, and links to the full text of this poem found on the Hathi Trust.
The Fredoniad vol 1 Table of Contents. Click on the image to see larger
Source: Emmons, Richard. The Fredoniad; or, Independence Preserved. An Epic Poem on The Late War of 1812. 2nd ed. Philadelphia: W. Emmons, 1832
A discussion of this poem can be found in Severance, Frank H. Old Trails on the Niagara Frontier. Buffalo: The Matthews-Northrup Co., 1899 (Chapter entitled Niagara and the Poets) Available digitally by clicking here
