Friday, July 1, 2011

O Canada ...






O Canada! Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.




With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North, strong and free!
From far and wide, O Canada,
We stand on guard for thee.


God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.





O Canada! Where pines and maples grow.
Great prairies spread and lordly rivers flow.
How dear to us thy broad domain,
From East to Western Sea,


Thou land of hope for all who toil!
Thou True North, strong and free!



God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.


O Canada! Beneath thy shining skies
May stalwart sons and gentle maidens rise,
To keep thee steadfast through the years
From East to Western Sea,

REUTERS / Chris Wattie
Our own beloved native land!
Our True North, strong and free!



God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.



Ruler supreme, who hearest humble prayer,
Hold our dominion within thy loving care;
Help us to find, O God, in thee
A lasting, rich reward,
As waiting for the Better Day,
We ever stand on guard.




God, keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.


REUTERS / Blair Gable
Canada's Governor General David Johnston (L), Britain's Prince William, his wife Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and Canada's Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Jason Kenney (R) pose with new Canadian citizens following a citizenship ceremony at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Hull, Quebec near Ottawa July 1, 2011.  (NP)


(Except for REUTERS photographers noted, pictures are Deborah Ironside's and my own)

6 comments:

  1. One of KI's Three AmigosJuly 1, 2011 at 1:29 PM

    Good to see you put me with some good company! Thanks Karyn….your boys seem to be enjoying some of your tea…if we can only do it once a year it’s worth it!

    Happy Canada to the team! Enjoy the day off…we don’t get enough of them.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Beautiful captures of Canada, within the National anthem.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Best Wishes from England....Hope you all had a great day...Best Wishes to you and all the Ironside Family xx

    ReplyDelete
  4. Karyn loved your Canada Day Blog, especially the picture of the three stooges/three musketeers. Where do the extra verses for O, Canada originate?

    ReplyDelete
  5. They were written by a judge named R Stanley Weir in 1908. I think they're pretty beautiful and always regret a little bit that they are not more known.

    Here's my take on them from last year (you might have to copy and paste the link). There's a beautiful picture of a train that I wish I could ride on. And of course, HM Queen Elizabeth II was here:

    http://nilgiristeahouse.blogspot.com/2010/07/o-canada-reuters-chris-wattie-o-canada.html

    ReplyDelete
  6. I enjoyed your montage of pictures among the words of Mr. Weir, many of them much more poetic and appropriate to our image of the land than what has evolved over the past politically correct times ...

    Getting back to our national anthem, I notice you inserted the phrase “hold our dominion within thy loving care.” For about 100 years after 1867, July 1 was celebrated as Dominion Day. Pierre Trudeau thought dominion was passé because it wasn’t bilingual. It was also smacked of supremacy of the national government over the provincials, and that was (and is) contrary to how our federal system of government was evolving. He gave us Canada Day, which it certainly is, but it misses the history and the connotations both political and biblical embodied by dominion. On the maps of my youth, our country was the Dominion of Canada. Leading up to the passage of the BNA Act, Sir John A proposed that the Kingdom of Canada was a fitting name. The British prime minister thought kingdom would be a red flag to the Americans who, at that juncture (1866), had a huge Union army which had just vanquished the Confederate States (for whom the Brits had held some sympathy). It was Leonard Tilley, a New Brunswick delegate to the Canadian party shepherding the confederation articles in London, who offered the more appeasing dominion, having just at the eve of that day’s deliberations read the evocative phrase in Psalm 72 verse 8, “And he shall have dominion also from sea to sea” in his daily Bible reading. I miss Dominion Day.

    ReplyDelete

I love to hear from you! Please leave me a leaf to read ...