Un Canadien Errant

Whitehorse: Un Canadien Errant

Un Canadien errant,
Banni de ses foyers,
Parcourait en pleurant
Des pays étrangers.
Un jour, triste et pensif,
Assis au bord des flots,
Au courant fugitif
Il adressa ces mots:
"Si tu vois mon pays,
Mon pays malheureux,
Va, dis à mes amis
Que je me souviens d'eux.
"Ô jours si pleins d'appas
Vous êtes disparus,
Et ma patrie, hélas!
Je ne la verrai plus!
"Non, mais en expirant,
Ô mon cher Canada!
Mon regard languissant
Vers toi se portera..."
--Antoine Gérin-Lajoie (1842)


Leonard Cohen: Un Canadien Errant


Nana Mouskouri: Un Canadien Errant

A Canadian wandering afar,
Banished from hearth and home,
Would gaze at the northern star
And weep in the strange lands he roamed.
One day, with thoughts full of woe,
He sat by the river’s edge.
To the fugitive current below,
These are the words that he said:
If you see my country some day,
My country in sorrow’s thrall,
Go tell my friends faraway
That I remember them all.
O days of charm you have passed,
You vanished like summer rain.
And my fatherland, alas!
I never will see you again.
No, but on my dying day
These eyes will be filled with tears
As my longing look turns your way,
O Canada, ever so dear.
--Brian C. Puckett (2011)


Bonnie Dobson; Un Canadien Errant