Poetry

like to a charm⁠—
And soon the breath it did return.
With gratitude his heart did burn,
To think he was again restored
Unto his friends, whom he adored;
But worse misfortunes him befell,
Yet he bears up ’neath troubles well.

Canada Our Home

1883.

The following response to “Canada, Our Home,” was given at a banquet of the Caledonian Society, Ingersoll:

Full oft we did enraptured hark
To heavenly song of the skylark.

Mrs. Moody

As we have given glances at various Canadian authors in this work, perhaps there is none more worthy than Mrs. Moody, whose vigorous pen was ever active in favor of Canada. She is a sister of the celebrated Agnes Strickland, author of “The Queens of England.” Mrs. Moody is enjoying reasonably fair health in Toronto. She was born in the beginning of the century.

When this country it was woody,
Its great champion Mrs. Moody,
Showed she had both pluck and push
In her work roughing in the bush.

For there alone she did dwell
At time McKenzie did rebel,
Outbreak her husband strove to quell,
Her own grand struggles she doth tell.

Round bush life she threw a glory,
Pioneer renowned in story,
But her tale it is more cheering
When she wrote about the clearing.

Her other sister Mrs. Traill10
Though eighty-seven she doth not fail,
She now is writing of wild flowers
Grown in Canada’s woody bowers.

Lines Addressed to an Old Bachelor

Addressed to Jonathan Wingle, Esq.

In summer time we roam o’er dingle,
But winter draws us round the ingle,
Why do you remain thus single,
When love would make two hearts tingle,
Pray, tell me why my dearest wingle,
With the fair you do not mingle,
Better with love ’neath cot of shingle,
Than all your yellow gold to jingle.

For married life you would enjoy,
And soon a little girl and boy,
They would your leisure hours employ,
At Christmas you could buy each toy,
And fill their little hearts with joy,
For their amusements never cloy,
Business cares do men annoy,
Child’s happiness knows no alloy.

Brantford

In these sketches of towns in Southern Ontario we are not vain enough to suppose that because we have produced some lines thereon that said rhymes are poetry. If we furnish an occasional poetic gleam like a dewdrop sparkling in the sun, it is all we dare hope for.

Brantford as thriving city’s famed,
And after Indian Chief is named,
And here the sparkling Grand River
It doth flow a joy forever.

Campbell he sang a dismal tale
Of horrors of Wyoming’s vale,
The tale one’s mind doth ever haunt,
The cruelties of monster Brant.

But the Chief’s son to England went
And Campbell to him did lament,
And all the tale he did recant
About cruel butcheries of Brant.

Now pleasant thoughts it doth awake
When Brantford thinks of her namesake,
She evermore with pride will chant
The bold heroic name of Brant.

We sing of two great Indian names,
Tecumseh on the banks of Thames,
And the Grand River it doth vaunt
O’er the historic name of Brant.

The city’s pride it doth find vent
In building him a monument,
And Indians will proudly stalk
Past memorial of great Mohawk.

The Power of Steam

We now do sing a new theme,
It is prodigious power of steam;
And our little fast steam horse,
How he works with mighty force.

Instead of hay and oats, we thrust
In his mouth chips and saw dust;
Which heats the blood in his veins,
Then how he saws and bores and plains.

He’s never troubled with the botts,
But all the time he gaily trotts,
And every day he is full able
To make many a chair and table.

Work for him is only sport,
He feels so good he oft does snort,
As he trotts along his course,
Our little frolicksome steam horse.

Lines on Thorold

McCready, the great Irish tragedian, said that the view from Thorold was the finest in America.

Thorold is famous for its mills,
And the grand view from off its hills,
A view so charming and extended,
Nature’s beauties sweetly blended.

Poetic thoughts it doth awake
To view Ontario’s broad lake,
And husbandmen have their reward in
Fruits of this Provincial garden.

For from the hill you see below
Gardens where choice fruits do grow,
The landscape all within your reach
Doth both produce the grape and peach.

McCready said in the New World
The finest view was from Thorold,
You see St. Catharines thriving town
And steamers sailing up and down.

And you can see on a clear day
All along Toronto Bay,
And you clearly see the haze
Where Niagara doth amaze.

And glance where Grimsby’s gardens yield
Or view Beamsville’s fruitful field,
Then this thought you can advance,
This is Canada’s sunny France.

You see Niagara’s ancient town11
Though it has lost us old renown,
And you have a splendid view
Of boats on old canal and new.

Musings on the Northwest

Domestic cattle quiet will graze where now the Buffalos roam and in spots now covered o’er with Indian wigwams, where white men never trod cities will occupy their sites with busy trade and millions flock from eastern lands to take possession of the great Northwest. Then Winnipeg perchance may be the capital of the Dominion. In the day foretold when this indeed shall be the “Greater Britain” with Ontario’s towns for workshops for this vast prairie land.

“Then poets will arise and high their lays will soar,
Worthy of the muse of a Burns or a Moore,”
A Shakespeare and a Milton, the great and the wise,
Will sing of the glories of our northern skies,
Of its lakes and rivers and its mountains grand,
Of its fertile plains and great prairie land,
A fit theme for song this empire gigantic,
Whose arms stretch from Pacific to Atlantic.

Crimean War

At the announcement that Britain was to declare war Kossuth the Hungarian Patriot declared in an address in England that the British Lion was a sea dog but helpless on land.

When the British Lion offered aid to the Turk,
Round many lips a sneer of serious doubt did lurk,
They said he was at home on sea, but when on land
He would be as a ship wrecked upon the strand,
Or like some huge ungainly crocodile
Upon the marshy banks of sluggish Nile,
Who could move gaily on the deep
But on dry land