a home
So the wild deer might roam,
With grief he then did toss
Every night Donald Ross,
And sad seemed the morrow
For his wife and sma’ Flora.
O it was a cruel deed
But nobles do not heed
The sorrows of the poor
Drove on a barren moor,
Where he wove a wreath
Of the blooming heath,
For to crown with glory
The brow of little Flory.
He then bade farewell
To his mountain dell,
Where his fathers appears
Had lived a thousand years,
With their few goats and sheep
Which feed on hills so steep,
O it was a sad story
For bonnie little Flory.
He sought a distant strand,
In Canada bought land,
To him a glorious charm
To view his own broad farm,
His horses and his cows,
Cultivators and plows,
And now his daughter Flora
She is the flower of Zorra.
Port Burwell
About a quarter of a century ago, when Port Burwell was a busy, thriving place, several friends accompanied me to thQ port to attend a concert, we all being specially invited. It was in the winter, and there had been a race on the ice, in which the Port Burwell horse took the lead. We gave a local piece of some length, but only retain now a few lines. The people at the concert were highly pleased with the effusion.
In winter time who here resort,
To pay a visit to your busy port,
They must be clad in fur well,
For it blows cold at Burwell;
But when you wish to trot your horse
You make Lake Erie your race course,
And we believe at every heat
All other horses you do beat.
Lines on T. D. McGee
Having been kindly invited as a member of the Mechanics’ Institute some 20 years ago by the late Jeremiah O’Neill, Esq., to meet that gentleman in company with a number of our townsmen, when Mr. McGee was rising from the table the chair being new stuck to him, and it being near a general election he very wittily remarked that he hoped the people of Montreal would be as anxious to retain him in his seat as the people here are. We wrote the following lines at the time, the last verse was added afterwards.
DeArcy McGee,
All compliment thee,
The hope of the land
On your lecture so grand.
Though that is your forte,
Oh give us the sport
Of an hour of your chat,
Then we’ll laugh and grow fat.
For none but the vile
Could ’ere cease to smile,
When near to thee
So brilliant and free.
Plant of green Erin’s isle,
Long in Canadian soil,
May you take deep root
And bear much noble fruit.
Our hopes were in vain,
Alas he is slain,
By a crankish hand
The flower of the land.
From the long continuous rains
O’erflowing were the swamps and drains,
For each day had its heavy shower,
Torrents fell for many an hour;
At London where two branches join
It seem’d two furies did combine,
For to spread far both death and woe,
With their wild, raging overflow;
E’en houses did on waters float,
As though each had been built for boat,
And where was wealth and joy and bloom,
Soon naught but inmates of the tomb;
Flood o’erflowed both vale and ridges,
And swept railroads, dams and bridges,
A mother climbed in tree to save
Her infant from a watery grave,
But on the house you saw its blood
Where it was crushed ’gainst tree by flood;
Where cottages ’mong gardens stood
’Tis covered o’er with vile drift wood,
O’er flowers and bushes you may travel
For they are buried under gravel,
Or you may walk o’er barren sand,
The crops washed out and fertile land;
Two funerals we at once did see
Of one family who lost three;
No longer river’s deep and wide
But gently flows to distant tide.
London West
While the Thames meanders gently through the green pasture fields of Ingersoll, a pleasing picture to behold, how different, alas, is the feeling in London West, where the river is an object of dread and terror, neither pleasing to the eye or nostrils. As we have been living for the last quarter of a century on the edge of one of the tributary streams of the Thames and were once o’erwhelmed with ruin dire by a number of the dams giving way, we can sympathise with them. They are now built strong and substantial, and the ponds are an ornament to the town, as well as a source of wealth. The Caledonian Society, of Ingersoll, donated $50 to the flood sufferers.
The citizens of London West
Their patience oft is put to test
When they behold the various dams
Do cause the floods and the ice jams.
’Tis true that fiercer rages floods
Since country it was stript of woods,
Acid river it doth broader spread
With numerous tile drains quicker fed.
If they did raise embankment high
They might the raging floods defy.
Shall they with sadness gaze ever,
Or with gladness on the river?
River with dams it will not wed,
It wants no strangers in its bed,
And ’gainst them it will rage and fret
For ’tis no gentle rivulet.
Lines on Stratford6
Our Canadian county Perth,
Commemorates great bard of earth,
Stratford and Avon both are here,
And they enshrine the name Shakespeare.
For here in Stratford every ward
Is named from dramas of great bard,
Here you may roam o’er Romeo,
Or glance on Juliet bestow.
And it is a railway centre,
Many a train doth here enter,
And railroad shops do men employ,
And gives them work and wealth and joy.
English Names on Canadian Thames7
England has given us the names
To adorn Canadian Thames,
And charms to them she has lent
In Oxford, Middlesex and Kent,
She Essex kisseth in her mouth,
And Scottish names, one north, one south,
And London now it justly claims
’Tis capital of vale of Thames,
And her strong castellated tower
Doth on the river frowning lower,
And Chatham is the river’s port,
There slaves for freedom did resort,
And they did industrious toil,
And now many own the soil,
Stratford now shall be our theme,
On Avon tributary stream,
And its clear waters it doth launch
Into the Thames northern branch,
Near that substantial stone town
St. Mary’s with mills of renown,
Westward it winds past each town,
Growing broader as it flows down,
Onward it
