Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 78 pages of information about Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants.

Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 78 pages of information about Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants.

In such a gay and festive scene as this,
My worthy friends, it may not be amiss
To mingle with the general notes of glee,
A rhyme or too, even if not poesy. 
Indulge me while in rude unpolished verse,
The promptings of the muse I now rehearse,
And O! deal gently with me while I try
To bring the vanished past before your eye,
Fond recollections rapidly takes wing
The fading scenes of other days to sing,
The good old days, the dear old times of yore,
Which you and I, alas! shall see no more: 
When all around the spot on which I stand
Was trackless forest and primeval land—­
The “Barrack Hill,” a wilderness all o’er,
And Lower Town to Rideau’s ancient shore
A gloomy cedar swamp, the haunt of deer,
In which the ruffed grouse drum’d when spring was near,
While here and there a giant pine on high
Towered with its spreading branches to the sky! 
I have the little village in my eye,
Before the locks were built by Colonel By,
Before the Sappers threw the ponderous arch,
O’er the Canal, to aid improvement’s march,
Ere by the muscular canaller’s spade
The ground was broken where the “Deep Cut’s” made—­
Long ere the iron bond of union span’d
The vast Kah-nah-jo, wonder of our land! 
Here mighty Ottawa, in its grandest phase
Bears some resemblance to its better days,
Ere sawdust, slabs, and stern improvement gave
A turbid deathstroke to its limpid wave! 
That good old time, ’tis pleasant to recal,
When one religion almost served for all—­
When men together could in friendship join—­
When battered buttons passed for genuine coin—­
And silver pieces, do not think it strange,
Were cut in too, and four, to make small change,
When banks were few, suspensions heard of not,
And specie was the only cash we got,
Hard silver with no discount on our dollars,
Ere brokers reigned, or flourished paper collars. 
Tho’ dim the light of learning’s genial rays
Amongst the masses in those bygone days—­
Tho’ daily papers, modern luxury’s food,
The bold apostles of the public good,
The tribunes of the people were not found
On guard our infant liberties around,
Tho’ institutions based on mental light,
Shed scanty radiance o’er that primal night,
Tho’ science, wealth and philosophic lore
Were rara aves upon Ottawa’s shore;
Tho’ commerce scarce had spread her gilded wings,
The herald of a costlier state of things;
Tho’ such an institution as our own,
Was to our early pioneers unknown,
An institution, let me say, in short,
Worthy of every patriot’s support;
Established on a comprehensive base. 
Where every man of worth may find his place—­
temple of intelligence to give
To mind the sustenance on which to live,
Tho’ all such modern glories then were rare,
Yet old Bytonians did not badly fare. 
Churches were few in that benighted time,

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Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.