The Battle of Ridgeway: 150 Years

Verse for this day, the sesquicentenary of the Battle of Ridgeway, by Archibald McKillop, the Blind Bard of Megantic, taken from his Collected Verse (Winnipeg: n.p., n.d.).

ONTARIO’S BRAVE DEFENDERS

(Suggested by the monument to those who fell at Ridgeway)

                              No cooler spread the maple shade
                                   By great Ontario’s waters,
                              Nor ever marshalled truer men
                                   The pride of wives and daughters,
                              Than on the day we lent our ear
                                   To news and rumour vendors.
                              To arms! To arms! the foe is near,
                                   Ontario’s Brave Defenders!

                              Then forward sped with dauntless tread
                                   Our troops, the bugle sounding,
                              To rally by their battle-drums
                                   The British flag surrounding.
                              No patriot or volunteer
                                   One cherished right surrenders.
                              To arms! To arms! the foe is near,
                                   Ontario’s Brave Defenders!

                              By war’s alarms when called to arms
                                   Went sternly forth to duty
                              A true, a tried, heroic band,
                                   The pride of worth and beauty;
                              When parting kiss or falling tear
                                   Foreboding thought engenders,
                              'Twas thus we felt when foes were near,
                                   Ontario’s Brave Defenders.

                              But never yet can we forget
                                   The kind farewells they bade us,
                              Those dear loved ones, who fought and fell
                                   By Ridgeway’s lengthened shadows.
                              The trump of war resounding clear —
                                   To rout the raid-pretenders
                              They rose to arms, our volunteers,
                                   Ontario’s Brave Defenders.

                              They come, they come, with muffled drum,
                                   The victor host returning;
                              A pall is spread around the dead,
                                   The country wrapped in mourning.
                              And lo! This sculptured stone appears,
                                   The gift a nation renders
                              To those departed volunteers,
                                   Ontario’s Brave Defenders.

                              And while we weep for those who sleep,
                                   And grateful mem’ries cherish,
                              From Canada, true Freedom’s shore,
                                   Let all invaders perish!
                              For nobler far than lords or peers
                                   Or knighted court-attenders,
                              Our true, our loyal volunteers,
                                   Ontario’s Brave Defenders.

                              And suns may gleam on lake and stream
                                   In peaceful calm reposing,
                              All echoes die beyond the hills
                                   When daylight’s eye is closing; —
                             But should the tocsin wake our ears
                                  Amid these glowing splendours,
                             To arms will rise our volunteers,
                                  Ontario’s Brave Defenders!

A Bonus:

The St. Catharines Constitutional
7 June 1866

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'A Tribute to St. Mary's [sic], Ontario'

Dawn on the River Thames, St Marys, Ontario (detail)
Anyès Kadowaki Busby
2016

This month marks the eighth anniversary of our move from downtown Vancouver to the picturesque town of St Marys, Ontario. As a young Montrealer longing to live in Manhattan I would've been horrified. In my thirty-second year, when my wife and I moved west to Vancouver, I complained that the city was too small. And yet here we are, living in community that isn't an eighth the size of my alma mater.

I wouldn't have it any other way. The Montreal I love seems increasingly foreign. The city will always be my true home, but it's becoming difficult to negotiate. Visits, which aren't at all infrequent, find me frustrated in looking to dine at restaurants that no longer exist and shop in stores that have long since closed. Other old haunts have been remade, remodelled and propelled out of price range.

No complaints. Montreal is the greatest city in North America.

Manhattan?

What was I thinking?

That said, St Marys has a growing place in my heart. It's here we've made a home for ourselves – in a large Victorian Italianate, overlooking the Canadian Thames, dwarfed by the town's Presbyterian Church.

I'm not the first Quebecer to fall for this small town. In the nineteenth century, Megantic's foremost Son of Temperance, Archibald McKillop, recognized "beautiful St. Mary's [sic]" in his "A Tribute to St Mary's [sic], Ontario".

"Such scenery nowhere is / For many leagues around", writes the poet.

Now consider this: Archibald McKillop was blind.

Such is St Marys' beauty!

The poem in its entirety follows.

A TRIBUTE TO ST. MARY’S, ONTARIO

                           Where beautiful St. Mary’s
                                Lies nestling ’mongst the hills,
                           The pleasing prospect rare is,
                                Its grandeur me enthrills. 

                           From flow’ry gardens nigh me
                                The balmy breezes blow;
                           The classic Thames runs by me
                                With peaceful, gentle flow. 

                           What kindly, friendly greetings
                                Have cheered me on its shore;
                           And O! such temperance meetings
                                I’ve never seen before. 

                           Good Affleck, Pierce and Manning,
                                Carswell and Watson too,
                           With famous Ross were planning
                                What temperance men should do. 

                           (For here, in Grand Division,
                                The Sons of Temperance met,
                           To work for Prohibition,
                                The law that we must get.) 

                           Thou town of peerless beauty;
                                 Ye friends so kind to me;
                           It is my pleasant duty
                                 To sing this eulogy. 

                           Such scenery nowhere is
                                 For many leagues around;
                           And in this fair St. Mary’s
                                 Let peace and wealth abound.

Collected Verse
Archibald McKillop
Winnipeg: [n.p.], [c. 1913]

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Temperance Verse for New Year's Day

The Montreal Witness, 3 January 1894

THE PLEBISCITE VOTE IN ONTARIO, 1894

It was 1894, ere the New Year's Day was o'er,
     Noble Temperance workers gave a telling vote;
"Prohibition right away," was the watchword of the day,
     For the country's weel they knew it would promote.

          Joy! Joy! Clear the way before us,
          High, high wave the banner o'er us.
          From Atlantic's dashing roar to the far Pacific shore
          Sound the joyous Temperance triumph evermore.

While the people's voice is heard be the whole Dominion stirred,
     Deal destruction both to Licence and Saloon;
Full two hundred thousand strong join the great triumphant song,
     Oh, the better time is surely coming soon!

          Joy! Joy! Clear the way before us,
          High, high wave the banner o'er us.
          From Atlantic's dashing roar to the far Pacific shore
          Sound the joyous Temperance triumph evermore.

By the tens of thousands dead, by the tears of living shed,
     We adjure you to secure the boon we seek!
For the rulers can't refuse if you all your ballots use.
     They must harken to the people when they speak.

          Joy! Joy! Clear the way before us,
          High, high wave the banner o'er us.
          From Atlantic's dashing roar to the far Pacific shore
          Sound the joyous Temperance triumph evermore.

Grateful then to gracious Heaven for the signal victory given
     We will never cease to work and plead for more:
Strong in union, toil and pray for the dawning of the day
     When the traffic shall be swept from every shore.

          Joy! Joy! Clear the way before us,
          High, high wave the banner o'er us.
          From Atlantic's dashing roar to the far Pacific shore
          Sound the joyous Temperance triumph evermore.


Words of joy – Joy! Joy! – from Archibald McKillop, "The Blind Bard of the Megantic", inspired by the successful, though entirely ineffective, Ontario Prohibition Plebiscite of 1 January 1894.

We twenty-first century Canadians know that rulers rarely "harken to the people when they speak."

Archibald McKillop
"The Blind Bard of Megantic"
 1824 - 1905
Author of
Rhymes for the Times
Temperance Odes and Miscellaneous Poems
and
The Flood of Death; or,  The Malt that Lay in the House that Jack Built

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A New Year

Immature Verse for the New Year

An Old Poem for the New Year by Arthur Stringer