Who took the sword fell by the sword,
This man was born to show,
How thoughts would win where steel had failed
One hundred years ago
By force the patriot tried in vain
To stem oppression's might,
This man arose and won the cause,
By pleading for the right.
He stood to plead for liberty
On Dunedin's Calton-hill;
No man had ever greater power
To move men's hearts at will
Erin, without name, senate, flag,
This, her advocate and son,
Pleaded for those who tried and lost,
With those who tried and won
He stood to ask for justice,
For ruth and mercy's grace,
For a people of another faith,
And of another race
He stood on ground made holy
By resistance unto wrong,
And Scotia's freemen gathered round,
Full twenty thousand strong
And rock and distant city,
The broad Forth gliding clear,
Yea, every heath-clad hill-top
Had hushed itself to hear,
From the shades of hero martyrs
Of patriotic fame,
From the land they thought worth fighting for,
High inspiration came
He won the cause he strove for,
With bold undaunted brow,
And his name and fame roll brightening on
Along the years till now,
All honour to his memory,
May his words, where'er they fall,
Bring forth the love of liberty,
And equal rights to all
WE LAMENT NOT FOR ONE BUT MANY
'At last he is dead'
So the wondering, horror-struck neighbours said,
A skilful touch of his knife
Has cut the thread of a wasted life
He has reached the end of the downward road,
And rushed unbidden to meet his God,
Over every duty past every tie,
Unwarned, unhindered, he rushed along,
Through the wild license of sin, and wrong,
And into the silent eternity
Relax thy anguished watch, O wife
And fold thy hands—and yet—and yet,
After all the tears which thou hast wept,
Through nights when happier mortals slept,
Thou only wilt weep with fond regret,
Over the corpse of the hopeless dead
For the cause accursed, of drink he has bled,
For that cause he lived and suffered and died
Many deaths in one horrible life,—
The death of his honour, the death of his pride,
On that altar he sacrificed child and wife
Hope, liberty, purity, more than life
Lifes life, God's image, he crushed and killed,
Tore and defaced, wasted and spoiled,
Uncurbed in passion, iron willed,
For this long years he has laboured and toiled,
Devoted his talents, his time his breath,
And at the last his blood he has shed
Truly the wages of sin is death
He was once a babe on a mother's breast,
Tenderly nourished, cared for, caressed
Watched with a mother's love and pride
Dreams of the future warm and bright,
High hopes ambitions in rainbow light
Clustered around him a fairy swarm
Of tender fancies sweet and warm,
As she hung over his cradle bed,
In all this world there's none so bright,
So clever as mother's heart's delight
My child of promise," she proudly said
Oh would to God that he then had died
Died when the anguish of heartstrings torn,
The sudden stilling of childish laughter,
The awful vacance that fills the place
Of the soft, warm touch, of the dear, dear face,
Of the sweet dead child that the heart gropes after
For God's own voice to the mourner saith,
"Be still, I am God, there is hope in his death'