Old Version
The allusion to Woodstock in the following was a good description of the Town about the year 1860. It was then a long narrow Town with a great deal more length than breadth, but it is now one of the finest Towns of the Province, and to its many fine structures soon will be added a magnificent Court House, worthy of the County of Oxford. The eyes of the whole world were directed towards the Town where Birchall was confined, tried and executed in the year 1890, for the murder of young Benwell, to which event we refer further on.
We love to sing of classic names—
Even if we choose a borrowed plume—
Our theme, the Valley of the Thames,
Where man may yet find ample room.
It is not of old England’s river,
Covered o’er with many a mast;
But where Cabot did discover
The land of lakes and forests vast.
Although we have historic claims,
Yet them we now do lay aside;
We pass the battle of the Thames, 24
Where foreign foe did fiercely ride.
We do not sing the graceful dames,
No more than the fierce battle’s shock;
We merely trace old English names,
Beginning first with the Woodstock.
England’s Woodstock had a palace
None was raised up grander, stronger;
Canadian Woodstock without malice,
We may say your streets by far the longer. 25
Yet you are Oxford’s County Town,
And can boast a fine new college,
Which with old age may some day frown,
Like Old England’s seat of knowledge
The next in order we enroll
Is Westminster and Middlesex,
With London for it capitol—
These names a Cockney do perplex.
Each familiar name doth greet thee!
Its bridges, markets, and its halls;
All things in the Forest City
Bears English names, even to St. Pauls’.
The next in order we do trace,
Is Chatham—once a famed resort—
For there the bloodhound dared not chase,
Nor tear good colored men from sport.
And now our verse draws to a close,
Because beyond the County Kent
The Thames by name no longer flows,
But in the lake it finds a vent.