Classic Poem

A pleasant city on a boundless plain,
Around rich land where peace and plenty reign;
A legal camp, the province wisdom's home,
A rich cathedral, learning's splendid dome;
A teeming mart, wide streets, broad squares, bright flowers,
A marble figure whence a fountain showers—
What city's this? A gentle princess, famed
For happy genius, it Regina named.
Its youth—(though born beneath a happy star)—
Was stormy, and each cur, from near and far,
Bark'd at the town; each ribald loudly talked,
Hirelings—projectors whose vile plans were balked.
They lied, they swore; loud was the ceaseless bray;
Reginans smiled—Regina held her way,
The while traducers perished one by one.
And fate o'ertook each guilty mother's son.
Failing to bleed the tenderfoot, they bled
Themselves, or like their sires by hempen thread
Expired; and Winnipeg the city where
They lived and died, soon perished like a pear
That had the yellows. Long the Times is dead;
The Sun has set; the Free Press ' days are fled;
The lot of one wild scribbler stands alone;
The gods in anger turned him into stone,
And by an irony Ned called “divilish quare,”
Made him a fountain in Regina's square,
And there he stands—no wonder you're amused—
Spouting the water he so oft abused.