The Petition to Ottawa

Pity the sorrows of some Union men,
Whose unwise steps have borne them to your door;
Whose days politically are but a span,
0 give relief! And tax our bread no more.

Those scattered ranks, extremety bespeaks,
Those Customs locks do justify the Antis fears;
And many a furrow in our grief worn cheeks
Has been the channel to a flood of tears.

You have erected on the rising ground
With ‘miles of cornice’, drew me from the road;
These sinecures a residence have found,
And grandeur a magnificent abode.

Hard is the fate of fishermen and poor,
Here as our members voted taxes off our bread,
Saw Canadians growing corn around their door
From produce of my farms they shall be fed.

O! take us to your hospitable dome,
Keen blows the opposition wind and cold;
Short is our passage to the friendly tomb,
Our cause is poor and we arc badly sold.

Pity the sorrows of poor Union men,
Whose blinded steps have borne them to your door;
Whose days politically are but a span,
O! grant respite and tax our corn no more.

Anon. Morning Chronicle, January 2, 1868

Muise, D.A. “Some Nova Scotian Poets of Confederation” Dalhousie Review, Volume 50, Number 1, 1970 https://dalspace.library.dal.ca/bitstream/handle/10222/59368/dalrev_vol50_iss1_pp71_82.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y