Classic Poem

LANDLORD, take a double fee, and let the banquet slide,
Send the viands, send the wine to cheer the poor outside,
Turn the glasses upside down, leave the room alight,
Let the flower-strown tables stand glittering all the night.

Everybody’s friend is gone, hushed his gentle mirth,

Sweeter-hearted comrade soul none shall know on earth,
Burly body, manly mind, upright lifted head,
Viking eyes and smiling lips—Dr. Drummond’s dead!

For the Club, for the feast, and for the busy street
Primal natural airs he brought, oh, so fresh and sweet,

Brattling rivers, gleaming lakes, wild-flower forest floors,
To heal the City’s weary heart with balms of out-of-doors.

But where the campfire-litten boughs swing swaying overhead,
And wondering wolf and lynx shrill wild the boding of their dread,
And strangely through the moony night the hooting owlets roam,

His tones would yearn in gladsome talk about the doors of Home.

In sympathy with every pain of all who bear the yoke,
There was a natural piety in all he wrote and spoke,
He warmed with Irish pride in deeds defying Might’s strong host,
Yet ever shared the Saxon sense for ruling at the roast.


He bore the poet’s shifting heart that puts itself in place
Of every humble kindly soul it knows of every race,

He felt their sorrow as their joy, but chose the strain to cheer
And help the differing breeds to share one patriot feeling here.

There was no better loyalist than this whose humors played

In pleasant human wise to serve the State two races made—
O Landlord, turn the glasses down, and leave the room alight,
And let the flower-sweet silence tell his shade our grief to-night.