Monument To Irish Emigrants Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A B CDEDFF GHIHJJ KLMLNN JOPOJJ QRSRTT UGIGIV| It will be in the recollection of many of our readers that during the famine years of and there was an unusual emigration from Ireland to Canada and the United States Numbers of those who thus left their native land expired from ship fever caused by utter exhaustion before they reached the American continent others only arrived there to die of that fatal disease The Canadian Government made extensive efforts to save the lives of the poor emigrants A large proportion were spared but at Montreal where the Government erected temporary hospitals on an immense scale upwards of of these poor people died Their remains were interred close to the hospitals at a place that is now mainly covered with railway buildings and in close proximity to the point whence the Victoria Bridge projects into the St Lawrence All traces of the sad events of that disastrous period would have been obliterated but for the warm and reverential impulses of Mr James Hodges the engineer and representative of Messrs Peto Brassey Betts in Canada Through his instrumentality and by his encouragement the workmen at the bridge came to the determination of erecting a monument on the spot where the poor Irish emigrants were interred An enormous granite boulder of a rough conical shape weighing tons was dug up in the vicinity and was placed on a base of cut stone masonry twelve feet square by six feet high The stone bears the following inscription To preserve from desecration the remains of emigrants who died from ship fever in and this monument is erected by workmen in the employment of Messrs Peto Brassey Betts engaged in the construction of the Victoria Bridge Several addresses were delivered on the occasion and in the course of that made by the Bishop of Montreal he alluded in feeling terms to the many good deeds for which the Dame of his friend Mr James Hodges will be gratefully remembered in Canada Thanks to the latter the plot of ground on which the monument is raised is set apart for ever so that the remains of those interred there will henceforth be sacred from any irreverent treatment | A |
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| THE EMIGRANTS' MONUMENT AT POINT ST CHARLES | B |
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| A kindly thought a generous deed | C |
| Ye gallant sons of toil | D |
| No nobler trophy could ye raise | E |
| On your adopted soil | D |
| Than this monument to your kindred dead | F |
| Who sleep beneath in their cold dark bed | F |
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| Like you they left their fatherland | G |
| And crossed th' Atlantic's foam | H |
| To seek for themselves a new career | I |
| And win another home | H |
| But alas for hearts that had beat so high | J |
| They reached the goal but only to die | J |
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| Let no rich worldling dare to say | K |
| For them why should we grieve | L |
| But paupers came they to our shores | M |
| Want sickness death to leave | L |
| Each active arm jail of power and health | N |
| And each honest heart was a mine of wealth | N |
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| 'Twas a mournful end to day dreams high | J |
| A sad and fearful doom | O |
| To exchange their fever stricken ships | P |
| For the loathsome typhus tomb | O |
| And ere they had smiled at Canada's sky | J |
| On this stranger land breathe their dying sigh | J |
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| The strong man in the prime of life | Q |
| Struck down in one short hour | R |
| The loving wife the rose cheeked girl | S |
| Fairer than opening flower | R |
| The ardent youth with fond hopes elate | T |
| O'ertaken all by one common fate | T |
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| Long since forgotten here they rest | U |
| Sons of a distant land | G |
| The epochs of their short career | I |
| Mere footprints on life's sand | G |
| But this stone will tell through many a year | I |
| They died on our shores and they slumber here | V |
Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
(1)
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