Hear David MacKenzie perform The Hon. Wm. Hamilton Merritt
If, in thy wanderings o’er this beauteous earth,
A solemn thought should contemplate the doom
Of minds inheriting intrinsic worth,
Go mark the spot where Merritt lies entombed ![i]
An active life, the path he sought aright
For his adopted country ;—through each change
He watched its progress with intense delight ;
His mind capacious took expansive range.
A wilderness around his boyish days,
When first he strolled through woods so dense, so green ;
He lived to see vast schemes matured, and gazed
With pride and admiration o’er the scene
The Lakes’ bold shores, the angry waters stayed,
Were altered in their course by one grand plan ;
After comingling opened wide a trade
And commerce vast to high-aspiring man.
Still incomplete to meet his restless eye,
Which ever beamed with generous emotion,
He soared beyond a bright Canadian sky
To carry on our commerce o’er the ocean.
But Death, that intervenes to mar our hopes,
Cut short his measures for the country’s weal ;
A funeral dirge at last, in moving tropes,
Proclaimed at large what all survivors feel.
The loss of one so useful in his day,
A chasm left that none can e’er supply ;
The mourners walk abroad, and wend their way
Each to respective homes, to heave a sigh,
Exclaiming, “Truly, wonderful is death !—
A silent monitor to each from birth—
A power that robs the human race of breath,
And levels giant minds to mother earth.”
May men of talent still that path pursue,
Which our departed friend so wisely loved ;
Walk in his footsteps, with the self-same view,
And ultimately rest rewarded above.[ii]
[i] The Hon. William Hamilton Merritt is buried at Victoria Lawn Cemetery, St. Catharines.[ii] The last line of a newspaper clipping of this poem has been amended, penned in Coventry’s hand, to read, “And ultimately meet reward above.” An error in the fourth line, which has here been corrected, was presumably not noticed: the printed version reads “sport”, not “spot”. (St. Catharines Constitutional, 17 July 1862, 3; Library and Archives Canada, George Coventry fonds, MG24-K2, vol. 15, 374).
“The Hon. Wm. Hamilton Merritt”: St. Catharines Constitutional, 17 July 1862, 3. In the collection of Library and Archives Canada, George Coventry Fonds, MG24-K2 vol. 15, 374.
Published in Spirit of the Big Ditch: The Story of the Welland Canals in Pictures, Poems and Songs. Compiled, edited and annotated by Robert Ratcliffe Taylor. St. Catharines: The Historical Society of St. Catharines, 2024
David MacKenzie:
actor, musician, playwright
author of “Don’t Tell ‘Em You’re Irish”, a play about the workers on the first Welland Canal
portrayed the Hon. William Hamilton Merritt from 1979 to 2004
The Historical Society of St. Catharines 