The Ten Mile Stream performed by Armand Romagnoli
As year on year keeps rolling on
My memory oft’ turns back,
When playing hide-and-seek at eve’
Around the old straw-stack;
But fairest of those happy days,
Though now a pleasant dream,
‘Twas playing in my boyhood days
Along the Ten Mile Stream.
Then in the gentle days of spring
We’d pluck the adder-tongue,
And trilliums all dressed in white
That faded in the sun;
I can’t forget the swimming hole,
Where willows tossed and swayed,
The old familiar button-wood
Where we lacrosse boys played.
Oft’ when the sun was sinking low
I’d drive the cattle home,
I see them now as in those years—
There’s Daisy, Pet and Roan;
They’d trudge along the winding paths
That led up to the lane,
While good dog Pete kept trailing them
He’d not let one remain.
And sometimes in the autumn days
The saucy squirrels we’d trace,
Along rail-fences tumbling down
To see who’d win the race.
And then again when winter came
And hills were clothed in white,
We’d sleigh ride down the slippery steeps
Beneath the silver-white.
But now great ships churn up and down
Where once my feet did roam,
’Tis nice to see them proudly float
Hard by the old farm home;
But fairest of those happy days,
Though now a pleasant dream,
Was playing in my boyhood days,
Along the Ten Mile Stream.
“The Ten Mile Stream.” The St. Catharines Standard, 30 November 1949, 19. Also published in: Kevin McCabe [ed.], The Poetry of Old Niagara. St. Catharines, Ont.: Blarney Stone Books, 1999, 48-49
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
The Historical Society of St. Catharines 