Departed Statesmen

Joseph Howe, none higher stood than thou,
Thou wert a man with lofty brow;
D’Arcy McGee, so brilliant and free,
From green isle you came o’er the sea.

George Cartier to the French ever dear,
So high you stood without a peer;
John Sandfield for long you did build
Power under economy’s shield.

George Brown, thou man of renown,
Confederation you did crown;
You now are all free from the strife
The wrangle and jangle of political life.

But if a glance at this world you take
You will there see John A. and Blake,
But Sir John the greatest power doth wield,
Our Canadian Beaconsfield.

Where this text comes from

First published in Musings on the Banks of Canadian Thames (1884). First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established. [1]

Structure read from the source's markup; the words have not been compared against a page scan. Last checked 2026-08-20.

Taken from Standard Ebooks, standardebooks/james-mcintyre_poetry, poetry.xhtml. Rights: public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931).

Earlier sources (3)

This poem as JSON or plain text. Line anchors #L1–#L16.

Cite this poem

James McIntyre (1828?–1906). “Departed Statesmen.” First published in Musings on the Banks of Canadian Thames (1884). Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/james-mcintyre/departed-statesmen/. Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.

More by James McIntyre