Lines on Tilsonburg

After him who did the mills own,
This place was called in honor Tilson;
Bright gleaming like to a beaming star,
Is clear waters of the Otter.

And it doth form here a vast pond,
Which extends for miles beyond,
A fortune on town it will shower,
This prodigious water power.

No other spots to youth appear,
Like lovely little lakes round here,
And few small towns have fine roadway
Lined with brick blocks like your broadway.

Elsewhere, the firemen slave like Turks,
But you have got good water works;
And some do many a mile go
For to see your famous silo.

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). “Lines on Tilsonburg.” First published in Musings on the Banks of Canadian Thames (1884). Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/james-mcintyre/lines-on-tilsonburg/. Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.

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