The O'Leary Road 
     
    
   
   
    
     ‘Tis forty years, I think, or more 
     
     Since I have walked this road before, 
     
     How lonely then, how dark and still, 
     
    

    
     For silence reigned on vale and hill, 
     
     Tall birch and beech from either side 
     
     Hung o'ver the road their branches wide. 
     
    
   
   
    
     No sign was there of man's abode 
     
     On all that long O'Leary Road. 
     
     The prowling fox and vagrant bear, 
     
    
   
   
    
     Long claimed a wild dominion there. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Now woods and wilds have all been cleared. 
     
     The fox and bear have disappeared 
     
     And passing years have changed the scene 
     
     From forest wild to meadows green, 
     
     The reaper and the iron plough, 
     
     Proclaim ‘tis man's dominiom now. 
     
     And o'er the large and level plains 
     
     Are spreading fields of ripening grain. 
     
    
   
   
    
     The woods are gone and in their room 
     
     Large clover fields and orchards bloom 
     
     The Farmer's toil is well repaid 
     
     To guide the plough his chosen trade, 
     
     His sprightly team well-groomed and fed 
     
     His chosen seed with system spread 
     
     To native thrift with practice skilled, 
     
     The grateful soil abundance yields. 
     
     And me, its merits marks are well bestowed 
     
    
   
   
    
     For plenty crowns the O'Leary Road. 
     
    
   
   
    
     The poem the O'Leary Road was written and was kindly contributed by an aged resident of Lot 11. It strikes us as 
     
     a beautiful conception of the changes which have taken place not only on the O'Leary Road, generally throughout 
     
     the province. Ed Farmer The poem was submitted by Mr. John Ashton. West Devon and was found in an old 
     
     scrapbook of the late John Yeo collection. 
     
    
   
   
    
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