Chorus

We like your situation,

And respect you one and all.

We must congratulate you

Upon your handsome hall.

We hope you’ll all come back again When we give another play

And bring your fair young ladies And gallant boys so gay.

Chorus

Now a rousing cheer for the chairman, dear, Your own aristocrat

For a kinder man ne’er clasped your hand Then your own good genial “Mat”.

We think he has the “golden charm”

On him not one does frown

And we know he’ll do his best for us When he goes to Charlottetown.

Chorus

And now kind friends our ditty ends, And it almost makes us cry

To think that in an hour or so

That we must say “good-bye”.

Be still my heart for though we part We’ll all come back again

And if you don’t believe us

Just ask A. J. McLean.

It seems that a poet likes to put into poetry some of the memories of home that he holds sacred and dear, and Clement Flood was no dif- ferent. In the two poems below he wrote of his homestead where he passed many a happy year with his parents and family, and especially dear to him were his memories of his Sister Kate.

The Old Homestead

Ah! sweetest retreat that the earth can hold, My thought of thee shall never darken,

Thy glowing hearth where tales were told, Looms up before me as of old.

A song of praise I would enfold, So friends of mine please harken,

Ah! where is the heart that will ne’er forget; The humble cot and parents kind,

Who would not grieve with lashes wet, At rise of sun or at its set,

When thoughts of home his mind do fret, As he leaves it far behind.

—129—