1	               September 1993
     2	
     3	         The United Empire Loyalists -- Patriotic Verse
     4	
     5	                              ...edited by Marijan Salopek
     6	
     7	                  =============================
     8	
     9	The United Empire Loyalist
    10	
    11	by
    12	
    13	Rev. LeRoy Hooker
    14	
    15	What did they then, those loyal men,
    16	When Britain's cause was lost?
    17	Did they consent,
    18	And dwell content
    19	Where Crown, and Law, and Parliament
    20	Were trampled in the dust.
    21	
    22	Dear were their homes where they were born;
    23	Where slept their honoured dead:
    24	And rich and wide
    25	On every side
    26	The fruitful acres spread;
    27	But dearer to their faithful hearts
    28	Than home, or gold, or lands,
    29	Were Britain's laws, and Britain's crown,
    30	And Britain's flag of long renown,
    31	And grip of British hands.
    32	
    33	They would not spurn the glorious old
    34	To grasp the gaudy new.
    35	Of yesterday's rebellion born
    36	They held the upstart power in scorn --
    37	To Britain they stood true.
    38	
    39	With high resolve they looked their last
    40	On home and native land;
    41	And sore they wept,
    42	O'er those that slept
    43	In honoured graves that must be kept
    44	By grace of stranger's hand.
    45	
    46	They looked their last and got them out
    47	Into the wilderness,
    48	The stern old wilderness!
    49	All dark and rude
    50	And unsubdued;
    51	The savage wilderness!
    52	
    53	
    54	Source:  . Toronto: 1885, p. 63.