EPITAPH.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume III, Issue 156, 4 July 1868, Page 3

EPITAPH.

In Memory of the NELSON PROVINCIAL COUNCIL, Which Died of Sheer Inanity, In its Eighteenth Session, After a painfully protracted struggle, June 2lat, 1868. Bequiescat in pace. In tender memory of the late departed session, That left us nought, no mark of its progression, No public work, no recollections dear, No cash to circulate, no words to cheer, But ended life soon as its race was run, And left the Province just as it begun. To mark its poor remains this simple rhyme ■ Presents a tribute 'mid the wreck of time. Mourn for the past, 0 rising Nelson blood, Mourn for the motions all motionless that stood, Mourn for those orators, mourn that deserted Hall, Whose echoes etill two awful bores recall ; The weary nights when Donne ,and Gibbs combined To rex with queries Greenfield's angered mind; When the reporters, forced to quit the scene, Still took their notes behind the Speaker's screen. Mourn the rejection of sage Mackay's saws, Our suffering treasury, our mutilated laws, Farewell the Dock, the Patent Slip, adieu, FareweU,',poorjWrigg,they knew too much for you, Ely where some happier fate thy little game may follow, Fly hence from this, Zealandia's Sleepy Hollow 1 Oswald ! farewell to thy once cherished scheme ; No more on pleasure trips by rail to dream, No more at festive board thy lords regale, While cits stand shivering without the pale ; No more shall gushing fountains praise thy name, You played a winning hand, but lost the game. Thy dream hath passed, thy visions all have gone, Thy railway scheme upon the blast is borne I Ye passers by, who pitying read this epitaph. Forbear to jeer or raise the scornful laugh, For here our concrete wisdom bides its head, In life though useless, quite as useless dead !