Gone to the unknown country--
A steady, harmless, quiet man,
Who here in '32 began
A race unmixed with hate or strife,
Which ended only with his life.
And Reuben Traveller, who's tongue
Oft in the old assizes rung--
Though given to mirth, a wondrous crier,
Who lived near John Sweetman, the dyer
'Twas all the same, for either side
Or both old Reuben Traveller cried--
Cried for the man who won law's race--
Cried for the man who lost his case--
Cried for the criminal acquitted--
Cried for the guilty when outwitted--
He cried for loss or gain of pelf--
For every one except himself;
Reuben was a celebrity,
We seldom meet with such as he.
John Rochester, a man of old,
Who's life a tale of goodness told,
He steered through time from envy free,
You'd scarcely find an enemy,
Who o'er his honored dust would dare
Defame the ashes resting there;
For such as he laws ne'er were made,
Peace to his gentle vanished shade!
Well, will it be for James and John
If they walk the same path upon
Which their departed sire trod