There's a rotting stump up on the hill,
where a mighty oak once stood,
Two hundred years of living Lord
and now where lies the good?
From the big jets roar across the sky,
back past horse and buggy days,
your story's ended now,
in a smoking, crackling, blaze.
With a century behind you,
you saw the settlers come.
They were welcome in your home,
you didn't care where they were from.
Before they built that first old church,
they held their service there.
And sang their hymns beneath leafy boughs
that rustled in the air.
I wonder if you could have spoke,
at the tales you might have told.
Of flowers that no one saw bloom,
and the winter's bitter cold.
For you were there upon the hill
before people came around.
And there was no town beside the stream,
or men to cut you down.