 | Poems and Songs |  |
204
To Edwin Waugh,
ON HIS SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY, JANUARY 29TH, 1887.
I
Tis over thirty years, friend Waugh,Since thou and I first met:
A manly face, a twinkling eye,
A voice to music set.
II
Were thine to please, to charm, to win,All round the social board,
Where kindly sympathetic ears
Hung on each tuneful word.
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III
Since then I've roamed the moorland wild,With poesy and thee;
And pressed the fragrant heather bell
With footstep light and free.
IV
And I have known thee since, when careAnd dire affliction traced
The lines that tell of weary days
No healing hath effaced.
V
When silver crept amongst thy hair,Now changed to wintry rime;
And stooped thy form beneath the load
Of unrelenting Time.
VI
Thy lyre hath sounded 'mid the strifeOf worldly thoughts and ways;
Thy song hath cheered the hapless wight
With dreams of happier days.
VII
Soon thou must lay thy harp aside,Hushed for the passing hour;
But memory may wake its tones
With echoes of its power.
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VIII
The sun of thy poetic dayFor ever may have set;
But rosy are the twilight tints
That linger round thee yet.
IX
Ere these dissolve in darksome night,And leave thy soul forlorn,
May'st thou behold the breaking light
Of an eternal morn.
BEN BRIERLEY.
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