_On seeing in the Table Book the Signature of a brother, W. W. K._
Where’er those well-known characters I see,
They are, and ever will be, dear to me!
How oft in that green field, beneath the shade
Of beechen-boughs, whilst other youngsters play’d,
Have I, a happy schoolboy, o’er and o’er,
Conn’d those dear signs, which now I read once more!
How oft, as on the daisied grass I laid,
Full pleas’d, the W. W. K. I’ve read!--
When once espied, how tedious ’twas to wait
The crippled postman’s well-known shuffling gait,
As, slowly creeping down the winding lane,
With such a sluggish pace he onward came;
Or if in school,--his ring no sooner heard,
Than home, with all its sweets, to mind recurr’d;
And whilst the letter’s page its news reveal’d,
The gath’ring drop my boyish sight conceal’d!
Something then whisper’d, Bill, that life begun
So well, the same still happily would run;
That tho’ for years the briny sea divide,
Or be it good, or ill, that each betide,
The same fond heart would throb in either’s breast,
Fondness by years and stealing time increas’d!
So, as in early days it first became,
Shall it in riper life, be still the same,
That by and by, when we’re together laid
’Neath the green moss-grown pile--it may be said,
As lonely footsteps tow’rds our hillock turn,
“They were in life and death together one!”
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