A WORKHOUSE POEM.
[TO TIM EDITOR OF TIM .871CCIIT012.1 SI11,—Az you often give your readers the opportunity of entering into the real thoughts and feelings of unlearned and poor people, you may care to publish some lines written by an old carpenter in a workhouse in North London. They were called forth by a succession of rather sudden deaths among his comrades in the woodshed some weeks since. I may be mistaken, but they seem to me, in their simple sin- cerity and quiet faith, both eminently touching and of the essence of true poetry, especially the first verse. Two elderly men had been talking together of these deaths and of the uncertainty and grave issues of life, as they worked in the shed, when one handed the other (himself a frequent writer of verses, chiefly addressed to his wife in the infirmary, to keep up her spirits and remind her of happier days past and perhaps to come) these lines, scribbled in pencil on an odd scrap of paper, in which form, with a letter, written in the same way on odds and ends of paper, describing the circum- stances, it was sent to me with no thought of publicity by the second man, a friend of mine. I• have preserved tho punctuation in my copy, which is as follows :— " THE LLEIT VOYAGE.
My work on earth is well-nigh done I wait the setting of the Sun. I hear the surging of the Sea, That beats upon Eternity.
I see far off the shadowy realm, And thither, turn the trembling helm. The winds, that blow so cold and drear, Grow softer as the end draws near.
The distant Gleams of Sliver light Relieve the darkness of the night There stand upon the misty shore Faint forms of Loved ones gone before,
The Voice that once said 'Peace he Still,' Now Whispers softly, 'Fear No Ill.' I sail, alone, yet not—Alone, The Saviour 'takes me for His own, I wait His Greeting' when I Land, wait the—Grasp--of His Loving Hand."
2 Mount Ararat Road, Richmond, Surrey.
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