Twenty Golden Years Ago - David McWilliams

oh the rain the weary rain

stutters on my window-sill

night I guess is on the wane

all around has grown so still

here I sit with coffee cup

ah 't was rare l watched it flow

in the tavern where I’d sup

twenty golden years ago

twenty years ago alas

but stay, 't is half past twelve o’clock

oh how the hours do slip away

and how the weary minutes mock

for night and morn are wet and cold

and my fire is dwindling low

yet I had fire enough

twenty golden years ago

in my wish to show them plain

did I paint them honestly

wifeless friendless halt and lame

were they but as pawns to me

I who never reasoned why

blind unjust and harsh I know

yet I did live I was alive

twenty golden years ago

tick and lock no sound but time’s

and the howling winding rain

tattoo’d through my withered rhyme

time, and time again

of all my hopes, ambitions, schemes

these pages all that’s left to show

gone are all my lofty dreams

of twenty golden years ago