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Title: To Dr. Laycock, On His Leaving Brantford On Account Of Illness
Author: Thomas Cowherd [
More Titles by Cowherd]
Doctor, you must not hence depart
Ere I address a parting lay
Fresh gushing from an honest heart,
Which grieves because you cannot stay.
To Rhyme I make but small pretence,
Yet what I write is what I feel;
And should it prove but common-sense,
Many defects this will conceal.
I have oft wished since you came here,
That we might years together spend;
And now I hang 'twixt hope and fear,
In strange uncertainty, my friend.
Right glad, dear Doctor, would I be
If you left here in perfect health;
I know 'tis prized by you and me
As far before the greatest wealth.
And well it may! For that is wealth
In most men's hands but splendid dross
To purchase friends who leave by stealth
Their friend, when he has found its loss.
Yet 'tis I own, when rightly used,
A goodly thing for you and me,
Who can't of hoarding be accused
At least from all that I can see.
Then take what I most freely give--
A wish sincere that you may yet
Return in health near us to live,
An honest livelihood to get.
And may your partner live to share
With you for years fresh joy and peace.
For this I urge an earnest prayer
To God who makes my joys increase.
NOVEMBER, 1854.
To Mr. Cowherd, from His Friend, H. S. Laycock
[Perhaps my readers will have the goodness to pardon me if I here present them with an exact copy of a Rhyming Letter which I received in answer to the poem above from my much respected and greatly lamented friend, the late Dr. Laycock, of Woodstock, Ont. I place it here because of the compliment he was kind enough to pay me on my rhyming abilities, and chiefly in relation to those Pieces to my Children. I candidly acknowledge that it was his opinion, so freely and perhaps flatteringly expressed, which weighed with me greatly as an inducement for giving so many of them in these pages.]
Dear friend, though a poor hand at rhymes, I'll try
In _kind_ to your _kind_ verses to reply.
Together we have passed some happy hours,
Pleasantly loitering in the Muses' bower;
Not with the Bards who sing of Wine and Love,
But those who can the nobler Passions move
To finer sympathies, and by their art
Instruct, amend as well as cheer the heart!
Such Bard our COWPER. Oft his pleasing strains
Have won us to forget the cares and pains
The world lays on us all; WORDSWORTH the same;
And other bards besides _less known to fame;_
_Thyself,_ dear friend, amongst the rest. Thy rhymes
Flow from a heart in tune with Nature's chimes,
And breathings of Sweet Home, Domestic joys,
The opening graces of thy girls and boys,
And themes like these _to Nature dear_ please all
Whose souls like ours respond to Nature's call.
Nature, to whom proud Art can _lend a grace,_
But whom if absent _Art can not replace!_
Take these poor lines in haste and sickness penned,
As tribute from a warm and grateful friend,
Who, though thy kindness he can not repay,
Will ne'er forget thee, Cowherd, nor thy lay.
BRANTFORD, Nov. 16, 1854
[The end]
Thomas Cowherd's poem: To Dr. Laycock, On His Leaving Brantford On Account Of Illness
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