Date:    Fri, 26 Sep 2003 09:30:02 -0400
From:    Joe Cline <joeunited@CAROLINA.RR.COM>
Subject: Re: Over The Hill To The Poorhouse


I found this version that differs from the F&S/Lilly version:


>>
This is a newspaper clipping of a very sad poem from my grandmother's
scrapbook. No newspaper title or date are included however, most of the
other clippings are from the Attica News in Wyoming Co. NY ca 1907-1917.
This very sad poem appears to be written by a lonely widower whose children
have grown and rejected him.


Over the Hill to the Poorhouse


What? No! Can it be they've driven
Their father, so helpless and old,
(O God! May their crime be forgiven)
To perish out there in the cold?
O heaven! I am saddened and weary.
See the tears how they course down my cheeks!
Oh, this world is lonely and dreary,
And my heart for relief vainly seeks.

    For I'm old, and I'm helpless and feeble,
    And the days of my youth have gone by,
    When over the hills to the poorhouse
    I wandered alone there to die.

Ah, me! On that old doorstep yonder
I've sat with my babes on my knee,
No father was happier or fonder
Than I with my little ones three.
The boys both so rosy and chubby,
And Lillie with prattle so sweet!
God knows how their father has loved them,
But they've driven him out in the street.

    Chorus.

It's long years since my Mary was taken,
My faithful, affectionate wife;
Since then, I'm forlorn and forsaken,
And the light has died out of my life.
The boys grew up to manhood; I gave them
A deed for a farm, aye, and more,
I gave them the house they were born in,
And now I am turned out from its door.

    Chorus.
<<

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Joe Cline (joe.s.cline@trellis.net)
Charlotte


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