Misc two - Sligo Poets

             Sligo Times 3 May 1913
                 NEVER HAD TIME

There was an old fellow who never had time
For a fresh morning look at the Volume Sublime,
Who never had time for the soft hand of prayer
To smooth out the wrinkles of labour and care
Who could not find time for that service so sweet
At the altar of home where the dear ones all meet,
And never found time with the people of God
To learn the good way that the Fathers have trod;
               But he found to die-
                  Oh, Yes!
               He found time to die.

This busy old fellow, too busy was he
To linger at breakfast, too busy was he
For the merry small chatter of children and wife,
But led in his marriage a bachelor’s life;
Too busy for kisses, too busy for play,
No time to be loving, no time to be gay;
No time to replenish his vanishing health,
No time to enjoy his swift-gathering wealth;
               But he found to die-
                  Oh, Yes!
               He found time to die.

This beautiful world had no beauty for him;
Its colours were black and its sunshine was dim;
No leisure for woodland, for river or hill,
No time in his life to think and be still;
No time for his neighbours, no time for his friends,
No time for those higher immutable ends
Of the life of a man who is not for a day
But, for worse or for better, for ever and aye;
               But he found to die-
                  Oh, Yes!
               He found time to die.

                                               "Orillia Packet"

             Sligo Times 17 May 1913
                       OPPORTUNITY

They do me wrong who say I come no more
   When once I knock and fail to find you in;
For every day I stand outside your door,
   And bid you wake, and rise to fight and win.

Weep not for precious chances pass’d away,
   Weep not for golden ages on the wane;
Each night burn the records of the day,
   At sunrise every soul is born again.

Laugh like a boy at splendours that have sped,
   To vanished joys be blind and deaf and dumb,
My judgements seal the dead past with its dead,
   But never bind a moment yet to come!

Though deep in mire wring not your hands and weep,
   I lend my arm to al who say "I can";
No shamefaced outcast ever sank so deep
  But yet may rise and be again a man!

Dost they behold thy lost youth all aghast?
   Dost reel from righteous retribution’s blow?
Then turn from blotted archives of the past,
   And find the future’s pages white as snow.

Art thou a mourner? Rouse thee from thy spell;
   Art thou a sinner? Sins may be forgiven;
Each morning gives thee wings to flee from hell,
   Each night a star to guide thy feet to Heaven.

                                            "Orillia Packet"