The twilight hour was regularly spent
In reading godly books, wherein he sought
The Holy One, for help: then was he taught
That sacred saying—life is but a span!
And then he’d sigh, and well he might, poor man.
Twelve years of sweet conjugal happiness,
Had made their little home a paradise,—
’Til that grim monster stretch’d his deathy hand,
And marr’d the pleasures of George Hollybrand.
Great must, indeed, have been the father’s grief;