Twenty years after writing the lines to the “Psalm-singer, Parish Clerk, and Sexton” of Sapiston, George again berhymed him. Preceding the effusion, is the following
Memorandum.
“My old friend Wisset has now entered his eighty-third year, and is blind, and therefore cannot write; but he sent his kind regards to me by a young man, and bade him repeat four lines to me. The young man forgot the lines, but he said they were about old age and cold winter. I sent him the following:—
Dear old Brother Bard,
Now clothed with snow is hill and dale,
And all the streams with ice are bound!
How chilling is the wintry gale!
How bleak and drear the scene around!
Yet midst the gloom bright gleams appear,
Our drooping spirits to sustain,
Hope kindly whispers in the ear
Sweet Spring will soon return again.
’Tis thus, old friend, with you and me
Life’s Spring and Summer both are flown,
The marks of wintry age we see,
Our locks to frosty white are grown.
O let us then our voices raise,
For favours past due homage bring;
Thus spend the winter of our days,
Till God proclaims a glorious Spring.
George Bloomfield.
January 23, 1823.