AN OLD HAND.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2251, 11 December 1886, Page 1 (Supplement)

AN OLD HAND.

Blue-vkinkd and wrinkled, knuokly and brown, That good old hand ia clasping mine ; I bend above it, and looking down, I study its aspect, line by line. Tins hand has clasped a thousand luuds That long have known no answering thrill ; Some have mouldered in foreign lands— Some in the graveyard on the hill. Clapped a mother's hand, in the day When it wa^ little and soft and whiteMother, who kissed it and went away, To rest till the waking in God's good light. Clasped a lover's hand, years agone, Who sailed away and left her in tears ; Under Sahara '» ton id sun His bones have whitened years and years. Clasped the hand of a good man true, Who held it Rottly and fell asleep, And woke no more, and never knew How long that impress this would keep. Clasped so many, so many ! — so few That still respond to the living will, Or can answer this pressure so kind and true ! So many, that lie unmoved and still ! Clasped at last this hand, my own : And mine will moulder, too, in turn. Will any clasp it when I am gone ? In vain I study this hand to learn. —