MY LIFE
I was born in old Victoria,
Over sixty years ago,
Soon we moved from there to somewhere,
I think it was to Nantyglo.
Then moved over to Blaenavon,
Where I first myself perceived,
Came in contact with life’s sorrows,
Saw my parents sorely grieved,
By the drowning of a daughter,
That was seven years of age.
That’s my first faint recollection,
In my primer of life’s page.
There I noticed first God’s sunshine,
When it makes the daisies grow,
And the buttercups so yellow,
And the purling brooklet flow.
Then we moved back to the Blaina,
Where we lived for three long years,
Where my only pleasures in my childhood,
Where my life was free from tears.
There my father left his children,
For the lands beyond the sea,
I think he lived in Pennsylvania,
To live or die he left us three.
Mother took us to Carmarthen,
To the Parish there to stay,
But not having any workhouse,
A trifling pittance they did pay.
Three weeks we stayed among the farmers,
Before our homeward path did tread
Where I came so near to starving,
Trying to eat the barley bread.
Then we came on foot to Merthyr,
Walking every step each day,
Mother carrying little sister,
On her back most half the way.
Then on to Aberdare we journeyed,
By this time my age was ten,
As a door boy at the Werfa,
All were strangers to me then.
O, what memories spring before me,
As I view the dismal past,
All the ups and downs encountered,
But I see the goal at last.
Now my hair is gray and hoary,
I am waiting near the brink,
For to quaff the crystal nectar,
God’s eternal life to drink.
Yes, that Mother now is sleeping,
Resting neath the western skies,
And forever ceased her weeping,
No more tears will dim her eyes.
O, that sister too, is sleeping,
On the hillside, blessed land,
Where the snowcapped, Wasatch rises,
As a sentinel o’er her stand.
