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A poor old man of seventy and his wife of sixty-three,
One day in winter as the snow was falling fast,
They were making for the workhouse for they were too old to toil,
Yet they knew their span of life was closing fast.
Some loving words were uttered by the poor old weary lass,
As her eyes that moment drifted on their son,
Who thought for to avoid them and pass on the other side,
But the old man spoke these words ere he was gone.
"You quite forget your father now he's feeble, old and grey,
You quite forget your dear old mother, too;
You think yourself above us now you're worth a lot of gold,
But you'll never know what time will bring to you.
"You quite forget the time, my lad, you were so dear to us,
When the other five by death were torn away;
When we spent all our wealth on you, our only living child,
Just to make you what you're in this world today.
"We pinched and saved for you my lad and tendered thee for years."
Till at last the old man bent beneath the strain,
And the mother, too, with bended head, while shedding bitter tears
And in saddened tones I heard these words again.
"You quite forget your father now he's feeble, old and grey,
You quite forget your dear old mother, too;
You think yourself above us now you're worth a lot of gold,
But you'll never know what time will bring to you."
Their son stood listening for a time, then uttered with a curse,
"I cannot keep you now," he said, "I have no time to stay;
I told you what I meant so don't bother me no more."
And with these words he went along his way.
The man and wife drew closer and then, taking hand in hand,
They trudged along with head and heart bowed down;
And as the workhouse door was closed upon that old-aged pair,
I think I heard the breeze bring back the song.
"You quite forget your father now he's feeble, old and grey,
You quite forget your dear old mother, too;
You think yourself above us now you're worth a lot of gold,
But you'll never know what time will bring to you."
Sung by Annie Whalen (b.1913) of Cape Broyle, NL, and published in MacEdward Leach And The Songs Of Atlantic Canada © 2004 Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive (MUNFLA).
A variant was recorded in 1999 as A Poor Old Man Of Seventy by Ed Power of Grand Falls-Windsor, NL, on the album Kitchen Songs by Mark Bishop of Soundscape Productions in Grand Falls-Windsor.
