3-056-443 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"When We Were Boys Together", - drawn by A. Muir, 1873. 'I remember you, Jack, when no bigger than that little girl at your knee, And surely no twin brothers ever so lovingly cronied as we; We lived but one life, so it seemed: both were breeched on the very same day, We rode on one pony to school, stuck together at work and at play. Your foes felt my big, clumsy fist, as weighty as any sledge-hammer, While you did my difficult sums, and undid the knots in my grammar. When Holiday threw wide the school-door, what boisterous fooling and funning! O the boating, and batting and bowling! the racketing, wrestling and running! And don't you remember the time you twice kicked the football to goal, When we Gloynes men the Fisherites beat in all that day's games on the Mole? One winter so gloriously cold - we thought it was glorious then - What a mountainous snowball we rolled, and blocked up the door of Old Ben! In the long summer eves you would sit in that willow o'erhanging the stream, I busily fishing below, you as busily weaving a dream. And now we are here, my dear fellow, both hale, in the land of the living, With your children's children around you - thank God for the taking and giving!' J. L. From "Illustrated London News", 1873. (Colorised black and white print).