GAFFER GREEN.-- But when you are aged and gray, Robin Ruff, And the day of your death it draws near, Say, what with your pains, would you do with your gains If you then had a thousand a year? ROBIN RUFF.-- I scarcely can tell what you mean, Gaffer Green, For your questions are always so queer; But as other folks die, I suppose so must I,-- GAFFER GREEN.-- What! and give up your thousand a year? There’s a place that is better than this, Robin Ruff,-- And I hope in my heart you’ll go there,-- Where the poor man’s as great though he hath no estate, Ay, as if he’d a thousand a year. Answer to A Thousand a Year. 9 Have you heard the strange news just come down, Gaffer Green, That they’re talking of now far and near? How young Robin Ruff has his wish sure enough, And he’s now got a thousand a year, Gaffer Green! He’s now got a thousand a year! Young Rob’s a good heart, and I’m glad Master Cross, Oh, it will not spoil him, never fear! In the face of the poor he will not shut his door, Though he has got a thousand a year, Master Cross! Though he has got a thousand a year! But ’twould be but the way of the world. Gaffer Green, If he did not see _now_ quite so clear; They say _yellow_ mists rise, and soon dim a man’s eyes, When he once gets a thousand a year, Gaffer Green! When he once gets a thousand a year! Robin’s eyes were not dim t’other day, Master Cross, When his poor old friend Harry was here; Robin soon cured his pain, and soon made sunshine again, With a touch of his thousand a year, Master Cross! With a touch of his thousand a year! Ah! but Rob must take care, must take care, Gaffer Green, Or he’ll spend all his new-gotten gear; How much better ’twould be--he may want it, you see-- If he saved all his thousand a year, Gaffer Green! If he saved all his thousand a year! If he spends the last pound that he’s got, Master Cross, He’ll be richer than some folks, I fear; For a heart such as Rob’s, though ’neath tatters it throbs, Is worth ten times a thousand a year, Master Cross! Is worth ten times a thousand a year! The Old Play-Ground. 10 I’m sitting to-day in the old play-ground, Where you and I have sat so oft together, I’m thinking of the joys when you and I were boys In the merry days now gone, John, forever; ’Twas here we sat in the merry olden time, And we dream’d of the wild world before us, And our visions and hopes of the coming time Were as bright as the sun that shone o’er us. CHORUS.