Edwin Waugh

Sic itur ad astra.

End of chapter 2 chapter three of lancashire characters and places edwin waugh the soil of lancashire has not been prolific of many poets of extraordinary power good writers of verse there are and have been in abundance and for the multitude and fecundity of its minor poets and rhymers perhaps lancashire eclipses every other county in the united kingdom but the true poetical genius here as elsewhere has been but rare in its manifestations it will scarcely be questioned that edwin waugh is the foremost poet that the county palatine has hitherto produced the nervous vigour and beauty of his style his freshness and originality and the power which he evinces of embodying the every-day life of lancashire all these and other unnamed qualities attest the presence of a poet of most excellent genius in the fullest sense war is a true son of lancashire his best productions whether in poetry or prose for he is equally at home in both are written in the dialect of the county and in no other garb would they have been so powerful to impress the minds and touch the hearts of the people the larger portion of his volume of poems and songs published in eighteen sixty one and dedicated to his distinguished townsman john bright consists of pieces written in ordinary english which had he produced no other would have given him a niche in the temple of the muses these however as a whole lack the originality and power and also that quality of abounding humour which so greatly distinguishes poems in the dialect and it is doubtless owing to this that they are eclipsed by the latter in the esteem of the public excellent however many of the poems are rich in lofty sentiment patriotic in tone breathing thoughts full of honest independence and warm with sympathy for the poor his descriptions of nature under different aspects are fresh and true showing how observant he was of her various moods there is in addition to all these qualities a wealth of graceful imagery and a facility of expression about his poems in english which make their perusal a delight the one entitled nightfall is chaste and sweet the soft wind whispers on its moody way the plumy woodlands in the moonlight play night's tapers gleam in the gliding stream heaven's eyes are watching while the earth doth dream decay that in my very breath doth creep thou surely art akin to this soft sleep that shows the way to a bed of clay whose wakeless slumbers close the mortal day and thus with ceaseless roll time's silent wave lands me each night upon a mimic grave whose soft repose hints at life's close death's fleets are cruising where life's current flows eloquent and suggestive lines these full of true poetry also is the little poem entitled time is flying or what is life but duty's strife a drill a watchful sentry's round a brief campaign for deathless gain a bivouac on battle-ground an arrow's flight a taper's light a fitful day of sun and cloud a flower a shade a journey made between a cradle and a shroud o what is death a swordless sheath a jubilee a mother's call a kindly breast that offers rest unto the poorest of us all the wretched's friend oppression's end the outcast shelter from the cold to regions dim the portal grim where misers leave their loads of gold a voyage o'er a misty shore with time-wrecked generations strown where each mad age has spent its rage upon a continent unknown his moorland flower is an exquisite little poem and his christmas song the captain's friends here's to my native land to the rose-tree on my window-sill and several other of his english pieces are worthy to be more widely known and appreciated but as a poet in the vernacular of his native county of lancaster edwin waugh reigns without a rival all his songs without exception betray distinctive marks of uncommon poetic genius they possess throughout a sustained breadth and excellence of character not always found in the writings of even our greatest poets in descriptive and in dramatic power many of waugh's lancashire songs approach perfection they are medallic in their workmanship and finish having their obverse and reverse minted with exquisite skill beautiful substantial rich and with that genuine ring which bespeaks the kingly metal there is such a completeness about some of the verses that they impress us with the idea of spontaneous growth rather than of constructive art of growth from a luxurious soil rich in the elements of which beauty and the twin sisters humour and pathos are compounded by reason of their proverbial terseness and pungency they linger upon the mind and are there ready for quotation and application in most of the songs there are scintillations of humour which strike the mind with sudden surprise and these sometimes glide naturally into the domain of the truest pathos whilst the pathetic again merges into the humorous but often there is such a delicate blending of the two in the same quatrain that the reader under the feelings of quiet pleasure that have been excited in his breast turns again to peruse the sentiments which he feels contain that touch of nature that makes the whole world kin in his didactic moods the author of come warm to thee childer and me is equally happy he can preach a sermon in a line and wrap the soul in meditative thought Let me illustrate this.

Take the following verse from the song while taking a whiff to my pipe.

we'n nobbut a lifetime apiece here below and the longest is very soon spent there's summat a boon measures cuts for us all and the most on em nobbut a faint long or short rough or fine little matter for that we'n make the best of the stuff till it's done and when it leaks out to get riven a bit let's darn it as weel as we can when th order comes to us to doff these owd clothes they'll surely be new and stood on what a fine energising spirit of independence there is here but indeed the whole poem of which this verse is the last is overflowing with homely wisdom bravely and beautifully and tenderly expressed we are often apt to exclaim and not without reason that sermonising is a weariness of the flesh but who would think of applying the remark to the following bit of quaint philosophy from the song tickle times but life's sich a quare bit o travel a marlock wi sun and wi shade and then on a bowster o gravel the laner's i bed wi a spade one feels now at times o so nipping a mon's at a troublesome skoo that slaves like a horse for a living and flings it away like a foo but as pleasures sometimes are misfortune and trouble sometimes a good thing though we live in other floor same as layrocks we'n go up like layrocks to sing and as more particularly illustrating the blending together of the humorous with the pathetic take the well-known verse from come warm to thee childer and me where the poor wife is describing to her husband the difficulty she had in getting the children to rest for the night the little ones longing to sit up until their truant father should come home and dick too aw'd sich wark wi him afore aw could get him upstairs i towed him that i'd bring him a drum he said when he was saying his prayers then he looked in my face and he said as the boggarts taen owde my dad and he cried till his e'en were quite red he likes thee some well does yon lad and again from god bless these poor folk one of the very choicest of his songs and for the possession of which we are grateful it has the ripple and the sparkle of a clear swift-flowing river bright with sunshine in the open and beautiful in the shade but whether in the sunshine of its hearty humour or in the shaded recesses of its kindly sympathy and manly pathos we beat time to the music of its singing this world's kin to trouble i the best on't there's mony sad changes come round we wandern about to find rest on't and the worm yammers for us i the ground may he that'll watch while he's able be never long hungry nor dry and the childer at sit at his table god bless em wi plenty say i and he that can feel it a pleasure to leet em misfortin and pain may his pantry be all as full measure to cut at and come to again may god bless his cup and his cuppet a theason for one that he gives and his heart be a bumper of comfort to the very last minute he lives and he that scorns ale to his victual is welcome to let it alone there some can be wise with a little and some that are foolish with none and some are so queer in their nature that nought with their stomachs agree but he that would leave for drink waiter shall never be stinted by me the man that is foolish we know is well known to all of us the verse last quoted is not even grammatical and it is not every one that will be able to agree with its teaching for the droll way in which war puts his view of the matter is unsurpassable again one likes to see hearty folks watching and weary folk having a rest one likes to hear poor women singing to the little things laid on their breast good cooks are my favourite doctors good livers my parson shall be as on'y poor crater at's clemming may come have a mouthful wi me then come the inimitable lines owd time is a troublesome codger keeps nudging us on to decay and whispers you're nobbut a lodger get ready for going away and in tum rindle who tired o cowering i ther chimbling up and wasting time i thinking resolves to have a merrymaking and so enumerates the friends and neighbours he intends to invite and the lads and lasses they shan sing and foot it leet and limber and robin lilter he shall bring his merry bit o timber and joe shall come and joan and ben and poor owd limping lyger and marl and sal and fan and nan and curly pated byger and gentle charlie shall be there and little dick the ringer and most and sam or like to year a snowy headed singer but similar examples might be multiplied from every one of his poems and songs in the dialect his lyre touched with the flame of brotherly sympathy and baptized with the milk of human kindness dispenses thoughts full of homely wisdom and tender beauty war has a warm side for poor folk and a kindly word for poor folks children he is familiar with the peculiar hardships that attend the lot of working people of those who maintained by the labour of their hands and comfortable while such labour and its fruits are continued to them are yet many of them constantly and unavoidably hovering on the confines of poverty the inspiration of some of his best songs is due to the sympathetic impulses thus awakened within his breast War has been compared to Burns, and in his sympathy for the poor, as well as in the manly independence of spirit displayed in his writings, he is not unlike his great prototype.

He came of humble parents, and his education, so far as schooling is concerned, was of the scantiest possible kind.

He did not even enjoy the advantage of attending a Sunday school in his younger years, though later on, as such schools began to be generally established throughout the country, he took an active personal interest in them.

his hymn-tunes and anthems were eagerly adopted and sung therein and these materially assisted in making sunday schools the success which they eventually became he was early apprenticed to the trade of hand-loom weaving which he continued to follow till well into the years of manhood It is a pleasant circumstance to note that he was the maternal uncle of the mother of our Lancashire poet, Edwin Waugh, who, in his roads out of Manchester, tells us that often, when a lad, he used to listen to his mother singing Leach's plaintive tunes when there was nobody in the house but his little sister and himself.

The poet, indeed, in his published works, often speaks of Leach in kindly and endearing words.