I rather suspect that my Scottish great grandfather, Whitefield Watson, who wrote masses of poetry, may have cheated just a wee bit with his own version of Burn's poem in the early "To Miss Logan", which he wrote in the 1900's! 🤗🤗
To Miss Logan, With Beattie's Poems, For A New-Year's Gift, Jan. 1, 1787
Again the silent wheels of time
Their annual round have driven,
And you, tho' scarce in maiden prime,
Are so much nearer Heaven.
No gifts have I from Indian coasts
The infant year to hail;
I send you more than India boasts,
In Edwin's simple tale.
Our sex with guile, and faithless love,
Is charg'd, perhaps too true;
But may, dear maid, each lover prove
An Edwin still to you.
************
And my great Grandfather's version:
THE SILENT WHEELS OF TIME - by Whitefield Watson
Once again, the silent wheels of time
Their annual round has driven
Another Milestone left behind
One year's march nearer Heaven
I have past three score and ten milestones
And still I'm struggling on
To reach the Land of Canaan
Where loved ones they have gone
Ofttimes the road was rough and thorny
And my path was filled with care
But the Lord was always with me
And he gave me strength to bear
When darkest clouds they compass round me
And my soul was filled with fear
I heard the voice of Jesus whisper
"I am with you do not fear"
Still today I am struggling onward
Onward at the Lord's command
And I know he will never leave me
Till I reach the promised land
When I stand on the brink of Jordan,
And hear the billows roar,
I'll be safe with the arms of Jesus round me
He will bring me safe to shore
When I am safe across the Jordan
Life's troubles will all be o'er
And I'll lay my weary burden down
On the sands of the Golden Shore
**********
** Whitefield Watson, my great grandfather emigrated to NZ in 1924, and lived to the ripe old age of 78!
I'm very blessed to have inherited all his writings from his daughter, my grandmother, addresses to his local Burns Club in NZ, with newspaper clippings of his speeches, with his analysis of various poems written by Robert Burns, and also all the poetry he had written himself! All up they total over 400 scanned pages, written in pencil in his own tiny writing, on the back of old envelopes. They were very difficult to read, as the writing was incredibly faded! A friend who owned a Cartridge World Franchise scanned and enlarged them all for me, so now they're much easier to read! One day I'll get around to transcribing the rest of them, but at least they're all readable now. 👍👍👍
Modified to add: My great grandfather worked in the Coalmines from the age of 8 years. For a man who proved to be so very literate in his later years, I'm assuming that he could have also be getting Schooling help from his parents! It must have come from somebody!
My Mum told me that he started to teach her to read when she was about 3, because she really loved books and being read to, and wanted to tell her younger sister stories at bedtime! He also taught her the alphabet and simple arithmetic! By the time she started school when she was 6, she was running rings around the other children in her primary class!
