Oh the rain the weary rain Stutters on my window-sill Night I guess is on the wane All around has grown so still Here I sit with coffee cup Ah 't was rare l watched it flow In the tavern where I'd sup Twenty golden years ago Twenty years ago alas But stay, 't is half past twelve o'clock Oh how the hours do slip away And how the weary minutes mock For night and morn are wet and cold And my fire is dwindling low Yet I had fire enough Twenty golden years ago In my wish to show them plain Did I paint them honestly Wifeless friendless halt and lame Were they but as pawns to me I who never reasoned why Blind unjust and harsh I know Yet I did live I was alive Twenty golden years ago Tick and lock no sound but time's And the howling winding rain Tattoo'd through my withered rhyme Time, and time again Of all my hopes, ambitions, schemes These pages all that's left to show Gone are all my lofty dreams Of twenty golden years ago