The Silent Mews

The Silent Mews

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“I knew him well. He was a fellow of infinite jest.” Poor Tom Baker lies in the cold clay. His lute is silent for ever. Harmless in his eccentricities from time to time he poured forth his wrongs in verse to the Ballina Board of Guardians, Cupid stricken. But the times have changed, and we have changed with them. With the passing of the Local Government Act poor Tom recognized that the age of poetry and romance had gone for ever; and so, continuing the muse no longer, and laying aside the lute on which he played melodious, he tried to accommodate himself to the new situation of affairs and died in harness. The following tribute to poor Tom’s memory was printed in a local paper:

HIS form is still, his voice is mute,

Silent for aye his cheerful lute

Heard by the ways so oft.

Earth’s shadows passed from his away,

His spirit waked to glorious day,

For tom has gone aloft.

Laving and gentle as the child,

To friend and foes his manners mild,

Though sometimes he was known

When guardians hard would say him nay

To let his muse fierce wrath display—

But Tom aloft has flown.

From Workhouse Row down to the Quay,

And in the “house” where messmates lay

Who sighed and groaned and coughed,

Pity has wrung a tear from all—

Kind mem’ry lightened death’s dark pall

On Tom that’s gone aloft.

The Guardians now the roost may rule,

And by harsh dictum inmates fool,

And their just claims deny;

Officials too may play their game,

All right and wrong are just the same

To Tom that’s gone on high.

Kind-hearted readers, as for ye

He made his pipe pour forth its glee—

He tried to pipe it soft—

Now in return let one small prayer

In fervent hope ascend the air

For Tom that’s gone aloft.