Top O' the Morning

"Old Bandy Mick" they called him, and he long since came to die;
But many a time, in old days, I used to pass him by
   On these familiar forest ways; he was a hale man then
   With that God-given optimism granted happy men.
Rare joy was his in bearing, a smile e'er on his lip,
His battered hat o'er one bright eye preserved a rakish tip
   As he called his cheery greeting, e'er in the same old way.
  "Hah!  The tap o' the marnin' to yeh!  An' a jewel 'tis of a day."

His greeting never varied, come rain or sun or snow
And he meant it -- every word of it -- his tone proclaimed it so.
   A poor man, filled with happy thanks for God's abounding gifts,
   Where lesser man saw lowering skies, he sought and found the rifts.
So thro' the years I passed him as we both grew old apace;
And, tho' the spring went from his step, still in his shining face
   The gratitude persisted with that bearing blithely gay:
   "Hah!  The tap o' the marnin' to yeh!  An' a jewel 'tis of a day."

And then the years betrayed him; and with old-age there came
A foul and hopeless malady that seared him like a flame.
   Yet still he hobbled down the track, and still he praised the day.
   "For would I not take shame," said he, "to mulligrub that way?"
And still, beside dull agony writ plainly on his face,
Indomitable gladness shone -- a blessing and grace.
   And still, with hat tip-tilted, he found the heart to say:
   "Hah!  The tap o' the marnin' to yeh!  An' a jewel 'tis of a day."

We grieve and moan o'er little ills; we view the skies askance
And repay a beaming morning with a mean, embittered glance.
   But, haply for my soul's sake, at times there comes to me
   A vision of Old Bandy Mick, just as he used to be
With hat a-tilt and beaming eye, as down the track he came;
Then, if I could remain forlorn, would I, too, not "take shame"
   Lest in the churlish heart of me I found the grace to say,
   "Hah!  The tap o' the marnin' to yeh!  An' a jewel 'tis of a day."