From James Bryn   April 16th 1845

Leighlin Bridge | April 16th 1845.

Dear John,

You may thank the Lord’s prayer which teaches me to forgive as I expect to be forgiven all trespassers¹ who will not immediately thrust a letter in to stop a gap in friendly correspondence and you may perceive I act according to it by sending you this. Now, you thing of the world, begin on the receipt of this to fence the breach, for fear that any unpleasant stray ideas might get in. I wrote about six weeks or a month ago² and received no tidings of you I am afraid you have gone where you sent my letters handy to blazes if you have not gone or is about going to take a survey for a railway in his sulphurous or dark tartarean³ Majesty’s dominions, upon my soul I am almost afraid you have gone thither. If you have not write. If you would only say Dear James I am alive and kicking still. Faith if you were not in the above mentioned place or next door to it you would let me have some tidings of you before this time. How soon you would write to a fellow if he said you are a damned scoundrel aye would you in a minute. – well then you ought to write me in half a minute that would think nothing of doing my best to knock the brains out of him that would dare say the like to you. Your long silence has made patience and I part company however we will be friends again on receipt of your letter which will be welcome as light and a calm to the weary and tempest tost mariner after toiling out a whole dark night without the ray of a single star to guide him in an unknown sea and along a dangerous shore. I hope this will not interrupt any pleasing thoughts of your adored one.⁴ I had a full gazette of my angel’s charms to send you ready made, only I feared to make this more tedious than it is. Now as I have come to a conclusion, ‘tis hoped by me you will deem it no intrusion.

I beg <to> remain ever | Your affectionate friend | James Byrn⁵

I am thinking you are married for it makes people forget their old friends.

P.S. I am in a very bad state of health these two or three months. Your old charmer Jane Collier⁶ and her brother William⁷ has set up a milliners, trimmers, and haberdashery shop in Dublin Street, Carlow, and I think they are doing well. In a letter previous to this I sent a few verses namely Sir Walter Scott’s study⁸ and the Spaniard of 1830.⁹ I now send you a beautiful but unpublished song by Thomas Moore Esq.

Memory

Oh, wilt thou remember that song of our youth,

That brings back its lustre to light our decline

Or weepest thou often when memory’s truth

Comes mingling with music to make it divine?

For ‘Where are those voices’, my heart will inquire,

‘That fondly and faithfully whispered that lay?

Oh where the affection that kindled its fire

On the altar of friendship? are all passed away?

If fortune will fade, and affection with years

Go sleep in the grave of oblivion at last

Still music shall live ‘mid the friendship of tears

And fondly survive the beloved of the past.

Like waters that roll from these rock covered hills,

The muse’s sweet tears shall undying remain;

And if lonely me linger the last amid ills,

Our own native music shall soothe with its strain.

Like roses we’ve loved in our infancy’s hour,

Which oft the dull pathway of manhood adorn;

Thus memory brings back to her own vesper bower

Those glimpses of melody taught her at morn.

Like Israel’s harp as by Babylon’s stream

It wept on the willow for lands it loved best

Thus dear to old Erin,¹⁰ in music’s soft dream,

Sighs faithfully and fondly the Harp of the West. ¹¹

Beautiful.

RI MS JT/1/TYP/11/3489

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