FAMILY HISTORY: POETRY Collection written by Elsie Strawn ARMSTRONG
  
  File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Les Howard Strawn
  
  Copyright 2006.  All rights reserved.
  http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
  http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/somerset/
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  We have an aged citizen,
      Above three score and ten,
  More that a score of years ago
      I saw him here then.
  
  He was lately telling me
      About his hope and fear,
  When he was on the sidewalk
      And saw the hoops appear.
  
  He said his arm was for a gate
      It was so he could get through,
  Then he felt that he was safe,
      And 'twas the best that he could do!
  
  But if no gate was near,
      Then he clung upon the fence,
  For that did seem to him as though
      It would be some defense.
  
  He said, "A fast hold upon the fence
      Is the best way I have found,
  For if they knock my feet from under me
      They cannot get me down.
  
  But O, the knocks and thumps,
      They give me as they pass!
  The rakes, the scrapes and bruises,
      With their wood and bone and brass."