Edwin Waugh Biography
Edwin Waugh (1817 – 1890), poet, son of a shoemaker, was born in Rochdale, Lancashire, and, after a little schooling, apprenticed to a printer.
Waugh read eagerly, and became assistant secretary to the Lancashire Public School Association. He first attracted attention by his sketches of Lancashire life and character in the Manchester Examiner. He wrote also in prose Factory Folk, Besom Ben Stories, and The Chimney Corner. His best work was, perhaps, his Lancashire dialect songs, collected as Poems and Songs (1859), which brought him great local fame. He was possessed of considerable literary gift, and has been called "the Lancashire Burns." Waugh's Well was built in 1866 to commemorate him at the now derelict Fo' Farm, where he spent much time writing, on the moors above Waterfoot, Rossendale.Waugh died at his home in New Brighton, near Liverpool, in 1890 and was buried in St. Paul's churchyard on Kersal Moor.
When life's glad day is gone,
And the sun goes down
When we muse all alone
As the sun goes down;
...
When stars begin to steal in sight
Above the moorland hill;
When dreamy dusk leads on the night,
And all the world grows still;
...
Oh, thou who dost these pointers see,
And hears't the chiming hour,
Say, do I tell the time to thee,
And tell thee nothing more;-
...
A merry little doffer lad
Coom down to Shapper's mill,
To see if he could get a shop;
He said his name wur 'Bill.'
...
There're mony a gate eawt of eaw teawnend,—
But nobbut one for me
It winds by a rindlin' wayter side,
An' o'er a posied lea;
...
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