"Can your lady patch hearts that are breaking,
With handfuls of coals and rice,
Or by dealing out flannel and sheeting
A little below cost price?
"You may tire of the jail and the workhouse,
And take to allotments and schools,
But you 've run up a debt that will never
Be repaid us by penny-club rules.
"In the season of shame and sadness,
In the dark and dreary day.
When scrofula, gout, and madness
Are eating your race away;
"When to kennels and liveried varlets
You have cast your daughters' bread,
And, worn out with liquor and harlots,
Your heir at your feet lies dead;
"When your youngest, the mealy-mouthed rector,
Lets your soul rot asleep to the grave,
You will find in your God the protector
Of the freeman you fancied your slave."
She looked at the tuft of clover,
And wept till her heart grew light;
And at last, when her passion was over,
Went wandering into the night.
But the merry brown hares came leaping
Over the uplands still,
Where the clover and corn lay sleeping
On the side of the white chalk hill.
CHARLES KINGSLEY.
"THEY ARE DEAR FISH TO ME."
The farmer's wife sat at the door,
A pleasant sight to see;
And blithesome were the wee, wee bairns
That played around her knee.
When, bending 'neath her heavy creel,
A poor fish-wife came by,
And, turning from the toilsome road,
Unto the door drew nigh.
She laid her burden on the green,
And spread its scaly store;
With trembling hands and pleading words,
She told them o'er and o'er.
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