Times Laughingstocks | Page 8

they would fain get done -
Do John and Jane with their worthless son.
THE CURATE'S KINDNESS?A WORKHOUSE IRONY
I
I thought they'd be strangers aroun' me,
But she's to be there!?Let me jump out o' waggon and go back and drown me?At Pummery or Ten-Hatches Weir.
II
I thought: "Well, I've come to the Union -
The workhouse at last -?After honest hard work all the week, and Communion?O' Zundays, these fifty years past.
III
"'Tis hard; but," I thought, "never mind it:
There's gain in the end:?And when I get used to the place I shall find it
A home, and may find there a friend.
IV
"Life there will be better than t'other.
For peace is assured.?THE MEN IN ONE WING AND THEIR WIVES IN ANOTHER
Is strictly the rule of the Board."
V
Just then one young Pa'son arriving
Steps up out of breath?To the side o' the waggon wherein we were driving
To Union; and calls out and saith:
VI
"Old folks, that harsh order is altered,
Be not sick of heart!?The Guardians they poohed and they pished and they paltered
When urged not to keep you apart.
VII
"'It is wrong,' I maintained, 'to divide them,
Near forty years wed.'?'Very well, sir. We promise, then, they shall abide them
In one wing together,' they said."
VIII
Then I sank--knew 'twas quite a foredone thing
That misery should be?To the end! . . . To get freed of her there was the one thing
Had made the change welcome to me.
IX
To go there was ending but badly;
'Twas shame and 'twas pain;?"But anyhow," thought I, "thereby I shall gladly
Get free of this forty years' chain."
X
I thought they'd be strangers aroun' me,
But she's to be there!?Let me jump out o' waggon and go back and drown me
At Pummery or Ten-Hatches Weir.
THE FLIRT'S TRAGEDY?(17--)
Here alone by the logs in my chamber,
Deserted, decrepit -?Spent flames limning ghosts on the wainscot
Of friends I once knew -
My drama and hers begins weirdly
Its dumb re-enactment,?Each scene, sigh, and circumstance passing
In spectral review.
? Wealth was mine beyond wish when I met her - The pride of the lowland - Embowered in Tintinhull Valley
? By laurel and yew;
And love lit my soul, notwithstanding
My features' ill favour,?Too obvious beside her perfections
Of line and of hue.
But it pleased her to play on my passion,
And whet me to pleadings?That won from her mirthful negations
And scornings undue.
Then I fled her disdains and derisions
To cities of pleasure,?And made me the crony of idlers
In every purlieu.
Of those who lent ear to my story,
A needy Adonis?Gave hint how to grizzle her garden
From roses to rue,
Could his price but be paid for so purging
My scorner of scornings:?Thus tempted, the lust to avenge me
Germed inly and grew.
I clothed him in sumptuous apparel,
Consigned to him coursers,?Meet equipage, liveried attendants
In full retinue.
So dowered, with letters of credit
He wayfared to England,?And spied out the manor she goddessed,
And handy thereto,
Set to hire him a tenantless mansion
As coign-stone of vantage?For testing what gross adulation
Of beauty could do.
He laboured through mornings and evens,
On new moons and sabbaths,?By wiles to enmesh her attention
In park, path, and pew;
And having afar played upon her,
Advanced his lines nearer,?And boldly outleaping conventions,
Bent briskly to woo.
His gay godlike face, his rare seeming
Anon worked to win her,?And later, at noontides and night-tides
They held rendezvous.
His tarriance full spent, he departed
And met me in Venice,?And lines from her told that my jilter
Was stooping to sue.
Not long could be further concealment,
She pled to him humbly:?"By our love and our sin, O protect me;
I fly unto you!"
A mighty remorse overgat me,
I heard her low anguish,?And there in the gloom of the calle
My steel ran him through.
A swift push engulphed his hot carrion
Within the canal there -?That still street of waters dividing
The city in two.
? I wandered awhile all unable To smother my torment, My brain racked by yells as from Tophet
? Of Satan's whole crew.
A month of unrest brought me hovering
At home in her precincts,?To whose hiding-hole local story
Afforded a clue.
Exposed, and expelled by her people,
Afar off in London?I found her alone, in a sombre
And soul-stifling mew.
Still burning to make reparation
I pleaded to wive her,?And father her child, and thus faintly
My mischief undo.
She yielded, and spells of calm weather
Succeeded the tempest;?And one sprung of him stood as scion
Of my bone and thew . . .
But Time unveils sorrows and secrets,
And so it befell now:?By inches the curtain was twitched at,
And slowly undrew.
As we lay, she and I, in the night-time,
We heard the boy moaning:?"O misery mine! My false father
Has murdered my true!"
She gasped: yea, she heard; understood it.
Next day the child fled us;?And nevermore sighted was even
A print of his shoe.
Thenceforward she shunned me, and languished;
Till one day the park-pool?Embraced her fair form, and extinguished
Her eyes' living blue.
? So; ask not what blast may account for This aspect of pallor, These bones that just prison within them
? Life's poor residue;
But pass by, and leave unregarded
A Cain to his suffering,?For vengeance too dark on the woman
Whose lover he slew.
THE REJECTED MEMBER'S WIFE
We shall see her no more
On the balcony,?Smiling,