secutor"?--PROPHYLACTIC.

* * * * *

HER "DAY OF REST."

(_The Song of the Shop-Girl._)

[Illustration: ["As one poor shop-girl said:--'After the fatigue and
worry of the week, I am so thoroughly worn out, that my only thought
is to rest on a Sunday; but it goes too quickly, and the other days
drag on so slowly!'"--_Quoted by Sir John Lubbock in the recent Debate
on Early Closing for Shops._]]

Eight o'clock strikes!
The short day's sped,--
My Day of Rest! That beating in my head
Hammers on still, like coffin-taps. He likes,
Our lynx-eyed chief, to see us brisk and trim
On Monday mornings; and though brains may swim,
And breasts sink sickeningly with nameless pain,
_He_ cannot feel the faintness and the strain,
And what are they to him?

This morning's sun peeped in
Invitingly, as though to win
My footsteps fieldwards, just one day in seven!
The thought of hedgerows was like opening heaven,
And the stray sunray's gleam,
Threading the dingy blind,
Seemed part of a sweet dream,
For in our sleep the Fates _are_ sometimes kind.
"Come out!" it said, "but not with weary tread,
And feet of lead,
The long, mud-cumbered, cold, accustomed way,
For the great Shop is shuttered close to-day,
And you awhile are free!"
_Free?_ With a chain of iron upon my heart,
That drags me down, and makes the salt tears start!

Oh, that inexorable weariness
That through the enfeebled flesh lays crushing stress
On the young spirit! Young? There is no youth
For such as I. It dies, in very truth,
At the first touch of the taskmaster's hand.
A doctrine hard for you to understand,
Gay sisters of the primrose path,
Whose only chain is as a flowery band.
The toil that outstays nature hath
A palsying power, a chilling force
Which freezes youth at its fresh source.
Only the Comus wand
Of an unhallowed Pleasure offers such
Freedom, and with pollution in its touch.

The languid lift
Of head from pillow tells us the good gift
Of Sabbath rest is more than half in vain.
Tired! Tired! In flesh, bone, brain,
Heart, fancy, pulse, and nerve!
Such is our doom who stand and serve
The unrewarding public, thoughtless they
Of slaves whose souls they slay!

Oh, that long standing--standing--standing yet!
With the flesh sick, the inmost soul a-fret,
Pale, pulsele