,--
It seems so like my own
Because of the fasts I keep;
O God! that bread should be so dear,
And flesh and blood so cheap!

"Work--work--work
My labor never flags;
And what are its wages? A bed of straw,
A crust of bread--and rags,
That shattered roof--and this naked floor--
A table--a broken chair--
And a wall so blank my shadow I thank
For sometimes falling there!

"Work--work--work
From weary chime to chime!
Work--work--work
As prisoners work for crime!
Band, and gusset, and seam,
Seam, and gusset, and band,
Till the heart is sick and the brain benumbed,
As well as the weary hand.

"Work--work--work
In the dull December light!
And work--work--work--
When the weather is warm and bright!
While underneath the eaves
The brooding swallows cling,
As if to show me their sunny backs,
And twit me with the Spring.

"O, but to breathe the breath
Of the cowslip and primrose sweet,--
With the sky above my head,
And the grass beneath my feet!
For only one short hour
To feel as I used to feel,
Before I knew the woes of want
And the walk that costs a meal!

"O but for one short hour,--
A respite, however brief!
No blessed leisure for love or hope,
But only time for grief!
A little weeping would ease my heart;
But in their briny bed
My tears must stop, for every drop
Hinders needle and thread!"

With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat, in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread,--
Stitch! stitch! stitch,
In poverty, hunger, and dirt;
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch--
Would that its tone could reach the rich!--
She sang this "Song of the Shirt!"

THOMAS HOOD.

THE PAUPER'S DRIVE.

There's a grim one-horse hearse in a jolly round trot--
To the churchyard a pauper is going, I wot;
The road it is rough, and the hearse has no springs;
And hark to the dirge which the mad driver sings;
_Rattle his bones over the stones!
He's only a pauper whom nobody owns!_

O, where are the mourners? Alas! there are none,
He has left not a gap in the world, now he's gone,--
Not a tear in the eye of child, woman, or man;
To the grave with his carcass as fast as you can:
_Rattle his bones over the stones!
He's only a pauper whom nobody owns_!

What a jolting and creaking and splashing and din!
The whip, how it cracks! and the wheels, how they spin!
How the dirt, right and left, o'er the hedges is hurled!