Classic Poem

AS OVERHEARD IN THE TRAIN

That jolly old gentleman, bless his white hat!
Wouldn't come in to spoil our chat;
We are alone and we can speak, —
What have you done, Miss, all the week?

" Oh, all the day it's been fit and shew,
And all the night it's been trim and sew,
For the ladies are flocking to Exeter Hall
In lovely light dresses fit for a ball."

Under your eye a little dark streak,
And a point of red on the top of your cheek,
And your temples quite dim against your hair;
This sha'n't last very much longer I swear.

And what is the news from the workroom now?
" The week began with a bit of a row;
Emmy Harley married young Earl
Just in the busy time!" — sensible girl!

" That was on Monday; Missis said
It was very ungrateful, very ill-bred,
And very unkind to us when she knew
The work so heavy, the hands so few.

" But this was nothing: the minute we woke
On Wednesday, before it seemed any one spoke,
We knew that poor Mary Challis was dead;
Kate Long had been sleeping in the same bed.

" Mary worked with us till twelve, when tea
Was brought in to keep us awake, but she
Was so ill then, Miss Cooper sent her to bed;
And there in the morning they found her dead;

" With Kate fast asleep by her side: they had come
To see how she was, and the sight struck them dumb:
At last they roused Kate and led her away;
She was sick and shuddering all the day.

" Kate says when she went up at four to their room
She was stupid with sleep; but she marked a faint bloom
On Mary's pale face, and she heard her breathe low —
A light fluttering breath now quick and now slow;

" And feared to disturb her, for she had a cough,
But the moment she laid her head down she was off,
And knew nothing more till they stood by the side
Of the bed: p'r'aps Mary slept on till she died.

" They buried her yesterday. Kate was there,
And she was the only one Missis could spare;
Some dresses were bound to be finished by night,
For the ladies to go in to Church all right.

" Poor Mary! she didn't fear dying, she said,
Her father drinks and her mother is dead;
But she hoped that in Heaven the white garments wear
For ever; no fashions and dressmaking There."

My Love, if the ladies most pious of all
Who flock to the Church and to Exeter Hall
Find Heaven has but one dress for rich as for poor,
And no fashions, they'll very soon cut it I'm sure.

I saw you ten minutes on Tuesday night,
Then I took the 'bus home for I had to write;
And I wrote and I wrote like an engine till five,
When my fingers were dead and the letters alive.

A fair Bill of Costs from a deuce of a draft
In our Cashier's worst scrawl like Chinese run daft;
With entries between, on the margin, the back,
And figures like short-hand marks put to the rack.

But our Common-law Clerk is going away,
And the Gov'nor had me in yesterday,
And said he would try me, he thought I might do;
And I jumped at the chance, for this child thinks so too.

Just fancy, each morning a jolly good walk,
And instead of the copying, bustle and talk!
And if I do well — and well I will do —
A couple of sovs, a week for my screw!

And then when I'm free of the desk and the stool,
Do you think you will keep to the nunnery rule
Of the shop, till you go off like Mary some night
Smothered in work from the air and the light?

We'll use our professional talents, my dear:
You shall make such a wedding-dress, best of the year!
And a wonderful marriage-deed I will draw
With magnificent settlements perfect in law.

Thus doing our duties in those states of life
In which it has pleased God to call us, my wife!
" And how much a year will you settle on me?"
My body and soul and — what we shall see.