The Cotton Factory Times. — 1900-11-30 (Manchester, Greater Manchester, England)

THE POACHER'S WIDOW.  BY Rsv. Cass Las KurosLKY.  The merry brown hares came leaping Over the crest of the hill, Where the clover and corn lay sleeping Under the moonlight still. Leaping late and early, Till under their bite and their tread The turnips, the wheat, and the barley, Lay cankerecl, and trampled, and dead. A poacher's widow sat sighing On the side of the white chalk bank, Where under the shade of the gloomy fir trees One spot in the held throve rank. She watched a long tuft of clover, Where rabbit or hare never ran ; For it's black sour leaves covered over The blood of a murdered man. She thought of the dark plantation, And the hares and her husband's blood, And the voice of her indignation Rose up to the heavens above. "I am long past wailing and whining— I have wept too much ia my life; I ye had twenty years of pining As a half-starved labourer's wife. "A labourer in a Christian country Where they cant of a Saviour's name,. , And yet waste men's lives like the vermin For a few more brace of game. There's blood on your new foreign shrubs, squire There's blood on your pointer's feet; There's blood on the game you sell, squire, There's blood on the game you est! "You have sold the !shooting man, squire, Body and soul to shame, To pay for your fine new house, squire, And to pay for the feed of your game. You made him a poacher yourself, squire, When you'd give neither work nor meat; Aud your barley-fed bares robb'd the garden At our starving children's feet. " When packed in one reeking chamber, Man, maid, mother, and little ones hay; While the-rain pattered in on the rotting bride bed, And the walls let in the (lay; When we ley in the burning fever On the mod of the cold clay floor. 'Till you parted us all for months, squire, At the cursed workhouse door. "We quarrelled like brutes, and who wonders? What self-respect could we keep, Worse housed than your hs,cks and your pointers, Worse fed than your hogs and your sheep. Our daughters, with base-born babies, Have wandered away in their shame; If your misses had slept, squire, where they did, Your misses might have done the same. "Can your lady patch hearts that are breaking With handfuls of coal and rice, Or by cleating out flannel and abetting A little below cost price? You may tire of the jail and the workhouse, And take to missions and schools, But you've run up a debt that will never be met By any of your penny-club rules. "In the season of shame and sadness, In the dark and dreary day. When scrofala, 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 eoal rot away to the grave, You may cringe and in vain shriek for mercy To that labourer you fancied your slave." Bbe looked at the long 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 CAM° leaping, Over the upland still, Where the clover and corn lay sleeping On the sidepof the white chalk hill.