THE CLERK.
With black coal-dust the walls and floor
Were thickly coated, one and all;
On rusty hinges swung the door
That open'd to the gloomy wall;
The broken chairs looked dull and dark,
Undusted was the mantel-piece,
And deeply-speck'd with spots of grease
Within the chamber of the clerk.
He only said "I'm very weary
With living in this ditch;"
He said, "I am confounded dreary,
I would that I were rich."
* * *
About six fathoms from the wall,
A blackened chimney (much askew)
Smoked in his face—and round and small
The chimney-pots destroyed his view,
Hard by—a popular highway,
With coal-dust turned to pitchy dark,
Where many a little dog doth bark—
Some black, some mottled, many grey.
He said, "My life is very dreary,
With living in this ditch;"
He said, "I am fatigued and weary,
I would that I were rich."
The two other verses of this parody have no great merit, and, indeed, the above are only quoted to show that more than forty years ago there was an outcry about the wretched habitations of our London poor.