THE SPINSTER HOUSEHOLDER MARTYR, OR THE MAN IN POSSESSION.
NOT a sigh was heard, not a funeral note,
As the malice of Gladstone she parried:
"No taxes from me; I pay not a shot!"
So her furniture off was carried.
They carried it darkly—a deed of night,
For desk, tables, and chairs oft returning,
By the struggling moonbeams' misty light,
And a lantern dimly burning.
The man in possession ate, drank of her best,
In well-aired holland sheets he wound him;
And he lay like a warrior taking his rest,
With his pipe alight—confound him!
Few and short were the prayers he said,
And he spoke not a word of sorrow;
And he steadfastly smoked till Jane wished him dead,
As she bitterly thought of the morrow.
He chaffed the girl thus: "When you makes my bed,
And smoothes down my lonely pillow,
Don't you go for a stranger, nor wish me dead,
If you don't want to wear the willow."
Lightly he talked when the "spirits" were gone,
For pipe-ashes why should she upbraid him?
But little he'd spy if she'd let him smoke on,
In the bed where Britannia had laid him.
But half of the tyrant's task was done,
When the clock told the hour for retiring;
The minion quailed at the sound of the gun,
Which to signal her triumph was firing.
Of that spinster householder martyr's crown,
O, never shall perish the story:
Her friends paid her taxes, she had the renown—
Thus we leave her alone in her glory!
J. MCGRIGOR ALLAN.
All the above are from Truth, July 31, 1884.