XII
At morn they rose, to see her spring
All going as an engine thing;
And lighter than the gossamer
She led the bobbers following her,
Past old acquaintances, and where
They made the stranger stupid stare.
XIII
When turnips were a filling crop,
In scorn they jumped a butcher’s shop:
Or, spite of threats to flog and souse,
They jumped for shame a public-house:
And much their legs were seized with rage
If passing by the vicarage.
XIV
The tightness of a hempen rope
Their bodies got; but laundry soap
Not handsomer can rub the skin
For token of the washed within.
Occasionally coughers cast
A leg aloft and coughed their last.
XV
The weaker maids and some old men,
Requiring rafters for the pen
On rainy nights, were those who fell.
The rest were quite a miracle,
Refreshed as you may search all round
On Club-feast days and cry, Not found!
XVI
For these poor innocents, that slept
Against the sky, soft women wept:
For never did they any theft;
’Twas known when they their camping left,
And jumped the cold out of their rags;
In spirit rich as money-bags.