You have trodden the Way of the Mire and Clay—now up and wash you, Jack!
Or else, or ever we reach our home, there waiteth an angry dame—
Well you know the weight of her blow—the supperless open shame!
Wash, if you will, on yonder hill—wash if you will, at the spring,—
Or keep your dirt, to your certain hurt, and an imminent walloping!"
"You must wash—you must scrub—you must scrape!" growled Jack, "you must traffic with can and pails,
Nor keep the spoil of the good brown soil in the rim of your fingernails!
The morning path you must tread to your bath—you must wash ere the night descends,
And all for the cause of conventional laws and the soapmaker's dividends!
But if 't is sooth that our meal in truth depends on our washing, Jill,