I never ate the bread of indolence—
Could Alice be more thrifty than her mother?
Yet but with one child, and that one, how good
Thou knowest; I scarcely can provide the wants
Of nature: look at these wolves of the law,
They come to drain me of my hard-earn’d wages.
I have already paid the heavy tax
Laid on the wool that clothes me—on my leather—
On all the needful articles of life!
And now three groats (and I work’d hard to earn them)