"If sweating big drops 'neath a burning sun,
And shiv'ring 'mid sleet and snow;
If drenched to the skin with rain, be fun,
And can a joy bestow!
"If toiling away through a weary week
(No six days work but seven)
Without one holy hour to seek
A resting place in heaven.
"If hearing the bells ring Sabbath chimes,
To bid us all repair
To church (as in the olden times)
And bend the knee in prayer.
"If in these bells he hears a voice
'To thy delivery!'
God says to every soul 'rejoice,'
But, postman, not to thee.
"O, the postman's is a blessed life!
And sighing heavily,
'Ha, ha,' he'll say, 'alack a-day!
Where's Britain's piety?'
"Heigho! I come and go
Through the muck and miry slough;
Heigho! I come and go
Heavy at heart and weary O!
"Heigho! Heigho!
Does any one pray for the postman? No!
No! no! no! no!
Or he would not be robbed of his Sabbath so!"
In The Rural Postman's Sabbath, Capern seems to breathe a more contented strain. His poetical remonstrances, probably on account of their originality, were more successful than they might have been if given in prose. The authorities raised his salary, and relieved him of his Sunday labours. Few rural postmen now travel on Sundays. The poet-postman has also had a pension granted him from the Royal Bounty Fund. In Capern's case we find literary abilities of a high order in the very lowest ranks of the Post-Office. When we have mentioned the names of Mr. Anthony Trollope, Mr. Edmund Yates, and Mr. Scudamore, we have said enough to show that they exist also in the highest ranks of the service.
[165] It is matter of notoriety, furnishing a fruitful subject for reflection and comment, that the great majority of complaints reaching the Post-Office authorities take their rise with clergymen. As offering a curious commentary on the Divine injunction to be merciful, and to forgive "seventy times seven," we once saw a requisition from a clergyman for the dismissal of a post-office clerk—a man with a wife and several children, by the way—on the ground that he had twice caused his letters to be missent, in each case losing the clerical correspondent a post.