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Her bosom then was veil'd in kerchief clean,
And fancy left to form the charms unseen.

But when a wife, she lost her former care, Nor thought on charms, nor time for dress could spare;

Careless she found her friends who dwelt beside,
No rival beauty kept alive her pride:

Still in her bosom virtue keeps her place,

But decency is gone, the virtues' guard and grace.
See that long boarded Building!-By these stairs
Each humble tenant to that home repairs-
By one large window lighted-it was made
For some bold project, some design in trade:
This fail'd, and one, a humourist in his way,
(Ill was the humour,) bought it in decay;
Nor will he sell, repair, or take it down;

'Tis his, what cares he for the talk of town? "No! he will let it to the poor ;·

-a home "Where he delights to see the creatures come: "They may be thieves; "-"Well, so are richer

men;"

"Or idlers, cheats, or prostitutes;"

"What then?"

"Outcasts pursued by justice, vile and base;”.

66

They need the more his pity and the place:"
Convert to system his vain mind has built,
He gives asylum to deceit and guilt.

In this vast room, each place by habit fix'd,
Are sexes, families, and mix'd
ages

To union forced by crime, by fear, by need,
And all in morals and in modes agreed;
Some ruin'd men, who from mankind remove;
Some ruin'd females, who yet talk of love;

And some grown old in idleness—the prey
To vicious spleen, still railing through the day;
And need and misery, vice and danger bind
In sad alliance each degraded mind.

That window view! - oil'd paper and old glass Stain the strong rays, which, though impeded, pass,

And give a dusty warmth to that huge room,
The conquer'd sunshine's melancholy gloom;
When all those western rays, without so bright.
Within become a ghastly glimmering light,
As pale and faint upon the floor they fall,
Or feebly gleam on the opposing wall:

That floor, once oak, now pieced with fir unplaned,
Or, where not pieced, in places bored and stain'd;
That wall once whiten'd, now an odious sight,
Stain'd with all hues, except its ancient white;
The only door is fasten'd by a pin,

Or stubborn bar, that none may hurry in:
For this poor room, like rooms of greater pride,
At times contains what prudent men would hide.
Where'er the floor allows an even space,

Chalking and marks of various games have place;
Boys, without foresight, pleased in halters swing;
On a fix'd hook men cast a flying ring;

While gin and snuff their female neighbours share, And the black beverage in the fractured ware.

On swinging shelf are things incongruous stored,— Scraps of their food, -the cards and cribbageboard,

With pipes and pouches; while on peg below,
Hang a lost member's fiddle and its bow:

That still reminds them how he'd dance and play, Ere sent untimely to the Convicts' Bay.

Here by a curtain, by a blanket there,

Are various beds conceal'd, but none with care;
Where some by day and some by night, as best
Suit their employments, seek uncertain rest;
The drowsy children at their pleasure creep
To the known crib, and there securely sleep.
Each end contains a grate, and these beside
Are hung utensils for their boil'd and fried
All used at any hour, by night, by day,
As suit the purse, the person, or the prey.

Above the fire, the mantel-shelf contains
Of china-ware some poor unmatch'd remains;
There many a tea-cup's gaudy fragment stands,
All placed by vanity's unwearied hands;
For here she lives, e'en here she looks about,
To find some small consoling objects out:
Nor heed these Spartan dames their house, not sit
'Mid cares domestic, - they nor sew nor knit;
But of their fate discourse, their ways, their wars,
With arm'd authorities, their 'scapes and scars:
These lead to present evils, and a cup.

If fortune grant it, winds description up.

High hung up at either end, and next the wall, Two ancient mirrors show the forms of all, In all their force ;-these aid them in their dress, But with the good, the evils too express,

Doubling each look of care, each token of distress.(1)

(1) [The graphic powers of Mr. Crabbe are too frequently wasted on unworthy subjects. There is not, perhaps, in all English poetry, a more complete and highly-finished piece of painting, than this description of

a vast old boarded room or warehouse, which was let out, in the Borough, as a kind of undivided lodging, for beggars and vagabonds of every description. No Dutch painter ever presented an interior more distinctly to the eye, or ever gave half such a group to the imagination. - JEFFREY.]

(1)

(2)

THE BOROUGH.

LETTER XIX.

THE POOR OF THE BOROUGH.

THE PARISH-CLERK.

Nam dives qui fieri vult,

Et citò vult fieri; sed quæ reverentia legum,
Quis metus, aut pudor est unquam properantis avari?
Juv. Sat. xiv. (1)

Nocte brevem si fortè indulsit cura soporem,
Et toto versata thoro jam membra quiescunt,
Continuò templum et violati Numinis aras,
Et quod præcipuis mentem sudoribus urget,
Te videt in somnis; tua sacra et major imago

Humanâ turbat pavidum, cogitque fateri.-Juv. Sat. xiii. (2)

he who covets wealth, disdains to wait:

Law threatens, conscience calls, yet on he hies,
And this he silences, and that defies.]

[At night, should sleep his harass'd limbs compose,
And steal him one short moment from his woes,
Then dreams invade; sudden, before his eyes,

The violated fane and altar rise;

And (what disturbs him most) your injured shade,
In more than mortal majesty array'd,

Frowns on the wretch, alarms his treach'rous rest,

And wrings the dreadful secret from his breast, GIFFORD.]

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