The Rothers
But what's the figure bent and weak
Set up beside them, rolled in wraps?
I saw it sway; I could not speak.
I looked, let one long minute lapse
Then looked again ... I stopped them. Saw—
Oh, is there then on earth no law?
No thunder in Heaven? As before,
It was indeed an old grey head
That jerked from side to side; no more,
Only an old grey woman, dead.
That drives beside them, shawled and dressed…
They could not let her die at rest!
Wail, Maudie, wail your best! I know
You had not thought her dead; enough
You thought her dying, merely, and though
The air was cold, the road was rough.
Could say " Her three months' stay is o'er.
She is our promised guest no more.
"Now let her go to Florence Dare,
No need for us to nurse her now.
The drive will do her good, the air
Strike freshly on her fevered brow,
And, in the carriage, rugs are spread"—
Where, as you know, I found her dead.
Because they cast her away, my friend!
Because her nursling murdered her.
There, my long story has an end
At last. I leave you to infer
The moral, old enough to be true:
"Do good, and it is done to you."
But bid me not forgive and forget;
Forget my friend, forget a crime.
Because the county neighbours fret
That I'll not meet at dinner-time
Ingratitude and murder? Nay,
Touch pitch and be defiled, I say.
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