THE OLD LABOURER.

HIS fourscore years have bent a back of oak,

His earth-brown cheeks are full of hollow pits;

His gnarled hands wander idly as he sits

Bending above the hearthstone's feeble smoke.

Threescore and ten slow years he tilled the land;

He wrung his bread from out the stubborn soil;

He saw his masters flourish through his toil;

He held their substance in his horny hand.

Now he is old: he asks for daily bread:

He who has sowed the bread he may not taste

Begs for the crumbs: he would do no man wrong.

The Parish Guardians, when his case is read,

Will grant him ( yet with no unseemly haste )

Just seventeen pence to starve on, seven days long.