IX

     He says I’m no use! but I won’t reply. 
     You’re lucky not being of use to him! 
     On week-days he’s playing at Spider and Fly,
     And on Sundays he sings about Cherubim! 
     Nailing shillings to counters is his chief work: 
     He nods now and then at the name on his door: 
     But judge of us two, at a bow and a smirk,
     I think I’m his match:  and I’m honest—­that’s more.

     X

     No use! well, I mayn’t be.  You ring a pig’s snout,
     And then call the animal glutton!  Now, he,
     Mr. Shopman, he’s nought but a pipe and a spout
     Who won’t let the goods o’ this world pass free. 
     This blazing blue weather all round the brown crop,
     He can’t enjoy! all but cash he hates. 
     He’s only a snail that crawls under his shop;
     Though he has got the ear o’ the magistrates.

     XI

     Now, giving and taking’s a proper exchange,
     Like question and answer:  you’re both content. 
     But buying and selling seems always strange;
     You’re hostile, and that’s the thing that’s meant. 
     It’s man against man—­you’re almost brutes;
     There’s here no thanks, and there’s there no pride. 
     If Charity’s Christian, don’t blame my pursuits,
     I carry a touchstone by which you’re tried.

     XII

— ‘Take it,’ says she, ‘it’s all I’ve got’:  I remember a girl in London streets:  She stood by a coffee-stall, nice and hot, My belly was like a lamb that bleats.  Says I to myself, as her shilling I seized, You haven’t a character here, my dear!  But for making a rascal like me so pleased, I’ll give you one, in a better sphere!

     XIII

     And that’s where it is—­she made me feel
     I was a rascal:  but people who scorn,
     And tell a poor patch-breech he isn’t genteel,
     Why, they make him kick up—­and he treads on a corn. 
     It isn’t liking, it’s curst ill-luck,
     Drives half of us into the begging-trade: 
     If for taking to water you praise a duck,
     For taking to beer why a man upbraid?

     XIV

     The sermon’s over:  they’re out of the porch,
     And it’s time for me to move a leg;
     But in general people who come from church,
     And have called themselves sinners, hate chaps to beg. 
     I’ll wager they’ll all of ’em dine to-day! 
     I was easy half a minute ago. 
     If that isn’t pig that’s baking away,
     May I perish!—­we’re never contented—­heigho!

     By the Rosanna—­to F. M. STANZER Thal, Tyrol

     The old grey Alp has caught the cloud,
     And the torrent river sings aloud;
     The glacier-green Rosanna sings
     An organ song of its upper springs. 
     Foaming under the tiers of pine,
     I see it dash down the dark ravine,