Adam

After W. W.

An adventure of the Author's, and one designed to show that grievances may be met with in the cottages of the humblest, and may take the most unexpected forms.

When in my white-washed walls confined

Till eve her freedom brings,

I often turn a musing mind

To think awhile of things,

And thus about the noontide glow

To-day my thoughts recalled

Old Adam, whom I once did know,

A dear old thing, though bald.

A village Gravedigger was he

With Newgate fringe of grey,

The only man that one could see

At work on Saturday!

For on those evenings (which provide

A due release to toil)

He shovelled wearily, and plied

His task upon the soil.

Therein a sorrow Adam had,

And when he knew me well

He told this tale, and made me sad,

Which now to you I tell.

For once my feet did chance to stray

Across the old churchyard,

And Adam sighed, and paused to say

'It's werry, werry hard.'

I marvelled much to hear him sigh,

And when he paused again,

'Come, come, you quaint old thing,' said I,

'Why thus this tone of pain?'

In silence Adam rose, and gained

A seat amid the stones,

And thus the veteran complained,

The dear old bag of bones.

'Down by the wall the Village goes,

How horrid sounds their glee,

On Saturdays they early close,

They have their Sundays free;

'And here, on this depressing spot,

I cannot choose but moan

That I, a labouring man, have not

An hour to call my own.

'The Blacksmith in his Sunday things,

The Clerk that leaves his till,

Can give their thoughts of labour wings,

And frolic as they will.

'To me they - drat 'em! - never give

A thought; they wander by,

An irritation while they live,

A nuisance when they die.

'If there be one that needs lament

The way these folks behave,

'Tis he whose holidays are spent

In digging someone's grave,

'For when a person takes and dies,

On Monday though it be,

They never hold his obsequies

Till Sunday after three.

'And thus it fares through their delay,

That I may not begin

To dig the grave till Saturday, -

On Sunday fill it in.

'My Sabbath ease is broken through,

My Saturdays destroyed;

Many employ me; very few

Have left me unemployed!'

Again did Adam murmur 'Drat!'

And smote the old-churchyard,

And said, as on his hands he spat,

'It's werry, werry hard!'

And as I rose, the path to take

That led me home again,

My head was in my wideawake,

His words were in my brain.