POETRY.
THE FARMER'S WIDOW.
THE old farmer failed, and had to sell his land, But kept the house his life-time and his widow's. He died at last. The unmarried daughter came To stay at home. The house is like a boat Fallen from a foundering ship and washed ashore In unfamiliar fields, far from the. sea,
Useless and imapproached. The labourers Elsewhere receive their wage on Saturday : The great, cool dairy is empty all the week. Here live these women in the midst of fields, Which all their lives long they have called their own, But where their • favourite paths- are all ploughed up, Their favourite hedge-gaps wired. The daughter tries To keep the garden tidy, but the lawn Grows ranker and ranker, and on the garden-beds Each year the barbarous thistle wins the match. The mother walks the lanes, grieving at change, Now milking- sheds put up, the barn pulled down, Fields under plumey maize, the hillside fenced. But her grief is dry-eyed, until she finds Under an open shed a broken cart, One wheel off, canted wretched and forlorn, And under the new master's style she reads, Faint palimpsested there, her husband's name: EDWARD SHANKS.
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