With buoyant spirit upborne, With cheeks both healthy and red; The same man ran up the Malvern Crags, Pitying those in bed. Trip, trip, trip, Oh, life with health is sweet; And still in a voice both strong and quick, Would that its tones could reach the sick, He sang the Song of the Sheet. From _Health and Pleasure, or Malvern Punch_. By J. B. Oddfish, Esq., M.P., L.L.D. (Malvern Patient, Doctor of Laughs and Liquids). Simpkin, Marshall and Co., London, 1865. * * * * * THE SONG OF THE STREET. (To the memory of the good, the genial, the large-hearted Thomas Hood, this humble imitation of his "Song of the Shirt" is inscribed by the writer). I. With lips all livid with cold, And purple and swollen feet, A woman, in rags, sat crouch'd on the flags, Singing the Song of the Street! "Starve! starve! starve! Oh, God! 'tis a fearful night! How the wind does blow the sleet and the snow! Will it ever again be light? II. "I have rung at the 'Refuge' bell, I have beat at the workhouse-door, To be told again that I clamour in vain, They are full--they can hold no more. Starve! starve! starve! Of the crowds that pass me by, Some with pity, and some in pride, But more with indifference turn aside, And leave me here to die! III. "Oh! you that sleep in beds, With coverlet, quilt, and sheet, Oh think when it snows what it is for those That lie in the open street: That lie in the open street, On the cold and frozen stones, When the winter's blast, as it whistles past, Bites into the very bones. IV. "Oh! what with the wind without, And what with the cold within, I own I have sought to drive away thought With that curse of the tempted--gin. Drink! drink! drink! Amid ribaldry, gas, and glare. If there's hell on earth, 'Tis the ghastly mirth That maddens at midnight, there. V. "Oh you, that never have stray'd, Because you have not been tried, Oh look not down with a Pharisee's frown On those that have swerv'd aside. And you that hold the scales, And you that glibly urge That the only plan is the Prison van, The Treadmill, or the Scourge. VI. "Oh, what are the lost to do? To famish, and not to feel? For days to go, and never to know What it is to have one meal? They cannot buy, they dare not beg, They must either starve or steal. "Food--food--food! If it be but a loaf of bread, And a place to lie-- And a place to die, If it be but a workhouse bed! If you will not give to those that live, You at least _must_ bury the dead!" VIII.