Her visage glows warm with the ardour of duty; She’s Industry’s moral--she’s all moral beauty! Growing brighter and brighter at every rub-- Would any man ruin her?--No, Mr. Scrub! No man that is manly would work her mishap-- No man that is manly would covet her cap-- Nor her apron--her hose--nor her gown made of stuff-- Nor her gin--nor her tea--nor her wet pinch of snuff! Alas! so _she_ thought--but that slippery hope Has betray’d her--as though she had trod on her soap! And she,--whose support,--like the fishes that fly, Was to have her fins wet, must now drop from her sky-- She whose living it was, and a part of her fare, To be damp’d once a day, like the great white sea bear, With her hands like a sponge, and her head like a mop-- Quite a living absorbent that revell’d in slop-- She that paddled in water, must walk upon sand, And sigh for her deeps like a turtle on land! Lo, then, the poor laundress, all wretched she stands, Instead of a counterpane, wringing her hands! All haggard and pinch’d, going down in life’s vale, With no faggot for burning, like Allan-a-Dale! No smoke from her flue--and no steam from her pane, Where once she watch’d heaven, fearing God and the rain-- Or gazed o’er her bleach-field so fairly engross’d, Till the lines wander’d idle from pillar to post! Ah, where are the playful young pinners--ah, where The harlequin quilts that cut capers in air-- The brisk waltzing stockings--the white and the black, That danced on the tight-rope, or swung on the slack-- The light sylph-like garments, so tenderly pinn’d, That blew into shape, and embodied the wind! There was white on the grass--there was white on the spray-- Her garden--it look’d like a garden of May! But now all is dark--not a shirt’s on a shrub-- You’ve ruined her prospects in life, Mr. Scrub! You’ve ruin’d her custom--now families drop her-- From her silver reduced--nay, reduced from her _copper_! The last of her washing is done at her eye, One poor little kerchief that never gets dry! From mere lack of linen she can’t lay a cloth, And boils neither barley nor alkaline broth,-- But her children come round her as victuals grow scant, And recal, with foul faces, the source of their want-- When she thinks of their poor little mouths to be fed, And then thinks of her trade that is utterly dead, And even its pearlashes laid in the grave-- Whilst her tub is a-dry-rotting, stave after stave, And the greatest of Coopers, ev’n he that they dub Sir Astley, can’t bind up her heart or her tub,-- Need you wonder she curses your bones, Mr. Scrub! Need you wonder, when steam has deprived her of bread, If she prays that the evil may visit _your_ head-- Nay, scald all the heads of your Washing Committee, If she wishes you all the soot blacks of the City--