SELECT POETRY

Most people thought he lived alone,
Yet many have averred!

That dismal cries from out his house
Were often loudly heard ;

And that none living left his gate,
Although a few went in ;

For he seized the very beggar old,
And stripped him to the skin.

And though he prayed for mercy,
Yet mercy ne’er was shown—
The miser cut his body up,
And picked him bone from bone,
Thus people said, and all believed
The dismal story true ;
As it was told to me, in truth,
I tell it so to you.

There was an ancient widow—
One Madgy de la Moth,
A stranger to the man, or she
Had ne’er gone there in troth :?
But she was poor, and wandered out
At night-fall® in the street,
To beg from rich men’s tables
Dry scraps of broken meat.

So she knocked at old Web-Spinner's docr,
With a modest tap, and low,
And down stairs came he speedily
Like an arrow from a bow.
* Averred—positively declared.

* Troth—truth
3 Night-full—the beginning of night, evening.