| |
| I SAW a poor old woman on the bench | |
| That you may find by the Salpétrière. | |
| The yellow leaves were falling, and the wind | |
| Gave hint of bitter days to come ere long. | |
| And yet the sun was bright: and as I knew | 5 |
| A little sun, with the Parisiennes, | |
| Means light of heart, I could not but demand | |
| “Why, now, so near to weeping, citizen?” | |
| She look’d up at me with vague surprise, | |
| And said, “You see I ’m old; I ’m very old: | 10 |
| I ’m eighty years and nine; and people say | |
| This winter will be hard. And we have here, | |
| We poor old women in this hospital, | |
| A mortal dread of one strange bitter thing. | |
| We would be buried in a coffin, we; | 15 |
| For each her own. It is not much you crave, | |
| Who ’ve striven ninety years, and come to this, | |
| And we would have the priest to say a prayer | |
| To the good God for us, within the church, | |
| Before we go the way that go we must. | 20 |
| And sou by sou we save:—a coffin costs,— | |
| You hear, Sir?—sixteen francs; and if we go | |
| To church en route, ’t is six francs for the priest. | |
| There ’s some of us have sav’d it all, and smile, | |
| With the receipt sew’d up, lest they should lose | 25 |
| This passport to the grave of honest folk. | |
| But one may die before; and then there is | |
| One coffin for us all, and we are borne | |
| To our last place, and slipp’d within the grave, | |
| And back they take the coffin for the next. | 30 |
| And if you’ve sixteen francs, and not the six, | |
| No church, but just a sprinkle with the brush, | |
| And half a prayer, and you must take your chance. | |
| Good God! and I shall die: I know I shall: | |
| I feel it here! and I have ten francs just: | 35 |
| No more!” My tears fell like a shower of rain. | |
| I said, “Old woman, here ’s the other twelve;” | |
| And fled, with great strides, like a man possess’d. | |
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