RACHEL

IT chanced we walk'd

upon the heath, and met
A wandering woman; her thin clothing wet
With morning fog; the little care she took
Of things like these, was written in her look.
Not pain from pinching cold was in her face,
But hurrying grief, that knows no resting-place,-
Appearing ever as on business sent,

The wandering victim of a fix'd intent;
Yet in her fancied consequence and speed,
Impell❜d to beg assistance for her need.

When she beheld my friend and me, with eye And pleading hand, she sought our charity.

"Where art thou wandering, Rachel? whither stray,

"From thy poor heath in such unwholesome day?"
Ask'd my kind friend, who had familiar grown
With Rachel's grief, and oft compassion shown;
Oft to her hovel had in winter sent

The means of comfort-oft with comforts went.
Him well she knew, and with requests pursued,
Though too much lost and spent for gratitude.

"They ask'd of her 'experience,' and they bred "In her weak mind a melancholy dread

"Of something wanting in her faith, of some"She knew not what 'acceptance,' that should

come;

66 And, as it came not, she was much afraid

"That she in vain had served her God and pray'd.

"She thought her Lover dead. In prayer she named

The erring Youth, and hoped he was reclaim'd. "This she confess'd; and trembling, heard them say, "Her prayers were sinful-So the papists pray. "Her David's fate had been decided long, "And prayers and wishes for his state were wrong.'

"Had these her guides united love and skill, "They might have ruled and rectified her will; "But they perceived not the bewilder'd mind, "And show'd her paths that she could never find: "The weakness that was Nature's they reproved, "And all its comforts from the Heart removed.

"Ev'n in this state, she loved the winds that sweep

"O'er the wild heath, and curl the restless deep; "A turf-built hut beneath a hill she chose, "And oft at night in winter storms arose, "Hearing, or dreaming, the distracted cry "Of drowning seamen on the breakers by:

"For there were rocks, that when the tides were low

66

Appear'd, and vanish'd when the waters flow;

"And there she stood, all patient to behold "Some seaman's body on the billows roll'd.

"One calm, cold evening, when the moon was high,

"And rode sublime within the cloudless sky,

"She sat within her hut, nor seem'd to feel
"Or cold or want, but turn'd her idle wheel,
"And with sad song its melancholy tone
66 Mix'd, all unconscious that she dwelt alone.

"But none will harm her-Or who, willing, can? "She is too wretched to have fear of man"Not man! but something—if it should appear, "That once was man-that something did she fear.

"No causeless terror!-In that moon's clear light "It came, and seem'd a parley to invite; "It was no hollow voice-no brushing by "Of a strange being, who escapes the eye"No cold or thrilling touch, that will but last "While we can think, and then for ever past.

"But this sad face-though not the same, she knew Enough the same, to prove the vision true"Look'd full upon her!-starting in affright "She fled, her wildness doubling at the sight; "With shrieks of terror, and emotion strong, "She pass'd it by, and madly rush'd along "To the bare rocks-While David, who, that day, "Had left his ship at anchor in the bay, "Had seen his friends who yet survived, and heard "Of her who loved him-and who thus appear'd

"He tried to soothe her, but retired afraid "T' approach, and left her to return for aid.

"None came! and Rachel in the morn was found "Turning her wheel, without its spindles, round, "With household look of care, low singing to the

sound.

"Since that event, she is what you have seen, "But time and habit make her more serene, "The edge of anguish blunted-yet, it seems, "Sea, ships, and sailors' miseries are her dreams."

NOTES

Note A., pp. 5 and 48.-THE POORHOUSE.

The poorhouse described on pages 5 and 6 is the old parochial workhouse established under the Act of 1601 in every parish. These wretched abodes of misery continued, alas! long after the date of this poem. Here is a description of these houses in the smaller parishes-and they were not much better in the large towns-given by the Poor-Law Commissioners of 1832-34. is Crabbe's little "Inferno" in prose :

It

"In such parishes, when overburdened with poor, we usually find the building called a workhouse occupied by sixty or eighty paupers, made up of a dozen or more neglected children (under the care, perhaps, of a pauper), about twenty or thirty able-bodied adult paupers of both sexes, and probably an equal number of aged and impotent persons. Amidst these the mothers of bastard children and prostitutes live without shame, and associate freely with the youth, who have also the examples and conversation of the frequent inmates of the county jail, the poacher, the vagrant, the decayed beggar, and other characters of the worst description. To these may often be added a solitary blind person, one or two idiots, and not unfrequently are heard, from among the rest, the incessant ravings of some neglected lunatic. In such receptacles the sick poor are often immured."

Such was too often the parish workhouse. Gilbert's Act of 1782, however, permitted the union of several parishes for the purpose of poor-relief in common, and for the erection of a common poorhouse. It was early adopted in Suffolk, and here and there elsewhere, and by the year 1834 there were sixty-seven such incorporations. Under the Act of 1834 and subsequent administration by the Poor-Law Board, this system became universal in England. This was the new "Plan," which Crabbe assails on page 48. He advocated neither the Parish nor the Union Work