Poems (Henley)/Scrubber

by William Ernest Henley

XIX SCRUBBER

Sue's tall and gaunt, and in her hard, sad faceWith flashes of the old fun's animationThere lowers the fixed and peevish resignationBred of a past where troubles came apace.She tells me that her husband, ere he died,Saw seven of their children pass away,And never knew the little lass at playOut on the green, in whom he's deified.Her kin dispersed, her friends forgot and gone,All simple faith her honest Irish mind,Scolding her spoiled young saint, she labours on:Telling her dreams, taking her patients' part,Trailing her coat sometimes: and you shall findNo rougher, quainter speech, nor kinder heart.