Thomas Ashe (1836–1889)

MY little milliner has slipp’d

The doctors, with their drugs and ways:

Her years were only twenty-two,

Though long enough her working-days.

At eight she went, through wet or snow,

Nor dallied for the sun to shine;

And walk’d an hour to work, and home

Content if she was in by nine.

She had a little gloomy room,

Up stair on stair, within the roof;

Where hung her pictures on the wall,

Wherever it was weather-proof.

She held her head erect and proud,

Nor ask’d of man or woman aid;

And struggled, till the last; and died

But of the parish pit afraid.

Jennie, lie still! The hair you loved

You wraps, unclipp’d, if you but knew!

We by a quiet graveyard wall,

For love and pity, buried you!