(_After an Afternoon Pipe, at Nazareth House, Hammersmith._)
["Here again, clustered close round the fire
Are a number of grizzle-lock'd men, every one is a true 'hoary
sire.'
Bowed, time-beaten, grey, yet alert and responsive to kindness of
speech;
And see how old eyes can light up if you promise a pipe-charge to
each.
For the comforting weed KINGSLEY eulogised is not taboo in this
place,
Where the whiff aromatic brings not cold reproval to Charity's
face."
"_An Autumn Afternoon at Nazareth House._" _Punch, Nov. 5, 1892._]
[Illustration]
I don't just know who KINGSLEY was, but he was a good sort, I
reckon!
When nerves are slack and spirits low, the glowing pipe-bowl seems
to beckon
Like a good ghost or spirit kind to the fireside where age reposes.
Yes! bacca makes an old man's chair as easeful as a bed of roses.
Bad habit! So the strict ones say; expensive, wasteful, and
un-Christian!
I cannot argue of it out; I'm only a poor old Philistian.
But oh the comfort of a pipe, the company it lends the lonely!
It seems the poor soul's faithful friend, and oftentimes the last
and only.
Thanks be, they're not the hard sort _here_, in Nazareth House.
The gentle sisters
Take on a many helpful task; some of 'em, I misdoubt, are twisters.
I don't suppose our "shag"-fumes seem as sweet to them as to us
others;
But--well, they do not treat us here as badged machines, but human
brothers.
Stranded, alone, at seventy-five, after a life of luckless labour,
One feels what 'tis to be esteemed not as a nuisance, but a
neighbour;
A neighbour in the Good Book's sense; a poor one, and a helpless,
truly,
But--_not_ a plague, who'll live too long, if he is cossetted
unduly.
Lawks me, the difference! Don't you know the chilly scorn, the
silent snubbing
Which makes a man, as _is_ a man, feel he'd far rather take a
drubbing?
Old age and workhouse-duds may hide a deal of nature--from
outsiders;
But do you think old "crocks" can't _feel_, when they're shrunk
from, like snails
or spiders?
After my dinner, with my "clay," stringed round the stem, that
gums, now toothless,
May grip it firmer, here I sit and muse; and memory's sometimes
ruthless
In bringing up a blundering past. We own up frank, me and my
fellows,
Where we've gone wrong, and, in regrets employ our wheezy, worn
old bellows.
What might have been, if--if--ah, _if_! That little word, of just
two letters,
Stops me worse than a five-barred gate. I wonder if it does my
betters?
We never tire round Winter's fire, or settle-ranged in Summer
weather,
Of telling of the wandering ways by which we gathered _here_
together.
If some who prate of paupers' ways, their tantrums, or their love
of snuffing,
Their fretting at cold, hard-fast rules, their fancy for sly
bacca-puffing,
Could only scan the paupers' past a little closer than their mode
is,
They'd learn that still some sparks of soul burn in those
broken-down old bodies.
And soul does kick at iron rules, and icy ways. Old blood runs
chilly,
And craves the heat, of love, fire, pipe, to warm it up like. Very
silly,
No doubt, from BUMBLE'S point of view! _Here_ we're held human,
though so humble;
And, Heaven be blessed!--at Nazareth House we've never known the
rule of BUMBLE.
The very old and very young are much alike in many a matter;
Comfort and cheeriness we want, play or a pipe, romps or a chatter.
The Nazareth Sisterhood know this, and what is more, they work
according.
'Tis love and comfort make a Home, without 'em 'tis bare roof and
boarding!
Bitter-sweet memories come sometimes; but a gay burst of
baby-laughter,--
For we all _laugh_ at Nazareth House!--will banish gathering
blues. And after?
Well, there's the free-permitted whiff, the "old-boy" gossip, low
but cheery;
Rest and a Sister's sunny smile soon drive off whim and
whig-maleery.
And so laid up, like some old hulk that can no more hope for
commission,
I sit, and muse, and puff; and wait that last great change in
man's condition
That shifts us to that Great High House to which the Sisters point
us daily;
Awaiting which in homely ease, Old Age dwells calmly if not gaily.
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