POETRY.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1968, 15 June 1880, Page 3

POETRY.

THE EDITOR’S SHOES. BT BIZABEB. By an unseen hand propelled one day. O’er an area gate oamo a pair of old shoes; And where they landed there they lay, But a little apart, in the alley’s refuse. A few minutes passed, then, like the wind That mournfully whistles lorn and lone, Down the chimney in winter, two voices were heard. And this their story, in cracked minor tone : “ We’re the editor’s shoes, worn out and old; We’ve served him long and steadily, Through summer’s heat and winter’s cold, We’ve born him oft and readily. When never a nickel for fare had he. We carried him home without a word. He walked for his health, he said, and we Never made a sign that we knew or heard. And many’s the poet we’ve helped down stairs, And many’s the dun we’ve dodged with him, And many’s the dog we’ve bounced unawares, And the luncn counter’s way we knew to a pin, And often the table we’ve mounted for him, And rested serenely in all our pride, While copy he wrote and handed in, Or proof he read, and swore, aside. We were with him always, thick and thin, When friends grew distant, cne by one, When his paper languished and the tin To keep it running did not forthoome. Then his round, red face grow long each day, For under his waistcoat, kept apart From all the world, a picture lay Of a fair-haired girl, kept in his heart. He never told her of his love, But Westward came to work and wait.

His secret kept till he could prove His worthiness for such a take. And so he’d pinched and laughed along, And joked and kept his honest way; He never, knowing, did a wrong Or pied his stick till one black day. He put us on the table, then He smoked his old stub pipe and sighed As, tilted back, he stuck a pen Behind his ear and vainly tried To make a plan to pay his men— A meagre bill, but great to him— To pay for paper, press-work, when The postman tossed a letter in. Ho picked it up, half reading it, And reading, then he seemed to bond; He laid it down, then groaned a bit And said ; ‘ She’s dead ; this is the end. Dead, buried, ah ! my pretty lass, My bonnie one, with sweetest name, I loved her well, but let it pass, She’s gone, I’ll never work again.’ We know it, too, and late that night He dragged us stumbling to his home. And in the gray of morning light He shot himself ; we saw it done. He and his paper, both are dead. Pied for this world for evermore. His copy’s done, his last proof read, Looked up the formes, his work is o’er. With scars and dirt our portion, we, Devoid of polish, muddy aud worn, Are flung by vulgar hands to be Kicked in the dirt, with ribald acorn.” A gurgling wail, the voices stopped, But tho editor’s shoes lay just the same, A little apart, right where they dropped. Unknown, save here, to the annals of fame,