7 
But he killed her at the brook against a pollard willow 
tree; 
Oh! he killed her at the brook, the brute, for all the 
world to see, 
And no one but the baby cried for poor Lorraine, 
Lorrée. 
Thus the poems end with pity. This note of pity 
sounds all through from ‘‘ The Saint’s Tragedy ”’ onwards ; 
pity for the poor, the oppressed, the weary toilers, for those 
who do as well as for those who suffer evil, for the 
generations that are enslaved for lack of truth, and for the 
tragic suffering of women. Sometimes the pity breaks into 
fierce indignation, as in ‘‘ The Bad Squire.” 
The merry brown hares came leaping 
Over the crest of the hill, 
Where the clover and corn lay sleeping 
Under the moonlight still. 
So the story begins, with the quietude of nature. But 
the merry hares are spoiling the crops, men’s food, and a 
poacher’s widow is watching that and something worse, the 
spot of ground where her husband had been killed in a fray 
with the keepers. He had broken the law no doubt, but 
she sets out in bitter language her side of the case. 
You have sold the labouring-man, squire, 
Body and soul to shame, 
To pay for your seat in the House, squire, 
And to pay for the feed of your game. 
You made him a poacher yourself, squire, 
When you’d give neither work nor meat, 
When packed in one reeking chamber, 
Man, maid, mother and little ones lay, 
Our daughters with base-born babies 
Have wandered away in their shame, 
If your misses had slept, squire, where they did, 
Your misses might do the same. 
—you’ve run up a debt that will never 
Be paid us by penny-club rules. 
In the season of shame and sadness, 
In the dark and dreary day, 
When scrofula, gout, and madness 
Are eating your race away ; 
When your youngest, the mealy-mouthed rector, 
Lets your soul rot asleep to the grave, 
You will find in your God the protector 
Of the freeman you fancied your slave. 
