PENRITH HERALD, September 12, 1874 POEM by Figaro. LODGINGS AT.......................... Talk of a beehive ! You should see The house we live in, beside the sea ! Human bee-ings fill our hive, Numbering fully twenty-five; A queen-bee rules us, fierce and free..... She bears the title of landlady. Her subjects we, each in his cell, At best, in armed truce do dwell..... For the queen-bee’s mood is short and rude, And oft in a row has she fiercely stood. ‘Tis best to refrain from an interview Till one’s bill is paid, and ones fly in view. Some foreign ladies, we are told, The first-floor back have hired and hold; The foreign ladies seem to know Some foreign “gents”, who come and go; Set in all day, a living stream, Upon the stair, like Jacob’s dream; While ceaseless, endless, thrum, thrum, thrum, Their instrument is never dumb. A widow lady lives below; Sweet “olive shoots” she has to show, Six healthy children round the door, Shriek, fight, and howl, and whoop and roar; Whilst a nigger-troupe each day at ten Arrives to please the little men. All in one room, a broken clan, Perchance where erst was placed the coal There now abides a human soul. But more than all our busy hive At feeding time is most alive..... Short, angry cries, with hunger riled, Alternate with the howl of child, As, struggling up the narrow stair, The mutton tough the slaveys bear; Such is the den in which live we, Of females, children – but no man - Promiscuously seem to dwell, And form a Babel or a hell. Scufflings within are daily heard, As if in deadly fight they stirred; One almost feels amazed no gore Is seen to trickle ‘neath the door, Mysterious lodgers, too, there are, Seen once or twice, like some lone star; But how they live or where they dwell, Is what no mortal man can tell. You might call it menagerie ! Yet when the sun shines clear and bright, And we live out all day and light, We seem content to calmly stay, And guineas six per week to pay, Take good with bad, and let things be Within our home beside the sea. ...............................................................Figaro. ___________________________________________________________ Barb, Ontario, Canada.