They found her cold upon the bed.
The cause of death, the doctor said,
Was nothing but the lack of bread.

Her clothes were but a sorry rag
That barely hid the nakedness
Of her poor body's piteous wreck,
Yet, when they stripped her of her dress,
They found she was not penniless,
For in a little silken bag,
Tied with red ribbon round her neck,
Was four-pound-seventeen-and-five.

It seems a strange and shameful thing
That she should starve herself to death
While she'd the means to keep alive.
Why, such a sum would keep the breath
Within her body till she'd found
A livelihood, and it would bring ...
But there was very little doubt
She'd set her heart upon a grand
And foolish funeral — for the pride
Of poor folk, who can understand? —
And so because she was too proud
To meet death penniless, she died!

And talking, talking, they trooped out;
And as they went I turned about
To look upon her in her shroud,
And saw again the quiet face
That filled with light that shameful place,
Touched with the tender youthful grace
Death brings the broken and outworn
To comfort kind hearts left to mourn.

And as I stood the sum they'd found
Rang with a queer familiar ring
Of some uncouth, uncanny sound
Heard in dark ages underground,
And " four-pound-seventeen-and-five "
Through all my body seemed to sing,
Without recalling anything
To help me, strive as I might strive.

But as I stumbled down the stairs
Into the alley's gloom and stench —
A whiff of burning oil
That took me unawares —
And I knew all there was to tell;
And though the rain in torrents fell
I walked on heedless through the drench ...
And all the while I seemed to sit
Upon a tub in Lansel pit,
And in the candle-light to see
John Askerton, a " deputy "
Who paused awhile to talk with me,
His kind face glistening black with toil.

'Twas here I found him dead beside
His engine. All the other men
Were up, for things were slack just then,
And I'd one foot upon the cage,
When all at once I caught a smell
Of burning. Even as I turned
To see what it could be that burned,
The seam behind was choked with stife:
And so I dropped on hands and knees
And crawled along the gallery
Beneath the smoke, that I might see
What ailed; and as I crept half-blind,
With smarting eyes and breath awheeze,
I scarcely knew what I should find.
At times I thought I'd never know. ...
It seemed already quite an age
Since I'd set out. ... I felt as though
I had been crawling all my life
Beneath that stifling cloud of smoke
That clung about me fit to choke:
And when at last I'd struggled here
'Twas long ere I could see things clear —
That he was lying here, and he
Was dead, and burning like a tree —
A tree-trunk soaked in oil. ... No doubt
The engine had caught fire somehow,
And when he tried to put it out
His greasy clothes had caught — and now!

As fine a lad as you could see —
And such a lad for singing — I
Had heard him when I worked hard-by;
And often quiet I would sit
To hear him singing in the pit,
As if his heart knew naught of it,
And life was nothing but a song.

He'd not been working with us long,
And little of his ways I knew;
But when I'd got him up at last
And he was lying in the shed,
The sweet song silent in his breast,
And there was nothing more to do,
The notion came into my head
That he had always been well dressed,
And seemed a neat and thrifty lad ...
And lived in lodgings ... so maybe
Would carry on him all he had.
So back into the cage I stepped
And when it reached the bottom crept
Along the gallery again,
And in the dust where he had lain
I rummaged until I found all
That from his burning pockets fell:
And when it seemed there was no more
I thought how, happy and alive,
And recking naught that might befall,
He too, for all that I could tell,
Just where I stood had reckoned o'er
That four-pound-seventeen-and-five.

" Ay, like enough — for soon I heard
That in a week he'd looked to wed.
He'd meant to give the girl that night
The money to buy furniture.
She came and watched till morning-light
Beside the body in the shed,
Then rose, and took without a word
The money he had left for her. "
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Then as I wandered through the rain
I seemed to stand in awe again
Beside that lonely garret-bed.
And it was good to think the dead
Had known the wealth she would not spend
To keep a little while alive —
His four-pound-seventeen-and-five —
Would buy her house-room in the end.