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Produced by Al Haines.




[Illustration: Cover]




                            THE WIDOW IN THE
                               BYE STREET


                                   BY
                             JOHN MASEFIELD



                                 LONDON
                        SIDGWICK & JACKSON LTD.
                         3 ADAM STREET, ADELPHI
                                 MCMXII




        _Entered at the Library of Congress, Washington, U.S.A._
                         _All rights reserved_



                           _Second Thousand_




                                   TO
                                MY WIFE




                                   I


Down Bye Street, in a little Shropshire town,
There lived a widow with her only son:
She had no wealth nor title to renown,
Nor any joyous hours, never one.
She rose from ragged mattress before sun
And stitched all day until her eyes were red,
And had to stitch, because her man was dead.

Sometimes she fell asleep, she stitched so hard,
Letting the linen fall upon the floor;
And hungry cats would steal in from the yard,
And mangy chickens pecked about the door
Craning their necks so ragged and so sore
To search the room for bread-crumbs, or for mouse,
But they got nothing in the widow's house.

Mostly she made her bread by hemming shrouds
For one rich undertaker in the High Street,
Who used to pray that folks might die in crowds
And that their friends might pay to let them lie sweet;
And when one died the widow in the Bye Street
Stitched night and day to give the worm his dole.
The dead were better dressed than that poor soul.

Her little son was all her life's delight,
For in his little features she could find
A glimpse of that dead husband out of sight,
Where out of sight is never out of mind.
And so she stitched till she was nearly blind,
Or till the tallow candle end was done,
To get a living for her little son.

Her love for