WRITTEN AFTER SEVERAL INEFFECTUAL EFFORTS TO DRIVE ROACHES AWAY.
“I left my home some prey to track,
And promised my loved ones I soon would come back;
But when I returned—alack! alack!
I looked in vain for the well-known crack.”
Thus spake a poor Roach as he wandered alone,
And sad was his face, and mournful his tone;
For he thought on the home he never should see,
On Mrs. Roach and his loved family.
He remembered with grief that their larder was bare,
And young roaches he knew could not live upon air.
Ah! do you human beings think what you’re about
When you fill up the cracks, and the old roaches out?
And poor Mrs. Roach sat sobbing at home,
Dreading that to her sposa some evil had come,
 
And the poor little young ones lay tumbling about,
Grieving much for their father who stayed so long out.
“At last,” quoth the eldest, “dear mother, I’ll go
And find if I can what keeps father so”—
And he started to go as he aye went before,
But gone was the crack they had used for a door!
Alas, human bei............