Toothless, lanthorn-jawed and bald,
Bent and hobbling on two sticks,
Helpless by his burning ricks
Old Jake Jackson raged and called —
Bawled and called in vain for help:
All his hands were at the fair
Junketing, and none was there
To hear or heed his frantic yelp
As he watched the thirsty flame
Lapping up his golden wheat,
Till at last the glare and heat
His old senses overcame,
And he flung away his sticks —
Nimble as a two-year-old
Leapt into the roaring gold
And perished with his burning ricks.

When they came back from the fair
All in vain for him they called,
Round the steading searched and bawled —
Could not find him anywhere —
Bawled and called for him in vain:
Ricks and man were smouldering ash
Sizzling in the sudden splash
Of a burst of thunder-rain.
Though they raked the ashes through,
Of their master they found naught:
So the coffin he had bought
Second-hand, as good as new,
And beneath his bed had kept,
Was no bargain after all;
And the grave-plot by the wall
Nigh where his forefathers slept,
He'd long rented, wasted too!
Not for him in clammy gloom
To await the crack of doom,
Seeped and sodden through and through
In the sour and wormy mould
Where his outstripped kinsmen lie —
He the first to reach the sky
Charioted in fiery gold!