The poem
'A ticket for the lottery I've purchased every week,' said she 'For years a score Though desperately poor am I, Oh how I've scrimped and scraped to buy One chance more.
Each week I think I'll gain the prize, And end my sorrows and my sighs, For I'll be rich; Then nevermore I'll eat bread dry, With icy hands to cry and cry And stitch and stitch.'
'Tis true she won the premier prize; It was of formidable size, Ten million francs. I know, because the man who sold It to her splenically told He got no thanks.
The lucky one was never found, For she was snugly underground, And minus breath; And with that ticket tucked away, In some old stocking, so they say, She starved to death.