The houses have got on a railway line, And are off like the first-class carriages! She'll lose her life! she is losing her breath! As female shriekings forewarn her: Alas! for the hope of the Kilmanseggs! Willy-nilly, In Piccadilly, A hundred hearts turn sick and chilly, On and on!-what a perilous run! To shut out the Green Park scenery! She shudders-she shrieks-she's doom'd, she feels, To be torn by powers of horses and wheels, Like a spinner by steam machinery! Sick with horror she shuts her eyes, But the very stones seem uttering cries, As they did to that Persian daughter, When she climb'd up the steep vociferous hill, With the magical Golden Water! "Batter her! shatter her! Throw and scatter her!" Shouts each stony-hearted chatterer! "Dash at the heavy Dover! Spill her! kill her! tear and tatter her! Smash her! crash her!" (the stones didn't flatter her!) "Kick her brains out! let her blood spatter her! Roll on her over and over!" For so she gather'd the awful sense Of the street in its past unmacadamized tense, His four heels making the clatter of six, On! still on she's dazzled with hints Bright and brief as the sparks from the flints, On and on! still frightfully fast! The Furies and Fates have found them! And the dense dark mob Like a billow closes around them! "She breathes!" "She don't!" "She'll recover!" "She won't!" "She's stirring! she's living, by Nemesis!" Gold, still gold! on counter and shelf! Miss Kilmansegg's coming again to herself Gold! fine gold!—both yellow and red, C. To see the gold with profusion spread In all forms of its manufacture! Gold may soothe Adversity's smart; Were as certain a disappointment, HER PRECIOUS LEG. "As the twig is bent, the tree's inclined," Is an adage often recall'd to mind, Referring to juvenile bias: And never so well is the verity seen, While Life's tempests and hurricanes try us. Even thus with Miss K. and her broken limb: By a very, very remarkable whim, She show'd her early tuition: While the buds of character came into blow With a certain tinge that served to show The nursery culture long ago, As the graft is known by fruition! For the King's Physician, who nursed the case, His verdict gave with an awful face, And three others concurr'd to egg it; That the Patient to give old Death the slip, The limb was doom'd-it couldn't be saved! T |