I don't know how it is, but now

My eyelids seldom want a drying ;

The doctors, p'rhaps, could tell me how-
I fear my heart is ossifying!

O'er Goethe how I used to weep,

With turnip cheeks and nose of scarlet,
When Werter put himself to sleep

With pistols kissed and cleaned by Charlotte;
Self-murder is an awful sin,

No joke there is in bullets flying,
But now at such a tale I grin -
I fear my heart is ossifying!

The Drama once could shake and thrill
My nerves, and set my tears a stealing,
The Siddons then could turn at will
Each plug upon the main of feeling;
At Belvidera now I smile,

And laugh while Mrs. Haller 's crying;
'Tis odd, so great a change of style-
I fear my heart is ossifying!

That heart was such

some years ago,

To see a beggar quite would shock it,
And in his hat I used to throw

The quarter's savings of my pocket:
I never wish as I did then!

The means from my own purse supplying,
To turn them all to gentlemen:

I fear my heart is ossifying!

We've had some serious things of late,
Our sympathies to beg or borrow,
New melo-drames, of tragic fate,

And acts, and songs, and tales of sorrow;
Miss Zouch's case, our eyes to melt,
And sundry actors sad good-bye-ing,
But Lord! so little have I felt,
I'm sure my heart is ossifying!

THE POACHER.

A SERIOUS BALLAD.

But a bold pheasantry, their country's pride,
That once destroyed can never be supplied.

GOLDSMITH.

BILL BLOSSOM was a nice young man,

And drove the Bury coach;

But bad companions were his bane,

And egged him on to poach.

They taught him how to net the birds,

And how to noose the hare;

And with a wiry terrier,

He often set a snare.

Each "shiny night" the moon was bright,
To park, preserve, and wood
He went, and kept the game alive,
By killing all he could.

Land-owners, who had rabbits, swore
That he had this demerit-
Give him an inch of warren, he
Would take a yard of ferret.

At partridges he was not nice;
And many, large and small,
Without Hall's powder, without lead,
Were sent to Leaden-Hall.

He did not fear to take a deer
From forest, park, or lawn;
And without courting lord or duke,
Used frequently to fawn.

Folks who had hares discovered snares
His course they could not stop:
No barber he, and yet he made
Their hares a perfect crop.

To pheasant he was such a foe,
He tried the keeper's nerves ;
They swore he never seemed to have
Jam satis of preserves.

The Shooter went to beat, and found

No sporting worth a pin,
Unless he tried the covers made
Of silver, plate, or tin.

In Kent the game was little worth,
In Surrey not a button;
The Speaker said he often tried
The Manors about Sutton.*

No county from his tricks was safe;
In each he tried his lucks,
And when the keepers were in Beds,
He often was at Bucks.

And when he went to Bucks, alas!
They always came to Herts;

And even Oxon used to wish
That he had his deserts.

But going to his usual Hants,
Old Cheshire laid his plots :
He got entrapped by legal Berks,
And lost his life in Notts.

* [Charles Manners Sutton was for many years Speaker of the House of Commons.]

I CANNOT BEAR A GUN.

"Timidity is generally reckoned an essential attribute of the fair sex, and this absurd notion gives rise to more false starts, than a race for the Leger. Hence screams at mice, fits at spiders, faces at toads, jumps at lizards, flights from daddy longlegs, panics at wasps, sauve qui peut at sight of a gun. Surely, when the military exercise is made a branch of education at so many ladies' academies, the use of the musket would only be a judicious step further in the march of mind. I should not despair, in a month's practice, of making the most timid British female fond of small arms." - HINTS BY

A CORPORAL.

It can't be minced, I'm quite convinced,
All girls are full of flam,

Their feelings fine and feminine

Are nothing else but sham.

On all their tricks I need not fix,

I'll only mention one,

How many a Miss will tell you this,

"I cannot bear a gun!"

There's cousin Bell can't 'bide the smell

Of powder - horrid stuff!

A single pop will make her drop,

She shudders at a puff.