Says I, she's letting out her reefs, I'm thinking- And yet the tackle held, 'Till both my legs began to bend like winkin. Ready to split, And her tarnation hull a-growing rounder ! Well there-off Hartford Ness, We lay both lash'd and water-logg'd together, If I get on another, I'll be blow'd! And that's the way, you see, my legs got bow'd! JACK HALL But thus the Faculty will bid Their rogues break thro' it! One of these sacrilegious knaves, 'Neath church-yard wall— Mayhap because he fed on graves, Was nam'd Jack Hall. 30 By day it was his trade to go But long before they pass'd the ferry, In fact, he let them have a very 40 Night after night, with crow and spade, On corses of all kinds he prey'd, At last-it may be, Death took spite The churchyards round; And soon they met, the man and sprite, In Pancras' ground. Jack, by the glimpses of the moon, But Jack'stough couragedid butswoon 60 170 Lord! what a tumult it produc'd, Felt just as if his back was sluic'd Each goblin face began to make And then a spectre-hag would shake An airy thigh-bone; And cried, (or seem'd to cry,) I'll break Your bone, with my bone! Some ground their teeth-some seem'd to spit (Nothing, but nothing came of it,) A hundred awful brows were knit In dreadful spite. 181 Thought Jack-I'm sure I'd better One skip and hop and he was clear, 189 Well spurr'd and whipp'd, Death, ghosts, and all in that career Were quite outstripp'd. But those who live by death must die; Of doctors came,-but not to try No ravens ever scented prey So early where a dead horse lay, 200 'Twas strange, altho' they got no fees, How still they watch'd by twos and threes: But Jack a very little ease Obtain'd from them; In fact, he did not find M.D.'s Worth one D-M. 210 |