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So in it goes, and Bounce-O Lord! it gives us such a rattle,

I thought we both were canonized, like Sogers in a battle!

Up goes the copper like a squib, and us on both our backs,

And bless the tubs, they bundled off, and split all into cracks.

Well, there I fainted dead away, and might have been cut shorter,

But Providence was kind, and brought me to with scalding water.

I first looks round for Mrs. Round, and sees her at a distance,

As stiff as starch, and looked as dead as any thing in existence;

All scorched and grimed, and more than that, I sees the copper slap

Right on her head, for all the world like a percussion copper cap.

Well, I crooks her little fingers, and crumps them well up together,

As humanity pints out, and burnt her nostrums with a feather:

But for all as I can do, to restore her to her mor

tality,

She never gives a sign of a return to sensuality. Thinks I, well there she lies, as dead as my own late departed mother,

Well, she'll wash no more in this world, whatever she does in t'other.

So I gives myself to scramble up the linens for a minute,

Lawk, sich a shirt! thinks I, it's well my master wasn't in it;

Oh! I never, never, never, never, never, see a sight so shockin';

Here lays a leg, and there a leg-I men, vou know, a stocking—

Bodies all slit and torn to rags, and many a tattered

skirt,

And arms burnt off, and sides and backs all scotched and black with dirt;

But as nobody was in 'em-none but-nobody was hurt!

Well, there I am, a-scrambling up the things, all in a lump,

When, mercy on us! such a groan as makes my heart to jump.

And there she is, a-lying with a crazy sort of eye, A-staring at the wash-house roof, laid open to the sky:

Then she beckons with a finger, and so down to her I reaches,

And puts my ear agin her mouth to hear her dying speeches,

For, poor soul! she has a husband and young orphans, as I knew;

Well, Ma'am, you won't believe it, but it's Gospel fact and true,

But these words is all she whispered- Why, where is the powder blew ?'"

ODE TO M. BRUNEL.*

"Well said, old mole! canst work i' the earth so fast? a worthy pioneer!-HAMLET.

WELL! -Monsieur Brunel,

How prospers now thy mighty undertaking,
To join by a hollow way the Bankside frien
Of Rotherhithe, and Wapping,-

Never be stopping,

[M. Brunel was the architect of the Tunne mes, at London.]

But poking, groping, in the dark keep making
An archway, underneath the Dabs, and Gudgeons,
For Collier men and pitchy old Curmudgeons,
To cross the water in inverse proportion,

Walk under steamboats under the keel's ridge,
To keep down all extortion,

And without sculls to diddle London Bridge!
In a fresh hunt, a new Great Bore to worry,
Thou didst to earth thy human terriers follow,
Hopeful at last from Middlesex to Surrey,
To give us the "View hollow."

In short it was thy aim, right north and south,
To put a pipe into old Thames's mouth;
Alas! half-way thou hadst proceeded, when
Old Thames, through roof, not water-proof,
Came, like "a tide in the affairs of men;"
And with a mighty stormy kind of roar,
Reproachful of thy wrong,
Burst out in that old song

Of Incledon's, beginning " Cease, rude Bore."-
Sad is it, worthy of one's tears,

Just when one seems the most successful,
To find one's self o'er head and ears

In difficulties most distressful!

Other great speculations have been nursed,
Till want of proceeds laid them on a shelf;
But thy concern was at the worst,

When it began to liquidate itself!

But now Dame Fortune has her false face hidden, And languishes thy Tunnel,-so to paint,

Under a slow incurable complaint,

[graphic]

Why, when thus Thames-bed-bothered-why repine!

Do try a spare bed at the Serpentine !

Yet let none think thee dazed, or crazed, or stupid;
And nk beneath thy own and Thames's craft;

Let the not style thee some Mechanic Cupid
Pining d pouting o'er a broken shaft!

I'll tell thee with thy tunnel what to do;
Light up thy boxes, build a bin or two,
The wine does better than such water trades:
Stick up a sign-the sign of the Bore's Head;
I've drawn it ready for thee in black lead,
And make thy cellar subterrane,-Thy Shades!

OVER THE WAY.

"I sat over against a window where there stood a pot with very pretty flowers; and I had my eyes fixed on it, when on a sudden the window opened, and a young lady appeared whose beauty struck me."-ARABIAN NIGHTS.

ALAS! the flames of an unhappy lover
About my heart and on my vitals prey;
I've caught a fever that I can't get over,
Over the way!

Oh! why are eyes of hazel? noses Grecian?
I've lost my rest by night, my peace by day,
For want of some brown Holland or Venetian,
Over the way.

I've gazed too often, till my heart's as lost
As any needle in a stack of hay:

Crosses belong to love, and mine is crossed
Over the way!

I cannot read or write, or thoughts relax—
Of what avail Lord Althorp or Earl Grey?
They cannot ease me of my wind

[blocks in formation]

Oh! if my godmother were but a fairy,
With magic wand, how I would beg and pray
That she would change me into that canary
Over the way!

I envy every thing that's near Miss Lindo,
A pug, a poll, a squirrel or a jay—

Blest blue-bottles! that buzz about the window
Over the way!

Even at even, for there be no shutters,
I see her reading on, from grave to gay,
Some tale or poem, till the candle gutters
Over the way!

And then-oh! then-while the clear waxen taper
Emits two stories high, a starlike ray,
I see twelve auburn curls put into paper

Over the way!

But how breathe unto her my deep regards,
Or ask her for a whispered ay or nay,-
Or offer her my hand, some thirty yards

y?

Over the way

Cold as the pole she is to my adoring ;-
Like Captain Lyon, at Repulse's Bay,
I meet an icy end to my exploring

Over the way!

Each dirty little Savoyard that dances

She looks on

- Punch

or chimney-sweeps in

May;

Zounds! wherefore cannot I attract her glances
Over the way?

out she leans to watch a tumbling brat,

yelping cur, run over by a dray;

I'm in love-she never pities that!

Over the way!

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