POMPEY'S GHOST. A PATHETIC BALLAD. “Skins may differ, but affection Dwells in white and black the same." COWPER. "T was twelve o'clock, not twelve at night, But twelve o'clock at noon; Because the sun was shining bright A And not the silver moon. proper time for friends to call, Or Pots, or Penny Post; When, lo! as Phoebe sat at work, She saw her Pompey's Ghost! Now, when a female has a call But Pompey's spirit would not come But of all unexpected things That happen to us here, The most unpleasant is a rise In what is very dear. So Phoebe screamed an awful scream To prove the seaman's text; That after black appearances, "Oh, Phoebe, dear! oh, Phoebe, dear! Behind the heels of Lady Lambe "No murder, though, I come to tell, No Coroner, like a boatswain's mate, My body need attack, With his round dozen to find out "One Sunday, shortly after tea, My skin began to burn As if I had in my inside A heater, like the urn. Delirious in the night I grew, And as I lay in bed, They say I gathered all the wool "His Lordship for his doctor sent, I wish that he had called him out, For though to physic he was bred, To make his post a sinecure He never cured at all! "The doctor looked about my breast, And then about my back, And then he shook his head and said 'Your case looks very black.' And first he sent me hot cayenne And then gamboge to swallow, But still my fever would not turn To Scarlet or to Yellow ! "With madder and with turmeric, At last I got so sick of life, And sick of being dosed, One Monday morning I gave up "Oh. Phoebe, dear, what pain it was To sever every tie! You know black beetles feel as much "Alas; some happy, happy day, But sternly with that piebald match, For now, like Pompe-double-i, I'm sleeping in my ashes! "And now farewell! a last farewell! I'm wanted down below, And have but time enough to add In mourning crape and bombazine Don't go in black for me-for I Can do it for myself. "Henceforth within my grave I rest, But Death who there inherits, Allowed my spirit leave to come, You seemed so out of spirits: But do not sigh, and do not cry, By grief too much engrossed, Nor for a ghost of color, turn The color of a ghost! "Again, farewell, my Phoebe, dear! As swans of sable hue." From black to gray, from gray to nought, The shape began to fade And, like an egg, though not so white, EPIGRAM. ON A LATE CATTLE SHOW IN SMITHFIELD. OLD Farmer Bull is taken sick, Of fever, or his old dyspepsy; He had a fit of cattle-epsy! |