XIV.

I must confess I did not guess

A simple marriage vow,
Would make me find all women-kind

Such unkind women now ;·

I might be hashed to death, or smashed,
By Mr. Pickford's vau,
Without, I fear, a single tear-
I'm not a single man!

THE BURNING OF THE LOVE-LETTER.

"Sometimes they were put to the proof, by what was called the Fiery Ordeal." - HIST. ENG.

No morning ever seemed so long!
I tried to read with all my might!

In my left hand "My Landlord's Tales,"
And threepence ready in my right.

'Twas twelve at last- my heart beat high!
The Postman rattled at the door!
And just upon her road to church,
I dropt the "Bride of Lammermoor!"

I seized the note - I flew up stairs
Flung-to the door, and locked me in-
With panting haste I tore the seal
And kissed the B in Benjamin !

"Twas full of love

to rhyme with dove And all that tender sort of thing

And stood to watch the latest spark –
And saw the love all end in smoke-
Without a Parson and a Clerk !

THE APPARITION.

IN the dead of the night, when, from beds that

are turfy,

The spirits rise up on old cronies to call,

Came a shade from the Shades on a visit to

Murphy,

Who had not foreseen such a visit at all.

Don't shiver and shake, said the mild Apparition,

I'm come to your bed with no evil design;

I'm the Spirit of Moore, Francis Moore the

Physician,

Once great like yourself in the Almanac line.

Like you I was once a great prophet on weather, And deemed to possess a more prescient knack Than dogs, frogs, pigs, cattle, or cats, all together, The donkeys that bray, and the dillies that quack.

With joy, then, as ashes retain former passion,
I saw my old mantle lugged out from the shelf,
Turned, trimmed, and brushed up, and again
brought in fashion,

I seemed to be almost reviving myself!

But, oh! from my joys there was soon a sad

As too many cooks make a mull of the broth
To find that two Prophets were under my mantle,
And pulling two ways at the risk of the cloth.

Unless you would meet with an awkwardish tumble,

Oh! join like the Siamese twins in your jumps; Just fancy if Faith on her Prophets should stumble, The one in his clogs, and the other in pumps !

But think how the people would worship and wonder, you

To find

"hail fellows, well met," in

your hail,

In one tune with your rain, and your wind, and

your thunder,

"'Fore God," they would cry, "they are both in a tale!"

LITTLE O'P.-AN AFRICAN FACT.

It was July the First, and the great hill of Howth
Was bearing by compass sow-west and by south,
And the name of the ship was the Peggy of Cork,
Well freighted with bacon and butter and pork.
Now, this ship had a captain, Macmorris by name,
And little O'Patrick was mate of the same;
For Bristol they sailed, but by nautical scope,
They contrived to be lost by the Cape of Good
Hope.

Of all the Cork boys that the vessel could boast,
Only little O'P. made a swim to the coast;
And when he revived from a sort of a trance,
He saw a big Black with a very long lance.
Says the savage, says he, in some Hottentot
tongue,

"Bash Kuku my gimmel bo gumborry bung!" Then blew a long shell, to the fright of our elf, And down came a hundred as black as himself. They brought with them guattul, and pieces of klam,

The first was like beef, and the second like lamb; "Don't I know," said O'P., "what the wretches

are at?

They're intending to eat me as soon as I'm fat!"
In terror of coming to pan, spit, or pot,
His rations of jarbul he suffered to rot ;
He would not touch purry or doolberry-lik,
But kept himself growing as thin as a stick.
Though broiling the climate, and parching with
drouth,

He would not let chobbery enter his mouth,

But kicked down the krug shell, tho' sweetened with natt,

"I ain't to be pisoned the likes of a rat!"
At last the great Joddry got quite in a rage,
And cried, "O mi pitticum dambally nage!
The chobbery take, and put back on the shelf,
Or give me the krug shell, I'll drink it myself!
The doolberry-lik is the best to be had,
And the purry (I chewed it myself) is not bad
The jarbul is fresh, for I saw it cut out,

And the Bok that it came from is grazing about.
My jumbo! but run off to Billery Nang,
And tell her to put on her jigger and tang,
And go with the Bloss to the man of the sea,

And say that she comes as his Wulwul from me.”
Now Billery Nang was as Black as a sweep,
With thick curly hair like the wool of a sheep,
And the moment he spied her, said little O'P.,
"Sure the Divil is dead, and his Widow 's at me!"