ANNABEL LEE.
Up and down on the fresh-ploughed levels,
All for the sake of their lady fair,
Two cock-partridges fought like devils,
Hammer-and-tongs and a hop in the air;
And I and "Basket" Annabel Lee—
Elderly tinking gyp is she—
We leaned on the paling and watched it go;
And "Eh," said she, "now a fight 'tis cruel,
But of all the compliments 'tis the jewel!
May I die to-day, but I know, I know
There's naught as a young maid's 'eart takes better
Than a couple o' big chaps out to get her
Through a dozen o' dustin' rounds or so.
"Bet my bonnet it strikes you funny,
Seein' I'm risin' seventy-three,
To think o' me once as sweet as honey;
Lor' how their fists went 'long o' me!
Jake Poltevo and Pembroke Bill,
I saw 'em then, and I sees 'em still,
Eh, how their fists went—thud! crack! thud!
None o' your booze-house scraps, Lor' love 'em;
Turf to their feet and the sky above 'em—
Stripped, bare-knuckle and mucked wi' blood;
Queer thing, ain't it, I still thinks pleasure
In the strength o' a man, bein' old, by measure,
And plain, you'd say, as a pint o' mud?
"Scared me fine at the time, though; weepin'
I 'id my face in the 'azels low;
Tip-toe soon I was back a-peepin',
Couldn't 'a' helped were it never so;
Each as good as the other chap—
Bad old woman I be, may'ap;
But eh, I loved 'em, the fine young men.
Marry a one of 'em? Why no, never;
They wasn't a-marryin' me whatever;
But I likes to think of 'em now and then;
For, of all the compliments, that was candy,
And—ain't them dicky-birds at it dandy?
I knows the pride o' their pretty 'en!
Eh, but I loved 'em, me fine young men!"
