TWELFTH NIGHT.
(Not Shakspeare's.)
Miss Miffins was a blooming nymph,
Of almost half a cent'ry,
Who long had grieved her book of life
To keep by single entry.
She'd once a quiver-full of beaus;
Old, young, short, tall, dark, light:
Stokes, Nokes, Tibbs, Nibbs, Hill, Till, Fox, Knox
But never Mister Right.
In fact, she was a leetle proud,
And loved to play and park it;
And so, like many another fair,
She'd overstood her market.
The Baker woo'd her once, and oft
At eve love's tale would tell her;
But all she said to him was this,
"Begone you kneady feller!"
The Pieman, too, had tried his luck:
But there again her pride
Stood in her way: she couldn't bear
To be a Tarter's bride.
The man "wot drives the pleasure wan"
Had loved her to insanity;
But, as she said, "What's pleasure? Stuff!
And wans is nought but wanity!"
The Miller next, in honey'd words,
That love so promptly teaches,
Assail'd her heart. But "Come," said she,
"None of your flowry speeches!"
The Clothesman, too, although a Jew,
Desired to be her beau;
But finding Phillis look so cold,
Return'd to his old "Clo'."
The Pawnbroker had also shown
A flatt'ring predilection:
But "No," said she, "don't look to me
For Pledges of affection."
Thus all the men she jilted then,
And one reply they got:
"She'd rather live without a tie"—
But now—she'd rather knot.
So one twelfth-day—that is, one sixth—
She went the cakes to view:
Like all the world, who feel, that day,
A cake-oëthes too.
Of course the boys soon pinn'd her fast,
(No greater plagues on earth!)
And her poor gown became the vic-
Tim of their boy-strous mirth.
A cracker, too, by sad mischance,
And while with fear she panted,
At one fell bounce, soon fired her flounce—
Though not the spark she wanted.
A hero bold who stood close by,
Quick to her rescue flew,
And tore away the flaming robe:—
Her pocket vanish'd too.
She went into a fit—so strong,
That two young Tailors swore
They'd never seen in all their lives
So tight a fit before.
The swain into whose arms she'd fall'n,
When to herself she'd come,
Seeing that she was "all abroad,"
Begg'd he might see her home.
Arrived, they talk'd of this and that,
Love, war, and heroes dead.
A soldier he—a man of rank
(And file, he might have said)—
A Polish Count, a Knight Grand Cross,
K. X., and Q. E. D.;
Grand Master of the Blood-red Dirk,
And R. O. G. U. E.
In fine, to make a long tale short,
He tickled her ambition;
And soon at Church persuaded her
To altar her condition.
Then off she wrote to all her friends—
Aunt Smith and Cousin Cole;
To tell them all the news, how she
Was tied to a great Pole.
But, oh! pride, pride must have a fall;
Her cash he soon got through:
And then, one mizzling Mich'lmas day,
The Count he mizzled too.
And ever since, on fair Twelfth Night,
A wand'ring form is seen:
A female form, and this its cry:—
"Vy vot a Cake I've been!"
Curiosities of Ornithology.
