“And fetch me eke a cabman bold,
That I may be his fare, his fare;
And he shall have a good shilling,
If by two of the clock he do me bring
To the Terminus, Euston Square.”
“Now,—so to thee the saints alway,
Good gentleman, give luck,—
As never a cab may I find this day,
For the cabman wights have struck:
And now, I wis, at the Red Post Inn,
Or else at the Dog and Duck,
Or at Unicorn Blue, or at Green Griffin,
The nut-brown ale and the fine old gin
Right pleasantly they do suck.”
“Now rede me aright, thou stout portèr,
What were it best that I should do:
For woe is me, an I reach not there
Or ever the clock strike two.”
“I have a son, a lytel son;
Fleet is his foot as the wild roebuck’s:
Give him a shilling, and eke a brown,
And he shall carry thy chattels down,
To Euston, or half over London town,
On one of the station trucks.”
Then forth in a hurry did they twain fare,
The gent, and the son of the stout portèr,
Who fled like an arrow, nor turned a hair,
Through all the mire and muck:
“A ticket, a ticket, sir clerk, I pray:
For by two of the clock must I needs away.”
“That may hardly be,” the clerk did say,
“For indeed—the clocks have struck.”
VOICES OF THE NIGHT.
“The tender Grace of a day that is past.”
The dew is on the roses,
The owl hath spread her wing;
And vocal are the noses
Of peasant and of king:
“Nature” (in short) “reposes;”
But I do no such thing.
Pent in my lonesome study
Here I must sit and muse;
Sit till the morn grows ruddy,
Till, rising with the dews,
“Jeameses” remove the muddy
Spots from their masters’ shoes.
Yet are sweet faces flinging
Their witchery o’er me here:
I hear sweet voices singing
A song as soft, as clear,
As (previously to stinging)
A gnat sings round one’s ear.