To Foster Follett
If there were many miles of me
How I would love to trail
My length along the cooling sea
Above the brown sea kale.
Were there five thousand feet of me
Instead of five feet four,
A thousand times as cool I'd be
Swimming from shore to shore.
And when I saw a brewery
Upon some cape or isle
I'd crawl out of the dripping sea
And greet it with a smile.
Then all my lovely coils I'd wrap
Around that brewery,
And when I'd squeezed out every drap
Slide back into the sea.
XXIV—ON SWEARING OFF AGAIN
To Dan Carey
Barleycorn, my jo John!
They say that we must part!
'Twill mend my stomach, maybe,
But, O! it breaks my heart!
I hoped that we should grow old
Cheek by jowl together,
Boozing by the fireside
Through the wintry weather;—
With white hair and red face,
Full of dreams and liquor,
Watching from an armchair
The firelight flicker;—
But Barleycorn, my jo John,
Fare ye well forever!—
The preachers have my soul, John,
The doctors have my liver!
And I shall have an old age
Dry and dull as virtue—
But never think, my dear friend,
I'm happy to desert you!
Barleycorn, my jo John!
To think that we should part—.
They say 'twill save my eyesight,
But, O; it breaks my heart!