Thus spake the patriot. Through the hall
The asses cheer’d him proudly;
They all, in fact, were national,
And with their hoofs stamp’d loudly.
An oaken wreath on the orator’s head
They put as a decoration;
He wagg’d his tail (though nothing he said)
With evident gratification.
BERTHA.
She seem’d so gentle, she seem’d so good,
An angel I thought my lover;
She wrote the dearest letters to me,
With kindness teeming all over.
The wedding was very soon to take place,
Her relations heard this by dozens;
My Bertha was a silly thing,
For she listen’d to aunts and cousins.
She kept not her word, she broke her oath,
And yet I have been forgiving;
Had I married her first, I ne’er should have known
Either pleasure or love while living.
When I of a faithless woman think,
I think of Bertha the faithless;
The only wish I have left, is that she
May pass through her confinement scatheless.
IN THE CATHEDRAL.
Before me the sexton’s daughter fair
Through the sacred edifice skippèd;
Her size was small, and light her hair,
From her neck her kerchief had slippèd.
In the old cathedral for sixpence I got
A sight of its marvellous creatures,
Its tombs, lights, crosses; I turn’d quite hot
When I gazed on Elspeth’s features.