My boy, what has come o'er ye?
You surely are not well!
Try some of that ham before ye,
And then, Tom, ring the bell!"
"I cannot eat, my mother,
My tongue is parched and bound,
And my head, somehow or other,
Is swimming round and round.
In my Eyes there is a fulness,
And my pulse is beating quick;
On my brain is a weight of dulness:
Oh, mother, I am sick!"
"These long, long nights of watching
Are killing you outright;
The evening dews are catching,
And you're out every night.
Why does that horrid grumbler,
Old Inkpen, work you so?"
"My head! Oh, that tenth tumbler!
'Twas that which wrought my woe!"
THE BITTER BIT
The sun is in the sky, mother, the flowers are springing
fair,
And the melody of woodland birds is stirring in the air;
The river, smiling to the sky, glides onward to the sea,
And happiness is everywhere, oh mother, but with me!
They are going to the church, mother,—I hear the mar-
riage-bell;
It booms along the upland,—oh! it haunts me like a
knell;
He leads her on his arm, mother, he cheers her faltering
step,
And closely to his side she clings,—she does, the demirep!
They are crossing by the stile, mother, where we so oft
have stood,
The stile beside the shady thorn, at the corner of the
wood;
And the boughs, that wont to murmur back the words
that won my ear,
Wave their silver blossoms o'er him, as he leads his bridal
fere.