When Winter comes with piercing cold,
And all the rivers, new or old,
Is frozen far and wide;
And limpid springs is solid stuff,
And crystal pools is hard enough
To skate upon and slide;—
What then are thirsty men to do,
But drink of ale, and porter too,
Champagne as makes a fizz;
Port, sherry, or the Rhenish sort,
And p’rhaps a drop of summut short—
The water-pipes is friz!
THE FORLORN SHEPHERD’S COMPLAINT.
AN UNPUBLISHED POEM, FROM SYDNEY.
ELL! Here I am—no Matter how it suits,
A-keeping Company with them dumb Brutes,
Old Park vos no bad Judge—confound his vig!
Of vot vood break the Sperrit of a Prig!
“The like of Me, to come to New Sow Wales
To go a-tagging arter Vethers’ Tails
And valk in Herbage as delights the Flock,
But stinks of Sweet Herbs vorser nor the Dock!
“To go to set this solitary Job
To Von whose Vork vos alvay in a Mob!
It’s out of all our Lines, for sure I am
Jack Shepherd even never kep a Lamb!
“I arn’t ashamed to say I sit and veep
To think of Seven Years of keepin Sheep,
The spooniest Beasts in Nater, all to Sticks,
And not a Votch to take for all their Ticks!
“If I’d fore-seed how Transports vood turn out
To only Baa! and Botanize about,
I’d quite as leaf have had the t’other Pool,
And come to Cotton as to all this Vool!