Fierce barked the dog, and many a blow was dealt,
That loin, and chump, and scrag and saddle felt,
Yet still, that fatal step they all declined it—
And shunned the tainted door as if they smelt
Onions, mint-sauce, and lemon-juice behind it.
At last there came a pause of brutal force;
The cur was silent, for his jaws were full
Of tangled locks of tarry wool;
The man had whooped and bellowed till dead hoarse,
The time was ripe for mild expostulation,
And thus it stammered ftom a stander-by—
"Zounds!—my good fellow—it quite makes me—why
It really—my dear fellow—do just try
Conciliation!"
Stringing his nerves like flint,
The sturdy butcher seized upon the hint—
At least he seized upon the foremost wether—
And hugged and lugged and tugged him neck and crop
Just nolens volens through the open shop—
If tails come off he didn't care a feather—
Then walking to the door, and smiling grim,
He rubbed his forehead and his sleeve together—
"There!—I've CONciliated him!"
Again—good-humoredly to end our quarrel—
(Good humor should prevail!)
I'll fit you with a tale
Whereto is tied a moral.
Once on a time a certain English lass
Was seized with symptoms of such deep decline,
Cough, hectic flushes, every evil sign,
That, as their wont is at such desperate pass,
The doctors gave her over—to an ass.
Accordingly, the grisly Shade to bilk,
Each morn the patient quaffed a frothy bowl
Of assinine new milk,
Robbing a shaggy suckling of a foal
Which got proportionably spare and skinny—
Meanwhile the neighbors cried "Poor Mary Ann!
She can't get over it! she never can!"
When lo! to prove each prophet was a ninny,
The one that died was the poor wet-nurse Jenny.
To aggravate the case,
There were but two grown donkeys in the place;
And, most unluckily for Eve's sick daughter,
The other long-eared creature was a male,
Who never in his life had given a pail
Of milk, or even chalk and water.
No matter: at the usual hour of eight
Down trots a donkey to the wicket-gate,
With Mister Simon Gubbins on his back—
"Your sarvant, Miss—a werry spring-like day—
Bad time for hasses, though! good lack! good lack!
Jenny be dead, Miss—but I'ze brought ye Jack—
He doesn't give no milk—but he can bray."
So runs the story,
And, in vain self-glory,
Some Saints would sneer at Gubbins for his blindness;
But what the better are their pious saws
To ailing souls, than dry hee-haws,
Without the milk of human kindness?
DEATH'S RAMBLE. THOMAS HOOD.
One day the dreary old King of Death
Inclined for some sport with the carnal,
So he tied a pack of darts on his back,
And quietly stole from his charnel.
His head was bald of flesh and of hair,
His body was lean and lank;
His joints at each stir made a crack, and the cur
Took a gnaw, by the way, at his shank.
And what did he do with his deadly darts,
This goblin of grisly bone?
He dabbled and spilled man's blood, and he killed
Like a butcher that kills his own.