"Were I but what my whole implies,
And pass'd by chance across your portal
You'd cry 'Can I believe my eyes?
I never saw so queer a mortal!'
"For then my head would not be on,
My arms their shoulders must abandon;
My very body would be gone,
I should not have a leg to stand on."
Come that's dispatch'd—what follows?—Stay
"Reform demanded by the nation;
Vote for Tagrag and Bobtail!" Ay,
By Jove a blessed REFORMATION!
Jack, clap the saddle upon Rose—
Or no!—the filly—she's the fleeter;
The devil take the rain—here goes,
I'm off—a plumper for Sir Peter!
THE POPLAR. R. HARRIS BARHAM.
Ay, here stands the Poplar, so tall and so stately,
On whose tender rind—'twas a little one then—
We carved HER initials; though not very lately,
We think in the year eighteen hundred and ten.
Yes, here is the G which proclaimed Georgiana;
Our heart's empress then; see, 'tis grown all askew;
And it's not without grief we perforce entertain a
Conviction, it now looks much more like a Q.
This should be the great D too, that once stood for Dobbin,
Her lov'd patronymic—ah! can it be so?
Its once fair proportions, time, too, has been robbing;
A D?—we'll be DEED if it isn't an O!
Alas! how the soul sentimental it vexes,
That thus on our labors stern CHRONOS should frown
Should change our soft liquids to izzards and Xes,
And turn true-love's alphabet all upside down!