"So think I:—
But, by the bye,
We never shall know, if we never should try."
SHE.
"But should we get there, how shall we get home?
What a terrible deal of bad road we have past!
Slipping, and sliding, and if we should come
To a difficult stile, I am ruined at last!
Oh this lane!
Now it is plain
That struggling and striving is labour in vain."
HE.
"Stick fast there while I go and look;"
SHE.
"Don't go away, for fear I should fall:"
HE.
"I have examined it, every nook,
And what you see here is a sample of all.
Come, wheel round,
The dirt we have found
Would be an estate, at a farthing a pound."
Now, sister Anne,[840] the guitar you must take,
Set it, and sing it, and make it a song:
I have varied the verse, for variety's sake,
And cut it off short—because it was long.
'Tis hobbling and lame,
Which critics won't blame,
For the sense and the sound, they say, should be the same.