He scrapes a stick across his arm
And knocks his knees, in need, to charm;[110]
Instead of tabor and a fiddle,
Et omne solis,—on his sole!
He, solus omnis, like a pole
Supports his body in the middle.
Thus, of the sprites that creep, or beg,
With wither’d arm, or wooden leg,
Uncatalogued in Bridewell’s missal;
Joe is the fittest for relief,
He whistles gladness in his grief,[111]
And hardly earns it for his whistle.
J. R. P.
[108] Vide Dryden’s Cymon,
“He whistled as he went for want of thought.”
[109] This word rhymes with lost, to oblige the cockneys.
[110] Like the punning clown in the stocks, that whistled Over the wood laddie!
“Whistle! and I will come to thee, my love.”