"Don't fear my ghost will walk o' nights To haunt, as people say; My ghost _can't_ walk, for, oh! my legs Are many leagues away!

"Lord! think when I am swimming round, And looking where the boat is, A shark just snaps away a _half_, Without a '_quarter's_ notice.'

"One half is here, the other half Is near Columbia placed; Oh! Sally, I have got the whole Atlantic for my waist.

"But now, adieu--a long adieu!

I've solved death's awful riddle, And would say more, but I am doomed To break off in the middle!"

ODE TO SIR ANDREW AGNEW, BART.[33]

"At certain seasons he makes a prodigious clattering with his bill."--SELBY.

"The bill is rather long, flat, and tinged with green."--BEWICK.

[Footnote 33: A Scotch baronet, and the once well-known promoter of Sabbatarian legislation. Sir Andrew identified himself in the House of Commons with the efforts of an English Association, the "Lord's Day Society," and introduced a Bill to prohibit all open labour on Sunday, excepting "works of necessity and mercy,"--a measure bound, under any scheme of working, to inflict the direst hardship and injustice. After three defeats, the Bill was actually carried in 1837, but was afterwards allowed to drop.]

O Andrew Fairservice,--but I beg pardon, You never labor'd in Di Vernon's garden, On curly kale and cabbages intent,-- Andrew Churchservice was the thing I meant,-- You are a Christian--I would be the same, Although we differ, and I'll tell you why, Not meaning to make game, I do not like my Church so very High!

When people talk, as talk they will, About your bill, They say, among their other jibes and small jeers, That, if you had your way, You'd make the seventh day As overbearing as the Dey of Algiers.

Talk of converting Blacks-- By your attacks, You make a thing so horrible of _one_ day, Each nigger, they will bet a something tidy, Would rather be a heathenish Man Friday, Than your Man Sunday!

So poor men speak, Who, once a week, P'rhaps, after weaving artificial flowers, Can snatch a glance of Nature's kinder bowers, And revel in a bloom That is not of the loom, Making the earth, the streams, the skies, the trees, A Chapel of Ease.

Whereas, as you would plan it, Wall'd in with hard Scotch granite, People all day should look to their behaviors;-- But though there be, as Shakspeare owns, "Sermons in stones,"

Zounds! Would you have us work at them like paviors?

Spontaneous is pure devotion's fire; And in a green wood many a soul has built A new Church, with a fir-tree for its spire, Where Sin has prayed for peace, and wept for guilt, Better than if an architect the plan drew; We know of old how medicines were back'd, But true Religion needs not to be quack'd By an Un-merry Andrew!

Suppose a poor town-weary sallow elf At Primrose-hill would renovate himself, Or drink (and no great harm) _Milk_ genuine at _Chalk_ Farm,-- The innocent intention who would balk, And drive him back into St. Bennet Fink?

For my part, for my life, I cannot think A walk on Sunday is "the Devil's Walk."

But there's a sect of Deists, and their creed Is D----ing other people to be d----d,-- Yeas, all that are not of their saintly level, They make a pious point To send, with an "aroint,"

Down to that great Fillhellenist, the Devil.

To such, a ramble by the River Lea Is really treading on the "Banks of D----."

Go down to Margate, wisest of law-makers, And say unto the sea, as Canute did, (Of course the sea will do as it is bid,) "This is the Sabbath--but there be no Breakers!"

Seek London's Bishop, on some Sunday morn, And try him with your tenets to inoculate,-- Abuse his fine souchong, and say in scorn, "This is not _Churchman's_ Chocolate!"

Or, seek Dissenters at their mid-day meal, And read them from your Sabbath Bill some passages, And while they eat their mutton, beef, and veal, Shout out with holy zeal,-- "These are not _Chappet's_ sassages!"

Suppose your Act should act up to your will, Yet how will it appear to Mrs. Grundy, To hear you saying of this pious bill, "It _works_ well--on a Sunday!"

To knock down apple-stalls is now too late, Except to starve some poor old harmless madam;-- You might have done some good, and chang'd our fate, Could you have upset _that_, which ruined Adam!

'Tis useless to prescribe salt-cod and eggs, Or lay post-horses under legal fetters, While Tattersall's on Sunday stirs its _Legs_, Folks look for good examples from their _Betters_!

Consider,--Acts of Parliament may bind A man to go where Irvings are discoursing-- But as for forcing "proper frames of mind,"

Minds are not _framed_, like melons, for such _forcing_!

Remember, as a Scottish legislator, The Scotch Kirk always has a Moderator; Meaning one need not ever be sojourning In a long Sermon Lane without a turning.

Such grave old maids as Portia and Zenobia May like discourses with a skein of threads, And love a lecture for its many heads, But as for me, I have the Hydra-phobia.

Religion one should never overdo: Right know I am no minister you be, For you would say your service, sir, to me, Till I should say, "My service, sir, to you."

Six days made all that is, you know, and then Came that of rest--by holy ordination, As if to hint unto the sons of men, After creation should come re-creation.

Read right this text, and do not further search To make a Sunday Workhouse of the Church.

THE LOST HEIR.

"Oh where, and oh where Is my bonny laddie gone?"

_Old Song_.

One day, as I was going by That part of Holborn christened High, I heard a loud and sodden cry, That chill'd my very blood; And lo! from out a dirty alley, Where pigs and Irish wont to rally, I saw a crazy woman sally, Bedaub'd with grease and mud.

She turn'd her East, she turn'd her West, Staring like Pythoness possest, With streaming hair and heaving breast, As one stark mad with grief.

This way and that she wildly ran, Jostling with woman and with man-- Her right hand held a frying pan, The left a lump of beef.

At last her frenzy seemed to reach A point just capable of speech, And with a tone almost a screech, As wild as ocean bird's, Or female Banter mov'd to preach, She gave her "sorrow-words."

"O Lord! O dear, my heart will break, I shall go stick stark staring wild!

Has ever a one seen anything about the streets like a crying lost-looking child?

Lawk help me, I don't know where to look, or to run, if I only knew which way-- A Child as is lost about London Streets, and especially Seven Dials, is a needle in a bottle of hay.

I am all in a quiver--get out of my sight, do, you wretch, you little Kitty M'Nab!

You promised to have half an eye to him, you know you did, you dirty deceitful young drab.

The last time as ever I see him, poor thing; was with my own blessed Motherly eyes, Sitting as good as gold in the gutter, a-playing at making little dirt pies.

I wonder he left the court where he was better off than all the other young boys, With two bricks, an old shoe, nine oyster-shells, and a dead kitten by way of toys.

When his father comes home, and he always comes home as sure as ever the clock strikes one, He'll be rampant, he will, at his child being lost; and the beef and the inguns not done!

La bless you, good folks, mind your own consarns, and don't be making a mob in the street; O Sergeant M'Farlane! you have not come across my poor little boy, have you, in your beat?

Do, good people, move on! don't stand staring at me like a parcel of stupid stuck pigs; Saints forbid! but he's p'r'aps been inviggled away up a court for the sake of his clothes He'd a very good jacket, for certain, for I bought it myself for a shilling one day in Rag Fair; And his trowsers considering not very much patch'd, and red plush, they was once his Father'

His shirt, it's very lucky I'd got washing in the tub, or that might have gone with the rest But he'd got on a very good pinafore with only two slits and a burn on the breast.

He'd a goodish sort of hat, If the crown was sew'd in, and not quite so much jagg'd at the brim, With one shoe on, and the other shoe is a boot, and not a fit, and, you'll know by that if it's him.

Except being so well dress'd, my mind would misgive, some old beggar woman in want of an orphan, Had borrow'd the child to go a begging with, but I'd rather see him laid out in his coffin!

Do, good people, move on, such a rabble of boys!

I'll break every bone of 'em I come near, Go home--you're spilling the porter--go home-- Tommy Jones, go along home with your beer.

This day is the sorrowfullest day of my life, ever since my name was Betty Morgan, Them vile Savoyards! they lost him once before all along of following a Monkey and an Organ: O my Billy--my head will turn right round--if he's got kiddynapp'd with them Italians, They'll make him a plaster parish image boy, they will, the outlandish tatterdemallions.

Billy--where are you, Billy?--I'm as hoarse as a crow, with screaming for ye, you young sorrow!

And shan't have half a voice, no more I shan't, for crying fresh herrings to-morrow.

O Billy, you're bursting my heart in two, and my life won't be of no more vally, If I'm to see other folk's darlins, and none of mine, playing like angels in our alley, And what shall I do but cry out my eyes, when I looks at the old three-legged chair, As Billy used to make coaches and horses of, and there ain't no Billy there!

I would run all the wide world over to find him, if I only know'd where to run, Little Murphy, now I remember, was once lost for a month through stealing a penny bun,-- The Lord forbid of any child of mine!

I think it would kill me raily, To find my Bill holdin up his little innocent hand at the Old Bailey.

For though I say it as oughtn't, yet I will say, you may search for miles and mileses And not find one better brought up, and more pretty behaved, from one end to t'other of St. Giles's.

And if I called him a beauty, it's no lie, but only as a Mother ought to speak; You never set eyes on a more handsomer face, only it hasn't been washed for a week; As for hair, tho' it's red, it's the most nicest hair when I've time to just show it the comb; I'll owe 'em five pounds, and a blessing besides, as will only bring him safe and sound home.

He's blue eyes, and not to be call'd a squint, though a little cast he's certainly got; And his nose is still a good un, tho' the bridge is broke, by his falling on a pewter pint pot; He's got the most elegant wide mouth in the world, and very large teeth for his age; And quite as fit as Mrs. Murdockson's child to play Cupid on the Drury Lane Stage.

And then he has got such dear winning ways-- but O, I never never shall see him no more!

O dear! to think of losing him just after nussing him back from death's door!

Only the very last month when the windfalls, hang 'em, was at twenty a penny!