Faithless Nelly Gray

"Why, then," said she, "you've lost the feet

Of legs in war's alarms,

And now you cannot wear your shoes

Upon your feats of arms!"

"Oh, false and fickle Nelly Gray;

I know why you refuse:

Though I've no feet-some other man
Is standing in my shoes!

"I wish I ne'er had seen your face;
But now a long farewell!
For you will be my death-alas!
You will not be my Nell! ”

Now, when he went from Nelly Gray,
His heart so heavy got-

And life was such a burden grown,
It made him take a knot!

So round his melancholy neck
A rope he did entwine,

And, for his second time in life

Enlisted in the Line!

One end he tied around a beam,
And then removed his pegs,
And as his legs were off,-of course,
He soon was off his legs!

And there he hung till he was dead

As any nail in town,

For though distress had cut him up,
It could not cut him down!

A dozen men sat on his corpse,
To find out why he died-

And they buried Ben in four cross-roads,
With a stake in his inside!

799

Thomas Hood.

SALLY SIMPKIN'S LAMENT

"OH! what is that comes gliding in,
And quite in middling haste?
It is the picture of my Jones,
And painted to the waist.

"It is not painted to the life,

For where's the trousers blue?

O Jones, my dear!-Oh, dear! my Jones, What is become of you?"

"O Sally, dear, it is too true,

The half that you remark Is come to say my other half Is bit off by a shark!

"O Sally, sharks do things by halves,
Yet most completely do!

A bite in one place seems enough,
But I've been bit in two.

"You know I once was all your own,
But now a shark must share!
But let that pass-for now to you
I'm neither here nor there.

"Alas! death has a strange divorce Effected in the sea,

It has divided me from you,

And even me from me!

"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.'

Death's Ramble

"One half is here, the other half

Is near Columbia placed;

O 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!"

801

Thomas Hood.

DEATH'S RAMBLE

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.

The first he slaughtered it made him laugh

(For the man was a coffin-maker),

To think how the mutes, and men in black suits,
Would mourn for an undertaker.

Death saw two Quakers sitting at church;
Quoth he, "We shall not differ."
And he let them alone, like figures of stone,
For he could not make them stiffer.

He saw two duellists going to fight,

In fear they could not smother;

And he shot one through at once-for he knew They never would shoot each other.

He saw a watchman fast in his box,

And he gave a snore infernal;

Said Death," He may keep his breath, for his sleep Can never be more eternal."

He met a coachman driving a coach
So slow that his fare grew sick;
But he let him stray on his tedious way,
For Death only wars on the quick.

Death saw a tollman taking a toll,
In the spirit of his fraternity;

But he knew that sort of man would extort,
Though summoned to all eternity.

He found an author writing his life,
But he let him write no further;
For Death, who strikes whenever he likes,
Is jealous of all self-murther!

Death saw a patient that pulled out his purse,
And a doctor that took the sum;

But he let them be-for he knew that the "fee"
Was a prelude to "faw" and "fum."

He met a dustman ringing a bell,
And he gave him a mortal thrust;
For himself, by law, since Adam's flaw,
Is contractor for all our dust.

He saw a sailor mixing his grog,

And he marked him out for slaughter; For on water he scarcely had cared for death, And never on rum-and-water.

Panegyric on the Ladies

Death saw two players playing at cards,
But the game wasn't worth a dump,
For he quickly laid them flat with a spade,
To wait for the final trump!

803

Thomas Hood.

PANEGYRIC ON THE LADIES

READ ALTERNATE LINES

THAT man must lead a happy life
Who's free from matrimonial chains,

Who is directed by a wife

Is sure to suffer for his pains.

Adam could find no solid peace
When Eve was given for a mate;

Until he saw a woman's face

Adam was in a happy state.

In all the female race appear
Hypocrisy, deceit, and pride;
Truth, darling of a heart sincere,
In woman never did reside.

What tongue is able to unfold

The failings that in woman dwell?
The worth in woman we behold
Is almost imperceptible.

Confusion take the man, I say,
Who changes from his singleness,
Who will not yield to woman's sway
Is sure of earthly blessedness.

Unknown.