Ye needna say me no;
It's better late than ne'er do weel,
John Alcohol, my foe.
RIGID BODY SINGS
GIN a body meet a body
Flyin' through the air,
Gin a body hit a body,
Will it fly? and where?
Ilka impact has its measure,
Ne'er a' ane hae I,
Yet a' the lads they measure me,
Or, at least, they try.
Gin a body meet a body
Altogether free,
How they travel afterwards
We do not always see.
Ilka problem has its method
By analytics high;
For me, I ken na ane o' them,
But what the waur am I?
AFTER CATHERINE FANSHAWE
COCKNEY ENIGMA ON THE LETTER H
I DWELLS in the Herth and I breathes in the Hair;
If you searches the Hocean you'll find that I'm there;
The first of all Hangels in Holympus am Hi,
Yet I'm banished from 'Eaven, expelled from on 'Igh.
But tho' on this Horb I am destined to grovel,
I'm ne'er seen in an 'Ouse, in an 'Ut, nor an 'Ovel;
Not an 'Oss nor an 'Unter e'er bears me, alas!
But often I'm found on the top of a Hass.
I resides in a Hattic and loves not to roam,
And yet I'm invariably habsent from 'Ome.
Tho' 'ushed in the 'Urricane, of the Hatmosphere part,
I enters no 'Ed, I creeps into no 'Art,
But look and you'll see in the Heye I appear.
Only 'ark and you'll 'ear me just breathe in the Hear;
Tho' in sex not an 'E, I am (strange paradox!),
Not a bit of an 'Effer, but partly a Hox.
Of Heternity Hi'm the beginning! and mark,
Tho' I goes not with Noar, I'm the first in the Hark.
I'm never in 'Elth – have with Fysic no power;
I dies in a Month, but comes back in a Hour.
AFTER WORDSWORTH
ON WORDSWORTH
HE lived amidst th' untrodden ways
To Rydal Lake that lead;
A bard whom there was none to praise
And very few to read.
Behind a cloud his mystic sense,
Deep hidden, who can spy?
Bright as the night when not a star
Is shining in the sky.
Unread his works – his “Milk White Doe"
With dust is dark and dim;
It's still in Longmans' shop, and oh!
The difference to him.
JACOB
HE dwelt among “Apartments let,"
About five stories high;
A man, I thought, that none would get,
And very few would try.
A boulder, by a larger stone
Half hidden in the mud,
Fair as a man when only one
Is in the neighborhood.
He lived unknown, and few could tell
When Jacob was not free;
But he has got a wife – and O!
The difference to me!
FRAGMENT IN IMITATION OF WORDSWORTH
THERE is a river clear and fair,
'Tis neither broad nor narrow;
It winds a little here and there —
It winds about like any hare;
And then it holds as straight a course
As, on the turnpike road, a horse,
Or, through the air, an arrow.
The trees that grow upon the shore
Have grown a hundred years or more;
So long there is no knowing:
Old Daniel Dobson does not know
When first those trees began to grow;
But still they grew, and grew, and grew,
As if they'd nothing else to do,
But ever must be growing.
The impulses of air and sky
Have reared their stately heads so high,
And clothed their boughs with green;
Their leaves the dews of evening quaff, —
And when the wind blows loud and keen,
I've seen the jolly timbers laugh,
And shake their sides with merry glee —
Wagging their heads in mockery.
Fixed are their feet in solid earth
Where winds can never blow;
But visitings of deeper birth
Have reached their roots below.
For they have gained the river's brink,
And of the living waters drink.
There's little Will, a five years' child —
He is my youngest boy;
To look on eyes so fair and wild,
It is a very joy.
He hath conversed with sun and shower,
And dwelt with every idle flower,
As fresh and gay as them.
He loiters with the briar-rose, —
The blue-bells are his play-fellows,
That dance upon their slender stem.
And I have said, my little Will,
Why should he not continue still
A thing of Nature's rearing?
A thing beyond the world's control —
A living vegetable soul, —
No human sorrow fearing.
It were a blessed sight to see
That child become a willow-tree,
His brother trees among.
He'd be four times as tall as me,
And live three times as long.
JANE