“Or him that wicked Pony’s carried
  To the dark cave, the goblin’s hall;
  Or in the castle he’s pursuing
  Among the ghosts his own undoing; 230
  Or playing with the waterfall.”

  At poor old Susan then she railed,
  While to the town she posts away;
  “If Susan had not been so ill,
  Alas!  I should have had him still, 235
  My Johnny, till my dying day.”

  Poor Betty, in this sad distemper,
  The Doctor’s self could [21] hardly spare: 
  Unworthy things she talked, and wild;
  Even he, of cattle the most mild, 240
  The Pony had his share.

  But now she’s fairly in the town, [22]
  And to the Doctor’s door she hies;
  ’Tis silence all on every side;
  The town so long, the town so wide, 245
  Is silent as the skies.

  And now she’s at the Doctor’s door,
  She lifts the knocker, rap, rap, rap;
  The Doctor at the casement shows
  His glimmering eyes that peep and doze! 250
  And one hand rubs his old night-cap.

  “Oh Doctor!  Doctor! where’s my Johnny?”
  “I’m here, what is’t you want with me?”
  “Oh Sir! you know I’m Betty Foy,
  And I have lost my poor dear Boy, 255
  You know him—­him you often see;

  “He’s not so wise as some folks be”: 
  “The devil take his wisdom!” said
  The Doctor, looking somewhat grim,
  “What, Woman! should I know of him?” 260
  And, grumbling, he went back to bed!

  “O woe is me!  O woe is me! 
  Here will I die; here will I die;
  I thought to find my lost one here, [23]
  But he is neither far nor near, 265
  Oh! what a wretched Mother I!”

  She stops, she stands, she looks about;
  Which way to turn she cannot tell. 
  Poor Betty! it would ease her pain
  If she had heart to knock again; 270
 —­The clock strikes three—­a dismal knell!

  Then up along the town she hies,
  No wonder if her senses fail;
  This piteous news so much it shocked her,
  She quite forgot to send the Doctor, 275
  To comfort poor old Susan Gale.

  And now she’s high upon the down,
  And she can see a mile of road: 
  “O cruel!  I’m almost threescore;
  Such night as this was ne’er before, 280
  There’s not a single soul abroad.”

  She listens, but she cannot hear
  The foot of horse, the voice of man;
  The streams with softest sound are flowing,
  The grass you almost hear it growing, 285
  You hear it now, if e’er you can.

  The owlets through the long blue night
  Are shouting to each other still: 
  Fond lovers! yet not quite hob nob,
  They lengthen out the tremulous sob, 290
  That echoes far from hill to hill.