By day she led him up and down
  Where’er he wished to jog,
A happy wife, altho’ she led
  The life of any dog.

But just when Tim had liv’d a month
  In honey with his wife,
A surgeon ope’d his Milton eyes,
  Like oysters, with a knife.

But when his eyes were open’d thus,
  He wish’d them dark again: 
For when he look’d upon his wife,
  He saw her very plain.

Her face was bad, her figure worse,
  He couldn’t bear to eat: 
For she was any thing but like
  A Grace before his meat.

Tim he was a feeling man: 
  For when his sight was thick,
It made him feel for every thing—­
  But that was with a stick.

So with a cudgel in his hand—­
  It was not light or slim—­
He knocked at his wife’s head until
  It open’d unto him.

And when the corpse was stiff and cold,
  He took his slaughter’d spouse,
And laid her in a heap with all
  The ashes of her house.

But like a wicked murderer,
  He lived in constant fear
From day to day, and so he cut
  His throat from ear to ear.

The neighbors fetch’d a doctor in: 
  Said he, this wound I dread
Can hardly be sew’d up—­his life
  Is hanging on a thread.

But when another week was gone,
  He gave him stronger hope—­
Instead of hanging on a thread,
  Of hanging on a rope.

Ah! when he hid his bloody work
  In ashes round about,
How little he supposed the truth
  Would soon be sifted out.

But when the parish dustman came,
  His rubbish to withdraw,
He found more dust within the heap
  Than he contracted for!

A dozen men to try the fact,
  Were sworn that very day;
But tho’ they all were jurors, yet
  No conjurors were they.

Said Tim unto those jurymen,
  You need not waste your breath,
For I confess myself at once
  The author of her death.

And, oh! when I reflect upon
  The blood that I have spilt,
Just like a button is my soul,
  Inscrib’d with double guilt!

Then turning round his head again,
  He saw before his eyes
A great judge, and a little judge,
  The judges of a-size!

The great judge took his judgment cap,
  And put it on his head,
And sentenc’d Tim by law to hang,
  ’Till he was three times dead.

So he was tried, and he was hung
  (Fit punishment for such)
On Horsham-drop, and none can say
  It was a drop too much.

DEATH’S RAMBLE.[27]

[Footnote 27:  Of course suggested by Coleridge and Southey’s Devil’s Walk.  It is ablaze with wit and real imagination.  Old nursery tales are not so well remembered in these days that it is superfluous to point out that the “fee” being a prelude to “faw” and “fum,” is taken from the formula of the Ogre in Jack and the Bean-Stalk, whose usual preliminary to the slaughter of his victims was—­