Print
Word
PDFlike these;
I shall put it in the grate, and let it burn up by degrees.
So in it goes, and Bounce—O Lord! it gives us such a rattle,
I thought we both were cannonized, like Sogers in a battle!
Up goes the copper like a squib, and us on both our backs,
And bless the tubs, they bundled off, and split all into cracks.
Well, there I fainted dead away, and might have been cut shorter,
But Providence was kind, and brought me to with scalding water.
I first looks round for Mrs. Round, and sees her at a distance,
As stiff as starch, and looked as dead as any thing in existence;
All scorched and grimed, and more than that, I sees the copper slap
Right on her head, for all the world like a percussion copper cap.
Well, I crooks her little fingers, and crumps them well up together,
As humanity pints out, and burnt her nostrums with a feather;
But for all as I can do, to restore her to her mortality,
She never gives a sign of a return to sensuality.
Thinks I, well there she lies, as dead as my own late departed mother,
Well, she’ll wash no more in this world, whatever she does in t’other.
So I gives myself to scramble up the linens for a minute,
Lawk, sich a shirt! thinks I, it’s well my master wasn’t in it;
Oh! I never, never, never, never, never, see a sight so shockin;
Here lays a leg, and there a leg—I mean, you know, a stocking—
Bodies all slit and torn to rags, and many a tattered skirt,
And arms burnt off, and sides and backs all scotched and black with dirt;
But as nobody was in ’em—none but—nobody was hurt!
Well, there I am, a-scrambling up the things, all in a lump,
When, mercy on us! such a groan as makes my heart to jump.
And there she is, a-lying with a crazy sort of eye,
A-staring at the wash-house roof, laid open to the sky:
Then she beckons with a finger, and so down to her I reaches,
And puts my ear agin her mouth to hear her dying speeches,
For, poor soul! she has a husband and young orphans, as I knew;
Well, Ma’am, you won’t believe it, but it’s Gospel fact and true,
But these words is all she whispered—’Why, where is the powder blew?’”
I shall put it in the grate, and let it burn up by degrees.
So in it goes, and Bounce—O Lord! it gives us such a rattle,
I thought we both were cannonized, like Sogers in a battle!
Up goes the copper like a squib, and us on both our backs,
And bless the tubs, they bundled off, and split all into cracks.
Well, there I fainted dead away, and might have been cut shorter,
But Providence was kind, and brought me to with scalding water.
I first looks round for Mrs. Round, and sees her at a distance,
As stiff as starch, and looked as dead as any thing in existence;
All scorched and grimed, and more than that, I sees the copper slap
Right on her head, for all the world like a percussion copper cap.
Well, I crooks her little fingers, and crumps them well up together,
As humanity pints out, and burnt her nostrums with a feather;
But for all as I can do, to restore her to her mortality,
She never gives a sign of a return to sensuality.
Thinks I, well there she lies, as dead as my own late departed mother,
Well, she’ll wash no more in this world, whatever she does in t’other.
So I gives myself to scramble up the linens for a minute,
Lawk, sich a shirt! thinks I, it’s well my master wasn’t in it;
Oh! I never, never, never, never, never, see a sight so shockin;
Here lays a leg, and there a leg—I mean, you know, a stocking—
Bodies all slit and torn to rags, and many a tattered skirt,
And arms burnt off, and sides and backs all scotched and black with dirt;
But as nobody was in ’em—none but—nobody was hurt!
Well, there I am, a-scrambling up the things, all in a lump,
When, mercy on us! such a groan as makes my heart to jump.
And there she is, a-lying with a crazy sort of eye,
A-staring at the wash-house roof, laid open to the sky:
Then she beckons with a finger, and so down to her I reaches,
And puts my ear agin her mouth to hear her dying speeches,
For, poor soul! she has a husband and young orphans, as I knew;
Well, Ma’am, you won’t believe it, but it’s Gospel fact and true,
But these words is all she whispered—’Why, where is the powder blew?’”
“I’M NOT A SINGLE MAN."[30]
[Footnote 30: Written in the album of Miss Smith, daughter of Mr. Horace Smith, of the Rejected Addresses. Miss Smith happily still survives to show her friends with pride these admirable verses, inscribed in Hood’s neat and clear handwriting.]
LINES WRITTEN IN A YOUNG LADY’S ALBUM.
A pretty task, Miss S——, to ask
A Benedictine pen,
That cannot quite at freedom write
Like those of other men.
No lover’s plaint my muse must paint
To fill this page’s span,
But be correct and recollect
I’m not a single man.
Pray only think, for pen and ink
How hard to get along,
That may not turn on words that burn
Or Love, the life of song!
