pole, when the soot has ketch’d, and the chimbly’s red hot. 
Oh I’d give the whole wide world, if the world
  was mine, to clap my two longin eyes on his face,
For he’s my darlin of darlins, and if he don’t soon
  come back, you’ll see me drop stone dead on the place. 
I only wish I’d got him safe in these two Motherly
  arms, and wouldn’t I hug him and kiss him! 
Lauk!  I never knew what a precious he was—­
  but a child don’t not feel like a child till you miss him. 
Why, there he is!  Punch and Judy hunting, the
  young wretch, it’s that Billy as sartin as sin! 
But let me get him home, with a good grip of his hair,
  and I’m blest if he shall have a whole bone in his skin!

THE FOX AND THE HEN.

A FABLE.

Speaking within compass, as to fabulousness I prefer
Southcote to Northcote. 
PIGROGROMITUS.

One day, or night, no matter where or when,
  Sly Reynard, like a foot-pad, laid his pad
Right on the body of a speckled Hen,
  Determined upon taking all she had;
    And like a very bibber at his bottle,
    Began to draw the claret from her throttle;
Of course it put her in a pretty pucker,
    And with a scream as high
           As she could cry,
She call’d for help—­she had enough of sucker.

Dame Partlet’s scream
Waked, luckily, the house-dog from his dream,
And, with a savage growl
In answer to the fowl,
He bounded forth against the prowling sinner,
And, uninvited, came to the Fox Dinner.

Sly Reynard, heedful of the coming doom,
      Thought, self-deceived,
      He should not be perceived,
Hiding his brush within a neighboring broom! 
But quite unconscious of a Poacher’s snare,
         And caught in copper noose,
         And looking like a goose,
Found that his fate had “hung upon a hare”;
His tricks and turns were rendered of no use to him,
And worst of all he saw old surly Tray
       Coming to play
       Tray-Deuce with him.

Tray, an old Mastiff bred at Dunstable,
Under his Master, a most special constable,
Instead of killing Reynard in a fury,
Seized him for legal trial by a Jury;
But Juries—­AEsop was a sheriff then—­
Consisted of twelve Brutes and not of Men.

But first the Elephant sat on the body—­
I mean the Hen—­and proved that she was dead,
        To the veriest fool’s head
        Of the Booby and the Noddy.

Accordingly, the Stork brought in a bill
        Quite true enough to kill,
And then the Owl was call’d,—­for, mark,
The Owl can witness in the dark. 
To make the evidence more plain,
The Lynx connected all the chain. 
In short there was no quirk or quibble
At which a legal Rat could nibble;
The Culprit was as far beyond hope’s bounds.