Your “ auld acquaintance ” all at onee
Is altered in the face;
Arouse, arouse, my gawky friend,
And shake your spider legs ;
Theiz discords sting through Burns and |
Moore,
Like hedgehogs dressed in lace.
Yon think they are crusaders, sent
From some infernal elime,
To pluck the syes of Sentiment,
And dook the tail of Rhyme,
To crack the voice of Melody, ai
And break the legs of Time.
But hark! the air again is still,
The music ail is ground,
And silence, like a poullice, comes
To heal the blows of sound ;
Ti cannot be, — it is, —it is, —
A hat is going round !
Ne! Pay the dentist when he leaves
A fracture in your jaw,
And pay the owner of the bear
hat stunned you with his paw,
And bny the lobster that has had
Your knuckles in his claw ;
But if you are 2 portly man,
Put on your fiercest frown,
And talk about a constable
To turn then out of town ;
Then close your sentence with an oath,
And shut the window down !
And if you are a slender man,
Not big enough for that,
Or, if you cannot make a speech,
Because you are « flat,
Go very quietly and drop
A button in the hat!
THE TREADMILL SONG
The stars are rolling in the sky,
The earth rolls on below,
And we can feel the rattling wheel
Revolving as we go.
Then tread away, my gallant boys,
And make the axle fly;
Why should not wheels go round about,
Like planets in the sky?
Wake up, wake up, my duck-legged man,
And stir your solid pegs!
Arouse, arouse, my gawky friend,
And shake your spider legs;
What though you're awkward at the trade,
There's time enough to learn,—
So lean upon the rail, my lad,
And take another turn.
They've built us up a noble wall,
To keep the vulgar out;
We've nothing in the world to do
But just to walk about;
So faster now, you middle men,
And try to beat the ends,—
It's pleasant work to ramble round
Among one's honest friends.
Here, tread upon the long man's toes,
He sha'n't be lazy here,—
And punch the little fellow's ribs,
And tweak that lubber's ear,—
He's lost them both, — don't pull his hair,
Because he wears a scratch,
But poke him in the further eye,
That isn't in the patch.
Hark! fellows, there's the supper-bell,
And so our work is done;
It's pretty sport, — suppose we take
A round or two for fun!
If ever they should turn me out,
When I have better grown,
Now hang me, but I mean to have
A treadmill of my own!
THE SEPTEMBER GALE This tremendous hurricane occurred on the 23d of September, 1815, I remember it well, being then seven yeare old, A full account of it was published, I think, in the records of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Some of my recollections are given in The Seasons, an article to he found in a hack of Ss entitled Pages from an Old Volume of if.
I’m not a chicken; I have seen
Full many a chill September,
And though I was a youngster then,
That gale f well remember ;
The day before, my kite-string snapped,
And I, my kite pursuing,
The wind whisked off my palm-leaf hat ;
For me tw storms were brewing !
