22
Sideways they started at the fight,
and whisk'd the gig half round.
Then cross the crowded market plate
they flew with furious bound;
First o’er a heap of crockery ware
the rapid car they whirl'd;
And jugs and mugs, and pots and pans,
in fragments wide were hurl'd.
A booth flood near, with tempting cakes
and grocery richly fraught;
All Birmingham on t'other side,
the dazzled optics caught.
With active spring the nimble steeds
rush'd through the pass between,
And scarcely touch’d—the car behind
got through not quite so clean.
For while one wheel one staal engag’d,
its fellow took the other.
Dire was the claah, down fell the, booths,
and made a dreadful pother.
Nuts, oranges, and gingerbread
and figs here roll’d around;
And scissars, knives, and thimbles, there,
bestrew’d the glittering ground.
The fall of booths, the shouts and cries
urg'd an the horses faster;
And as they flew, at ev'ry step
they caus’d some new disaster.
