We'll have some music, if you're willing,

And Roger (hem! what a plague a cough is, Sir!) Shall march a little. Start, you villain!

Paws up! Eyes front!

'Bout face! Attention!

Take your rifle!

Salute your officer!

Now hold your

(Some dogs have arms, you see!)

Cap while the gentlemen give a trifle,

To aid a poor old patriot soldier!

March! Halt! Now show how the rebel shakes

When he stands up to hear his sentence.

Now tell us how many drams it takes
To honor a jolly new acquaintance.
Five yelps, that's five; he's mighty knowing!
The night's before us, fill the glasses!—
Quick, Sir! I'm ill,—my brain is going!—
Some brandy, thank you,-there!-it passes!

Why not reform? That's easily said;

But I've gone through such wretched treatment, Sometimes forgetting the taste of bread,

And scarce remembering what meat meant,

That my poor stomach's past reform;

And there are times when, mad with thinking,

I'd sell out heaven for something warm
To prop a horrible inward sinking.

Is there a way to forget to think?

At your age, Sir, home, fortune, friends,
A dear girl's love, but I took to drink;—
The same old story; you know how it ends.
If you could have seen these classic features,-
You needn't laugh, Sir; they were not then
Such a burning libel on God's creatures;
I was one of your handsome men!

If you had seen HER, so fair and young,

Whose head was happy on this breast!

If you could have heard the songs I sung

When the wine went round, you wouldn't have guessed

That ever I, Sir, should be straying

From door to door, with fiddle and dog, Ragged and penniless, and playing

To you to-night for a glass of grog!

She's married since,-a parson's wife:
'Twas better for her that we should part,
Better the soberest, prosiest life

Than a blasted home and a broken heart.
I have seen her? Once: I was weak and spent
On the dusty road: a carriage stopped:

But little she dreamed, as on she went,

Who kissed the coin that her fingers dropped!

You've set me talking, Sir; I'm sorry,

It makes me wild to think of the change!
What do you care for a beggar's story?
Is it amusing? you find it strange?
I had a mother so proud of me!

'Twas well she died before-Do you know
If the happy spirits in heaven can see
The ruin and wretchedness here below?

Another glass, and strong, to deaden
This pain; then Roger and I will start.
I wonder, has he such a lumpish, leaden,
Aching thing in place of a heart?

He is sad sometimes, and would weep, if he could, No doubt, remembering things that were,—

A virtuous kennel, with plenty of food,

And himself, a sober, respectable cur.

I'm better now; that glass was warming.-
You rascal! limber your lazy feet!

We must be fiddling and performing

For supper and bed, or starve in the street.

Not a very gay life to lead, you think?

But soon we shall go where lodgings are free, And the sleepers need neither victuals nor drink;The sooner the better for Roger and me!

John Townsend Trowbridge [1827

HOW WE BEAT THE FAVORITE

A LAY OF THE LOAMSHIRE HUNT CUP

"AVE, squire," said Stevens, "they back him at evens;
The race is all over, bar shouting, they say;

The Clown ought to beat her; Dick Neville is sweeter
Than ever-he swears he can win all the way.

"A gentleman rider-well, I'm an outsider,

But if he's a gent, who the mischief's a jock?
You swells mostly blunder, Dick rides for the plunder,
He rides, too, like thunder-he sits like a rock.
"He calls 'hunted fairly' a horse that has barely

Been stripped for a trot within sight of the hounds,
A horse that at Warwick beat Birdlime and Yorick,
And gave Abdelkader at Aintree nine pounds.

"They say we have no test to warrant a protest;
Dick rides for a lord and stands in with a steward;
The light of their faces they show him-his case is
Prejudged and his verdict already secured.

"But none can outlast her, and few travel faster,
She strides in her work clean away from The Drag;
You hold her and sit her, she couldn't be fitter,

Whenever you hit her she'll spring like a stag.

"And p'raps the green jacket, at odds though they back it, May fall, or there's no knowing what may turn up.

The mare is quite ready, sit still and ride steady,
Keep cool; and I think you may just win the Cup.”

Dark-brown with tan muzzle, just stripped for the tussle,
Stood Iseult, arching her neck to the curb,

A lean head and fiery, strong quarters and wiry,

A loin rather light, but a shoulder superb.

Some parting injunction, bestowed with great unction,
I tried to recall, but forgot like a dunce,

When Reginald Murray, full tilt on White Surrey,
Came down in a hurry to start us at once.

"Keep back in the yellow! Come up on Othello!

Hold hard on the Chestnut! Turn round on The Drag! Keep back there on Spartan! Back you, sir, in tartan! So, steady there, easy," and down went the flag.

We started, and Kerr made strong running on Mermaid. Through furrows that led to the first stake-and-bound, The crack, half extended, looked bloodlike and splendid, Held wide on the right where the headland was sound.

I pulled hard to baffle her rush with the snaffle,

Before her two-thirds of the field got away,

All through the wet pasture where floods of the last year Still loitered, they clotted my crimson with clay.

The fourth fence, a wattle, floored Monk and Blue-bottle; The Drag came to grief at the blackthorn and ditch, The rails toppled over Redoubt and Red Rover,

The lane stopped Lycurgus and Leicestershire Witch.
She passed like an arrow Kildare and Cock Sparrow,
And Mantrap and Mermaid refused the stone wall;
And Giles on The Greyling came down at the paling,
And I was left sailing in front of them all.

I took them a burster, nor eased her nor nursed her
Until the Black Bullfinch led into the plow,
And through the strong bramble we bored with a scramble-
My cap was knocked off by the hazel-tree bough.

Where furrows looked lighter I drew the rein tighter;

Her dark chest all dappled with flakes of white foam,
Her flanks mud-bespattered, a weak rail she shattered;
We landed on turf with our heads turned for home.

Then crashed a low binder, and then close behind her
The sward to the strokes of the favorite shook;
His rush roused her mettle, yet ever so little

She shortened her stride as we raced at the brook.

She rose when I hit her. I saw the stream glitter,
A wide scarlet nostril flashed close to my knee,
Between sky and water The Clown came and caught her
The space that he cleared was a caution to see.

And forcing the running, discarding all cunning,

A length to the front went the rider in green;
A long strip of stubble, and then the big double,
Two stiff flights of rails with a quickset between.

She raced at the rasper, I felt my knees grasp her,
I found my hands give to her strain on the bit,
She rose when The Clown did-our silks as we bounded
Brushed lightly, our stirrups clashed loud as we lit.

A rise steeply sloping, a fence with stone coping-
The last-we diverged round the base of the hill;
His path was the nearer, his leap was the clearer,
I flogged up the straight, and he led sitting still.

She came to his quarter, and on still I brought her,
And up to his girth, to his breast-plate she drew;
A short prayer from Neville just reached me,-"The Devil,"
He muttered,—locked level the hurdles we flew.

A hum of hoarse cheering, a dense crowd careering,

All sights seen obscurely, all shouts vaguely heard;

"The green wins!" "The crimson!" The multitude swims

on,

And figures are blended and features are blurred.

"The horse is her master!" "The green forges past her!" "The Clown will outlast her!" "The Clown wins!" "The Clown!"

The white railing races with all the white faces,

The chestnut outpaces, outstretches the brown.

On still past the gateway she strains in the straightway,
Still struggles, "The Clown by a short neck at most,'
He swerves, the green scourges, the stand rocks and surges,
And flashes, and verges, and flits the white post.

Ay! so ends the tussle,-I knew the tan muzzle

Was first, though the ring-men were yelling "Dead heat!" A nose I could swear by, but Clarke said "The mare by A short head." And that's how the favorite was beat. Adam Lindsay Gordon [1833-1870]