To me Dan Phoebus and his car are nought,
His steeds that paw impatiently about;
Let them enjoy, say I, as horses ought,
The first turn-out!

Right beautiful the dewy meads appear,
Besprinkled by the rosy-fingered girl ;

What then,

if I prefer my pillow-beer To early pearl 2

My stomach is not ruled by other men's,
And, grumbling for a reason, quaïntly begs
Wherefore should master rise before the hens
Have laid their eggs?

Why from a comfortable pillow start
To see faint flushes in the east awaken ?
A fig, say I, for any streaky part,

Excepting bacon.

An early riser Mr. Gray has drawn,
Who used to haste the dewy grass among,
“To meet the sun upon the upland lawn,
Well he died young.

With charwomen such early hours agree,

And sweeps that earn betimes their bit and sup; But I'm no climbing boy, and need not be

All up

all up!

So here I lie, my morning calls deferring,
Till something nearer to the stroke of noon;
A man that's fond precociously of stirring,

Must be a spoon.

A TALE OF A TRUMPET.

"Old woman, old woman, will you go a-shearing?
Speak a little louder, for I'm very hard of hearing."

Or all old women hard of hearing,

OLD BALLAD.

The deafest, sure, was Dame Eleanor Spearing!
On her head, it is true,

Two flaps there grew,

That served for a pair of gold rings to go through;
But for any purpose of ears in a parley,
They heard no more than ears of barley.

No hint was needed from D. E. F.

You saw in her face that the woman was deaf:
From her twisted mouth to her eyes so peery,
Each queer feature asked a query;

A look that said, in a silent way,

Who ? and What? and How? and Eh?
I'd give my ears to know what you say!"
And well she might! for each auricular
Was deaf as a post -and that post in particular
That stands at the corner of Dyott-street now,
And never hears a word of a row!

Ears that might serve her now and then
As extempore racks for an idle pen;
Or to hang with hoops from jewellers' shops,
With coral, ruby, or garnet drops;
Or, provided the owner so inclined,
Ears to stick a blister behind ;
But as for hearing wisdom or wit,
Falsehood, or folly, or tell-tale-tit,

Or politics, whether of Fox or Pitt,
Sermon, lecture, or musical bit,
Harp, piano, fiddle, or kit,

They might as well, for any such wish,

Have been buttered, done brown, and laid in a dish!
She was deaf as a post, as said before,
And as deaf as twenty similes more,
Including the adder, that deafest of snakes,
Which never hears the coil it makes.

She was deaf as a house

which modern tricks

Of language would call as deaf as bricks-
For her all human kind were dumb;

Her drum, indeed, was so muffled a drum,
That none could get a sound to come,
Unless the Devil who had Two Sticks!
She was deaf as a stone say one of the stones
Demosthenes sucked to improve his tones

And surely deafness no further could reach
Than to be in his mouth withcut hearing his speech!
She was deaf as a nut for nuts, no doubt,
Are deaf to the grub that's hollowing out
As deaf, alas! as the dead and forgotten
(Gray has noticed the waste of breath

In addressing the "dull, cold car of death,")
Or the Felon's ear, that was stuffed with Cotton-
Or Charles the First, in statue quo;

Or the still-born figures of Madame Tussaud,
With their eyes of glass, and their hair of flax,
That only stare, whatever you “ax,”

For their ears, you know, are nothing but wax.

She was deaf as the ducks that swam in the pond, And wouldn't listen to Mrs. Bond,

As deaf as any Frenchman appears,
When he puts his shoulders into his ears:
And whatever the citizen tells his son
As deaf as Gog and Magog at one!
Or, still to be a simile-seeker,

As deaf as dog's-ears to Enfield's Speaker!

She was deaf as any tradesman's dummy,
Or as Pharaoh's mother's mother's mummy;
Whose organs, for fear of our modern sceptics,
Were plugged with gums and antiseptics.

She was deaf as a nail that you cannot hammer
A meaning into, for all your clamor

There never was such a deaf old Gammer!
So formed to worry

Both Lindley and Murray,

By having no ear for music or grammar!

Deaf to sounds, as a ship out of soundings,
Deaf to verbs, and all their compoundings,
Adjective, noun, and adverb, and particle,
Deaf to even the definite article

No verbal message was worth a pin,
Though you hired an earwig to carry it in!

In short, she was twice as deaf as Deaf Burke,
Or all the deafness in Yearsley's Work,

Who, in spite of his skill in hardness of hearing,
Boring, blasting, and pioneering,

To give the dunny organ a clearing,

Could never have cured Dame Eleanor Spearing.

Of course the loss was a great privation,

For one of her sex

whatever her station

And none the less that the dame had a turn

For making all families one concern,
And learning whatever there was to learn
In the prattling, tattling village of Tringham
As who wore silk? and who wore gingham ?
And what the Atkins's shop might bring 'em?
How the Smiths contrived to live? and whether
The fourteen Murphys all pigged together?
The wages per week of the Weavers and Skinners,
And what they boiled for their Sunday dinners ?
What plates the Bugsbys had on the shelf,
Crockery, china, wooden, or delf?

And if the parlor of Mrs. O'Grady

Had a wicked French print, or Death and the Lady?
Did Snip and his wife continue to jangle?
Had Mrs. Wilkinson sold her mangle?

What liquor was drunk by Jones and Brown?
And the weekly score they ran up at the Crown ?
If the cobbler could read, and believed in the Pope ?
And how the Grubbs were off for soap ?

If the Snobbs had furnished their room up stairs,
And how they managed for tables and chairs,

Beds, and other household affairs,

Iron, wooden, and Staffordshire wares;

And if they could muster a whole pair of bellows ?

In fact she had much of the spirit that lies
Perdu in a notable set of Paul Prys,

By courtesy called Statistical Fellows

A prying, spying, inquisitive clan,

Who had gone upon much of the self-same plan,
Jotting the laboring class's riches ;

And after poking in pot and pan,

And routing garments in want of stitches,

Have ascertained that a working man

Wears a pair and a quarter of average breeches !