Already is the cottage board
With creamy bowls of May-milk stored;
Rich foaming jugs-but not of ale-
Warm, fragrant, from the milk-maid's pail,
From hand to hand are circling round,
With health, and sweets delicious crowned;
Sweet simple joys, sweet balmy draught,
With health, and peace, and temperance fraught.
Dear little maids! your self-styled bard
Would deem it dear and rich reward,
If, when in blushing maidhood's hour,
And armed with love and beauty's power,
That love, that power, you'd bring to bear
On each fond youth who loves you dear;
And when he breathes the fond desire
To call you his, you would require
The temperance pledge, with that of love-
His love, his truth, and worth to prove,
And gain, for all you have resigned,
A happy home-a husband kind!
ON THE PROPOSED PRESENTATION OF GUNS BY THE
PEOPLE OF BRITAIN TO THE KING OF SARDINIA, IN AID OF ITALIAN LIBERTY.
No gold,-no jewels bright,
We offer at the shrine
Where Italy adores the light
Of liberty divine.
A sterner gift we bring
Ye frowning tubes of death,
Your bolts of vengeance wing,
Till tyrants quail beneath.
From fort-from "deadly breach"
Pour from your sulph'rous throats,
As far as sound can reach,
In loud prophetic notes,
A voice whose thunder tones
Shall Europe's despots wake,
And on their crumbling thrones
In craven terror shake.
"O FOOLISH people, and unwise,"
Who stop your ears and shut your eyes,
Though common-sense and flagrant facts
Proclaim the madness of your acts!
A guessing, calculating nation,
Yet, to European observation,
To be outwitted and defeated,
You never guessed or calculated.
guess the cost you should have counted
Before the war-horse you had mounted,
On which you cut such sorry capers.
You want our Campbells, Havelocks, Napiers,
Our Gladstone, Palmerston, and Russell,
And so you've got into a bustle
Of debt and danger, blood and battery,
And no mendacious boast or flattery
Can chase the clouds so darkly looming,
Or still the wailing echoes booming
Above, around the deathly track
To Richmond, and the red path back.
Look back-the trench, the swamp, the wood,
With dead and dying bodies strewed;
And nightly on thy banks, St James,
Were hundreds piled to feed the flames;
Then battle, panic, rout, and flight,
And all is terror and affright.
Ye know not all; ye soon shall know, When dark reaction's tidal flow
Shall chill your hearts, and whelm your pride
And lust of empire in the tide.
Oh Union dames! let common-sense,
If not affection, influence
Your thoughts and words before high Heaven
Such right to woman is not given,
To urge her husband, son, or lover,
All human ties to trample over
The cause. To keep the Union whole,
Alas! full many a parted soul
In battle, sinful, unforgiven,
Flies to its last account to heaven.
Then let religion, reason, love,
Your holiest, dearest, feelings move.
Your love, your eloquence, your tears,
All that on man's best feelings bears,
Employ, nor let your efforts cease
Till
your fair land has rest and peace.
AULD SCOTLAN' gangs yirmin an' chanerin' alane;
She wunners whaur a' her trig lassocks ha'e gane;
She's trampit the kintra, an' socht thro' the toons,
An' fan' the fule hizzies-blawn oot like balloons!
Can they be my lassocks-ance cozie an' cosh,
Weel shapit, weel happit-sae stumpy an' tosh?
Twa coats an' a toush, or a goon, ye may ween,
Were boukie aneuch, wi' what nature had gi'en.
They're aye i' my e'e, an' they're aye i' my gate-
At the kirk I am chirtit maist oot o' my seat;
Whan caul', tae the ingle I needna gae ben,
If Kate an' her crinoline's on the fire-en'.
Whan a lad wi' a lassie forgethers yenoo,
It's no her bricht een, or her rosie wee mou',
Her snod cockernony, waist jimpy an' fine,
That first tak's his e'e-it's the big crinoline!
Tae sae that he likes it would jist be a lee
But
ye ken that the big thing attracts aye the wee—
An' the lass that cares nocht 'bout her heart an' her heid,
Tak's care that her crinoline's weel spread abreed.
|