JOHN JONES.

A PATHETIC BALLAD.

"I saw the iron enter into his soul.”—STERNE.

JOHN JONES he was a builder's clerk,
On ninety pounds a year,
Before his head was engine-turned
To be an engineer!

For, finding that the iron roads.
Were quite the public tale,
Like Robin Redbreast, all his heart
Was set upon a rail.

But oh! his schemes all ended ill,
As schemes must come to naught,
With men who try to make short cuts,
When cut with something short.

His altitudes he did not take,

Like any other elf;

But first a spirit-level took

That levelled him himself.

Then, getting up from left to right
So many tacks he made,

The ground he meant to go upon
Got very well surveyed.

How crows may fly he did not care

A single fig to know;

He wished to make an iron road,

And not an iron crow.

So, going to the Rose and Crown,
To cut his studies short,

The nearest way from pint to pint,
He found was through a quart.

According to this rule he planned
His railroad o'er a cup;
But when he came to lay it down,
No soul would take it up!

Alas! not his the wily arts
Of men as shrewd as rats,
Who out of one sole level make
A precious lot of flats!

In vain from Z to crooked S,
His devious line he showed;
Directors even seemed to wish
For some directer road.

The writers of the public press
All sneered at his design;
And penny-a-liners wouldn't give
A penny for his line.

Yet still he urged his darling scheme,

In spite of all the fates; Until at last his zigzag ways

Quite brought him into straits.

His money gone, of course he sank In debt from day to day—

His

way would not pay him—and so He could not pay his way.

Said he, "All parties run me down—

How bitter is my cup!

My landlord is the only man

That ever runs me up!

"And he begins to talk of scores,
And will not draw a cork ;"
And then he railed at Fortune, since
He could not rail at York!

The morrow, in a fatal noose
They found him hanging fast;
This sentence scribbled on the wall-
"I've got my line at last!"

Twelve men upon the body sate,
And thus, on oath, did say,
"We find he got a gruel, 'cause
He couldn't have his way!"

A BUNCH OF FORGET-ME-NOTS. FORGET me not ! It is the cry of clay,

From infancy to age, from ripe to rotten ; For who, "to dumb forgetfulness a prey,' Would be forgotten?

Hark to the poor infant, in the age of pap,
A little Laplander on nurse's lap,

Some strange, neglectful, gossiping old Trot,
Meanwhile on dull Oblivion's lap she lieth,
In her shrill Baby-lonish language crieth-
What?

"Forget me not !"

The schoolboy writes unto the self-same tune,
The yearly letter, guiltless of a blot,
"We break up on the twenty-third of June;"
And then, with comps. from Dr. Polyglot,
"P. S. Forget me not!"

When last my elder brother sailed from Quito,
My chalky foot had in a hobble got—
Why did he plant his timber toe on my toe,
To stamp on memory's most tender spot,
"Forget me not!"

The dying nabob, on whose shrivelled skin
The Indian "mulliga" has left its "tawny,"
Leaving life's pilgrimage so rough and thorny,
Bindeth his kin

Two tons of sculptured marble to allot
A small "Forget me not!"

The hardy sailor parting from his wives,
Sharing among them all that he has got,
Keeps a fond eye upon their after-lives,
And says to seventeen- If I am shot,
Forget me not."

Why, all the mob of authors that now trouble
The world with cold-pressed volumes, and with hot,
They all are seeking reputation's bubble,

Hopelessly hoping, like Sir Walter Scott,
To tie in fame's own handkerchief a double
Forget-me-knot!

A past, past tense,

In fact is sought for by all human kind,

And hence

One common Irish wish-to leave ourselves behind!

Forget me not!-It is the common chorus
Swelled by all those behind us and before us;

Each fifth of each November

Calls out "Remember;"

And even a poor man of straw will try
To live by dint of powder and of plot.
In short, it is the cry of every Guy,

O BETTY-I beg pardon-Fanny K. !
(I was just thinking of your Betty Finnikin)—
Permit me this to say,

In quite a friendly way—

I like your theatre, though but a minnikin ;
For though small stages Kean dislikes to spout on,
Renounce me! if I don't agree with Dowton,
The Minors are the Passions' proper schools.
For me, I never can

Find wisdom in the plan

That keeps large reservoirs for little Pooles.

I like your boxes, where the audience sit
A family circle; and your little pit;