"I must be gone, I must away : Consider, Johnny's but half-wise; Susan, we must take care of him, If he is hurt in life or limb—” "Oh, God forbid !" poor Susan cries.

"What can I do?" says Betty, going,
"What can I do to ease your pain?
Good Susan, tell me, and I'll stay :
I fear you're in a dreadful way,
But I shall soon be back again."

"Nay, Betty, go! good Betty, go ! There's nothing that can ease my pain." Then off she hies; but with a prayer That God poor Susan's life would spare Till she came back again.

So through the moonlight lane she goes,
And far into the moonlight dale ;
And how she ran, and how she walked,
And all that to herself she talked,
Would surely be a tedious tale.

In high and low, above, below,

In great and small, in round and square,
In tree and tower was Johnny seen,
In bush and brake, in black and green :
'Twas Johnny, Johnny, everywhere.

And while she crossed the bridge, there

came

A thought with which her heart is sore—
Johnny perhaps his horse forsook,

To hunt the moon within the brook,
And never will be heard of more.

Now is she high upon the down,
Alone amid a prospect wide;
There's neither Johnny nor his horse
Among the fern or in the gorse;

There's neither Doctor nor his Guide.

“Oh, saints! what is become of him?
Perhaps he's climbed into an oak,
Where he will stay till he is dead :
Or, sadly he has been misled,
And joined the wandering gipsy-folk.

"Or him that wicked Pony's carried
To the dark cave, the goblin's hall;
Or in the castle he's pursuing
Among the ghosts his own undoing;
Or playing with the waterfall."

At poor old Susan then she railed,
While to the town she posts away,
"If Susan had not been so ill,
Alas! I should have had him still,
My Johnny, till my dying day."

Poor Betty, in this sad distemper,
The Doctor's self could hardly spare ;
Unworthy things she talked, and wild;
Even he, of cattle the most mild,
The Pony, had his share.

But now she's fairly in the town,
And to the Doctor's door she hies:
'Tis silence all on every side;

The town so long, the town so wide,
Is silent as the skies.

And now she's at the Doctor's door,
She lifts the knocker-rap, rap, rap;
The Doctor at the casement shows
His glimmering eyes that peep and doze!
And one hand rubs his old night-cap.

Oh, Doctor! Doctor! where's my Johnny?"

"I'm here, what is't you want with me?" "Oh, sir! you know I'm Betty Foy, And I have lost my poor dear Boy, You know him-him you often see ;

He's not so wise as some folks be"The devil take his wisdom !" said The Doctor, looking somewhat grim, "What, woman! should I know of him?" And, grumbling, he went back to bed!

"O, woe is me! O, woe is me!
Here will I die; here will I die;
I thought to find my lost one here,
But he is neither far nor near,

Oh! what a wretched Mother I!"

She stops, she stands, she looks about :
Which way to turn she cannot tell.
Poor Betty! it would ease her pain

If she had heart to knock again;

-The clock strikes three-a dismal knell !

Then up along the town she hies,
No wonder if her senses fail;

This piteous news so much it shocked her,
She quite forgot to send the Doctor
To comfort poor old Susan Gale.

And now she's high upon the down,
And she can see a mile of road;
"O cruel! I'm almost threescore ;
Such night as this was ne'er before,
There's not a single soul abroad."

She listens, but she cannot hear
The foot of horse, the voice of man ;
The streams with softest sound are flowing,
The grass you almost hear it growing-
You hear it now, if e'er you can.

The owlets through the long blue night
Are shouting to each other still;
Fond lovers! yet not quite hob-nob,
They lengthen out the tremulous sob,
That echoes far from hill to hill.

Poor Betty now has lost all hope,
Her thoughts are bent on deadly sin,
A green-grown pond she just has past,
And from the brink she hurries fast,
Lest she should drown herself therein.

And now she sits her down, and weeps,
Such tears she never shed before:
"Oh dear, dear Pony! my sweet joy!
Oh carry back my Idiot Boy!

And we will ne'er o'erload thee more."

A thought is come into her head :—
"The Pony he is mild and good,
And we have always used him well;
Perhaps he's gone along the dell,
And carried Johnny to the wood."

Then up she springs as if on wings ;
She thinks no more of deadly sin :
If Betty fifty ponds should see,
The last of all her thoughts would be
To drown herself therein.