CAPTAIN CHARLES MORRIS, DIED AT BROCKHAM LODGE, DORKING, IN HIS 93RD YEAR, JULY 11, 1832.
OH! that's what you mean now-a bit of a song:
Why, faith, then, here goes, you shan't bother me long;
I require no teazing, no praying, or stuff,
By my soul, if you wish it, I'm ready enough.
To give you your end you shall have a beginning;
And troth, though the music be not very fine,
It's a bit of a thing that a body may sing,
Just to set us a-going, and season our wine.
Oh! I once was a lover, like some of you here,
And could feed a whole night on a sigh or a tear;
No sunshine I knew but from Kitty's black eye,
And the world was a desert when she wasn't by:
But the devil knows how, I got fond of Miss Betty,
And Kitty slipp'd out of this bosom of mine-
It's a bit of a thing that a body may sing,
Just to set us a-going, and season our wine.
Now Betty had eyes soft and blue as the sky!
And the lily was black when her bosom was by:
Oh! I found I was fix'd, and for ever her own,
Sure I was, soul and body were Betty's alone;
But a sudden red shot from the golden-hair'd Lucy
Burn'd Betty quite out, with a flame more divine—
It's a bit of a thing that a body may sing,
Just to set us a-going, and season our wine.
Now Lucy was stately, majestic, and tall,
And in feature and shape what a goddess you'd call;
I adored, and I vow'd if she'd not a kind eye
I'd give up the whole world, and in banishment die :
But Nancy came by, a round, plump, little creature,
And fix'd in my heart quite another design-
It's a bit of a thing that a body may sing,
Just to set us a going, and season our wine.
Little Nance, like a Hebe, was buxom and gay,
Had a bloom like a rose, and was fresher than May:
Oh! I felt if she frown'd I must die by a rope,
Or my bosom would burst if she slighted my hope;
But the slim, taper, elegant Fanny look'd at me,
And troth, I no longer for Nancy could pine-
It's a bit of a thing that a body may sing,
Just to set us a-going, and season our wine.
Now Fanny's light frame was so slender and fine That she skimm'd in the air like a shadow divine, Her motion bewitch'd, and to my loving eye 'Twas an angel soft gliding 'tween earth and the sky : 'Twas all mighty well till I saw her fat sister, And that gave a turn I could never define
It's a bit of a thing that a body may sing,
Just to set us a-going, and season our wine.
Oh! so I go on, ever constantly blest,
For I find I've a great store of love in my breast;
And it never grows less-for whenever I try
To get one in my heart, I get two in my eye.
To all sorts of beauty I bow with devotion,
And all kinds of liquor by turns I make mine;
So I'll finish the thing, that another may sing,
Just to keep us a-going, and season our wine.
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE "NEW TIMES."
FITZ-GREENE HALLECK, BORN AT GUILFORD, CONNECTICUT, IN AUGUST, 1795.
AT midnight, in his guarded tent,
The Turk was dreaming of the hour
When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent,
Should tremble at his power;
In dreams, through camp and court, he bore
The trophies of a conqueror;
In dreams his song of triumph heard:
What if your owl has
Per contra, he has a
What if he leads a so
He pays no income-
No monarch sends 1 What if his wing with No magistrate can se He has no hard-work' Your owl is never dru
'Tis true he now and t But 'tis for business, He never hears a sixtee On herrings, hogshe He 'scapes Whig wit (Owl as he is, he's not
Nor cares a bean wh
Nor trembles if the fu Nor, like your Irish lo
Yes, give me but my cl
But it must be an os
Wherever gale awoke o
Breasting the temper
Steering, when winte
By "vext Bermoothes,
Then, tired of sunsh
My broad black pinion
'Till once again I heard
Then I should colonise; Some nobler Kilda, in Where, though men mig Nor idle lordlings fill
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