The Humourous Poetry of the English Language

450
Oh, solitude! thou wonder-working fay,
Come nurse my feeble fancy in your arms,
Though I, and thee, and fancy town-pent lay,
Come, call around, a world of country charms.
Let all this room, these walls dissolve away,
And bring me Surrey's fields to take their place:
This floor be grass, and draughts as breezes play;
Yon curtains trees, to wave in summer's face;
My ceiling, sky; my water-jug a stream;
My bed, a bank, on which to muse and dream.
The spell is wrought: imagination swells
My sleeping-room to hills, and woods, and dells!
I walk abroad, for naught my footsteps hinder,
And fling my arms. Oh! mi! I've broke the WINDER!
LINES TO BESSY.
[BY A STUDENT AT LAW.]
PUNCH.
My head is like a title-deed,
Or abstract of the same:
Wherein, my Bessy, thou may'st read
Thine own long-cherish'd name.
Against thee I my suit have brought,
I am thy plaintiff lover,
And for the heart that thou hast caught,
An action lies--of trover.
Alas, upon me every day
The heaviest costs you levy:
Oh, give me back my heart--but nay!
I feel I can't replevy.
I'll love thee with my latest breath,
Alas, I can not YOU shun,
Till the hard hand of SHERIFF death
Takes me in execution.