The Sick Child. [By the Honobable Wilhelmina Skeggs.] Punch
A weakness seizes on my mind—I would more pudding take;
But all in vain—I feel—I feel—my little head will ache.
Oh! that I might alone be left, to rest where now I am,
And finish with a piece of bread that pot of currant jam.
I gaze upon the cake with tears, and wildly I deplore
That I must take a powder if I touch a morsel more,
Or oil of castor, smoothly bland, will offer’d be to me,
In wave pellucid, floating on a cup of milkless tea.
It may be so—I can not tell—I yet may do without;
They need not know, when left alone, what I have been about.
I long to eat that potted beef—to taste that apple-pie;
I long—I long to eat some more, but have not strength to try.
I gasp for breath, and now I know I’ve eaten far too much; Not one more crumb of all the feast before me can I touch. Susan, oh! Susan, ring the bell, and call for mother, dear, My brain swims round—I feel it all—mother, your child is queer!
The Imaginative Crisis. Punch
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.
Say, BESSY dearest, if you will
Accept me as a lover?
Must true affection file a bill
The secret to discover?
Is it my income’s small amount
That leads to hesitation?
Refer the question of account
To CUPID’S arbitration.