So there he hung, and there I stood,
The LAST MAN left alive,

To have my own will of all the earth:
Quoth I, now I shall thrive!

But when was ever honey made
With one bee in a hive?

My conscience began to gnaw my heart,
Before the day was done,

For other men's lives had all gone out,
Like candles in the sun!-

But it seemed as if I had broke, at last,
A thousand necks in one!

So I went and cut his body down

To bury it decentlie ;

God send there were any good soul alive

To do the like by me!

But the wild dogs came with terrible speed,

And bade me up the tree!

My sight was like a drunkard's sight,
And my head began to swim,

To see their jaws all white with foam,
Like the ravenous ocean brim :-
But when the wild dogs trotted away

Their jaws were bloody and grim!

Their jaws were bloody and grim, good Lord!

But the beggar man, where was he?—

There was naught of him but some ribbons of rags

Below the gallows-tree.

I know the Devil, when I am dead,

Will send his hounds for me!

I've buried my babies one by one,
And dug the deep hole for Joan,
And covered the faces of kith and kin,
And felt the old churchyard stone

Go cold to my heart, full many a time,
But I never felt so lone!

For the lion and Adam were company,
And the tiger him beguiled:

But the simple kine are foes to my life,
And the household brutes are wild.
If the veriest cur would lick my hand,

I could love it like a child!

And the beggar man's ghost besets my dream
At night, to make me madder,-

And my wretched conscience within my
Is like a stinging adder;

I sigh when I pass the gallows' foot,
And look at the rope and ladder!-

breast

For hanging looks sweet,-but, alas! in vain My desperate fancy begs,

I must turn my cup of sorrows quite up,

And drink it to the dregs,

For there is not another man alive,

In the world, to pull my legs!

BACKING THE FAVOURITE.

Он a pistol, or a knife!

For I'm weary of my life

My cup has nothing sweet left to flavour it :

My estate is out at nurse,

And my heart is like my purse

And all through backing of the Favourite!

At dear O'Neil's first start,

I sported all my heart

Oh, Becher, he never marred a braver hit! For he crossed her in her race,

And made her lose her place,

And there was an end of that Favourite!

Anon, to mend my chance,

For the Goddess of the Dance

I pined, and told my enslaver it!

But she wedded in a canter,

And made me a Levanter,

In foreign lands to sigh for the Favourite!

Then next Miss M. A. Tree

I adored, so sweetly she

Could warble like a nightingale and quaver itBut she left that course of life

To be Mr. Bradshaw's wife,

And all the world lost on the Favourite!

But out of sorrow's surf

Soon I leaped upon the turf,

Where fortune loves to wanton it and waver it;

But standing on the pet;

'O.my bonny, bonny Bet!'

Black and yellow pulled short up with the Favourite!

Thus flung by all the crack,

I resolved to cut the pack

The second-raters seemed then a safer hit!

So I laid my little odds

Against Memnon! O ye Gods!

Am I always to be floored by the Favourite!

THE MERMAID OF MARGATE.

'Alas! what perils do environ

That man who meddles with a siren !'-Hubibras.

ON Margate beach, where the sick one roams, And the sentimental reads;

Where the maiden flirts, and the widow comes
Like the ocean-to cast her weeds;

Where urchins wander to pick up shells,
And the Cit to spy at the ships-
Like the water gala at Sadler's Wells,-
And the Chandler for watery dips;

There's a maiden sits by the ocean brim,
As lovely and fair as sin!

But woe, deep water and woe to him,
That she snareth like Peter Fin!

Her head is crowned with pretty sea-wares,
And her locks are golden and loose,
And seek to her feet, like other folks' heirs,
To stand, of course, in her shoes!

And all day long she combeth them well,
With a sea-shark's prickly jaw;

And her mouth is just like a rose-lipped shell,
The fairest that man e'er saw!

And the Fishmonger, humble as love
Hath planted his seat by her side;

may be,

'Good even, fair maid! Is thy lover at sea,
To make thee so watch the tide?'

She turned about with her pearly brows,
And clasped him by the hand;

'Come, love, with me; I've a bonny house
On the golden Goodwin Sand.'

And then she gave him a siren kiss,

No honeycomb e'er was sweeter;

Poor wretch! how little he dreamt for this
That Peter should be salt-Peter:

And away with her prize to the wave she leapt,
Not walking, as damsels do,

With toe and heel, as she ought to have stept,
But she hopt like a Kangaroo;

One plunge, and then the victim was blind,
Whilst they gallopped across the tide;
At last, on the bank he waked in his mind,
And the Beauty was by his side.

One half on the sand, and half in the sea,
But his hair began to stiffen ;

For when he looked where her feet should be,
She had no more feet than Miss Biffen!

But a scaly tail, of a dolphin's growth,
In the dabbling brine did soak:
At last she opened her pearly mouth,
Like an oyster, and thus she spoke :

'You crimpt my father, who was a skate,
And my sister you sold-a maid;
So here remain for a fish'ry fate,

For lost you are, and betrayed!'

And away she went, with a seagull's scream,
And a splash of her saucy tail;

In a moment he lost the silvery gleam
That shone on her splendid mail!

The sun went down with a blood-red flame,
And the sky grew cloudy and black,

And the tumbling billows like leap-frog came,
Each over the other's back!