The fields were green and the sky was blue, What a pleasant excursion to Moscow ! Four hundred thousand men and more, There were Marshals by dozens, and Dukes by the score, While the fields were so green and the sky was so blue, Morbleu! Parbleu ! What a pleasant excursion to Moscow ! There was Junot and Angerean, General Rapp and Emperor Nap, Nothing would do, While the fields were so green, and the sky so blue, Morbleu! Parbleu ! But they must be marching to Moscow. But then the Russians they turned to; Nap had to fight his way all through, They could fight, but they could not parley-vous, And so he got to Moscow. They made the place too hot for him, For they set fire to Moscow; To get there had cost him much ado, And then no better course he knew, While the fields were green and the sky was blue, Morbleu! Parbleu ! Than to march back again from Moscow. The Russians they stuck close to him, Rajefsky and Noverefsky, And all the others that end in efsky; A terrible man, with a terrible name, And Markoff he marked them off, And Woronzoff he worried them off, They stuck close to him with all their might, For they remembered Moscow ! And then came on the frost and snow, And worse and worse the weather grew, The fields were so white and the sky so blue, What a terrible journey from Moscow ! The devil take the hindmost, All on the road from Moscow ! When the fields were so white and the sky so blue, He stole away, I tell you true, CXXXIII. THE NEWCASTLE APOTHECARY.-Colman. A man, Or mix a draught, or bleed, or blister; Or draw a tooth out of your head; In gentlest whisper. His fame full six miles round the country ran; In short in reputation he was solus: All the old women called him "a fine man!" Benjamin Bolus, tho' in trade, And cultivated the Belles Lettres. And why should this be thought so odd? Apollo patronizes physic. Bolus loved verse ;-and took so much delight in't, That his prescriptions he resolved to write in't. No opportunity he e'er let pass Of writing the directions, on his labels, Apothecary's verse?—and where's the treason? He had a patient lying at Death's door, Some three miles from the town-it might be four; To whom, one evening, Bolus sent an article. And on the label of the stuff, He wrote this verse; Which, one would think, was clear enough And terse : "When taken, To be well shaken." Next morning, early, Bolus rose; Who a vile trick of stumbling had : For what's expected from a horse With an Apothecary on his back? Bolus arrived; and gave a doubtful tap ;- The servant lets him in, with dismal face, John's countenance as rueful look'd, and grim, "Well how's the patient?" Bolus said— "Indeed!-hum! ha!-that's very odd! "He took the draught?"-John gave a nod. "Well,-how?-what then?-speak out, you dunce!" "Why then" says John-" we shook him once." "Shook him!-how ?"-Bolus stammer'd out:"We jolted him about." "Zounds! shake a patient, man !—a shake wont do." "No sir-and so we gave him two." "Two shakes!-a curse! 'Twould make the patient worse. 99 "It did so, sir!—and so a third we tried." "Well, and what then?"" Then sir, my master died." THE MODEST RETORT. A supercilious nabob of the east Haught, being great, and purse-proud, being rich, A governor, or general, at the least, I have forgotten which, Had in his family an humble youth, Who went from England in his patron's suite, An unassuming boy, and in truth A lad of decent parts, and good repute. This youth had sense and spirit; But yet with all his sense, Excessive diffidence Obscured his merit. |