Oh! the cry-half joy, half sorrow

As she flings her at his side, 'John! the sweetheart of my girlhood,

Here am I, am I, thy bride.

'Time on thee has left no traces,

Death from wear has shielded thee ;

I am aged, worn, and wasted,

Oh! what life has wrought on me!'

Then his smooth unfurrow'd forehead Kiss'd that ancient wither'd crone ; And the death which had divided,

Now united them in one.

HUMOROUS POEMS.

THE DREAM OF THE HALTER (7).

[Mulierem alicui copulare, et crucem ei imponere prorsus idem est.'— PACIUCHELLI in Fonam, lib. i. p. 272.]

'LAST night

I awoke in a fright,

After a horrible dream that I had,

A concatenation of all that is bad.

I thought

I was brought

Under a terrible gallows-tree:

The look was enough to stagger me.

The bells from the steeple

Were ringing, the people

In plenty were gathering round to see.

I shook in my shoes;

The cold clammy dews

Of the horror of death broke out on my brow:

I had not the pluck of a man, I allow.

The parson stood by

With a lacrymose eye,

But I'm sure was not half as disposed to cry

As was I.

And methought as I stood on the scaffold, the noose Was fitted about me, at first rather loose,

But, tightening fast;

Hope was leaving at last.

I struggled for freedom, but struggled in vain,
The fiercer the struggle, the tighter the strain
And the keener the pain.

O for a knife

To sever the cord!

Το escape with my life!

For be well assured

I didn't let Hope fly away beyond hail,
Without a considerable tug at her tail.

Then, sudden I uttered a deafening scream,
And awoke from my dream.

Now you are a wizard. The Future you scan,
So you are the man

For the money I offer. Then prithee explain,
And rede me my vision, for wholly in vain

Have I battered my brain

To find the solution,—but all of my pain