She loved her mistress very much, She held her master in respect; Her grief the hardest heart would touch When they’d occasion to correct; But still, in spite of all they said-- In spite of scolding and of prayers-- Ah, me! to what at last it led!-- She left her dustpan on the stairs. One morn while breakfasting below, And glancing at the _Morning Post_, She heard a wild and sudden “Oh!” That made her drop her buttered toast. She heard a heavy fall--and groans; The master, taken unawares, Had slipped and broken sev’ral bones-- She’d left the dustpan on the stairs. They sent for doctors by the score, They fetched in haste Sir Andrew Clark; But master’s sufferings soon were o’er-- That night he sat in Charon’s barque. Now in a cell at Colney Hatch A gibbering housemaid groans and glares, And tries with trembling hands to snatch A ghostly dustpan from the stairs. MORAL. Ye housemaids who this tale may read, Remember, backs are hard to mend, And injured noses freely bleed, And falls may cause untimely end; Your masters are but mortal men, A neck once broken naught repairs. Oh! think of this, ye housemaids, when You leave the dustpan on the stairs. The Pick-me-up. (WRITTEN AFTER ONE BOTTLE.) In the market-place or forum, If you’re dull, my cockalorum, Never heed the censor morum, But just brew yourself a jorum, In a beaker or a cup, Of this stimulating liquor, Which, when life begins to flicker, And your soul grows slowly sicker, And you feel a bucket-kicker, Is a patent pick-me-up. It was near the Yorkshire Stingo That in modern London lingo, With a face like a flamingo, Said a friend of mine, “By Jingo! What a wretched wreck you are!” I replied, “I’m melancholic, And my pains are diabolic. I, who once was frisk and frolic, Now am glum and vitriolic-- Every nerve is on the jar!” Then a smile that was sardonic Beamed about his brow Byronic, And he said, “This is masonic, But I think you want a tonic-- Try the famous (something) wine.” And he further said with unction That I need have no compunction In obeying his injunction, ’Twould renew each vital function, And just suit a case like mine. I have drunk and I’m a giant Quite refreshed and grown defiant; All my limbs are free and pliant, And now neither May nor Bryant Can supply a match to me. Now my pen again grows graphic, And my verse is strictly sapphic, And my tricycle in traffic I can ride with smile seraphic, From all nervous tremors free.