I bade you wake me early, with my shaving-jug and brogues, But Scotch and English servants are all a pack of rogues. It's the only Twelfth of August in the Highlands I shall see, Yet you snored on your truckle-bed, Willie, and never thought of me. II. Last night I saw the sunset, he looked both wroth and red, As if he knew when dawning came I'd still be lay-a-bed. From crag and scaur and heather I hear the popping shot, And not a single bird, Willie, has fallen to my lot. III. What say you? "'Tis a soft day, the roads are runnin' burns, "The heather's a' wet blankets, ye might droon ye in the ferns; Ye canna see a hand forenent, the mist's sae white and chill, Ye'd sune be bogged amang the muirs, and lost upon the hill." IV. There's not a sportsman on the hills, the rain is on the pane, I only wish to sleep until the sunshine comes again. I wish the mist would lift, and the light break out once more, I long to kill a grouse, Willie, ere the Twelfth of August's o'er. V. I have been stiff and lazy, but I'll up and dress me now, You'll fetch my breakfast, Willie, and my plaid before I go. Nay, nay, you must not brush so hard, my very teeth you jolt, You should not rub me down, Willie, as if I were a colt. VI. I'll bring back dinner, if I can, in a brace of cock and hen, But if you do not see me, you will know I've dined with Ben. If I cannot speak a sober word when I come back from the toddy, Just tuck me into bed, Willie, like a canny Hieland body. VII. Good-bye, you rascal, Willie; call me earlier in the morn, Or I'll thrash you into next week, as sure as you were born; For I must get my money back from grouse and hare and deer, So wake, and call me early--call me early, Willie Weir. _Will-o'-the-Wisp_, August, 1869. * * * * * MALA-FIDE TRAVELLERS. (_Unlicensed by the Laureate._) Late, late, past ten, so dark the night and chill. Late, late, eleven, but we can enter still. Too late, too late, ye cannot enter now! No thought had we the night was so far spent, And, hearing this, the Bobby will relent. Too late, too late, ye cannot enter now! No beer, though late, and dark, and chill the night. O let us in, and we will not get tight! Too late, too late, ye cannot enter now! A glass of gin to-night would be so sweet. O let us in, that we may have it neat! Too late, too late, ye cannot enter now! _Punch_, November 16, 1872. The following imitation of Tennyson is of interest as having appeared forty years ago, when the poet was comparatively unknown:-- A FRAGMENT--COMPOSED IN A DREAM. BY A. TENNYSON. In Hungerford, did some wise man A stately bridge of wire decree, Where Thames, the muddy river, ran, Down to a muddier sea.