Memories of the past steal o’er me, and remind me of a story, That in all its doleful sadness I have never told before. Well, I loved a girl named Mary, whose old daddy owned a dairy, And a bull-dog, large and powerful, who a frightful visage wore, And one night I went to court her as I’d often done before, But I’ll court her nevermore. Quite distinctly I remember, ’twas one warm night in September, That I sat and held my Mary――held her till my arms were sore, And upon her lips I kissed her till I almost raised a blister. Since that night, oh, how I’ve missed her――missed the girl whom I adore; Oh, ye gods of Mount Olympus, lend your pity, I implore, I shall kiss her nevermore. “Seems to me the air grows hotter. How I love this old man’s daughter!” Were my musings as I held her――held the girl whom I adore. While my Mary Ann was napping, suddenly I heard a rapping Like a footfall softly tapping on the old man’s bedroom floor, And I muttered, as I listened through the slightly opened door, “I have heard that step before.” I shook Mary Ann to wake her, and I said “May Old Nick take her!” (But I’m sure I didn’t mean it), then she woke with one loud snore. While she sat up widely gaping, barely wakened from her napping, I informed her of the tapping I have spoken of before; Then she laughed and said, “’twas nothing but the mice upon the floor, Little mice and nothing more.” Then once more like some huge boulder fell her head upon my shoulder, And I held her very tightly as she snored snore after snore; Soon again I heard the falling of more footsteps, and the calling Of her daddy, and I wished I was in Spain or Ecuador. “Mary Ann!” the old man uttered, as he strode across the floor, “Mary Ann,” and nothing more. Suddenly, as if like magic, with a face that looked quite tragic, Mary woke and saw her daddy standing in the parlour door, Then with eyeballs wildly gleaming, and her hair about her streaming, From the room the girl ran screaming as the clock was striking four, Ran more swiftly, screamed more loudly than she ever had before, Ran and screamed, and nothing more. At the barn the cock was crowing, and I thought I would be going, So I started very quickly to retreat across the floor, But the old man quick did foller, then he took me by the collar, And you oughter heard me holler as he pitched me through the door. “Seek ’em, Bull!” he loudly uttered, in a sort of fiendish roar. Merely that, and nothing more.