By a sort of a blue and a glimmering light Rode quite round his bedstead and full in his sight; She rode in a carriage, that hight a birch broom, And her breath breath’d the whiffings of gin through the room. “I ask’d thee,” she cried, in a hoarse, hollow voice, “For sixpence, thou gav’st not while yet in thy choice; For punishment dread then, pretender, prepare, Which e’en to repentance I now cannot spare. “Know that she who so lately sustain’d your abuse, Is thy mother, oh shame! and my name Mother Goose; To a German Romancer thee dreaming I bore, And we both dipp’d thee deep in the tale telling lore. “Too soon thou outdidst all my wonders of old, And instead of my stories thy nonsense was told; With nurses and children I lost my high place, And from Newberry’s shop I was turn’d in disgrace. “Depriv’d of a corner to hide my old head, I wander’d about, begging e’en for my bread; When thou too, my child, to complete my despair, Refused my own spoils with thy mother to share. “But vain are thy hopes to supplant me on earth, For know that immortal I am in my birth, Can defeat all thy arts by a magical spell, And all thy productions in paper dispel. “Ye ghosts and hobgoblins, and horrible shapes, Ye lions, and wolves, and ye griffins and apes, Ye strange jumbled figures from river or den, Ye fire-born monsters, and fishified men. “Ye raw-heads and bloody-bones, spectres and shades, And water-sprite swains, and transmogrified maids, As your grandmother’s curses on each of you fall, To hell and the devil fly one and fly all!” Then the ghosts and hobgoblins, and horrible shapes, And lions and wolves, and the griffins and apes, And strange jumbled figures from river or den, And fire-born monsters, and fishified men, And raw-heads and bloody bones, spectres and shades, And water-sprite swains, and transmogrified maids, When they heard the goose curses on each of them fall, To hell and the devil fled one, and fled all. Fled in fire and in water, in smoke and in hail, Some green, and some red, some black and some pale, Fled in accents of horror, of spirit, of wit, Tralira, tralara, or fal-de-ral tit. While as fast as away Matty’s progeny flew, Mother Goose summon’d up her original crew, Who with loud peals of laughter and sallies of fun, Quizz’d, pinch’d, and tormented her reprobate son. A Knight led them on, who was first to assail, Who was arm’d cap-a-pie in a dear coat of mail. Sir Horn-Book hight he; at the very first glance Mat saw he was Lord o’er the Field of Romance. Then little Red Riding-Hood’s wolf howled amain, Fear shook all his limbs, and unsettled his brain; But the horrors he suffer’d can ne’er be surpass’d, When little Cock-Robin’s sad funeral pass’d.