Take a pretty little cot-- Quite a miniature affair-- Hung about with trellised vine. Furnish it upon the spot With the treasures rich and rare I've endeavoured to define. Live to love and love to live-- You will ripen at your ease, Growing on the sunny side-- Fate has nothing more to give. You're a dainty man to please If you are not satisfied. Take my counsel, happy man: Act upon it, if you can! [Illustration] BOB POLTER Bob Polter was a navvy, and His hands were coarse, and dirty too, His homely face was rough and tanned, His time of life was thirty-two. He lived among a working clan (A wife he hadn't got at all), A decent, steady, sober man-- No saint, however--not at all He smoked, but in a modest way, Because he thought he needed it; He drank a pot of beer a day, And sometimes he exceeded it. At times he'd pass with other men A loud convivial night or two, With, very likely, now and then, On Saturdays, a fight or two. But still he was a sober soul, A labour-never-shirking man, Who paid his way--upon the whole, A decent English working-man. [Illustration] One day, when at the Nelson's Head (For which he may be blamed of you), A holy man appeared and said, "Oh, ROBERT, I'm ashamed of you." He laid his hand on ROBERT'S beer Before he could drink up any, And on the floor, with sigh and tear, He poured the pot of "thruppenny." "Oh, ROBERT, at this very bar, A truth you'll be discovering, A good and evil genius are Around your noddle hovering. "They both are here to bid you shun The other one's society, For Total Abstinence is one, The other, Inebriety." He waved his hand--a vapour came-- A wizard, POLTER reckoned him: A bogy rose and called his name, And with his finger beckoned him. The monster's salient points to sum, His breath was hot as cautery; His glowing nose suggested rum; His eyes were gin-and-watery. His dress was torn--for dregs of ale And slops of gin had rusted it; His pimpled face was wan and pale, Where filth had not encrusted it. "Come, POLTER," said the fiend, "begin, And keep the bowl a-flowing on-- A working-man needs pints of gin To keep his clockwork going on." BOB shuddered: "Ah, you've made a miss, If you take me for one of you-- You filthy brute, get out of this-- BOB POLTER don't want none of you." The demon gave a drunken shriek, And crept away in stealthiness, And lo, instead, a person sleek Who seemed to burst with healthiness. [Illustration]