You may lay me in my bed, mother,--my head is throbbing sore; And, mother, prithee, let the sheets be duly aired before; And, if you'd do a kindness to your poor desponding child, Draw me a pot of beer, mother--and, mother, draw it mild! The Convict and the Australian Lady. Thy skin is dark as jet, ladye, Thy cheek is sharp and high, And there's a cruel leer, love, Within thy rolling eye: These tangled ebon tresses No comb hath e'er gone through; And thy forehead, it is furrowed by The elegant tattoo! I love thee,--oh, I love thee, Thou strangely-feeding maid! Nay, lift not thus thy boomerang, I meant not to upbraid! Come, let me taste those yellow lips That ne'er were tasted yet, Save when the shipwrecked mariner Passed through them for a whet. Nay, squeeze me not so tightly! For I am gaunt and thin; There's little flesh to tempt thee Beneath a convict's skin. I came not to be eaten; I sought thee, love, to woo; Besides, bethink thee, dearest, Thou'st dined on cockatoo. Thy father is a chieftain! Why, that's the very thing! Within my native country I too have been a king. Behold this branded letter, Which nothing can efface! It is the royal emblem, The token of my race! But rebels rose against me, And dared my power disown-- You've heard, love, of the judges? They drove me from my throne. And I have wandered hither, Across the stormy sea, In search of glorious freedom,-- In search, my sweet, of thee! The bush is now my empire, The knife my sceptre keen; Come with me to the desert wild, And be my dusky queen. I cannot give thee jewels, I have nor sheep nor cow, Yet there are kangaroos, love, And colonists enow. We'll meet the unwary settler, As whistling home he goes, And I'll take tribute from him, His money and his clothes. Then on his bleeding carcass Thou'lt lay thy pretty paw, And lunch upon him roasted, Or, if you like it, raw! Then come with me, my princess, My own Australian dear, Within this grove of gum-trees We'll hold our bridal cheer! Thy heart with love is beating, I feel it through my side:-- Hurrah, then, for the noble pair, The Convict and his Bride! The Doleful Lay of the Honourable I. O. Uwins. Come and listen, lords and ladies, To a woeful lay of mine; He whose tailor's bill unpaid is, Let him now his ear incline! Let him hearken to my story, How the noblest of the land Pined in piteous purgatory, 'Neath a sponging Bailiff's hand. I. O. Uwins! I. O. Uwins! Baron's son although thou be, Thou must pay for thy misdoings In the country of the free! None of all thy sire's retainers To thy rescue now may come; And there lie some score detainers With Abednego, the bum. Little recked he of his prison Whilst the sun was in the sky: Only when the moon was risen Did you hear the captive's cry. For till then, cigars and claret Lulled him in oblivion sweet; And he much preferred a garret, For his drinking, to the street.