The wine was drunk--the money paid, Though not without remorse, To pay another man so much For riding on his horse;-- And let the chase again take place For many a long, long year-- John Huggins will not ride again To hunt the Epping Deer! MORAL. Thus pleasure oft eludes our grasp Just when we think to grip her: And hunting after Happiness, We only hunt the slipper. JACK HALL. ’Tis very hard when men forsake This melancholy world, and make A bed of turf, they cannot take A quiet doze, But certain rogues will come and break Their “bone” repose. ’Tis hard we can’t give up our breath, And to the earth our earth bequeath, Without Death-Fetches after death, Who thus exhume us; And snatch us from our homes beneath, And hearths posthumous. The tender lover comes to rear The mournful urn, and shed his tear-- Her glorious dust, he cries, is here! Alack! alack! The while his Sacharissa dear Is in a sack! ’Tis hard one cannot lie amid The mould, beneath a coffin-lid, But thus the Faculty will bid Their rogues break through it, If they don’t want us there, why did They send us to it? One of these sacrilegious knaves, Who crave as hungry vulture craves, Behaving as the ghoul behaves, ‘Neath church-yard wall-- Mayhap because he fed on graves, Was named Jack Hall. By day it was his trade to go Tending the black coach to and fro; And sometimes at the door of woe, With emblems suitable, He stood with brother Mute, to show That life is mutable. But long before they pass’d the ferry, The dead that he had help’d to bury, He sack’d--(he had a sack to carry The bodies off in) In fact, he let them have a very Short fit of coffin. Night after night, with crow and spade, He drove this dead but thriving trade, Meanwhile his conscience never weigh’d A single horsehair; On corses of all kinds he prey’d, A perfect corsair! At last--it may be, Death took spite, Or, jesting only, meant to fright-- He sought for Jack night after night The churchyards round; And soon they met, the man and sprite, In Pancras’ ground. Jack, by the glimpses of the moon, Perceiv’d the bony knacker soon, An awful shape to meet at noon Of night and lonely; But Jack’s tough courage did but swoon A minute only.