I’ve buried my babies one by one, And dug the deep hole for Joan, And cover’d the faces of kith and kin, And felt the old churchyard stone Go cold to my heart, full many a time, But I never felt so lone! For the lion and Adam were company, And the tiger him beguil’d; But the simple kine are foes to my life, And the household brutes are wild. If the veriest cur would lick my hand, I could love it like a child! And the beggar man’s ghost besets my dream, At night to make me madder,-- And my wretched conscience within my breast, Is like a stinging adder:-- I sigh when I pass the gallows’ foot, And look at the rope and ladder!-- For hanging looks sweet,--but alas! in vain My desperate fancy begs,-- I must turn my cup of sorrows quite up, And drink it to the dregs,-- For there’s not another man alive, In the world, to pull my legs! BACKING THE FAVOURITE. Oh a pistol, or a knife! For I’m weary of my life,-- My cup has nothing sweet left to flavour it; My estate is out at nurse, And my heart is like my purse-- And all through backing of the Favourite! At dear O’Neil’s first start, I sported all my heart,-- Oh, Becher, he never marr’d a braver hit! For he cross’d her in her race, And made her lose her place, And there was an end of that Favourite! Anon, to mend my chance, For the Goddess of the Dance[10] I pin’d and told my enslaver it; But she wedded in a canter, And made me a Levanter, In foreign lands to sigh for the Favourite! Then next Miss M. A. Tree I adored, so sweetly she Could warble like a nightingale and quaver it; But she left that course of life To be Mr. Bradshaw’s wife, And all the world lost on the Favourite! But out of sorrow’s surf Soon I leap’d upon the turf, Where fortune loves to wanton it and waver it; But standing on the pet, “Oh my bonny, bonny Bet!” Black and yellow pull’d short up with the Favourite! Thus flung by all the crack, I resolved to cut the pack,-- The second-raters seem’d then a safer hit! So I laid my little odds Against Memnon! Oh, ye Gods! Am I always to be floored by the Favourite! THE BALLAD OF “SALLY BROWN AND BEN THE CARPENTER.”