It’s wery well to talk in praise Of Tea and Water-drinking ways, In proper time and place; Of sober draughts, so clear and cool, Dipp’d out of a transparent pool Reflecting heaven’s face. Of babbling brooks, and purling rills, And streams as gushes from the hills, It’s wery well to talk;-- But what becomes of all sich schemes, With ponds of ice, and running streams As doesn’t even walk? [Illustration: A PUBLIC DINNER.] [Illustration: A DAY’S SPORT ON THE MOORS.] When Winter comes with piercing cold, And all the rivers, new or old, Is frozen far and wide; And limpid springs is solid stuff, And crystal pools is hard enough To skate upon and slide;-- What then are thirsty men to do, But drink of ale, and porter too, Champagne as makes a fizz; Port, sherry, or the Rhenish sort, And p’rhaps a drop of summut short-- The water-pipes is friz! THE FORLORN SHEPHERD’S COMPLAINT. AN UNPUBLISHED POEM, FROM SYDNEY. “Well! Here I am--no Matter how it suits, A-keeping Company with them dumb Brutes, Old Park vos no bad Judge--confound his vig! Of vot vood break the Sperrit of a Prig! “The like of Me, to come to New Sow Wales To go a-tagging arter Vethers’ Tails And valk in Herbage as delights the Flock, But stinks of Sweet Herbs vorser nor the Dock! “To go to set this solitary Job To Von whose Vork vos alvay in a Mob! It’s out of all our Lines, for sure I am Jack Shepherd even never kep a Lamb! “I arn’t ashamed to say I sit and veep To think of Seven Years of keepin Sheep, The spooniest Beasts in Nater, all to Sticks, And not a Votch to take for all their Ticks! “If I’d fore-seed how Transports vood turn out To only Baa! and Botanize about, I’d quite as leaf have had the t’other Pool, And come to Cotton as to all this Vool! “Von only happy moment I have had Since here I come to be a Farmer’s Cad, And then I cotch’d a vild Beast in a Snooze, And pick’d her Pouch of three young Kangaroos! “Vot chance have I to go to Race or Mill? Or show a sneaking Kindness for a Till; And as for Vashings, on a hedge to dry, I’d put the Natives’ Linen in my Eye! “If this whole Lot of Mutton I could scrag, And find a fence to turn it into Swag, I’d give it all in Lonnon Streets to stand, And if I had my pick, I’d say the Strand! “But ven I goes, as maybe vonce I shall, To my old crib to meet with Jack, and Sal, I’ve been so gallows honest in this Place, I shan’t not like to show my sheepish Face. “It’s wery hard for nothing but a Box Of Irish Blackguard to be keepin’ Flocks, ‘Mong naked Blacks, sich Savages to hus, They’ve nayther got a Poker nor a Pus.