Maggie loves every creature that lives; she won't confess to black beetles, but she can't stamp on them (I've stamped out lots in my winter boots), and she doesn't even think a donkey ugly when he brays; And she says she shall buy a brush, out of her pocket-money, and brush my donkey every day till he looks like a horse, and that it shan't be her fault if there isn't one poor old brute beast who lives happily to the end of his days. JACK ASS. The dew falls over the Heath, Brother Donkeys, and the darkness falls, but still through the gathering night All around us spreads the Heath Bed-straw[6] in glimmering sheets of white. Dragged and trampled, and plucked and wasted, it patiently spreads and survives; Kicked and thwacked, and prodded and over-laden, we patiently cling to our lives. Hee-haw! for the rest and silence of darkness that follow the labours of light. Hee-haw! for the hours from night to morning, that balance the hours from morning to night. Hee-haw! for the sweet night air that gives human beings cold in the head. Hee-haw! for the civilization that sends human beings to bed. Rest, Brother Donkeys, rest, from the bit, the burden, the blow, The dust, the flies, the restless children, the brutal roughs, the greedy donkey-master, the greedier donkey-hirer, the holiday-maker who knows no better, and the holiday-makers who ought to know! When the odorous furze-bush prickles the seeking nose, and the short damp grass refreshes the tongue,--lend, Brother Donkeys, lend a long and attentive ear! Whilst I proudly bray Of the one bright day In our hard and chequered career. I've dragged pots, and vegetables, and invalids, and fish, and I've galloped with four costermongers to the races; I've carried babies, and sea-coal, and sea-sand, and sea-weed in panniers, and been sold to the gypsies, and been bought back for the sea-side, and ridden (in a white saddle-cloth with scarlet braid) by the fashionable visitors. (There was always a certain distinction in my paces, Though I say it who shouldn't) I've spent a summer on the Heath, and next winter near Covent Garden, and moved the following year to the foot of a mountain, to take people up to the top to show them the view. But how little we know what's before us! And how little I guessed I should ever be chief charger at a Queen's Birthday Review! Did I triumph alone? No, Brother Donkeys, no! You also took your place with the defenders of the nation; Subordinate positions to my own, but meritoriously filled, though a