The Ingoldsby Legends; or, Mirth and Marvels

Chapter 71: THE CONFESSION.

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About This Book

The work assembles comic and macabre tales and poems that blend folk legend, ecclesiastical hagiography, and satirical pastiche. Entries range from ghost stories and ballads to dramatic sketches and playful parodies, shifting fluidly between eerie atmosphere and buoyant humor. Recurring features include witty wordplay, mock-serious moralizing, and imaginative transformations of traditional material; the arrangement alternates narrative episodes and lyrical lays, producing varied pacing and tone. Illustrations traditionally accompany the pieces, reinforcing their comic grotesque and enhancing scenes of the supernatural and the absurd.

THE CONFESSION.

There's somewhat on my breast, father, There's somewhat on my breast! The livelong day I sigh, father, And at night I cannot rest. I cannot take my rest, father, Though I would fain do so; A weary weight oppresseth me— This weary weight of woe!

'Tis not the lack of gold, father, Nor want of worldly gear; My lands are broad, and fair to see, My friends are kind and dear. My kin are leal and true, father, They mourn to see my grief; But oh! 'tis not a kinsman's hand Can give my heart relief!

'Tis not that Janet's false, father, 'Tis not that she's unkind; Tho' busy flatterers swarm around— I know her constant mind. 'Tis not her coldness, father, That chills my labouring breast, It's that confounded cucumber I've eat and can't digest.