“I’ll be your second.”—LISTON.
IN Middle Row, some years ago,
There lived one Mr. Brown;
And many folks considered him
The stoutest man in Town.
But Brown and stout will both wear out,
One Friday he died hard,
And left a widow’d wife to mourn
At twenty pence a yard.
Now widow B. in two short months
Thought mourning quite a tax;
And wished, like Mr. Wilberforce,
To manumit her blacks.
With Mr. Street she soon was sweet;
The thing thus came about,
She asked him in at home, and then
At church he asked her out!
Assurance such as this the man
In ashes could not stand;
So like a Phœnix he rose up
Against the Hand in Hand.
One dreary night the angry sprite
Appeared before her view;
It came a little after one,
But she was after two!
“Oh Mrs. B., oh Mrs. B.!
Are these your sorrow’s deeds,
Already getting up a flame,
To burn your widow’s weeds?
“It’s not so long since I have left
For aye the mortal scene;
My memory—like Roger’s,
Should still be bound in green!
“Yet if my face you still retrace
I almost have a doubt—
I’m like an old For-get-me-Not,
With all the leaves torn out!
“To think that on that finger-joint,
Another pledge should cling;
O Bess! upon my very soul,
It struck like ‘Knock and Ring.’
“A ton of marble on my breast
Can’t hinder my return;
Your conduct, Ma’am, has set my blood
A-boiling in my urn!
“Remember on! remember how
The marriage rite did run—
If ever we one flesh should be,
’Tis now—when I have none!
“And you, Sir—once a bosom friend—
Of perjured faith convict,
As ghostly too can give no blow,
Consider you are kick’d.
“A hollow voice is all I have,
But this I tell you plain,
Marry come up!—you marry, Ma’am,
And I’ll come up again.”