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SPRING.

A NEW VERSION.

Ham. The air bites shrewdly-it is very cold.
Hor. It is a nipping and an eager air.

HAMLET.

"COME, gentle Spring! ethereal mildness come!" Oh! Thomson, void of rhyme as well as reason, How couldst thou thus poor human nature hum? There's no such season.

The Spring! I shrink and shudder at her name!
For why, I find her breath a bitter blighter!
And suffer from her blows as if they came
From Spring the Fighter.

Her praises, then, let hardy poets sing,

And be her tuneful laureates and upholders,

Who do not feel as if they had a Spring

Pour'd down their shoulders!

Let others eulogise her floral shows,

From me they cannot win a single stanza,

I know her blooms are in full blow-and so 's
The Influenza.

Her cowslips, stocks, and lilies of the vale,
Her honey-blossoms that you hear the bees at,

Her pansies, daffodils, and primrose pale,

Are things I sneeze at !

Fair is the vernal quarter of the year!

And fair its early buddings and its blowings

But just suppose Consumption's seeds appear
With other sowings!

For me, I find, when eastern winds are high,
A frigid, not a genial inspiration;

Nor can, like Iron-Chested Chubb, defy

An inflammation.

Smitten by breezes from the land of plague,
To me all vernal luxuries are fables,

Oh! where's the Spring in a rheumatic leg,
Stiff as a table's?

I limp in agony,-I wheeze and cough;

And quake with Ague, that great Agitator;

Nor dream, before July, of leaving off

My Respirator.

What wonder if in May itself I lack

A

peg for laudatory verse to hang on ?—

Spring mild and gentle !-yes, a Spring-heeled Jack

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In short, whatever panegyrics lie

In fulsome odes too many to be cited, The tenderness of Spring is all my eye, And that is blighted!

FAITHLESS NELLY GRAY.

A PATHETIC BALLAD.

BEN BATTLE was a soldier bold,
And used to war's alarms;

But a cannon-ball took off his legs,
So he laid down his arms !

Now as they bore him off the field,
Said he, "Let others shoot,
For here I leave my second leg,

And the Forty-second Foot!"

The army-surgeons made him limbs :

Said he, "They 're only pegs :
They're

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But there's as wooden members quite,

As represent my legs!"

Now Ben he loved a pretty maid,
Her name was Nelly Gray;

So he went to pay her his devours,
When he devoured his pay!

But when he called on Nelly Gray, She made him quite a scoff;

And when she saw his wooden legs,

Began to take them off!

66

Oh, Nelly Gray! Oh, Nelly Gray!

Is this your love so warm?

The love that loves a scarlet coat

Should be more uniform!"

Said she, "I loved a soldier once,
For he was blythe and brave;

But I will never have a man

With both legs in the grave!

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