Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

THE STEAM ARM.

AIR.-The King and the Countryman
()! WONDERS Sure will never cease,
While works of art do so increase,
No matter whether in war or peace,
Men can do whatever they please.
Ri tooral, &c.

A curious tale I can unfold
To all of you, as I was told,

About a soldier stout and bold,

Whose wife, 'tis said, was an arrant

scold

Ri tooral, &c

At Waterloo he lost an arm,

Which gave him pain and great alarm, But he soon got well, and grew quite

calm,

For a shilling a day was a sort of balm

Ri tooral, &c.

The story goes, on every night,

His wife would bang him left and right, So he determined out of spite,

To have an arm, cost what it might.

Ri tooral, &c.

mm

He went at once, strange it may seem, To have one made to work by steam, For a ray of a hope began to gleam, That force of arms would win her esteem.

Ri tooral, &c.

The limb was finish'd, and fix'd unto, His stump of a shoulder, neat and true, You'd have thought it there by nature

grew,

For it stuck to its place as tight as glue Ri tooral, &c.

He started home, and knock'd at the

door,

His wife her abuse began to pour,
He turn'd a small peg, and before
She'd time to think, she fell on the

floor.

Ri tooral, &c.

With policemen soon the place was fill'd,

But every one he nearly kill'd;

For the soldier's arm had been s0

drill'd,

That once in action it couldn't be

still'd.

Ri tooral, &c.

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

mayor,

His arm kept moving all the while there,

The mayor cried, 'Shake your fist, if you dare,'

Then the steam arm knock'd him out

of his chair.

Ri tooral, &c

This raised in court a bit of a clamor, The arm going like an auctioneer's hammer,

It fell in weight like a pavior's rammer, And many with fear began to stammer. Ri tooral, &c.

He was lock'd in a cell, from doing
harm,
To satisfy them who had still a qualm,
When all at once they had an alarm,
Down fell the walls, and out popp'd

the arm.

Ri tooral, &c.

He soon escaped, and reach'd his door, And knock'd by steam raps half

score,

But as the arm in power grew more

and more,

Bricks, mortar, and wood soon strew'd

the floor.

Ri tooral, &c.

With eagerness he stepp'd each stair, Popp'd into the room, his wife was

there,

"O come to my arms," she cried, "my dear,"

When his steamer smash'd the crockery

ware.

Ri tooral, &c.

He left his house at length outright, And wanders about just like a sprite, For he can't get asleep either day or night,

And his arm keeps moving with a twohorse might.

Ri tooral, &c.

THE MORN UNBARS THE GATES OF LIGHT.

THE morn unbars the gates of light, The landscape smiles in beauty bright, The nightingales now swell their throats,

And on the wings of silence floats; Hark! the huntsman's horn so shrill, The woods around with echoes fill! Each sportsman mounts his panting steed,

And o'er the trembling earth they speed, The welkin resounds,

The horns and the hounds,

Tantara, tantara, &c.

The stag pursues his eager flight,
The hunters keep their prey in sight,
The staunch old pack, with wondrous

speed,

Rush forward o'er each plain and

mead;

Hark, hark! the huntsman blows his

horn!

The stag's at bay-his fate forlorn! The trembling tears steal from his eyes And, lost in grief, the antler dies

The welkin resounds, &c.

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »