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Then up she springs, as if on wings;

She thinks no more of deadly sin;
If Betty fifty ponds should see,

The last of all her thoughts would be
To drown herself therein.

O Reader! now that I might tell
What Johnny and his Horse are doing!
What they've been doing all this time,
Oh could I put it into rhyme,
A most delightful tale pursuing!

Perhaps, and no unlikely thought!
He with his Pony now doth roam
The cliffs and peaks so high that are,
To lay his hands upon a star,
And in his pocket bring it home.

Perhaps he's turned himself about,
His face unto his horse's tail,

And still and mute, in wonder lost,
All like a silent Horseman-Ghost,
He travels on along the vale.

And now, perhaps, he's hunting sheep,

A fierce and dreadful hunter he;
Yon valley, that's so trim and green,

In five months' time, should he be seen,
A desart wilderness will be!

Perhaps, with head and heels on fire,

And like the very soul of evil,

He's galloping away, away,

And so he'll gallop on for aye,

The bane of all that dread the devil!

I to the Muses have been bound

These fourteen years, by strong indentures:

O gentle Muses! let me tell

But half of what to him befel,

He surely met with strange adventures.

O gentle Muses! is this kind?
Why will ye thus my suit repel?
Why of your further aid bereave me ?
And can ye thus unfriended leave me ;
Ye Muses! whom I love so well?

Who's yon, that, near the waterfall,

Which thunders down with headlong force, Beneath the Moon, yet shining fair,

As careless as if nothing were,

Sits upright on a feeding Horse?

Unto his Horse, that's feeding free,
He seems, I think, the rein to give;
Of Moon or Stars he takes no heed;
Of such we in romances read:

'Tis Johnny! Johnny! as I live.

And that's the very Pony too!
Where is she, where is Betty Foy?
She hardly can sustain her fears;

The roaring waterfall she hears,

And cannot find her Idiot Boy.

Your Pony's worth his weight in gold:
Then calm your terrors, Betty Foy!
She's coming from among the trees,

And now all full in view she sees
Him whom she loves, her Idiot Boy.

And Betty sees the Pony too:

Why stand you thús, good Betty Foy? It is no goblin, 'tis no ghost,

"Tis he whom you so long have lost,

He whom you love, your Idiot Boy.

She looks again her arms are up—
She screams- -she cannot move for joy;
She darts, as with a torrent's force,
She almost has o'erturned the Horse,
And fast she holds her Idiot Boy.

And Johnny burrs, and laughs aloud,
Whether in cunning or in, joy

I cannot tell; but while he laughs,
Betty a drunken pleasure quaffs

To hear again her Idiot Boy.

And now she's at the Pony's tail,
And now she's at the Pony's head,-
On that side now, and now on this;
And, almost stifled with her bliss,
A few sad tears does Betty shed.

She kisses o'er and o'er again

Him whom she loves, her Idiot Boy;

She's happy here, she's happy there,
She is uneasy every where;

Her limbs are all alive with joy.

She pats the Pony, where or when
She knows not, happy Betty Foy!
The little Pony glad may be,

But he is milder far than she,
You hardly can perceive his joy.

"Oh! Johnny, never mind the Doctor;
You've done your best, and that is all."
She took the reins, when this was said,
And gently turned the Pony's head
From the loud waterfall.

By this the stars were almost gone,
The moon was setting on the hill,
So pale you scarcely looked at her:
The little birds began to stir,

Though yet their tongues were still.

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