XVIII. "The Ox is mad! Ho! Dick, Bob, Mat!" What means this coward fuss? "Ho! stretch this rope across the plat― ""Twill trip him up-or if not that, "Why, damme! we must lay him flat "See, here's my blunderbuss. XIX. "A lying dog! just now he said "The Ox was only glad— "Let's break his presbyterian head!"" "Hush!" quoth the sage," you've been misled; "No quarrels now-let's all make head "YOU DROVE THE POOR OX MAD." XX. As thus I sat, in careless chat, With the morning's wet newspaper, In eager haste, without his hat, In came that fierce Aristocrat, VOL. H. Our pursy Woollen-draper. G XXI. And so my Muse perforce drew bit; And in he rush'd and panted "Well, have you heard?" No, not a whit. "What, ha'nt you heard?" Come, out with it! "That TIERNEY votes for Mister Pitt, "And SHERIDAN's recanted!"" PARLIAMENTARY OSCILLATORS. OSCILLATO ALMOST awake? Why, what is this, and whence, Sure, 'tis not possible that Common Sense Has hitch'd her pullies to each heavy eye-lid? Yet wherefore else that start, which discomposes That precipice three yards beyond your noses? Yet flatter you I cannot, that your wit Is much improved by this long loyal dosing'; Now cluttering to the Treasury Cluck, like chicken, Now with small beaks the ravenous Bill opposing; With serpent-tongue now stinging, and now licking, Now semi-sibilant, now smoothly glozing Now having faith implicit that he can't err, Yet still afraid to break his brittle charms, Lest some mad Devil suddenly unhamp'ring, If you can stay so long from slumber free, My muse shall make an effort to salute 'e: For lo! a very dainty simile Flash'd sudden through my brain, and 'twill just suit 'e! You know that water-fowl that cries, Quack! quack!? Fasten the Bird of Wisdom on it's back, The ivy-haunting bird, that cries, Tu-whoo! Both plunged together in the deep mill-stream, (Mill-stream, or farm-yard pond, or mountain-lake,) Shrill, as a Church and Constitution scream, TU-WHOO! quoth BROAD-FACE, and down dives the Drake ! 1 The green-neck'd Drake once more pops up to view, Even so on Loyalty's Decoy-pond, each And once more seeks the bottom's blackest mud! 1794. |