They have taken Jack to the room at the back where the family medicines are, And he lies in bed with a broken head in a halo of vinegar; While, in that Jill had laughed her fill as her brother fell to earth, She had felt the sting of a walloping--she hath paid the price of her mirth!
_Here is the tale_--_and now you have the whole of it,_ _Here is the story_--_well and wisely planned,_ _Beauty_--_Duty_--_these make up the soul of it_-- _But, ah, my little readers, will you mark and understand?_
The skies they were ashen and sober, The streets they were dirty and drear; It was night in the month of October, Of my most immemorial year; Like the skies I was perfectly sober, As I stopped at the mansion of Shear,-- At the "Nightingale,"--perfectly sober, And the willowy woodland, down here.
Here once in an alley Titanic Of Ten-pins,--I roamed with my soul,-- Of Ten-pins,--with Mary, my soul; They were days when my heart was volcanic, And impelled me to frequently roll, And made me resistlessly roll, Till my ten-strikes created a panic In the realms of the Boreal pole, Till my ten-strikes created a panic With the monkey atop of his pole.
I repeat, I was perfectly sober, But my thoughts they were palsied and sear,-- My thoughts were decidedly queer; For I knew not the month was October, And I marked not the night of the year; I forgot that sweet _morçeau_ of Auber That the band oft performèd down here; And I mixed the sweet music of Auber With the Nightingale's music by Shear.
And now as the night was senescent, And star-dials pointed to morn, And car-drivers hinted of morn, At the end of the path a liquescent And bibulous lustre was born: 'Twas made by the bar-keeper present, Who mixèd a duplicate horn,-- His two hands describing a crescent Distinct with a duplicate horn.
And I said: "This looks perfectly regal; For it's warm, and I know I feel dry,-- I am confident that I feel dry. We have come past the emeu and eagle, And watched the gay monkey on high; Let us drink to the emeu and eagle,-- To the swan and the monkey on high-- To the eagle and monkey on high; For this bar-keeper will not inveigle,-- Bully boy with the vitreous eye; He surely would never inveigle,-- Sweet youth with the crystalline eye."