On the bank lay Cullen Bryant,
As the second moon arose;
Gouging on the sloping green sward
Some imaginary foes.

When the swamp began to tremble,

And the canes to rustle fast,

As if some stupendous body

Through their roots was crushing past.

And the water boiled and bubbled,

And in groups of twos and threes,

Several alligators bounded,

Smart as squirrels, up the trees.

Then a hideous head was lifted,

With such huge distended jaws,

That they might have held Goliath
Quite as well as Rufus Dawes.

Paws of elephantine thickness

Dragged its body from the bay,

And it glared at Cullen Bryant
In a most unpleasant way.

Then it writhed as if in torture,
And it staggered to and fro;
And its very shell was shaken,

In the anguish of its throe:

And its cough grew loud and louder,

And its sob more husky thick;

For, indeed, it was apparent,

That the beast was very sick.

Till, at last, a violent vomit

Shook its carcass through and through ;

And, as if from out a cannon,

All in armour Slingsby flew.

Bent and bloody was the bowie,

Which he held within his grasp;

And he seemed so much exhausted,

That he scarce had strength to gasp

Gouge him, Bryant! darn ye, gouge him! Gouge him while he's on the shore!" And his thumbs were straightway buried Where no thumbs had pierced before.

Right from out their bony sockets,

Did he scoop the monstrous balls; And, with one convulsive shudder,

Dead the Snapping Turtle falls!

C

"Post the tin, sagacious Tyler!"
But the old experienced file,
Leering first at Clay and Webster,
Answered, with a quiet smile-

"Since you dragged the 'tarnal crittur From the bottom of the ponds, Here's the hundred dollars due you, All in Pennsylvanian Bonds!"

The Lay of Mr. Colt.

[The story of Mr. Colt, of which our Lay contains merely the sequel, is this. A New York printer, of the name of Adams, had the effrontery to call upon him one day for payment of an account, which the independent Colt settled by cutting his creditor's head to fragments with an axe. He then packed his body in a box, sprinkling it with salt, and despatched it to a packet, bound for New Orleans. Suspicions having been excited, he was seized, and tried before Judge Kent. The trial is, perhaps, the most disgraceful upon the records of any country. The ruffian's mistress was produced in court, and examined in disgusting detail, as to her connexion with Colt, and his movements during the days and nights succeeding the murder. The head of the murdered man was bandied to and fro in the court, handed up to the jury, and commented on by witnesses and counsel; and to crown the horrors of the whole proceeding, the wretch's own counsel, a Mr. Emmet, commencing the defence with a cool admission that his client took the life of Adams, and following it up by a detail of the whole circumstances of this most brutal murder in the first person, as though he himself had been the murderer, ended by telling the jury, that his client was "entitled to the sympathy of a jury of his country," as "a young man just entering into life, whose prospects, probably, have been permanently blasted." Colt was found guilty; but a variety of exceptions were taken to the charge by the judge, and after a long series of appeals, which occupied more than a year from the date of the conviction, the sentence of death was ratified by Governor Seward. The rest of Colt's story is told in our ballad."]

STREAK THE FIRST.

*

And now the sacred rite was done, and the marriage knot was tied,

And Colt withdrew his blushing wife a little way aside;

"Let's go," he said "into my cell, let's go, alone, my dear;

I fain would shelter that sweet face from the sheriff's odious

leer.

The gaoler and the hangman, they are waiting both for me,—

I cannot bear to see them wink so knowingly at thee!

Oh, how I loved thee, dearest! They say that I am wild,
That a mother dares not trust me with the weasand of her child,
They say my bowie knife is keen to sliver into halves

The carcass of my enemy, as butchers slay their calves.

They say that I am stern of mood, because, like salted beef,

I packed my quartered foeman up, and marked him 'prime

tariff;'

Because I thought to palm him on simple-souled John Bull;

And clear a small per centage on the sale at Liverpool;
It may be So,
I do not know these things, perhaps, may be;
But surely I have always been a gentleman to thee!
Then come, my love, into my cell, short bridal space is ours,-
Nay, sheriff, never look thy watch-I guess there's good two

hours.

We'll shut the prison doors and keep the gaping world at bay, For love is long as 'tarnity, though I must die to-day!"

STREAK THE SECOND.

The clock is ticking onward
Towards the hour of doom,

And no one yet hath entered

Into that ghastly room.