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; Oh gentle muses! let me tell But half of what to him befel, For sure he met with strange adventures. Oh gentle muses! is this kind Who's yon, that, near the waterfall, Which thunders down with headlong force, As careless as if nothing were, Unto his horse, that's feeding free, -'Tis Johnny! Johnny! as I live. And that's the very pony too. 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 : "Tis he whom you so long have lost, He whom you love, your idiot boy. She looks again-her arms are up- 133 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, She kisses o'er and o'er again, She's happy here, she's happy there,' Her limbs are all alive with joy. 134 She pats the pony, where or when The little pony glad may be, But he is milder far than she, "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 water-fall. By this the stars were almost gone, Though yet their tongues were still. |